Anti-Fraud Websites Emerging To Fight 'Massive Ignorance'
The website Scam Victims United warned its readers about last week's arrested ponzi schemer, Nick Cosmo, nearly four months ago, based on a visit one of its forum members made to Cosmo's office. Reuters points out that this site and others like it—Fraud Aid and Scam Warners, for example—are enjoying healthy traffic spikes right now, which is great news in the fight against fraud.
Sadly, no amount of warning will alert everyone, and this is a great economy to be a scammer:
"There is massive ignorance out there. People who are coming to us are already starting to feel the pressure from the economy when they get involved with one of these scams," said Annie McGuire, who founded [www.fraudaid.com] in 1999.
"We don't see the people who think it can't happen to me."
Another nonprofit site, www.scamwarners, is seeing a jump in reports of a fast-growing and sophisticated international version of a classic check-fraud scam, along with loan scams and false offerings of employment.
"People are definitely targeting the desperate," said Jillian Gerard, who runs the site.
All three sites have useful content to help protect you or someone you know from scammers, like ScamWarners' "Is this a scam?" topic area, or FraudAid's detailed overview of advance-fee fraud and how to protect yourself from it.
"Ponzi scam victims fight back online" [Reuters]
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ScamVictimsUnited.com
FraudAid.com
ScamWarners.com
(Photo: ricardo.martins)
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Comments:
Just wait, in two weeks, this will show up in email in-boxes around the world:
Dear Friend,
Have you being scammed? If you no don't like being scammed no more, please be donating your bank account and routing number to me so I can here to for going forward protect it from fiends who would use it for evil and scams. This is of utmost impertanance, and requires splendiforous attention!
Yours in eternal friendliness,
William Faulkner III Esq.
I turn to Consumerist for my scam warnings
I learned a lot about scams by watching Dragnet reruns when I was a kid.
I love this quote:
The Internet is offering early warning signs, and in some cases filling a regulatory void...
If more people did their homework first, some of these scams wouldn't happen. Sometimes it's as simple as Googling.
But of course, there are those that think you are crazy when you tried to warn them of a scam. For some reason they believe in their hearts this is legit and arguing logic and facts with them only drives you crazy.
Too late. I already saw one like that. Apparently, anyone from Africa is no longer to be trusted because they're just going to scam you, and all of the money that is to be disbursed is now in China, so contact some guy with an African Name in China for your money now.
Maybe I'll start a site called "Falling for an Obvious Scam Makes Baby Jesus Cry."
@Russell Miller: Yep. Anti-scam or recovery scams are a favorite tool of the Nigerian 419ers. Even more so because when they get a live one, they know that person has shelled out cash, and likely will again, even if they know the first contact was a scam. Sometimes they'll even scam the same victim, if they caught wise to the first scam.
I have known people who fell for some pretty obvious scams. I had tried to tell them that this money making venture was not on the up and up only to be completely dismissed by the person being scammed. Of course they later found out the hard way and never mentioned it again.
There is some group selling a special system for $5000 that will let you get 10% of the purchases other people make online. Yep, $5000 to tell you how to do affiliate website links.
The latest (and arguably greatest) scam e-mail I've received:
FROM:MRS HAMZA HARUNA.
OCEANIC FINANCIAL HOUSE/UNITED NATIONS 2008
COMPENSATIONS PAYMENTS
REF/PAYMENTS CODE: TRASNFER#07654 $1,000,000 00.USD
This is to bring to your notice that I am delegated from the United Nations to
OCEANIC BANK Lagos to pay 100 Nigerian 419 scam victims $1,000,000 00.USD each,
you are listed and approved for this payments as one of the scammed victims,get
back to me as soon as possible for the immediate payments of your five hundred
thousand dollars compensations funds.
On this faithfull recomendations,I want you to know that during the last UN
meetings held at Abuja,Nigeria,it was alarmed so much by the rest of the world
in the meetings on the lose of funds by various foreigners to the scams artists
operating in syndicates all over the world today,in other to retain the good
image of the country,the president of the country(President musa umaru yaradua.
) is now paying 100 victims of this operators $1,000,000 00.USD each, the
payments are to be paid by OCEANIC BANK Lagos ,Nigeria,corressponding paying
bank under funding assistance by the Central Bank of Nigeria(C.B.N.).
According to the number of applicants at hand,84 beneficiaries has been paid
,half of the victims are from the United States,we still have more 16 left to be
paid the compensations of $1,000,000 00.USD each.Your particulars was mentioned
by one of the syndicates who was arrested in Lagos Nigeria as one of thier
victims of the operations,you are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate
this message to any body for any reason what so ever,the US secret service is
already on trace of the criminals.
How come I never get Nigerian scams in my e-mail box? :(
No fun. I haven't gotten one of those in over a decade. Maybe I should open up some more yahoo e-mail addresses.
Why not make those sites a weekly feature, Ala daily deals?
Scamwarners: 100% off your savings account if you buy from blarhdeblar Industries.
the us cert website [www.us-cert.gov] has some decent warnings about phishing and scammy emails as they become prevalent. the most recent was one concerning scams about valentines day [www.us-cert.gov] also good info for newly discovered/released for vulnerbilties/patches.
I'm saddened to see this post said nothing about Red Lobster...
@aguacarbonica: Basically if you post an email address to a guest book (yeah old school internet) the nigerians will grab it. Search mugu guymon or mogu guyman or terms close to it and you will find the affected guest books. It is some sort of nigerian scam code that someone has claimed the guestbook or is harvesting the names.
Get to 419eater or ebolamonkeyman etc to find out how it is done.
Education is the best way to fight these scams. Talking about it, sharing the information with others, and doing things like checking out scam fighting sites and using google can help people to not become victims.
It's sad so many people find out about these sites the hard way. I hope their preventative measures make a dent in these types of scams. Thank you for posting this-I'm bookmarking them all.