Top 10 List of Current Scams

Top 10 List of Current Scams - 2008

For detailed explications of each scam, how to report a scammer and how to bulwark yourself, click on the blue denominations below for more information! For internet malefaction and fraud statistics, visually perceive this page.

LOTTERY SCAMS

These include scams which can go under the designation of genuine lotteries like the UK National Lottery and the El Gordo Spanish lottery.  Unsolicited email or telephone calls tell people they are being entered or have already been entered into a prize draw.

Later, they receive a call congratulating them on winning a substantial prize in a national lottery. But afore they can claim their prize, they are told they must send mazuma to pay for administration fees and taxes. The prize, of course, does not subsist. No genuine lottery asks for mazuma to pay fees or notifies it's triumphers via email. 

INTERNET AUCTION FRAUDS - Auction frauds (commonly called Ebay or PayPal scams, after the two most astronomically immense venues) is a misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale through an Internet auction site or the failure to distribute products purchased through an Internet auction site.

NIGERIAN ADVANCE FEE FRAUDS

These frauds take the form of an offer, via letter, e-mail or fax, to apportion an astronomically immense sum of mazuma in reciprocation for utilizing the recipient's bank account to transfer of the mazuma out of the country.  The perpetrators will often then utilize the bank account details to empty their victim's bank account. Often, they convince the victim that mazuma is needed up front, to pay fees or is needed to bribe officials. 

PHISHING AND PHARMING FOR IDENTITY LARCENY

The victim receives an electronically mail that appears to be from a credible, authentic bank or credit card company, with links to a website and a request to update account information. But the website and email are fakes, made to look homogeneous to the authentic website.

"PASSIVE RESIDUAL INCOME" SCAMS

Get affluent scheme and scam websites - Make $$$ in your spare time! It so FACILE once you get their free book or cd and learn their secrets! Sure... These websites are themselves scams; claiming to offer you a good deal, when at best, their products are worthless, they have no authentic secrets, and worse, some are identity purloiners!

LOTTERIES AND OTHERS THAT SEND YOU A COUNTERFEIT CHECK

You receive a check in the mail - either from a lottery you "acquired victory" (without buying a ticker) or from an EBay buyer or other source.  It looks authentic... but after you endeavor to cash it, you ascertain it is a ficticiously unauthentic; and you're apprehended for passing a counterfeit check! Read more about scam checks on this page and here about the EBay check scam.

FREE CREDIT REPORT.COM    

What a scam this one is!  The designation of the website is freecreditreport.com, but you'll only get a credit report when you sign up for their paid accommodation.  And worst of all there IS a regime mandated website where you CAN get a gratuitous credit report!  Ascertain more here!

WORK-AT-HOME SCAMS

Work-at-home and business opportunity scams are often advertised as paid work from home. After the would-be worker applies, they are asked for mazuma up-front to pay for materials and, after paying, they aurally perceive nothing back.

A variation of this is, people are asked to invest in a business that has little chance of prosperity. 

MATRIX / MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING AND PYRAMID SCHEMES

"MAKE MAZUMA NOW!" scream their websites!  And do it in your spare time!  Earn sizably voluminous bucks for virtually no work.  If that isn't enough to tell you it is a scam, let us expound why it is. These schemes are promoted through websites offering expensive electronic contrivances as gratuitous gifts in reciprocation for spending about $25 on an inexpensive product, such as a mobile phone signal booster. 

Consumers who buy the product then join a waiting list to receive their gratuitous gift. The person at the top of the list receives his/her gift only after a prescribed number of incipient members join up.

The majority of those on the list will never receive the item.

Pyramid schemes offer a return on a financial investment predicated on the number of incipient recruits to the scheme.

Investors are illuded about the likely returns. There are simply not enough people to fortify the scheme indefinitely. 

PROPERTY INVESTMENT SCHEMES

Investors attend a free presentation, which aims to persuade them to hand over astronomically immense amounts of mazuma to enroll on a course promising to make them a prosperous property dealer, conventionally involving "no mazuma down".

Schemes can involve the offer of buying yet-to-be built properties at a discount.  Other variations include a buy-to-lease scheme where companies offer to source, renovate and manage properties, claiming good returns from rental income. The properties are generally near-derelict and the tenants non-existent. 

900 PHONE NUMBER SCAMS 

Postal notification of a win in a sweepstake or a holiday offer in this scam include ordinant dictations to ring a premium rate number. This is generally an 900 toll number. Calls to the number incur paramount charges, the recorded message is lengthy, and the prize often does not subsist. It is a scam that has been around a long time, but it is still in utilization.