E-scams
Since the beginning of time people have found ways to trick others for their own advantage. Now is no different and with the rise of the web came the birth of new scams. Human nature rears its ugly head once again, this time in cyber space. As awful as these scams are they do feed or curiosity and cause us to pause at the creativity of these people that develop these intricate ways of, well for lack of a better term “screwing people over”. Lets take look at some of these scoundrels ideas and scams. One interesting con is called “Search Engine Data Merging”. A company will claim to be able to get others businesses at the top of a google search, which is very appealing to these companies. They can actually accomplish this but by unethical practices. By getting millions of uninformed consumers and the general population to download online free tracking software or spyware on to their computers. These scam artist can really change your search engine results. The unsuspecting people have no idea that the results of their searches are being manipulated. The profits of these pay for keywords scams are not really know but it is predicted to be in the millions of dollars.
Another e-scam is email lottery scam, which is when a email is sent to the victim telling them they won a big cash prize in a random drawn international lottery. By sending massive amounts of these emails out they prey on the few that are naive enough to fall for these scams. The respondents are required to give a large amount of personal information than a payment before they receive the prize. Of course they never get a prize but they keep getting asked to pay more fees until they put it together and stop paying. Needless to say these victims are not the most savvy of people. Another e-mail scam that is being used is telling people that they have received their stimulus check from Obama’s stimulus package but must go through them to get it, again requiring fees to collect something that does not exist.
On to the next e-scam, internet dating scams is another con that preys on the weak or desperate. The con artist will make a profile on a dating site and pretend to be interested romantically in the victim. The scammer will gain the trust of the target by showing loving feelings even using photos that are not the real person and sometimes not even the same sex as the actual person. Eventually they start asking for money or credit card numbers usually using tales of woe and sob stories to play the heart strings of their prey.
Again in our next example the targets are people that also may be a bit desperate. Weight loss scams selling all types of products that promise weight loss and never work. From berry pills that are supposed to cause appetite suppressant effects to weight loss patches that are useless. Transdermal Products had to pay $180,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges for lying and making false claims about their weight loss patch product. Which doesn’t seem like much of a deterrent when you think of the profits that can be made.
The list continues and is changing everyday, every development in communication and technology will give birth to a new type of con artist. Some people have no morals and feel no sympathies for others and only care for their own gain and profit. This type of predator has always existed and always will. The only way to beat these people is through knowledge, common sense and a health skepticism of things. The web has produced a perfect atmosphere for some of the darkest sides of human nature. It has given the cover of its virtual nature in cyber space, in anonymity and seclusion. It also has the beauty of connection and freedom of information that I believe in the conclusion far out weigh the negative.
Links
http://professionalwebservices.blogspot.com/2005/07/advertising-scam-search-engine-data.html
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/email-lottery-scams.html#email-lottery-scams
http://online-dating.suite101.com/article.cfm/internet_dating_scams
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/12/top_ten_scams.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/fat_patch.html
