(This is the Online column written for The Southland Times)
The granddaddy of all the online hoaxes is the Nigerian scam. Back in the 1920s this was called the Spanish Prisoner con but the story has been tweaked over the years and the scammers moved to the net when they realised how much easier it was to target multiple victims.
If you receive an e-mail from someone claiming to be from Nigeria, Sierra Leone or any number of far-off lands, be suspicious.
If the e-mail promises a good chunk of cash for your help in retrieving millions of dollars that just happen to be stuck in a bank account in a country that can’t be accessed by the writer because of the death of the president/prince/father/dictator or some other person in authority, be more than suspicious.
If you decide to help the poor, poverty-stricken e-mail writer, the cash will never eventuate. Instead, you’ll be asked to help pay transfer fees, stump up cash to bribe officials and generally strung along until your own bank account is empty.
I get two or three of these e-mails every week and always reply to them using my top-secret, only-for-stalking-spammers-and-scammers e-mail address.
My standard response is: “Thank you for your kind e-mail. I would love to do all I can to assist you in this matter. However, I’m a bit short of cash myself just now and was wondering if you could send me a few bucks to tide me over until the big payout comes.”
Strangely, they never reply.
Lottery scams are also becoming more and more popular. Again, this is a variation on a scheme that has been around since Adam was a boy.
With this one, you’ll get notification that you’ve won a large sum of money in an international lottery competition but to claim your prize you have to pay some kind of fee.
Sometimes these e-mails include links to legitimate-looking sites that seem to back up the claims made. Don’t believe them and don’t hand over your hard-earned cash.
A phishing scam is designed to get users to divulge financial or security information. It will be an e-mail from your bank, eBay, PayPal or any number of other online institutions that may give the scammer access to your cash.
The e-mail usually says you need to reverify your information or update your password and invites you to click on the link in the mail message to access the company site. How convenient.
Of course, the link is to a fake site that looks just like the real thing.
While there’s been a lot of publicity about these types of frauds, there are still people losing thousands of dollars every year.
Unfortunately, this little list is only the tip of the iceberg.
Like all scams, they have the common theme of preying on gullibility, greed or both.
Remember the old saying, if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.