Scams on the Internet are growing and some of these scams are very dangerous. We are not teaching you how to scam people but we hope we have gotten your attention on how to avoid them.
The Top Scams, Scammers use to Scam Money Online. Make sure you dont fall for them.
- Scam #10 - Herbal Viagra
If you are lucky, these products will do nothing at all. Some of them are seriously dangerous by themselves. They promise cures for life threatening illnesses, causing those who buy the promise to delay proper medical treatment, sometimes past the point where it would have helped.
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist before buying into any of these nostrums. It will save you a lot of headaches and heartache later. If you dont trust a spammer to handle your money, why would you take medical advice from them?
- Scam #1 - Internet Investigator
Be the first kid on your block to know all the dirty secrets your neighbors are hiding! Find out what your prospective mate has hidden in his past! Find the lost city of Atlantis! Find your lost remote!'
This one is more an annoyance than a real problem. It is filled with promises of secret knowledge that is not available to anyone else at a special price.
- Scam #2 - Pump and Dump
Normally starts with an email with the subject line 'Highly confidential information. This scam is based on touting advance information on specific stocks in an attempt to drive up the price past its true worth, so the promoters can sell at the higher price.
They pump it up, and then dump it. Hence the name. This is generally illegal. And certainly a bad way to get investment advice. If it is so confidential, why are they spamming it to millions of people?
- Scam #3 - Auction Antics
You can get a lot of terrific deals through online auctions, but you need to be careful. Before buying anything that seems too cheap, or that shouldn't be on an auction site at all, ask questions.
Look at the seller's feedback rating and comments. You'll get a lot of clues from that. Check the retail price of the merchandise. If it's new merchandise, you can probably expect to pay 1/2 to 2/3 of retail, even at auction.
Remember the old story of the fellow who raffled off a brand new Lincoln at a small town carnival? Tickets were $1 each, and everyone figured they had a good chance.
- Scam #4 - Nigerian Fee Scam
This is an oldie, and a real baddie. The basic line goes like this:
'I represent some high mucky muck who wants to get a lot of suspicious money out of my country, and we need help from you to do it. We'll pay you stupid amounts of cash to be a front person.'
The system escalates until you've got money sunk into the scam, and they want you to visit the country in question in person. There have been people who played along with this and never made it home alive.
- Scam #5 - Congratulations You've Won
This email tells you have won a nice prize like a plasma TV, a new computer or even the lottery. All you have to do to claim your prize is go to this web address and pay for the shipping and handling with your credit card. In the case of winning the lottery they need advanced fees to cover legal costs. Not only do you never get the prize but you start getting mysterious charges on your credit card.
- Scam #6 - Fake News / Hoax News
Fake news is intentionally published to mislead the masses for political purposes or financial gain. Or, fake news headlines are used to lure victims to click on links and download malware and viruses onto their computers and mobile devices.
When you consider doing any sort of business online, look over this list and see if the appeal sounds like one or more of these scams. If so, check it out carefully before sending money.
