Beware of Scams

 

In the last week I received a couple of email from different people, asking me to claim $6 to $20 millions from an African bank. The bank “manager” informs me that he got my email address from a search, and because I seem an honest person he wants my help to steal $20 million. From which I would get only 30% and for that money I should pose as the account owner.

The name of this scam is "419" scam ("Nigeria scam" or "West African" scam), there are variation of this scam but most of this scams are connected to West African nations such as Ghana, Liberia, Togo, Sierra Leone or Ivory Coast. The scammers have money and need your help to get the millions out of the bank. The purpose of this scam is to make the victim pay a “fee”, after this they “encounter a complication” and ask you more money until you run out.

 

This is not the first time I encounter this scam, the first time was last year on a social network, in that message the other person said that he followed my action in that network, but in fact I just sign up. The mails the scammers send are similar Africa is mentioned every time (this scam was created in Nigeria), they get your mail from a unknown source, in the last one the scammer said he got may mail from a search engine, but I searched the internet to see if someone has posted my address and I didn’t find it, and to get the money the victim is requested to do something illegal. These actions should make anyone suspicious, especially the fact that you would get only 30% from this, for $6 million who will bother to do this.

I don’t think that many people are scammed this way especially that a variation of 419 scam works beater in the real world.

Another scam that you may encounter is with PayPal, you read on a website that by sending $5 to a list of people, adding your mail at the bottom of the list and sending this list to other people you could make $10,000 in a week. In fact all the email addresses are used by only one person, you send money to one person and in return you get nothing.  Another PayPal scam that you may encounter is phishing, you get an email from "PayPal@scam.it" asking to go and check you account, as can you see the email address isn’t from PayPal and the link from that email doesn’t go to PayPal, the link is for a website that look similar to PayPal, and when you try to login from that website you actually send your PayPal password to another person. 

 

Remember don’t give money to shady people.