The examples of online scams in this article are by no means exhaustive. Old scams will evolutionise to new variations which can catch people off guard. People who are naive, desperate and greedy are prime candidates for being scammed. How do we know whether an opportunity presented to you is a scam or genuine and what are the common ones used by scammers out there. One rule of thumb is, if a stranger offers to share money with you with very minimal effort from your part, it is almost certain that it is a scam. You can end up losing all your money if you participate in the scheme.
Below are some examples but they are only the tip of the iceberg.
One of the most common and notorious scams is from West Africa especially Nigeria also known as "Advance Fee Fraud Scheme". The fraudster who claimed to be a top official of their government or a bank will send the victim an email claiming to have a huge sum like 30 million U.S. dollars in trapped funds. The problem is, they cannot acquire the funds in their own names because of their position but they can transfer the millions to a foreigner (the victim) with a foreign account. In return for that simple favour, they will reward the foreigner 20% of the transferred sum which is $6 million and the remaining 80% wired back to them. Once the victim agrees to help, all sorts of things will go wrong with the transfer. The victim will be asked to pay a never ending sequence of fees, taxes and bribes to the fraudster until the victim wakes up and realises it's all a scam. Eventually the fraudsters disappear and never can be contacted again. Some victims have been reported to have lost up to $400,000.00 or more to the fraudsters. There can also be follow up scams where the first scammer sells the victim's email to another scammer who will contact the victim informing him the first scammer had been caught and the money lost would be returned to him if he sends more fees to release the stolen money.
Lottery fraud is another one where the victim is contacted by email or phone that he has won a big lottery that he did not enter. Next, for the money to be released, like the "Advance Fee Fraud Scheme", the victim has to send a sequence of fees and taxes to them. When the victim realises he has been scammed, the fraudsters are nowhere to be found. One simple way to avoid this kind of scam is, if you did not buy a lottery ticket, you have not won anything and yet many people still fall for it.
Worthless checks that take advantage of the banking system can be a very effective tool for scammers. The victim receives an email from an overseas company that they are looking for someone in the U.S. to represent their interests and collect money for them. The victim represents the company to receive their customers' checks. These 'customers' are their collaborators and the victim is required to deposit the checks into the victim's accounts. Three days later, he thought it was cleared which in fact it had not because the bank was just advancing the money to him. He then wired 90% of the deposited amount and keeps the remaining 10% for his effort. Four to five days later, the victim gets a call from the bank saying that the check has bounced and he now has to pay that 90% amount wired out back to the bank. Online lovers from another country also use a similar technique to scam their lover victims. They tell their 'lover' that they have problems cashing their checks in a foreign country where they are temporarily working. They would then need the victim's help to cash it in the victim's country by sending the checks to the victim, once cleared, send the whole amount to the scammer. The end result for the victim is the same as the one mentioned earlier in this paragraph.
If you receive an email from your friend asking for your urgent help in sending money to him because he is in a foreign country and has lost his wallet for example, be careful. The email could have been sent by a fraudster using your friend's email address. The fraudster got your email from a virus that went into your friend's email account and spreads that same email message to all his friends in the his address book. The best way to find out whether the email is genuine is to call his telephone number to find out whether he is really in that country.
Strangers do not share money with other strangers, period. So if you receive an email or a phone call from a someone offering to share money with you and you do not know them, it's a scam. Avoid him like a plague.
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