Internet scams

I've got around to checking my e-mail again, something I try to get around to at least once a week. Hey, everyone that knows me well enough to contact me for something important knows my phone number, e-mail's just a diversion half the time unless I am waiting for a reply from something.

Anyway, I was reading it and here is this nice little e-mail informing me that some guy had "success in getting that fund." Now he just wants me to contact his secretary and:

"Ask her to send to you the total sum of ($500,000.55) US dollars in a bank draft, which I kept for your compensation."

::shaking head:: What irritates me is how many people they catch with this. You get someone that is greedy enough to send them the information they are asking for and you're going to get someone with identity theft.

Tell me, why exactly is it they need to know my occupation to send me money? And you have to love the secretary's name: Miss Favour. Miss favor, an erroneous favor that was not what the person had expected it to be.

This guy (or gal) is thumbing their nose at people and hoping that if someone takes the bait he's laid out that they will be too ashamed to admit they took the bait afterward to pass the information on to the authorities. Don't be.

If you have fallen for a letter that you think was a scam, report it. Tell the authorities everything you can about the letter and what was in it and what your actions were. Get a credit report (every American is allowed one free report every year from the top three credit reporting agencies), check your credit report over thoroughly for anything that you did not do, then get another report in one year and check it too. Or if you only got a report from one of the places, check another in three months and the third after six to nine months.

People fall for those e-mails every day, it's nothing to feel bad about or feel embarrassed to admit happened - particularly to the authorities. You won't get your money back, but wouldn't it be a good feeling to know that it was maybe your tip that landed that sucker in prison for stealing the identities and life savings of innocent seniors that did not realize the e-mail was a fishing scheme rather than something from one of their friends they had helped get a mortgage or something?

These people don't care who they rip off, they don't care if their schemes hurt a young girl trying to make it through college with a baby to support or if they hurt a woman on a fixed income that is trying to keep her bills precariously balanced out on $300 a month. If someone asks you for any personal information, for any reason, consult with someone you know that is good with computers and ask them to check through sites such as Snopes or preferably the FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation are the fellows that monitor Internet crime, which includes e-mail scams, and they have a very nice page that alerts you to the latest cyber scams that are going on. They ask that if you have been the victim of Internet fraud that you report it by filing a complaint at www.ic3.gov.

Among the current e-mails reported at FBI Cyber Crimes today are "Superbowl Tickets", a threat and extortion e-mail circulating that says someone has been identified as the next victim of a killer and to contact the London FBI (Okay, I would HOPE that if they find out I am the next victim of a killer they would send Special Agents Martin Fitzgerald and Danny Martin out to body guard me, not just send me an e-mail). There is also a scam going around saying the person has been identified as visiting illegal sites and must immediately answer a list of attached questions - the attachment of course being a bad bad bad thing to unleash on your poor unsuspecting computer.

There are a lot of bad people and people with a lot more time on their hands than morals out there folks, be careful and trust no one that sends you something asking for personal information. And make sure your kids know about these scams. These guys don't care if your under 18, they'll steal anyone's identity, and a lot of kids have bank accounts now that were opened by grandparents or parents and these guys will have no problem wiping them things out if given a chance.