A Sucker is Born Every Day: Top 10 Scams

I have been receiving messages with the email address ending with “…@irs.gov” very frequently. My father got scammed in a message which was able to name his birth place. I have also received emails from 2 potential clients who were asking for help by wiring money to them. Of course I called and made sure they were ok, but by doing so, found out it was spam!

Criminals are getting wiser now. They make use of any information they can get about you to cheat you. From wealthy Nigerian princes to Western Union requests, we thought we had seen all the email and Internet scams, right? Spam/scam emails have gotten to the point where we all are usually aware of them, and just delete/ignore them. Unfortunately, massive scams are everywhere, and criminals are trying many different ways to hook their fish.

According to Scambusters.org, the Top 10 Scams of 2010 were:

10. Travel and vacations- The Soccer World Cup in South Africa drew in thousands of ticket scam victims, while an increasing flow of travelers to China found themselves at the center of numerous tourist con tricks. However, the economic recovery we expected to see wasn’t as strong as everyone hoped, and many Americans decided to vacation more safely at home.

9. Investment scams- In the wake of the Madoff scandal, more incredible Ponzi schemes were exposed and crashed, while art investment frauds targeted celebrities. Rock bottom interest rates lured more people into phony real estate and “green” investment projects (including the BP Gulf disaster clean-up) and foreign exchange funds promising unrealistically high returns.
8. Work from home schemes- Still a major source of crime, bogus home-working schemes received a lot of publicity throughout the year, so, although there were just as many crooks pushing these scams, slightly fewer victims may have fallen for them than we expected. One bit of good news!

7. Auctions and classified ad scams – As much as anything, this reflects the growing use of the Internet for buying stuff, so we included bogus retail websites in our research this year, which, as you’ll see below, is likely to push the crime even higher up the charts in 2011.

6. Doorstep scams -The annual crop of disasters, including floods and, this year, the San Francisco gas explosion, also brought out the bogus contractors in force.

5. Lottery scams- Sadly, as reported a year ago, this crime targets the elderly. There’s apparently still no shortage of victims willing to pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in bogus fees to collect non-existent winnings.

4. Nigerian scams- The continuing efforts by the Nigerian government to clamp down on this scam seem to be having little effect. A TV documentary broadcast a few months ago showed how whole towns in that country have become dependent on the proceeds of scams. As you can see below, here is the letter that was sent to my father.

3. Economy-related scams – Foreclosure and loan modification scams, together with bogus job offers — usually a prelude to identify theft or simply a means for charging an upfront fee — were the most common crimes in this category. The BP Gulf disaster added significantly to the number of phony job schemes.

2. Malware-  This is the broad term for harmful software that installs on home and business computers to steal information, wreck hard drives, disrupt business activities and recruit computers into “zombie botnets” for sending out spam. Internet security specialists McAfee say they’ve identified 14 million unique malware programs, up by 1 million over the year as a whole.

1. Phishing and identify theft -The invasion by scammers of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, together with malware downloads (see above) kept this crime firmly in the top slot.

To protect your account on a social media site, such as Facebook, Huffington Post recommends to:

• Change your password
• Verify Your Identity
• Enable Log-in Approval
• Clean Out Your Apps
• Delete Spam Messages & Posts Right Away
• Edit Your Interests if Tricked into “Liking” a Scam
• Notify Facebook of Privacy Breaches
• Scan Your Computer for Malware
• Log Out if Your Believe Your Account Has Been Hacked

Fortunately, people are trying to find ways to fight scams!

In the UK, they are holding a Cyber Security Challenge to promote the Cyber Security! In the US, the Department of Education and NCEC are advocating to get cyber security taught to students from kindergarten through 12^th grade in the near future.

If you’ve been a victim of an Internet scam, tell us about it! We’ll help spread the word to stop these scammers!