Yesterday I won the UK lottery. I did not even know that I entered but I must have somehow during my daily web browsing. Anyways, I replied to the email address provided and gave them all of the information requested including my bank account information so that the money could be direct deposited (to avoid the tax liability as they told me). I am so mad at the IRS because when I went to my bank to withdraw the money, my account had been cleaned out. I guess the IRS must have found out that I won and took all of the money for taxes. Oh well, at least I still have money coming from the lost Prince of Nigeria.
The above story of course is NOT true. It is so sarcastic and ridiculous that there is no way that this type of thing still happens. Or does it? I have an email account that I created that I use on a regular basis when signing up for anything on the internet. I call this my “spam” account. I have learned over the years that if I give out my true email address that I will ultimately be spammed to death by people who truly think that I will believe that I have a distant cousin in a foreign country who wants to use me to sneak his money into the United States or that I did actually win the lottery. The other day I actually thought to myself…why do these people still waste their time? There can’t still be people who fall for this type of scam. Well, if people weren’t falling for it, the scammers would stop doing it. As such, it is clear that email scams such as these are still profitable enough to keep spamming away.
According to ConsumerFraudReporting dot com, they received 275,284 complaints of internet fraud in 2008 (including “Lottery” and “Nigerian Fraud”). The total loss from these complaints added up to approximately $264.6 million (or $931.00 per complaint). Looks like it is still profitable. Also, keep in mind that the majority of these scams are not necessarily coming from foreign countries like Nigeria (Nigeria accounted for only 7.5%). 66.1% of the scams originated from the United States while 10.5% originated from the United Kingdom.
There are three (3) companies out there that can help assist you from getting scammed and being one of the potential $931.00 victims. The first is named Eset. According to Eset.com, they “develop antivirus and security software that delivers instant, comprehensive protection against evolving computer security threats: viruses, worms, Trojans, spam, spyware etc.” Trend Micro is another company that specializes in software that helps fight against spam emails. Last but not least, SPAMfighter. The name says it all. They offer Windows registry cleaners, anti-spyware, anti-virus, and anti-spam solutions. Any of these companies can assist you, but it is important that you do purchase one if you feel that you need protected from all of the spam that comes your way.
Finally, keep in mind that if you open an email and the information inside is “too good to be true”, it probably is. You have heard this before and will hear it again, but it is good advice.