What are some common spams and scams to look out for?
The Nigerian 419 scam This one is old, real old. It used to be propagated through snail mail! The scam is that you receive a message from some person in a foreign country, often Nigeria, and he needs your help. He is (through some ethically dubious method) trying to get some huge amount of money, tens of millions of dollars, away from a company/government and he needs a contact in your country with a legitimate bank account so he can wire the funds out of his country. He says he will let you keep a (pretty large) cut of the money if you help. And all he needs is your name, phone number, bank account number, social security number, etc. etc. Needless to say, this is a BAD IDEA! Don’t do it! This one hooks a lot of people and the scammers are allegedly netting millions of dollars a year from it. Whew. Send this one to uce@ftc.gov in addition to reporting it in the usual ways. Viral marketing/pyramid scheme This includes the MMF (Make Money Fast) type schemes. You send $5 to the people on
