Losing Money On the Web: Internet Scams

Posted on | June 2, 2008 | 1 Comment

A lot of money can be lost online, if you are not careful. So that means you have to be careful. In the age where businesses have gone online to make money, scammer and thieves and everyone else has followed closely behind to get a share of the pie.

I recently came across two news stories talking about two new scams circling the internet, so if you come across any of these two don’t get suckered in.

The first one, is the famous Nigerian 419 scam, as explained at PCWorld.

Users of the professional-oriented social networking site LinkedIn are being warned that scam artists are using the site to nab lucrative bank account information from naive victims, say security experts.

Advanced fee fraud — also known as “419 scams” after the relevant section of the Nigerian penal code — have become well-known to most e-mail users. The fraudster poses as a foreigner that has lucked into millions, but needs help to keep their money secure (one fraudster even pretended to be an African astronaut aboard the International Space Station).

As soon as someone is naïve enough to share their bank account information, they find that money is withdrawn from their account — not deposited, as promised.

New Market

Stymied by corporate e-mail filters and buoyed by the trust that users are giving social networking sites, scammers are trying their old tricks in new channels, according to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Abingdon, UK-based security vendor Sophos PLC.

“Now they’re trying their scam with a network used by businesspeople,” he says. “By using this mechanism, the criminals know they’re talking to people who aren’t 13-year-olds, but people with money in their pockets.”

Then there is the Craiglist scam, which i find quite interesting. Article at juneumpire.

For a month and a half, Amyanna Bryan said her daily routine involved checking the Internet for a reasonable place to rent in town.

Recently, she said she thought she found one. Listed on the Web site Craigslist was a three-bedroom house in the Mendenhall Valley for $1,000 a month.

There was only one problem: The house wasn’t for rent. The ad on Craigslist was a scam, being run half a world away.

Juneau has joined the swelling ranks of U.S. cities that have caught the eye of West African scam artists trying to rent houses they don’t own.

That is interesting, so they rent you a house they do not own, there is something so wrong in that, it must be illegal. However it is happening, and for all sources of discussions, it would suck if it happened to you, so please beware.

 

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