In May 2008 Computing SA estimated that "cybercrime is worth tens of billions of dollars a year and is now, by some estimates, larger than the drug trafficking trade." Many of us have received emails from people attempting to defraud us. If you haven't - you will. You need to be on guard so that you don't lose everything you have to these criminals.
While there are a multitude of possibilities when it comes to internet fraud we'll focus one of the big ones today. The 419 scam is an advance fee fraud. The target is encouraged to advance a relatively small fee with the expectation they will ultimately received a much larger amount of money. Insa Nolte, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham states that this has become one of Nigeria's most important "export" industries. In general the victims receive an email saying that someone has a large sum of money that they want to give to a person of high moral character who will use it for good. All they need to do is pay from banking fees in order for the money to be transferred. The victim would then wire the money never to hear from the fraudster again. Or worse, they'd come back asking for even more money.
Tips to keep from becoming a victim:
1. If it's too good to be true, it probably is
2. Don't respond to outlandish claims
3. Just because they mention "real people" doesn't mean the email is real
4. Be paranoid
One additional tip to keep from becoming a victim that could apply to any email scam attempt is to see where the email came from. Following the instructions at whatismyipaddress.com's track email tool you can see where in the world the sender of the email is. Someone claiming to be just down the street isn't going to be sending mail from Nigeria.
While the rule about Fight Club is to not talk about it, it's different with internet fraud. Talk about it with your grand parents, parents, and friends. Don't become a victim. Don't let someone you know become a victim.
By: Christopher Parker
Chris Parker is an IT professional and webmaster for whatismyipaddress.com which provides a wide range of IP tools and related articles.
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