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An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is a common confidence trick. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears.
Scam baiting is a form of internet vigilantism primarily used towards advance-fee fraud, IRS impersonation scams, technical support scams, pension scams, and consumer financial fraud.
Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Internet fraud is not considered a single, distinctive crime but covers a range of illegal and illicit actions that are committed in cyberspace. It is differentiated from theft since, in this case, the victim voluntarily and knowingly provides the information, money or property to the perpetrator. It is also distinguished by the way it involves temporally and spatially separated offenders.
419eater.com is a scam baiting website which focuses on advance-fee fraud. The name 419 comes from "419 fraud", another name for advance fee fraud, and itself derived from the relevant section of the Nigerian criminal code. The website founder, Michael Berry, goes by the alias Shiver Metimbers. As of 2013, the 419 Eater forum had over 55,000 registered accounts. According to one member, "Every minute the scammer I'm communicating with is spending on me is a minute he is not scamming a real potential victim."
Email fraud is intentional deception for either personal gain or to damage another individual using email as the vehicle. Almost as soon as email became widely used, it began to be used as a means to defraud people, just as telephony and paper mail were used by previous generations.
A lottery scam is a type of advance-fee fraud which begins with an unexpected email notification, phone call, or mailing explaining that "You have won!" a large sum of money in a lottery. The recipient of the message—the target of the scam—is usually told to keep the notice secret, "due to a mix-up in some of the names and numbers," and to contact a "claims agent." After contacting the agent, the target of the scam will be asked to pay "processing fees" or "transfer charges" so that the winnings can be distributed, but will never receive any lottery payment. Many email lottery scams use the names of legitimate lottery organizations or other legitimate corporations/companies, but this does not mean the legitimate organizations are in any way involved with the scams.
A cashier's check is a check guaranteed by a bank, drawn on the bank's own funds and signed by a bank employee. Cashier's checks are treated as guaranteed funds because the bank, rather than the purchaser, is both the drawee and drawer and is responsible for paying the amount. They are commonly required for real estate and brokerage transactions.
A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, Cash App, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf.
Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony to conduct phishing attacks.
Telemarketing fraud is fraudulent selling conducted over the telephone. The term is also used for telephone fraud not involving selling.
A work-at-home scheme is a get-rich-quick scam in which a victim is lured by an offer to be employed at home, very often doing some simple task in a minimal amount of time with a large amount of income that far exceeds the market rate for the type of work. The true purpose of such an offer is for the perpetrator to extort money from the victim, either by charging a fee to join the scheme, or requiring the victim to invest in products whose resale value is misrepresented.
A scam letter is a document, distributed electronically or otherwise, to a recipient misrepresenting the truth with the aim of gaining an advantage in a fraudulent manner.
The parcel mule scam, also known as the reshipping scam, involves scammers and unsuspecting victims handling goods to other countries. In some ways it is similar to the money mule scam. Scammers use fake advertising to hire mules. Items are bought with stolen cards, and since the goods are typically re-sold once shipped, this scam can be viewed as an indirect form of money laundering.
A card-not-present transaction is a payment card transaction made where the cardholder does not or cannot physically present the card for a merchant's visual examination at the time that an order is given and payment effected. It is most commonly used for payments made over the Internet, but can also be used with mail-order transactions by mail or fax, or over the telephone.
A technical support scam, or tech support scam, is a type of scam in which a scammer claims to offer a legitimate technical support service. Victims contact scammers in a variety of ways, often through fake pop-ups resembling error messages or via fake "help lines" advertised on websites owned by the scammers. Technical support scammers use social engineering and a variety of confidence tricks to persuade their victim of the presence of problems on their computer or mobile device, such as a malware infection, when there are no issues with the victim's device. The scammer will then persuade the victim to pay to fix the fictitious "problems" that they claim to have found. Payment is made to the scammer via gift cards, which are hard to trace and have few consumer protections in place. Technical support scams have occurred as early as 2008. A 2017 study of technical support scams found that of the IPs that could be geolocated, 85% could be traced to locations in India, 7% to locations in the United States and 3% to locations in Costa Rica. Research into tech support scams suggests that millennials and those in generation Z have the highest exposure to such scams; however, senior citizens are more likely to fall for these scams and lose money to them. Technical support scams were named by Norton as the top phishing threat to consumers in October 2021; Microsoft found that 60% of consumers who took part in a survey had been exposed to a technical support scam within the previous twelve months. Responses to technical support scams include lawsuits brought against companies responsible for running fraudulent call centres and scam baiting.
Kitboga is the Internet alias of an American Twitch streamer and YouTuber whose content primarily focuses on scam baiting against phone fraud. His channel has over one million followers on Twitch, and his YouTube channel has over three million subscribers.
Jim Browning is the Internet alias of a software engineer and YouTuber from Northern Ireland whose content focuses on scam baiting and investigating call centres engaging in fraudulent activities.
An SSA impersonation scam, or SSA scam, is a class of telecommunications scam targeting citizens of the United States by impersonating Social Security Administration employees. SSA scams are typically initiated through pre-recorded messages, or robocalls, that use social engineering to make victims panic and ensure they follow instructions given to them. In 2018, over 35,000 instances of SSA scam robocalls were reported to the Better Business Bureau with over $10 million lost by victims. Approximately 47% of Americans were subject to an SSA scam robocall during a three-month period between mid- to late 2020, and 21% of seniors were subject to at least three robocalls during the same time period.
A package redirection scam is a form of e-commerce fraud, where a malicious actor manipulates a shipping label, to trick the mail carrier into delivering the package to the wrong address. This is usually done through product returns to make the merchant believe that they mishandled the return package, and thus provide a refund without the item being returned. It can also be done by the seller, generally by creating fraudulent online stores or creating fake listings on sites such as eBay or Mercari. This makes it very hard to perform a chargeback, as the tracking shows the item has been delivered. This is also known as an FTID scam, standing for Fake Tracking ID. When this scam is successful, the tracking number will show that the package has been delivered to the correct address, when the package was instead delivered to a different address. This package is generally empty or filled with garbage. However, this scam has mostly been “patched” via new technology provided by the various couriers globally. It is estimated the scam cost retailers £18,000,000,000 in lost revenue.
References
- ↑ "Selling items online? Learn how to avoid the overpayment scam". cba.ca. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
- ↑ "Check Overpayment Scams | Don't Cash That Check | Consumer Protection Bureau | NH Department of Justice". www.doj.nh.gov. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
- ↑ "How to Spot, Avoid and Report Fake Check Scams". Consumer Information. January 29, 2020. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
- 1 2 Switzer, Eric (July 24, 2019). "Streamer Creates Fake Bank To Troll Online Scammers". TheGamer. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
- ↑ "Hang up on fake "refund calls"". Consumer Information. August 27, 2020. Retrieved December 21, 2020.
- ↑ Kurtz, Jackson (January 11, 2023). "KS woman warns of scam on Facebook Marketplace". KMBC. Retrieved January 13, 2023.
- ↑ Silverman, Sam (December 16, 2022). "I Lost $300 to a Facebook Marketplace Scam, What I Wish I Knew". Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
- ↑ "Avoid Roommate Rental Scams". iROOMit. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
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