Spam Fraud and Internet Scams

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Have you all got the South Africa spam ???

It's hard to believe it but some people actual fall for this shit...

Dear Sir, I know you will be surprised to read from me, but please
  consider this as a request from a family i dire need of
  assistance.First, I must introduc myself. I a MR. KAMBU SITHOLE. from
  Angola. I am the first and only son of BRIGADIER SITHOLE..JONES. I am
  presently resident in South Africa. I got your contact address from a
  business directory in Johannesburg Chamber of commerce and Industry. On
  behalf of my widowed mother MRS. ELIZABETH SITHOLE. I desided to
  solicit for your assistance to transfer the sum of US$21.5 MILLION(
  TWENTY ONE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES
  DOLLARS)inherited from my late father, into your personal/ company's
  account. Before my fathers' death, he was a Brigadier in charge of Arms
  and Ammunation procurement for the Angola Army. In his WILL, he
  specifically drew my attention to the said sum of money which he
  deposited in a safe box of a private Security Company in Johannesburg-
  South Africa in a treasure box, fully documented in my name. IN FACT MY
  FATHER SAID AND I QUOTE 'MY BELOVED SON, I WISH TO DRAW YOUR ATTENTION
  TO US$21.5 MILLION . I DEPOSITED THE BOX CONTAINING THIS MONEY IN A
  SECURITY COMPANY IN JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA. DURING THE WAR, I WAS
  VERY DEDICATED AND OFFICERS AND GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONARIES WERE BUSSY
  HELPING THEMSELVES WITH GOVERNMENT FUNDS AND PROPERTIES AND SENDING
  THEM TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES. DUE TO THIS, WHEN I AND MY FORMER SPECIAL
  ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT WERE ASSIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT (EDUARDO
  SANTOS) TO PURCHASE ARMS IN SOUTH AFRICA, WE SAW THIS AS A GOLDEN
  OPPORTUNITY AND DIVERTED THE MONEY AND DIVIDED IT. i GOT A TOTAL SUM OF
  US$21.5 MILLION. IN CASE OF MY ABSENCE ON EARTH, AS A RESULT OF DEATH
  ONLY, YOU SHOULD SOLICIT FOR THE FUND FOR INVESTMENT PURPOSES.' [...]

Get a Life.... 

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Last week someone sent me the Amish Virus....because the Amish don't use electricity I had to manually delete all my files.

Man that was brutal took me forever to recover..... 

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Top 10 Scams

According to the FTC, here's what online consumers are complaining about most:

Internet Auctions
The Bait: Shop in a "virtual marketplace" that offers a huge selection of products at great deals.
The Catch: After sending their money, consumers say they've received an item that is less valuable than promised, or, worse yet, nothing at all.
The Safety Net: When bidding through an Internet auction, particularly for a valuable item, check out the seller and insist on paying with a credit card or using an escrow service.

Internet Access Services
The Bait: Free money, simply for cashing a check.
The Catch: Consumers say they've been "trapped" into long-term contracts for Internet access or another web service, with big penalties for cancellation or early termination.
The Safety Net: If a check arrives at your home or business, read both sides carefully and look inside the envelope to find the conditions you're agreeing to if you cash the check. Read your phone bill carefully for unexpected or unauthorized charges.

Credit Card Fraud
The Bait: Surf the Internet and view adult images online for free, just for sharing your credit card number to prove you're over 18.
The Catch: Consumers say that fraudulent promoters have used their credit card numbers to run up charges on their cards.
The Safety Net: Share credit card information only when buying from a company you trust. Dispute unauthorized charges on your credit card bill by complaining to the bank that issued the card. Federal law limits your liability to $50 in charges if your card is misused.

International Modem Dialing
The Bait: Get free access to adult material and *ography by downloading a "viewer" or "dialer" computer program.
The Catch: Consumers complained about exorbitant long-distance charges on their phone bill. Through the program, their modem is disconnected, then reconnected to the Internet through an international long-distance number.
The Safety Net: Don't download any program to access a so-called "free" service without reading all the disclosures carefully for cost information. Just as important, read your phone bill carefully and challenge any charges you didn't authorize or don't understand.

Web Cramming
The Bait: Get a free custom-designed website for a 30-day trial period, with no obligation to continue.
The Catch: Consumers say they've been charged on their telephone bills or received a separate invoice, even if they never accepted the offer or agreed to continue the service after the trial period.
The Safety Net: Review your telephone bills and challenge any charges you don't recognize.

Multilevel Marketing Plans/ Pyramids
The Bait: Make money through the products and services you sell as well as those sold by the people you recruit into the program.
The Catch: Consumers say that they've bought into plans and programs, but their customers are other distributors, not the general public. Some multi-level marketing programs are actually illegal pyramid schemes. When products or services are sold only to distributors like yourself, there's no way to make money.
The Safety Net: Avoid plans that require you to recruit distributors, buy expensive inventory or commit to a minimum sales volume.

Travel and Vacation
The Bait: Get a luxurious trip with lots of "extras" at a bargain-basement price.
The Catch: Consumers say some companies deliver lower-quality accommodations and services than they've advertised or no trip at all. Others have been hit with hidden charges or additional requirements after they've paid.
The Safety Net: Get references on any travel company you're planning to do business with. Then, get details of the trip in writing, including the cancellation policy, before signing on.

Business Opportunities
The Bait: Be your own boss and earn big bucks.
The Catch: Taken in by promises about potential earnings, many consumers have invested in a "biz op" that turned out to be a "biz flop." There was no evidence to back up the earnings claims.
The Safety Net: Talk to other people who started businesses through the same company, get all the promises in writing, and study the proposed contract carefully before signing. Get an attorney or an accountant to take a look at it, too.

Investments
The Bait: Make an initial investment in a day trading system or service and you'll quickly realize huge returns.
The Catch: Big profits always mean big risk. Consumers have lost money to programs that claim to be able to predict the market with 100 percent accuracy.
The Safety Net: Check out the promoter with state and federal securities and commodities regulators, and talk to other people who invested through the program to find out what level of risk you're assuming.

Health Care Products/Services
The Bait: Items not sold through traditional suppliers are "proven" to cure serious and even fatal health problems.
The Catch: Claims for "miracle" products and treatments convince consumers that their health problems can be cured. But people with serious illnesses who put their hopes in these offers might delay getting the health care they need.
The Safety Net: Consult a health care professional before buying any "cure-all" that claims to treat a wide range of ailments or offers quick cures and easy solutions to serious illnesses.

Can you avoid getting caught by a scam artist working the web? Not always. But prudence pays. The FTC offers these tips to help you avoid getting caught by an offer that just may not click:

    * Be wary of extravagant claims about performance or earnings potential. Get all promises in writing and review them carefully before making a payment or signing a contract.
    * Read the fine print and all relevant links. Fraudulent promoters sometimes bury the disclosures they're not anxious to share by putting them in teeny-tiny type or in a place where you're unlikely see them.
    * Look for a privacy policy. If you don't see one - or if you can't understand it - consider taking your business elsewhere.
    * Be skeptical of any company that doesn't clearly state its name, street address and telephone number. Check it out with the local Better Business Bureau, consumer protection office or state Attorney General.

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit www.ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Got the South Africa one, one from the UK, numerous scams asking for ebay and paypal info.  Lately I upgraded IE and have been getting tons of popups, even tho the popups filter is activated.  Never happened on the older version of IE.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Pop ups are most commonly generated by Adware.
These are programs that install itself as plug ins to your browser. Some are content specific. Ie you go to one web site and it popups an add for a competitors store. Others like the one you describe are just designed to sell a specific product.

I recommend going to www.lavasoft.com and downloading a free copy of Adaware. There is another program called Spybot. What one misses the other catches.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

also recommend hijackthis (you can google it for download).  It scans your browser plug-ins so you can see what's what.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

FBI: Beware Of Email Scam
by Paul LaVoie, TSN
WASHINGTON, DC - Since its inception, the internet has been a source of national news with virus alerts, server shutdowns and "hackers" breaking through security firewalls simply "because it's there."

A new email scam has evolved, and the FBI is warning computer users because it poses a possible virus threat, specifically the w32/sober virus.
Information obtained from http://www.cert.org, a well-known website for tech issues and security vulnerabilities, the "FBI" scam tells its recipients:

Dear Sir/Madam,

We have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Important: Please answer our questions! The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison
Federal Bureau of Investigation-FBI

The e-mail directs users to open an attachment and answer a series of questions. If opened, the computer will be infected with the w32/sober virus.
If you have received this message in your email inbox, it DID NOT come from the FBI, even in some cases, when there is an actual FBI phone number in the message.
They suggest following a simple rule: if an email with an attachment originates from an unfamiliar source, simply DELETE the email message, and in turn empty the folder titled "Deleted Items." As with any "malicious script" the file the virus is hiding in must be opened to be activated.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

I used to get one of those Nigerian 419 scam letters a week on my work email account. I don't get them any more.

I would look in the headers for the email address used to send them... for the IP address of the computer used to send them... and for any additional "reply to" email addresses in the body of the email... and send emails to the abuse address listed for the domains for those. After getting about a dozen email addresses closed and a few internet access accounts shut down they took me off their mail lists. 

RJ

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

The internet is getting very scary...

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Pop ups are most commonly generated by Adware.
These are programs that install itself as plug ins to your browser. Some are content specific. Ie you go to one web site and it popups an add for a competitors store. Others like the one you describe are just designed to sell a specific product.

I recommend going to www.lavasoft.com" target="_blank">www.lavasoft.com and downloading a free copy of Adaware. There is another program called Spybot. What one misses the other catches.

I too use these 2 products with great success.  Spybot can be downloaded from http://www.safer-networking.org .

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

I never open any executable attachments from an e-mail unless I'm already expecting somebody to send it to me.  There are some macros out there that automatically execute when you open a document in microsoft word or excel.  The default security settings of the program usually prevent it from being automatically executed unless you tell it otherwise. 

Most people usually get the worms/viruses through peer-to-peer file sharing programs.  Once the virus is opened on your computer, it starts logging other people's searches on your system and returns itself to them as a result.  They open the file expecting something else and the whole process starts over on their system. 

The best defense is simply knowing not to open executible files unless you specifically know what they are.  Any NEVER NEVER NEVER install any ActiveX controls from a website unless you know you can trust the publisher.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

And don't fall for fake job postings... you'll get personal information stolen... or worse... you'll be a mule for organized crime by receiving packages and money tranfers then forwarding them to overseas addresses.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/july06/job_scams070506.htm has more info...

RJ

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Would this be considered a Scam?

There'a company that sells "Liberty Dollars" and encourages merchants and peole in general to use them instead of Govenment produced monetary instruments.  They print up "bills" that are supposed to be certificates for precious metals (like the old gold standard, where you could redeem us currency for actual silver or gold).  They also mint "silver" dollars based on the same premise. They say that it's inflation proof and provide statistics on how one ounce of silver today buys the same amount of stuff in did back in the early 1900's.  They also claim it is the second most popular form of currency in use in the US today.  The US government has deemed it illegal as this company is touring the use of these coins as legal tender.  It's hillarious that anybody would buy into it.  Who stands behind their "silver Certificates?"  do they actually own one ounce of silver for every certificate they print out?  At least there's no denying the credit worthiness of the federal government, what about these people?  Unbelievable, apparently this has been around sinde 1998?  I'm not even going to post the link to their site, but you can read about it in the UsMint's website here:


http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/index.cfm?action=press_release&ID=710