Friday 17 October 2008

Internet Scam - Ask Yourself These Questions

My entry, Fraud in the Name of God, on the William/Rebecca Benson internet scam received a few hits from around the world (I know this through NuffNang).

I figured these people must have received a similar email and would like to know whether it’s a genuine case or not. So I’m writing this entry with the hope that those who think they have gotten lucky will see the rationale in things.

The internet lottery scam started a couple of years back and over time most people have come to know about it and are not fooled. As such, these fraudsters have changed their tactic by using charity as the new angle to trick people.

To those of you who have received a similar email – that you’ve won a lottery or you have been chosen to be recipient of a huge sum of money for charity; and you are jumping for joy thinking you are finally going to get rich, please ask yourself these questions:

  • You’ve never bought any foreign based lottery or entered any foreign based contest. So why out of the blue someone is informing you have won this huge amount of money? After playing the lottery in a few companies I can tell you no lottery company will ever do this.

  • Why would a complete stranger want to give you a huge sum of money? As far as I know, people usually donate to their favourite charities or known individuals, never to complete strangers.

  • What makes you different that the ‘donor’ chooses you above everybody else in this whole wide world to receive the money? Remember, you don’t even know this person.

I thought people were not so guilable to fall for a trick like this, until an ex-colleague amost fell into the trap. And he was a member of senior management in a well known public listed company.

I've learned that even the most experienced and smart people can be naive and guilble.

So don't be part of the statistics.

2 comments:

Salt N Turmeric said...

This thing has been around for years and so many warnings have been given through the media. Did people learn? NO! The thought of winning lottery completely blinded them. Regardless that they never bought/participated in any lottery.

These scumbags would use the name of Jesus, God, Allah, Buddha and you name it to trick people. Its very very sick. I just put all of them in spam folder whc somehow lately happens pretty a lot. I guess they'r also suffering fr the economic downturn. hahahha.

Julie Lim said...

Hi Farina,

Apparently most of the latest victims come from emerging nations or third world countries where the people are beginning to get access to the internet, thus they are unaware of such scams.

And most of these people are rather economically challenged, so just imagine when they receive an email saying they are recipient to a huge amount of money...

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