The Internet's most successful scams
Most people think they'll never fall for a scam. In fact, that frame of mind is precisely what con artists look for.
Those who believe that they know better are often the last to raise
their defenses when criminals are nearby. Yes, people lose
money online. A lot of it. They wire cash to London, they can't help
investigating the one-in-a-million chance they really are related to a
dead prince from Africa, and they sometimes even travel to Nigeria to
find out. Just in case.
Verdana;"">Many of the scams you read about are sensational, such as the
silly "hit man" scam created by real amateurs (recipients get an e-mail
that says send me all your money or I'll kill you). And
you've also seen lists that offer oddly skewed results, such
as the recent FBI announcement that scammers pretending to be FBI
agents are now the most prevalent Internet crime. You’d
figure those numbers are a bit exaggerated because victims of FBI scams
are a bit more likely to report those scams to the agency.
Verdana;"">Fantastic stories like these only serve to convince many
consumers to let their guard down even more, helping to increase the
pool of marks for the professional scammers.
Verdana;"">I know, because I hear from victims all the time. My inbox is littered with people whose notes say,"I
know I should have known better, but ...." And with that, they beg me
for help restoring their ravaged bank accounts. In fact, every single
victim I've ever interviewed says they had an inkling that something was
wrong from the outset, but they ignored that feeling. That’s why the
single most important factor in avoiding fraud is this: Learn to trust
the feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Verdana;"">
Verdana;"">Usually, I can't help restore those bank accounts. But I can
help you, if your turn hasn't come up yet. And
even if you are convinced you'd never fall for any online con, someone
in your circle of friends or family is vulnerable. Please forward this
story to him or her.
Verdana;"">Because I hear from so many victims all year long, I know what
people really fall for. Here are the top 5 ways cyberthieves separate
people from their money, based on my 12 years of writing about Net cons.
1.) Online dating scams
Verdana;"">Anyone out there never done anything dumb for love? If you are raising your hand, congratulations. You may
now relinquish your credentials as a human being. The
rest of you should read on.
Verdana;"">
Love-based cons are the easiest to perpetrate. Why? Because love always
involves a leap of faith -- trusting something you can't see or touch.
Just like Internet scams. For years, criminals
have made haunts out of dating services and lonely-hearts chat rooms. Broken-hearted folks are rarely in their right minds,
so they make easy targets.
Verdana;"">I
once knew the FBI agent in charge of investigating cyber-love scams. He put it this way: Men could
learn a lot from con artist lovers. They send flowers and candy
constantly while wooing a mark (purchased with stolen credit cards, of
course). Gifts really do put women in an
agreeable state of mind, he assured me.
Verdana;"">Some cons spend months grooming their marks, waiting until
after several "I love yous" before asking for $800 to be wired to the
passport office in London to help clear up a paperwork mess so he can
come to America for a visit.
Verdana;"">Yes,
it all sounds ridiculous. It's not. It's so profitable that criminals
actually pay monthly fees on some dating services. Generally, the more
you pay for a service the fewer criminals you'll see, and free
Craigslist personal ads tend to be a cesspool. But I've heard from
victims who never joined a dating service but were still conned into
fake love from perfectly innocent-sounding places like Facebook groups
or chat rooms devoted to hobbies like stitching or horses. It all starts
with a simple e-mail, perhaps enhanced by a little Facebook research
(“Hey, you love the New York Islanders and the Beatles, too! Wow”)
Verdana;"">Since I've written about this scam many times, I've even heard
from concerned family members who beg me to talk the deluded lover down
off the cliff when he or she is about to send a bunch of money to a
scammer. Usually, I fail. Love is blind; it's also really, really
stubborn.
Verdana;"">In the latest flavor of the scam, when a deluded lover
actually wises up and confronts the criminal, he or she admits to the
crime but then adds this twist: "Yes, at first it was just a con, but
while we were talking I've really fallen in love with you."
Verdana;"">For a whole lot more on this insidious,
more-common-than-you'd-believe crime, visit romancescams.org. The group,
founded by former victims, has been fighting back for nearly 10 years.
They post blacklisted photos there, e-mail addresses and typical opening
lines from scammers , and lots of additional helpful scam-fighting
tools. If you fall in love and have any doubts, visit the site.
2.) Fake or "rogue"
anti-virus software
Verdana;"">We've all seen the pop-ups: "Your computer is infected! Get
help now!"
Verdana;"">black;"">Verdana;""> at-xid-6a00d83451b0aa69e20120a6792d57970c " title="Herbbox" style="float: left; margin: 6px;" alt="Herbbox" src="http://onthescene.msnbc.com/.a/6a00d83451b0aa69e20120a6792d57970c-800wi" border="0"">If you've ever
clicked through such an ad (really, a hijacking), you know that the
price for freedom is $20 or $30 a month. At
first, the ads were clunky and the threats idle. But now, many pop-ups
are perfect replicas of windows you would see from Windows or an
antivirus product. Some sites actually employ so-called ransomware,
which disables your PC until you pay up or disinfect it with a strong
antivirus product. That's why consumers forked over hundreds of millions
of dollars to fake antivirus distributors in 2009, according to the
Federal Trade Commission.
Verdana;"">Your best bet? Make a plan now. This is the one scam that just about anyone can fall
for. The best protection of all is to back up
your important files, so the day your computer is hacked, your digital
life won't be on the line. It's also important to
have a fire extinguisher nearby. A second PC or
laptop is often your best help when disaster strikes. Many
viruses disable Internet access, so you'll need a second computer to
research your infection and download disinfectant software. Have a flash drive nearby, too, so you can move the
inoculation from one computer to the other.
Verdana;"">Meanwhile, if you aren't paying for antivirus software, at
least employ one of the popular free products like AVG font-family: Verdana;"">or Windows Defender
3.) Facebook impersonation
Verdana;"">Facebook is no longer a Web site -- it's a full-fledged
platform, rapidly approaching the scale of the Internet itself. Many
young users spend more time on Facebook than on e-mail, and actually use
Facebook as their e-mail service. That means
scammers are now crawling all over the service, since they always go
where the people go. There are hundreds of
Facebook scams, such as phishing e-mails, Trojan horse infections,
misleading advertisements and
so on.
Verdana;"">But the crime you should most worry about is Facebook
impersonation. A criminal who hacks into your Facebook account can learn
a staggering amount of information about you. Worse yet, he or she can
gain trusted access to friends and family. We've
seen plenty of stories that show Facebook friends can
easily be tricked into sending money in response to believable pleas
for help.
Verdana;"">For this reason, it's time to upgrade your Facebook password.
Treat it like an online banking site, because it's not a stretch to say
that a criminal who hacks your Facebook account is only one small step
away from stealing your money (“Hello, First National Bank, I've lost
my password. But my high school mascot is the Owl and my mother's
maiden name is Smith. Oh, and my first girlfriend's name was Mary. Can
you reset the password now?”)
4.) Becoming a bot
Verdana;"">You may not know it, but your computer might be a criminal. Botnets -- armies of hijacked home computers that
send out spam or commit other crimes -- remain the biggest headache for
security professionals. The various botnets ebb and flow in size, but at
any given time, tens of millions of computers on the Web are under the
influence of a criminal. No one thinks it's their PC, of course, but
look at the odds. If one estimate claiming 100 million infections is
accurate, then about one out of every 20 computers in the world is
infected. In other words, someone in your
extended family is aiding and abetting a spammer.
Verdana;"">How can this be? Victims typically don’t notice the criminal
activity. Cyberthieves can easily use your
machine without leaving a trace or slowing down your PC performance.
They do not deposit e-mails in your sent items folder. Instead of
sending 1 million e-mails from your machine, they send one e-mail every
hour from 1 million infected machines.
Verdana;"">Any honest antivirus company will tell you that there is so
much new malicious software created every day that the good guys simply
can't keep up. The Web is jammed full of e-mails and Web sites that can
turn your home computer into a bot. Your PC could very easily be safe
today but at risk tomorrow. That's why it's so important to keep your
computer's security tools up to date. But you shouldn't assume that this
will keep you 100 percent safe. Avoid the Web's seedier side, and don't
let the kids download illegal music or games, a main source of
infections. And always keep on the lookout for strange programs, files
or surprising hiccups from your machine.
5) The fakosphere
Verdana;"">The
Web is now littered with fake blogs, fake ads, fake acai berry
products, fake work-at-home jobs and fake Web sites saying how great all
these things are. You'll even see ads for such products on all major
media Web sites, as they've become the Web's answer to late-night
infomercials.
Verdana;"">The FTC recently issued an opinion clarifying that fake
testimonials on Web sites are a violation of federal law, and some of
the over-the-top ads have disappeared. But the fakosphere is far from
dead.
Verdana;"">I know it's tempting to obey one rule that will make your
tummy flat, make your bank account fat or make your cancer disappear. But you can't believe everything you read online. Never purchase a product without searching Google
using this search term: "(Product name) scam" and
"(Product Name) complaint." Then, spend three
minutes familiarizing yourself with the reputation of the item you are
about to buy and the price you are about to pay. One
or two complaints might say one thing, but 500 complaints should
certainly scream at you that you should put that credit card back in
your wallet.
Verdana;"">Here are a few other top scam lists worth checking: