Help Wanted: No Qualifications Necessary

[bbbuffalo]

Just curious (and I won't bother you if you prefer not to answer) but why is your friend in jail for being a victim of a scam?

[xmx]

I have a couple of sites I can suggest you.

http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com
They list many online frauds and give useful suggestions

http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/
They inform about all the viruses, the phishing and scams around.

[paulhiles]

Report spam and network abuse
AbuseButler
View report on the top 40 entries in the past 7 days

Anti-phishing organisation
Antiphishing.org
How not to get "Hooked" by a Phishing scam

[elysian]

Odd.. the first forum subject I headed to in here I posted something on a scam I uncovered just this week. And here you have a whole thread on it. I think I like this place :)

Anyway, all of this makes me think of the good old days when I didn't have to open all my mail on the Mac. Not to say that viruses can't attack a Mac- but very few of them do in relation to windows.
And I long for the good old days when I didn't have to set the pc's to run spy-killers, ad-smackers, trojan-smiters, etc etc ad nauseum once every few days.

I have no idea how anyone new to the net can protect themselves these days. Even large companies such as AOL impregnate thier software with spyware- and do not inform you on download. How are newbies to know- without informative forums such as this one? There is hardly anything worse than people who lie, scam and steal from pure greed. I am realy getting disgusted with the amount of it online.

Thanks for starting this thread- the posted links are good ones, I have been to many of them.

[deltatrend]

I have an issue with Spamcop. I sent out an email to registered users, and several were rejected because their ISPs are using Spamcop. On further investigation, I found that people can just send a report to Spamcop and any mail from that IP is rejected. In other words, one of the hosting companies I use regularly has been completly blacklisted by Spamcop because one of the companies emailing from there has been reported for Spam.

I don't think this kind of blanket blacklisting serves anybody's purpose, so I would leave them off your list.

[acornwebworks]

Just curious (and I won't bother you if you prefer not to answer) but why is your friend in jail for being a victim of a scam?

Sorry, Wen. You’re still my hero, but I was wondering the same thing.

*****

I regularly teach classes on recognizing scams, avoiding viruses, and so forth. And, when area VR agencies have clients who are interested in signing on with an Internet business, I get contacted and asked, “is this a scam”? I didn’t start out to ‘become an expert’, and wouldn’t particularly classify myself as one, but I find the subject fascinating, so ended up being pretty darned knowledgeable.

What I found interesting about this thread is seeing the ‘red flags’ that the posters themselves didn’t seem to recognize. (Stitchit’s post was full of them, for example, but even Wen’s posts contain things I would use as examples of ‘red flags’.)

But I wrote because I’d like to make a suggestion to Wen.

I understand that you want to ‘do something’. It seems you hope that your list of resources will ‘educate your local community’.

** “I am putting together a list of websites that consumers, newbies and oldbies, can visit for information…”

**” I will also add the information to my web site, post flyers locally, mail and email it to Governors and Senators and Representatives.”

So you’re hoping that coming up with yet another list of resources for people to learn about scams will somehow make a difference to folks like your friend. And yet the Internet is full of such resources. And they didn’t help your friend.

All those politicians you mentioned already know about these things…heck, not only are there laws against Internet scams, but the Secret Service has an office in Lagos, Nigeria. And they didn’t help your friend.

Your conclusion as to why your friend got caught up in the 419 scam, besides her being desperate, is that there is a lack of public education about scams. I would argue that there is a lack of *effective* public education about scams, and your proposed activity doesn't change that. I would also argue that saving just one person from a scam is not worth all your intended efforts, because it makes far more sense to be more effective with the same amount of effort and save more people.

I know what my experience has shown me the primary reasons are:

1) It doesn’t occur to people to check to see if something is a scam, because it never crossed their minds it's a scam
2) The person is desperate
3) The person thinks “hey, who knows…it *could* be true…it can't hurt".
4) The person is confident they can't be fooled, so they don't bother checking.

Your plan as presented won't protect any of those folks, not even in your town. You need to hit all those people upside of the head somehow.

So you know what I think you should do? Start a poster campaign.

Start it locally. Consider expanding it nationally.

But I don’t mean a poster campaign with a focus of sending people to your anti-scam website. I mean a poster campaign that could work for people who never, ever check a scam website…like your friend.

Put the posters everywhere. Every telephone pole. Every store window. If the message is right, you will have a major impact on people who might never have associated "scam" with something they might even be considering right now.

And I think *this* is what you should be asking this forum to help you with…coming up with Bash Them In The Head posters. Because that's what I'm thinking needs to be done for effective public education regarding scams.

My poster offering regarding the 419 scam?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MURDERED!

Nigerians do not want to give you millions.
ALL those emails are written by con artists.
They stole over $200 million last year alone.
If you try to get your money back, they kill you.

For more info: (website)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If your friend had seen one of those posters, do you think she might have had second thoughts before getting caught up in that scam? I would bet more than one person would think twice :-)

Kendall

[Luckenbach]

Good idea, Wen,
Remember the pyramid schemes and selling the Brooklyn Bridge? You don't see many of those anymore, seems most people know about them. Now if only everyone knew about the 419 and other scams!

I have a classified section on my website, so my users get fake buy offers from scammers all the time. For each classified I send a warning in the confirmation email with a link to this page,
http://www.sailingtexas.com/chumor4.html
which has an example of when some theif tried to scam me and I played along (and a picture of the actual bogus check they sent me), and a link to several more examples of this scam. It's different from the 419 scam, and people still fall for it.

During the time I was playing along with them I found out that while based overseas, these people have associates here in the states. They wanted to send a messenger with the bogus check instead of mailing it, so he could pick up the cash in person! Needless to say I did not want to meet this person.

Luckenbach

[Mahatmakane_Jeeves]

While this may sound contrarian, I have no pity for those that get sucked up in the 419 type scams.

I believe that people who get sucked in to the 419 scam and other get rich quick scams deserve what they get.

Let’s see, it all starts with a spam. Their greed over comes their sense. So they go with it. Just remember W.C. Fields famous line..... No not the one about children and dogs. The one “You can’t cheat an honest man.”

Why would someone be so utterly stupid to believe that of all the people in the USA, some Nigerian, or someone from some other place who is allegedly tied to some “Government” official picked them out of millions of people to do a huge transaction with?

It is really hard to believe that people are really that dumb.

As long as they keep replying to spam, this will go on. If they stop replying to spam, use their sense and actually think, they can recognize a scam or phishing when it appears.

Every reputable company whether it is paypal, a bank, western union, even sites like Amazon, eBay, Barnes and Nobel where you register and have an account tell you that they never ever ask for your password. They tell you that if there is a problem, GO TO THEIR SITE, not by following a link in an email, but by actually visiting their site, and logging in from there.

But no, people are just to lazy and dumb to follow that advice. They get what they deserve.

Regarding scams there is a great newsletter called scambusters

http://www.scambusters.org/

go to that site to find out about it read about scams, and sign up for their newsletter. I have been a subscriber for many years. I have been on the net since 95, and before that I was getting typed letters talking about how some Nigerian former oil minister, or banker wanted to place 100,000,000 in my bank account. Yeah right!

[computers]

Wen,

I have two sites for you:

This site helped me out as far as finding out about the scams comming from Indonesia (unfortunately I'd already been burned), but it is an excellent source for cyber crimes of all types.
http://www.ccmostwanted.com/


This site has a free system trojan scan.
http://www.trojanscan.com/


One of my customers had been going to a legit site and kept getting the Gaobot worm, very hard to get rid of, but when a supposed legit site stoops to infecting visitors, appalled me. There is information on my site on getting rid of this pest:[url] http://www.customcomputerhaven.com/newsletter3.html.

For those looking for a way to help prevent browser hijacking and spyware, I highly reccomend this software and install it on all new system builds and when repairing systems: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

[PumaSpirit]

I have been collecting places to go to report spam and am also in the process to make them available from my web sites and via an eBook I am creating at the moment.

Here is what I have so far:

International Law Enforcement - http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/
National Fraud Information Center - http://www.fraud.org
Internet Crime Complaint Center - http://www.ic3.gov
Internet Fraud Center - http://www.ifccfbi.gov
FBI Tips and Public Leads - https://tips.fbi.gov

FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection:
https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

Ever got a fake email from PayPal or other secure site, such as a bank, asking for your sensitive account information? spoof@paypal.com

Anti-Phishing Working Group at reportphishing@antiphishing.org,
the Federal Trade Commission (UCE@FTC.GOV) and
the F.B.I.'s Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov).

I am a member of iCop, where I get a lot of this kind of info. You may want to take a look at the site and then contact Dr. jl Scott. She is a hot rod when it comes to fighting scams. I am sure she'd love to talk with you. (You are welcome to mention I suggested this. Though she might consider strangling me because this wonderful lady has a workload nobody will envy). But joking aside... I have never met anyone else who is as dedicated to helping others as jl is.)
http://www.i-cop.org/ref.cgi?id=PumaSpirit

At iCop we are dedicated to honorable business practices in dealing with the public. You may want to add iCop to your list as SAFE businesses to do business with online.

iCop has a safe business directory we give away for free. You may download it from here and I wont even ask you for your email address, phone number, marital status or your first born child to get it :)
http://www.i-cop.org/iCop-Desktop.zip

I am glad there are people like you and us, of course :), out there who will go out of their way to help others. Let's all try our best to make the internet a safer place for the consumer as well as all of us who own legitimate businesses.

(Please excuse the iCop aff link, but once you see the iCop site, you'll understand. For one, to give away the safe business directory from your site you must be a member. However, you may all download it from the link in this post! To ensure the highest integrity, only members may display the iCop seal on their web sites.) Note to mod: if you feel this post is over the top, please edit or delete at your leisure)

Yet I feel, we as ethical business owners must protect ourselves as well as the consumer. We are all affected by scams, one way or the other.
Hope ya'll find this info helpful.