Scams are present in every corner of the world in some form or another. Whether it is in developed countries, developing countries or underdeveloped, Scams continue to wreak havoc upon lives, cheating innocent people out of their money. With the technological progress, Scammers too adapt to new technologies to trap their victims. In the online age too scammer continue to lure gullible victims into their trap. New type of scams emerge everyday. The following lists of most infamous scams online.
1.Advance fee fraud:
Also called Nigerian "419" scam, This scam usually involves an email which promises the receiver a large sum of money in exchange for helping a "family" withdraw money from a country, mostly Nigeria. If the person responds to their mail, The scammer asks for the bank details, address, name and all personal data on the pretext of transferring their money to your account, for which the victim will receive commission. What the scammer really does is withdraw all the money from the victim's bank account leaving him/her penniless. Sometimes scammer asks to send him/her money in order to withdraw money from account in their country. But their demand for money never seem to end. Officers need to be bribed, transaction charges, customs, taxes and all other excuses start coming from the party. It is when the victim had enough of this circus and declines to send more money. After that the victim will no longer hear from the party. All the money he/she sent to them is gone for good. Other times the scammer do sends the victim a cheque but it turns out to be fake always.
Sometimes the victims themselves are lured into a foreign country, making the matter even worse. These scammers are dangerous and may have criminal records. I also heard of a similar scam where the scammer bring a black paper which, upon washing with some kind of "chemical" reveals to be a 100$ bill. Later he convinces the victim that he/she is legit. Later when the victims checks the black currency is all fake.
2.Online Romance Scammers:
(aka Russian scam) Do you think that posting picture of yourself on the internet is pretty innocent? Lots of people post pictures of themselves, their families on social networking sites like MySpace, hi5, FaceBook etc. Suppose a cheat obtains a your pictures over the internet, and uses your identity to rob other people, how would you feel about that? You have just entered the world of identity theft.
Romance scam is one of the end products of the identity theft. A cheat obtains a picture of an innocent man/woman from the internet ( social networking sites, modelling sites). Then he/she will create profiles with your name over a number of dating sites to lure victims. Once they get their potential victim, they start laying the trap.
Foremost, They try to gain the confidence of the victim. The victim usually falls in love with the imposter. After months of exchanging emails and sweet IM's. The scammer asks the victims for money on the pretext of meeting them, or some emergency. If the victim obliges, they continue to ask money on a frequent money until one fine day, the victim realises that he/she is taken for a ride. Victim won't hear from the scammer again, ever. This scam hurts both mind and heart. Imagine the person who thought to be his/her soulmate turned out to be a scammer. One feels frustrated, angry and stupid. All those futile moments of waiting at the airport for "soulmate" to arrive, all those dreams, the memories, the sweet talks, everything is one big, fat lie.
3. Lottery scam:
This scam is similar to advance fee fraud with the only difference in the plot. Advance fee fraud usually tells tale of a rich widow, nigerian prince or some top government official whereas in lottery scam, the victim receives an email or SMS saying that his/her email had a tag which was selected and is awarded a large amount of money. It also asks the victim not to tell to anyone about their winnings. Same as any other nigerian scam, victim pays, scammer is never heard again.
4.Hitman Scam:
This scam can either make you fall of floor laughing or make you get paranoid about your friends. This scam involves emails sent to unsuspected victims, stating that i (hitman) have been paid to kill you by a person, who is a close friend of yours and i have been examining your activities closely from past few weeks. The letter continues saying that the hit man will not kill you if you agree to pay him a large sum of cash. Sometimes it also states that if victim contacts the local authorities, he will not have any other choice to carry out his contract. This looks pretty stupid, but trust m.e, many people have fallen for this scam, losing millions of dollars in process.
5.Ipad scam/gift card scam and similar:
Let's say one fine day you are surfing the internet. You come across a pretty neat website which offers you Canon Rebel SLR digital camera for 100$. You are tempted not to let go of this oppurtunity. The website looks pretty neat and professional. So you decide to go for it. After you gave the website your credit card details, you begin waiting for your camera. You wait for a week, fortnight, a month but still no sign of your camera. Finally you do recieve a mail, but it is not your camera. It is your credit card statemet, with outrageous transactions. There are lots of similar scams on the internet deceiving gullible customers.
Thats all for now. Tomorrow lets discuss about how you can detect these scams and the precautionary measures necessary with these scams. Have a nice time folks!!
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