The Scam Alert Blog

Check out this story where a senior citizen was almost conned out of hundreds of dollars by a large established box store. It seems the senior was being told about all the repairs that would be needed to make his computer work properly again when an onlooker who happened to know what he was doing overheard and stepped in. Upon opening the case and discovering a key component was either accidentally or purposefully unplugged by the box store employee, the problem was easily fixed at little or no cost.

Sometimes it is unavoidable, but when you put yourself at the mercy of someone who knows more than you do in any particular field… you open yourself up to be defrauded. For this reason alone it is a good idea to get second and third opinions, or seek out the opinion of someone you trust.

Don’t let scammers (no matter how established they are) separate you from your money.

Be careful when donating to your candidate via the internet. Most candidates for major offices have a well designed and efficient web presence these days. Many take in millions of dollars in donations through the internet. This has opened the door for scammers to put up sites designed to make you think you are trulyon the candidate’s website, but in truth you are not. Scammers trying to get your money while posing as legitimate campaign sites is a real concern and one you should be aware of. Don’t let scammers separate you from your money.

Fortune Magazine recently had a great article about the process that a Nigerian scammer goes through to scam people out of their money using phishing and auction fraud. Very informative piece that examines the issue including the Nigerian end of the transaction.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) recently released it’s list of top ten online scams. Right at the top of the list is a type of scam that has touched many people recently, internet auction fraud.

The entire list is as follows:

-Internet Auction Fraud
-Internet Service Provider Scams
-Internet Web Site Design/Promotions - Web Cramming
-Internet Information and Adult Services - Credit Card Cramming
-Multi-level Marketing/Pyramid Scams
-Business Opportunities and Work-At-Home Scams
-Investment Schemes and Get-Rich-Quick Scams
-Travel/Vacation Fraud
-Telephone/Pay-Per-Call Solicitation Frauds (including modem dialers and videotext)
-Health Care Frauds

Keep this list (at least mentally) handy and remember that the next time you are entering into an online transaction… it may be with a scammer.

A fake job site that lures applicants into thinking it is actually related to employment in the United Arab Emirates has been discovered. Remember, one of the more popular places for scammers to target is the employment industry, don’t let them capitalize on you when you are most likely in a time of need.

Many people go online for dating or singles type purposes. It can be hard to meet someone in the “real world”, and online you can meet so many people and seemingly get to know them so fast. There are a number of online scammers that pretend to involve themselves in romantic relationships online only to then try to scam the other party out of money. This story of a woman in her 50’s is just one example of a problem that happens every day.

Be Careful What Rights You Sign Away

How many people in today’s internet dominated world truly understand what they are doing every they check a box that says something to the effect of “yes, I have read and understand the user agreement”.

Most of the time when someone does this they are simply agreeing to harmless stipulations that protect the website/company from meaningless lawsuits, but sometimes people haven’t thought through what the stipulations they are agreeing to mean.

Take for example the case of Allison Chang a 16 year old from Dallas, Texas who had her picture taken by a friend at a church sponsored car wash. That friend uploaded the photo to Flickr, Yahoo.com’s popular photo sharing website, to share with friends and unfortunately the entire world. Flickr’s user agreement allows one to share photos with other users or Flickr itself with few strings attached.

Along comes Virgin Mobile, a popular cellphone company, who downloads the picture of Allison and totally without her knowing it uses it in an advertising campaign in Australia. What started out as Allison having her picture taken and a friend posting it online has turned into Allison’s face being plastered on billboards all over Australia with a slogan superimposed on it that she claims is embarrassing.

A lawsuit has been filed by Allison’s family against Virgin Mobile and Flickr.com and it remains to be seen what will come of it. On the surface it appears that the companies stuck to the letter of the agreement that the user confirmed when posting the photos. The two main points raised by this situation are:

Can person A enter an agreement to license the image of Person B without Person B being a party to the agreement.

And…

Be very careful and read the terms of service agreement before sharing anything personal online. It may seem inconvenient, but you should be sure you agree with the terms before clicking anything saying that yes, you in fact do agree with the terms.

Photo and file sharing whether a service like Flickr, MySpace, or Blogger is still a relatively new technology and phenomenon. It remains to be seen what the effect on individuals and society will be ten years from now when there is a vast public record of people’s images, thoughts, feelings, ideas, and statements. One thing is sure, there will be a lot of people regretting what they posted online.

Yet another scam from what is becoming “scam central”, the country of Nigeria.

Apparently emails and postings are going out claiming that a missionary can no longer care for his puppy. The follow up emails offer the puppy to interested persons and then ask for money for expenses like vaccinations, shipping, crating, and more. Of course, there is no puppy - it’s another way a scammer is trying to separate you from your money. Be wary and be skeptical when listening to any offers online, both retail and charitable.

One of the many uses people have for the internet is looking for employment. This can be for many reasons; loss of a job, relocation, or just wanting to change careers. Many times, those looking for jobs are not in the best financial state and are willing to take a chance. Just beware, many employment scams are out there and if you’re not careful you can lose more than your seniority. A new one from this morning’s email:

Hello,

How do you do? My name is Richard Wales (Head of Public Relations,
Wahum WINGAS Companies).We are offering you a part-time paying job as
a cash Representative/Book Keeper for WINGAS Companies, at your location.
This job would be based on contract and commission terms, it is a part-
time. This project has also been developed not to affect your present job.

Wahum WINGAS GmbH is a joint venture of Wintershall AG in Kassel, the
largest German producer of oil and gas, and the world’s largest
producer of natural gas. The company has been active in the gas
supply industry since 1990 and supplies natural gas to public utilities,
major industrial enterprises and regional gas distribution companies in
Germany and other European countries via its network of pipelines
that is now more than 2,000 kilometers in length.
WINGAS is successfully using the opportunities offered by the
increasing liberalization of the gas market for the sustainable
expansion of its market position in Europe.

Gettting started with us is easy.
Your commission is a constant fee that is dependent on how long you
are ready to work with this Company.
Presently, we have just been granted a funding to head a research
project in Asia and Africa regarding Oil Drainage, Planning and
Management and this would be commencing very soon. However the
funding were made mostly in money orders,certified cashier checks while some
in bank transfers as regards the source of funding of this project.Your
willing to work as a Payment Representative now will help and save
time so that this project can be concluded as soon as possible and I am
ready to get you started.

We would be willing to accept your application on contract basis as a
staff of our company to be our payment representative back at your
present location, this way we could have our clients issue out
payments to you, so you could then cash them easily, deduct 10% of the total
amount on these payments as your commission and then remmit company
funds via Western Union Money transfer/Moneygram International Money
Transfer.

This offer is been made public due to logistics problem we encounter
during funds clearance over here.I would be glad if you accept our
proposal as we intend to commence transactions as soon as you are
ready. If interested, please get back to us with a comprehensive
detail of yourself in the manner below.

FULL NAME:-
HOME ADDRESS (NOT POST OFFICE BOX):-
CITY:-
STATE:-
ZIP CODE:-
COUNTRY:-
AGE:-
GENDER:-
MARITAL STATUS:-
PRESENT/PAST JOB EXPERIENCE:-
PHONE NUMBERS (Home and Mobile):-

Warmest Regards,
John Collins,
Head of Public Relations
Wahum WinGAS
Wahum WINGAS GmbH COMPANIES.
Head Office.
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 160
D-34119 Kassel
Germany.

Not a bad deal right? Working from home for an international oil company! Ahh, the prestige that comes with this kind of position… plus, you’ll have extra time for the kids too. Extra time? The only extra time you’ll have courtesy of the Wahum WinGAS company is the extra time you’ll be spending at a second job as you try to earn enough money to recoup your losses from this scam.

The obvious part of the scam comes from the payment method. No legitimate job, lottery, or business opportunity sends money to you so that you can convert the payment to cash and then return part of the money back to the sender or the sender’s representative. What would happen is you would cash the money order or check, send the 90% back to the scammers (oops, I mean the International Oil Company) and then the check or money order would bounce. Your bank would then credit your account the 90% plus some fees and expect you to cover the difference.

This particular job offer comes with other signs of a scam. For instance…

You would think the sender may put a space or two between the question mark after the first sentence and the beginning of the next sentence. You may expect the head of public relations of an international oil company to be able to spell “remit” correctly (remmit). And then, there is just too much wrong with this sentence “Presently, we have just been granted a funding to head a research project in Asia and Africa regarding Oil Drainage, Planning and Management and this would be commencing very soon.” Don’t always bank on basic grammar and spelling errors pointing the way to scams, sometimes the scammer is reasonably intelligent and will make his attempt look quite professional. Remember, the old saying “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” is right more often than not.

Protect yourself against employment scams by doing your research and using common sense. Don’t let scammers separate you from your family’s money.

The Biggest Internet Scam In Recent History
By Mikey Miller

Are you interested in hearing about the biggest internet scam in recent history? NO! Would you be interested if you discovered that it is possibly you that was scammed several months ago and did not even know it? In fact, if you were scammed back then you probably have had money removed from your bank account every month AND you may not even know you are losing your money. Now you are interested!

This foundation for this breech of internet security started a couple of years ago as a gift from your caring politicians and bureaucrats in the form of bank funds electronic transfer legislation. Simple stated, if you owe anyone money they (whoever) can ‘electronically’ withdraw it from your account without your permission if they have a contract in place.

A few weeks back a neighbor lady came to me venting her disapproval because some unknown and unnamed internet company had cleaned out her banking account. She was going to complain, bring legal suit and if she could find a real person she was going to do really mean things. It took 5 minutes and three questions to find out she was into a legal binding electronic contract she knew nothing about.

Questions 1: Did you buy and download (very key) any information from the internet. Usually a CD or something similar. Answer-YES.
Question 2: Did you knowingly enter into a binding contract with these people. Answer: ABSOLUTELY NOT!! Real answer-Yes
Question 3: Did you read all the fine print including the “Terms and Services”. Answer: NO, BUT I KNOW THERE WAS NO CONTRACT OF ANY SORT. Real answer-NO I did not read the fine print.

After displaying the website it took the whole of about 15-20 milliseconds to see the scam. I had to explain it three times before the dear lady could see it. Then the next question: “What can I do? I have tried to stop it.” The result was she had to close out here bank account to kill the credit card.

Here is how it works. Either through email or PPC or some other way you end up on a webpage that, for example, guarantees to make you $187,594.26 in 30 minutes while working at home 10 minutes a day. Maybe this is slightly exaggerated but you get the picture. They usually have a CD that will give you all the information you need to carry off this money making project. Normally this CD would cost $99 but if you act within the next 2 hours, being the good guy you are you get it for free.

Now this is great deal. What is not to like? Wait there is one more thing. It only fair that since the CD is free that you should pay the shipping and handling. I think that is only fair don’t you. Stop and read the above paragraph carefully again. What is wrong with this scenario? Where is the big red flapping flag!

DA!? This is the internet remember. The keywords are digital, electronic, and downloadable. If the information is electronically downloadable why send it by snail mail? What does this transaction yield to the creditor website? Your credit card information! Why is that a worry, the shipping cost is so small; only $7-8.

Now Question 2 comes into focus. Somewhere on the website there is a free trial offer (usually 15-30 days) that comes with a ‘on line resident expert’ attached. If the CD doesn’t contain all the information you need the expert is on call to answer your questions. He/she might not speak English or have any relevant knowledge or experience on the subject but you get the free service for 15-30 days notwithstanding.

Here comes the neat part. Look at question 3 again. Did you read the fine print included in the terms and conditions? Of course not, no one reads that stuff. I bet you do from now on. Somewhere in the fine print it will say something like. ‘You can unsubscribe from the normal service of the expert within the trial period (15-30 days) and there will be no penalty. However, if you do not unsubscribe we will take the normal amount (usually $20-40) out of your credit card account monthly.” But, you say, that does not a contract make. You are absolutely correct. Except!

It is the little check box down where you enter you credit card information for the handling and shipping to get your ‘free’ CD that causes all the problems. “Buy checking this box you agree to all the terms and conditions” of the website – meaning the month to month withdrawal of your funds if you do not unsubscribe during the free trail period. That constitutes a legal contract under the electronic signature legislation. You have just agreed to send that company a monthly payment for services for the rest of you life or until you stop it.

Hold on, it only gets better. How many people do you know that really check their credit card statements in detail every month? Apparently not enough. A $30 withdrawal might stay hidden in your 4+ page credit card statement for months. Then when you do find it try to get it stopped. I tracked down an internet company doing this very thing; it took about three days of intense research. I sent an email to the highest officer we could find demanding to stop, stating we had no contract. I got back an email with the following answer; “Oh yes you do.’ He was correct.

The moral of this story is simple. You must prevent this scam before it begins. In writing or generating legal documents of any kind, especially electronically, there is one absolute generic rule. “READ THE MAIL, UNDERSTAND THE MAIL and ANSWER THE MAIL”

In other words if you are reading and understanding every word on a website, conduct your business with confidence. If not my recommendation is “DO NOT ELECTRONCIALLY SIGN ANY THING, IT MAY CONTAIN A HIDDEN CONTRACT”. Read the fine print. Make sure you know exactly what you are electronically signing. Answer ever detail with personal knowledge as to what it means; even if you have to read the terms and conditions a dozen times. Reject them if there are any questions.

Internet security is a serious matter that can only be controlled through knowledge by those people using the internet. Do not rely on a piece of software or a firewall entirely. Internet scams are perpetrated by very intelligent people that can think and work around most internet security devices.

Remember what Smokey the Bear says; “Only you can prevent internet scams!” Well, if he didn’t say it he should have.

P.T. Barnum did say. “There is a sucker born every minute.”

I say on the internet there are one million suckers born every minute.

Mike Miller is the developer of the holistic family online Family iMall with the new concept of online shopping ‘informational speciality ishops’ such as the World Wide Fishing Charter ishop.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mikey_Miller
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Biggest-Internet-Scam-In-Recent-History&id=252200