Con Artists Turn to Electronic Scams
by Elizabeth
Eidlitz
April 21, 2008
—
If you use email, friends have probably forwarded you chain
letters about easy moneymaking opportunities, compassionate
concerns, dangers to your health or to your computer's, or even
dramatic implications of scientifically credible reports.
We read, for instance, that on the night of December 22, 1999,
when the full moon, the lunar perigee and the winter
solstice coincided for the first time in 133 years, the moon
would appear 14% larger given its proximity to the earth, and
sunlight striking the moon would be 7% stronger than in summer.
How many of us believed the benign hoax--- part fact, part
hyperbole-- that we could drive without headlights and turn off
distracting Christmas decorations that celebrate Thomas Edison
more than the Christ Child?
Since then, how many of us forwarded a message to test a
Microsoft/AOL email tracking system, the only requirement for
receiving cash rewards from Bill Gates?
Or threw out the artificial sweetener aspartame because
allegedly it has been proved responsible for an epidemic of
cancer, brain tumors, and multiple sclerosis?
Did you refuse to open an emailed postcard from a family member,
having been warned that it camouflaged a deadly computer virus?
Did you respond to an appeal on behalf of a seven-year-old,
dying from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke, by forwarding
her poem, "Slow Dance," (actually written by an adult child
psychologist) so that the American Cancer Society would donate
three cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan?
Did you check the ACS website to see if it would really
contribute money?
Probably not.
We tend to trust such claims. Sent by well intentioned, if
gullible, friends, these emails, are studded with reassuring
specific details: the Gates giveaway was endorsed by a retired
attorney who included his phone number (though when you called,
an answering machine recorded your message never to be
returned). The sender of the unsolicited letter, now famous as
the Nigerian Advanced Fee Scam, names himself and his position
as a senior civil servant who works for the Nigerian Central
Bank. (The Financial Crimes Division of the Secret Service
receives approximately 100 telephone calls from
victims/potential victims and 300-500 pieces of related
correspondence per day about this fraud.)
Though there was no reason to discard your aspartame as a sweet
poison, you were wise not to open the postcard: it would
actually have released a virus destructive to your hard drive.
But how are we to know which of the electronically circulated
emails are true and which are false?
The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends,
folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation is <www.snopes.com/>.
This web page compiles 25 urban legends currently circulating
most widely, as determined by frequency of access, user
searches, reader e-mail, and media coverage.
<http://urbanlegends.about.com/>
is another excellent starting place for exploring urban legends,
short tales told and retold as true, although they usually have
little or no basis in reality or can't be confirmed one way or
another.
Since 1994, "ScamBusters," a public service from Jim and Audri
Lanford, <http://www.scambusters.org/>
has helped people protect themselves from clever Internet and
lottery scams, identity theft, credit card fraud, phishing,
urban legends, and spam.
Their weekly newsletter, free to subscribers, has dealt with
such topics as How to Get Legal Advice Without Paying an Arm and
a Leg, Beware Fake Debt Collection Agencies, Energy Department
Refunds, and What You Need to Know About Selling Your Home in
the Current Market. A Special Issue described Scams Against
Seniors, noting, however, that "most of the scams out there are
equal opportunity social evils."
Though less dramatic than the 1938 radio broadcast when Orson
Welles created national panic by his Halloween prank announcing
a Martian invasion, 2008 electronic scams are irresponsible
misapplications of creative talent.
To avoid adding to the geometric or exponential spread, why not
check the references mentioned above before you click on every
name in your address book.
