Spam Scam

Friday, 20 April 2007

As part of your Chamber membership benefits, potential customers can contact you via a form on our website, and send you an email. Recently, however, some of our members have reported receiving spam via this link. Anything that comes from our website says "wawmchamber.com: SUBJECT."    The “Nigerian” Scam: Costly Compassion Nigerian advance-fee fraud has been around for decades, but now seems to have reached epidemic proportions: Some consumers have told the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) they are receiving dozens of offers a day politely promising big profits in exchange for help moving large sums of money out of their country. And apparently, many compassionate consumers are continuing to fall for the convincing sob stories, the unfailingly polite language, and the unequivocal promises of money. These advance-fee solicitations are scams. And according to the FTC, the scam artists are playing  consumers for fools. • Claiming to be officials, businesspeople or the surviving spouses of former government honchos, con artists offer to transfer millions of dollars into your bank account in exchange for a small fee. If you respond to the initial offer, you may receive “official looking” documents. Typically, you’re then asked to provide blank letterhead and your bank account numbers, as well as some money to cover transaction and transfer costs and attorney’s fees. • You may even be encouraged to travel to Nigeria or a border country to complete the transaction.  Sometimes, the fraudsters will produce trunks of dyed or stamped money to verify their claims. Inevitably, though, emergencies come up, requiring more of your money and delaying the “transfer” of funds to your account; in the end, there aren’t any profits for you to share, and the scam artist has vanished. If You Receive an Offer If you’re tempted to respond to an offer, the FTC suggests you stop and ask yourself two important questions: Why would a perfect stranger pick you — also a perfect stranger — to share a fortune with, and why would you share your personal or business information, including your bank account numbers or your company letterhead, with someone you don’t know? If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of any country — forward it to the FTC at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it    If you have lost money to one of these schemes, call your local Secret Service field office. Local field offices are listed in the Blue Pages of your telephone directory.   More information about Nigerian Advance-Fee Loan scams is available from the U.S. Department of State www.ftc.gov

 

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