The Nigerian 419 scam
This one is old, real old. It used to be propagated through snail mail! The scam is that you receive a message from some person in a foreign country, often Nigeria, and he needs your help. He is (through some ethically dubious method) trying to get some huge amount of money, tens of millions of dollars, away from a company/government and he needs a contact in your country with a legitimate bank account so he can wire the funds out of his country. He says he will let you keep a (pretty large) cut of the money if you help. And all he needs is your name, phone number, bank account number, social security number, etc. etc. Needless to say, this is a BAD IDEA! Don't do it! This one hooks a lot of people and the scammers are allegedly netting millions of dollars a year from it. Whew. Send this one to uce@ftc.gov in addition to reporting it in the usual ways.
Viral marketing/pyramid scheme
This includes the MMF (Make Money Fast) type schemes. You send $5 to the people on the list, then put your name on it, etc. You will make thousands. Yeah, right. These do not work after the first couple of people on the list, and guess what, there are already a bunch of people on the list so you're too late. Don't fall for these - they are illegal almost everywhere. The best part is, the people usually include the names and addresses of several people taking part in the scam so you can actually report them to the police (...not that they will get arrested, but you never know).
Hoaxes and chain letters
These take many forms. Bogus virus warnings, or maybe they inform you that Bill Gates will give you money if you forward it to everyone you know. These messages are not exactly spam, but they have the same effect of clogging your inbox and mail servers in general.
I don't think I have EVER received one of these forwards that was actually true. Nothing bad will happen to you if you don't send it to everyone you know; nothing good will happen if you do! Please just delete it and tell your friends to stop sending them.
For a list of common e-mail virus hoaxes, check out Mcafee.com. For other hoaxes, check out sites like TruthOrFiction.com before forwarding it to anyone.
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by Sarah 
last modified: 2002-05-24 12:08:34 |
