COMMON INTERNET SCAMS
Multiplying...
It seems like the world and his dog are now trying to get in on this source of easy money... Or at least it MUST be easy money to have spawned so many imitators but really when you look at the emails only once in a blue moon does one crop up that you have to think twice about.
Common themes are government officials, or bank managers, trying to extract millions of dollars which they'd like to deposit in your account. Or how about the begging letters from orphaned children or widowed wives seeking your assistance to remove their parents/husbands money? And then of course there are the "phishing" letters claiming to be from your online bank and asking you to re-enter your security details so that they can reactivate your account.
It is staggering how obvious some of them can be but at the same time they continue to improve and here is one more case of the old saying - "you don't have to be paranoid to survive, but it helps".
These types of emails seemed to start with Nigerian gangs but actually go back much further - way before the Internet. (For a really good summary of these scams see Snopes.com).
Let's look at few of the examples...
419 Scams
This is the start of one email I received this year. It follows a common theme. The heading was "Be Blessed & Reply"
"Dearest One,
Good day and compliments!
I know this mail may come to you as a surprise since we have not known or written before. I am writting this letter in confidence believing that if it is the wish of God for you to help us and Almighty God will help and bless you in aboundantly.
I am MR. FESTUS FOFANA, residence in Abidjan- Cote D'Ivoire, 23 years of age, the only son of the late MR. & MRS. ABBEY FOFANA , with my younger Sister (CAROL). Our father was a Gold and Cocoa Merchant Based in Ghana and Abidjan . He was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their business trips. Before his death, Six (6) months ago,in a private hospital here in Abidjan, he called me on his bed side and told me about the sum of (USD $12M) he deposited in a bank here in Abidjan (Ivoiry Coast) for business..."
So here we have a complete stranger asking me - out of all 6 billion people in the world - to help him move $12million out of his country. If the alarm bells aren't ringing now then you have got real problems...
In all these emails, the focus is the same - to engender empathy with their victim, to awaken greed, and then to get the victim to transfer small sums to the fraudsters (for bribes, paperwork, whatever). Gradually the perpetrators will gather larger sums (as the victim's greed increases with each "delay") or even gather enough personal information from the victim to assume their identity and start taking out loans, buying houses etc. It is a terrifying story.
Phishing
This is another email received this month. These types of phishing emails try to direct you to the criminals own website - which will be a mockup of the target (eBay, PayPal, Halifax etc). They ask you to click a link in the email. In this case it the email was supposed to come from Lloyds TSB and the heading was "RE-Confirm Your Online Banking Access".
"Online Services
Dear Lloyds TSB Online Account Holder,
Due to multiple login attempt error while login in to your online Lloyds TSB account We have believed that someone other than you are trying to access your account
For security reasons,we have temporarily suspend your account and your access to online banking will be restricted if you fail to update and re-confirm your membership details...
...To initiate the verification process:
(CLICK HERE)
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely, Lloyds TSB Bank Plc, Customer Service
"
The giveaways here are numerous. The poor English is one clue, the fact that I don't have an online Lloyds account is another, and finally if you were to hover your cursor over the words (Click Here) on the original email, you see that rather than this being a nice helpful hyperlink to the Lloyds TSB homepage, it is in fact a link to another website entirely : http://www.daino&*%$#.it/Immagini/product/mexidre/logon.html. (I have hidden the domain name).
Following the link would take you to a copy of the Lloyds TSB website where you would enter your credit card details in all innocence and by the time you had closed your web session (still none the wiser) your card would have been used to buy airline tickets, international phone calls, cloned, or even just sold on to other criminals via internet chat rooms for their use.
Ebay/PayPal
This is one that did make me think several times. There were no PayPal symbols, but the language seems impeccable and convincing. What swayed me in the end was that the email requests me to follow a link within the email - and this is something that official PayPal policy always warns against. Here is the text:
"... PayPal's records indicate that you have not yet accepted the updated PayPal User Agreement and Privacy Policy.
Failure to accept the updated PayPal User Agreement and Privacy Policy within 3 days will result in limited access to your PayPal account. If your account is limited, you will no longer be able to receive or send payments...
...click the New Policy Update link on your Account Overview page from here: http://www.paypal.com.cgi-bin.jfkasbf.****/ ... "
