Episode 903 – QR Codes Can Be Dangerous
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody! It's Tom here with episode 903 of Screw the Commute podcast, and here's another episode I wish I wasn't doing, but I feel obligated to do it for you because I want to keep you safe. It's about QR code scams, and I've done one, two, three, four, five, six other episodes on QR codes and how they're great for you and I stand by all those episodes because you are going to be legitimate with your QR codes, and it's going to do great things for your business. However, I don't want you scanning QR codes that could be fraudulent. That's what we're going to talk about QR code scams so that you don't get scammed. All right. I hope you didn't miss episode 902 that was on focus groups. How to make sure that you're, you know, somebody wants your product and makes it better before you actually put the product out and all those things. So that was episode 902. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, and then the episode number. Focus groups was 902. And QR code scams, which you'll want to tell your friends about is this one, 903. all right. Let's see. Make sure you pick up a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and check out my world famous mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com.

[00:01:49] All right. Yeah, I love QR codes, and like I said, I did six other episodes showing you all the benefits and all the cool things you can do with them and what it can mean to your business. And I mean just wonderful. But you got to be careful when you scan a QR code. See, the FTC put out an advisory warning about this in that bad people, cyber criminals, are putting QR codes out and replacing like, legitimate places. Like, uh, they might send you an email pretending to be Microsoft, where it's, uh, it's got a misspelling in the email or something. So it's not really from Microsoft. And they do them in print and text. And I mean, the FTC actually said this is a quote, you can't scan QR codes and open URLs without thinking about it. You really need to because these bad guys and girls put these things where oh Oh, yeah. Okay, I'll just scan this real quick where you're not thinking about it really carefully and boom, they can grab your login credentials for websites. Like if you click on a URL, they can install malware so that they can come back and get you later. So it's really a somewhat dangerous thing if you're not paying attention. So what do you do about it? Well, make sure that it's a QR code from a trusted source.

[00:03:24] For instance, I bought a $2,500 new engine for my 4x4 ATV and I opened the box from the factory, and there's a QR code on the engine to, you know, start your warranty and this, that and the other. No. No problem there. All right. It came from a trusted source and it's in a sealed box. And it's on my product that I paid for. All right. So all right I'm going to trust that one. But if I see a poster at a grocery store on the bulletin board, am I just going to slam up there and take a picture? No I'm not. And what you got to do is double check directly with the company. If it's something you really want, and you know, if it comes in email, check to make sure that the actual return address it's coming from doesn't have a fake misspelling or something like, for instance, YouTube instead of YouTube, where you might just say, oh, YouTube, I'm gonna scan this. Boom, there they got you. But anyway, really stop and think about it when you're scanning. But again, I want to emphasize six other episodes. Let me read them off to you. 889 885 867 95, 780 and 241 are all about the great things that QR codes will do for your business, because other people are going to scan them and you're going to be legit.

[00:05:01] But I'm warning you, be careful when you scan something to make sure that it's it's good. So this is a short episode, but this could save you identity theft and malware and and wiping out your bank accounts and all the things that these bad actors do If you're not careful and also turn on, keep the updates current on all your devices and turn on two factor authentication, which I know is a pain in the neck. But this can really save your butt. I mean, I have to do it all the time because hey, here's your new Facebook login code. Well, I didn't do anything with Facebook and so I know that I'd get a two factor authentication if I had already done for real if I just clicked on the link in that email. Who knows what would happen to me. So turn on two factor authentication. We'll knock out a lot of this stuff for you, but still, exercise caution when you are scanning a QR code. And if you want help with this and the other million things, you need to be successful online, check out my school IMTCVA.org or if you want one on one attention from me and my entire staff and a fast track, check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.