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Fact: a sucker is born every minute! |
| MySpace user loses
£130k in web scam MySpace used for scam A caring postal worker lost £130,000 after being duped in an internet scam. January 14, 2009 Shane Symington began sending the money after being contacted on MySpace by a Nigerian woman who said she needed help to fund treatment for her mother. The 32-year-old handed over cash from an inheritance he had been left by a recently deceased relative. He sent more when the woman said her mother had died and she needed help with paying for the funeral. Mr Symington then received an email purporting to be from FBI agents who were investigating the scam. He gave them money when they asked him to fund a trip – plus expenses – to Nigeria. Mr Symington, of Southsea, Hampshire, took out loans to raise the cash for the trio but soon realised he had been tricked again. Now, police have told him he will not be able to get his money back because officers in Nigeria are not willing to co-operate. 'This is a very sad situation,' said a police spokesman. 'This man has parted with huge sums of money through his own good nature – by trying to help others, and then by trying to recover some of what he had lost. We don't want anyone else to fall foul of this shocking activity.' |
| Anti-forward
(origin unknown; if you know the origin, please enlighten me,
thanks): Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwarding about 50 billion chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a leg growing on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the traveling freak show. Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you? So basically, this message is a big YOU ARE DUMB to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards. Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and kill me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity. Yea right. If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a Nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. I don't care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it's your own unpopularity. THE THREE BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS: --------------------------------------------------- Chain Letter Type 1: (scroll down) Make a wish!!! <Keep Scrolling No, really, go on and make one!!! Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!! Wish something else!!! Not that, you freak!! STOP!!!! Wasn't that fun? :) Hope you made a great wish :) Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be trampled by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!! --------------------------------------------- Chain Letter Type 2 Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund. Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete lie. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly. Thanks again!! --------------------------------------------- Chain Letter Type 3 Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad people with nothing better to do. So this is how it works... Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like: *Bizarre Horror Story #1 Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!! *Bizarre Horror Story #2 Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his mother. They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!! Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay. ------------------------------------------------ POINT BEING? If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you loveless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't make people mad by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only savior is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Pinsley and Bip. Right? Now forward this to everyone that you know otherwise you'll find all your underwear missing tomorrow morning. |
| The top 9 e-mail hoaxes Source: MSN Money Nov 2003 Income taxes are optional, Neiman Marcus has an expensive cookie recipe and more financial fictions that crowd in-boxes. These e-mail hoaxes are designed for one thing: to drain your wallet. By Amy C. Fleitas, Bankrate.com Ever wondered if anyone makes the money promised in those work-at-home advertisements? Or if each forwarded e-mail will really mean a donation of 10 cents from Microsoft to an orphan's organ-transplant operation? The answer is no. These stories are urban legends, e-mail rumors and scams. They are but a few of what we like to call financial fiction. The following are some of the most popular and most creative examples waiting in in-boxes. Neiman Marcus' expensive cookie recipe Here's what happened. My Aunt Cynthia was having lunch at Neiman Marcus with my cousin. For dessert, they had these delicious cookies and my aunt asked the waitress for the recipe. The waitress said they the recipe sold for "two fifty." My Aunt thought that meant $2.50 said OK. But when she got her bill they charged her $250. She was furious but they wouldn't refund her money. So in revenge, she's giving away the recipe to anyone who wants it. Can you believe that? You can? Sucker. It never happened. But this rumor has been circulating for decades. A similar story about a $25 red velvet cake recipe has been traced as far back as the 1940s. If you want the cookie recipe, Neiman Marcus has gotten so sick of the bad press about this false rumor that the company posted the recipe on its Web site. Forwarded e-mail for money or donations Microsoft and Disney are both beta-testing an e-mail tracker and will send you money if you forward this e-mail. The Gap is testing an e-mail tracker and will send you a gift certificate. The Red Cross is using its e-mail tracker and will donate money for some poor kid's operation or to raise funds for an orphan of Sept. 11. If you believe any of these stories, I have some bad news for you. There is no such thing as an e-mail tracker. Coke won't send you free cans. Gerber won't send you savings bonds. Cracker Barrel won't send you gift certificates. A Britney Spears' video won't pop up as the result of you forwarding an e-mail. And AOL has a public relations department that gets news out a lot more efficiently than any chain mail ever could. You get nothing but the embarrassment of knowing that everyone you forward this e-mail to will think you're a fool. Nigerian scam letter Greetings, sir. I got your e-mail address from a very confidential source - the Internet. I am the prince, minister and Grand Poo-ba of one of many foreign nations that you stupid Americans have never heard of. There is a billion, kazillion dollars in an account here that rightfully belongs to my family and my people. Due to some horrid-bloody military coup in which my entire family, several accountants and various goats lost their lives, I cannot reach this money. But you, an American who has never heard of my country, can march right into the corner branch of God-Forsaken-War-Torn-East-of-Nowhere-Africa and deposit this money right into your fat American bank account. For your trouble, I'll give you a few million off the top -- because what's a few million between confidential best friends who have never actually even heard of one another? OK, let's start from the top. Do not kid yourself. You are not so important that the High Priest of Anywhere will e-mail you requesting help. Rid yourself of your delusions of grandeur -- or as we say back home, you may sing "Like a Virgin" into your hairbrush every night, but that doesn't make you Madonna. Here's what will happen when you give strangers your bank account information: They will take your money. Period. End of story. You get nothing, but you lose a lot. Work at home Old scam, new format. You should immediately run from anyone who promises lots of money for little work that requires no experience. While there are companies that allow their employees to work from home, they require job skills and interviews, just like regular jobs. Work-at-home scams will ask you to purchase supplies and equipment from them to perform the "job." That's how they make their money. You will lose -- not make -- money. You won! And you didn't even enter! How can you take anything seriously that uses so many exclamation marks?!!!!! Guess what!!!!! You didn't win anything!!!! These people will try to finagle money out of you by saying you need to pay taxes or fees to collect your prize!!!!! Or they will give you a free trip that requires you to buy very expensive airline tickets through their agency!!!! Don't be a sucker!!!!! You'll receive $5,000 for sending $25 Here's how it works. Send $5 to the five people on the list or to the address that will send you the "reports." In return for your money you'll get -- nothing -- because this is a scam. Well, maybe you'll get something -- a conviction for mail fraud because this is illegal. Tricking the traffic court The Web-watching site Truthorfiction.com reports that a rumor is currently circling e-mails accounts claiming that there's a sneaky way to keep a traffic ticket off your driving record: pay a little more than the amount on the ticket. The court will send you a refund check. If you don't cash the check, the computer won't mark your case as closed and the ticket will never show up on your record. This idea is great in theory, lousy in reality. It doesn't work. Here's a way to keep tickets off your record that does work: slow down. Tax or long-distance charges on e-mail You got a forwarded e-mail from your friend that says you will soon be charged for your long-distance e-mails, just like you are charged for long-distance phone calls. Oh, really? And what will the phone company use to compute your bill -- its e-mail tracker? Calm down. No one is going to charge you long distance for your e-mails. This is an e-mail myth. Clinton got rid of the IRS -- no more taxes That sneaky Bill Clinton -- did you know that when he wasn't gallivanting about with interns he was busy getting Congress to pass secret legislation that would forgive all debts and abolish the Internal Revenue Service? Alan Greenspan was going to announce it on Sept. 11, 2001 but didn't because of the terrorist attacks. Oh, wishful thinking -- or maybe not. A move like that is the equivalent of tossing what's left of our economy into a vast financial toilet and flushing with the combined might of the National Football League. In the plausible department, this rumor, reported by Truthorfiction.com, is right up there with alien cattle mutilations and Cameron Diaz spending a Friday night alone at home, eating Ben & Jerry's because she couldn't get a date -- completely ridiculous. Originally from:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/FinancialPrivacy/P46840.asp |
| Thought For the Day by The View From Number 80 March 23rd 2005 |