The Salon Of Brazil
The Latest Savior For Online Advertising: The Session?

Top Ten Internet Scams

Stupidity

from the the-Nigerian-scam-won't-go-away dept

Sun, Nov 18th 2001 11:06pm — Mike Masnick
MSNBC has the top ten internet scams and the "fastest growing" scam is the famous Nigerian money scam. It's a bit scary that this one is growing, since it's been around for ever, and I'm always surprised when people haven't heard of it - much less fall for it. However, the report says that nearly 10% of those who receive the Nigerian money email respond to it. I guess we're beginning to get an idea of just how much of the population is insanely gullible. Most of the other scams on the list are no big surprise. Number 1, taking up the majority of the scams by far, is online auction scams.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

6 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    mhh5, 19 Nov 2001 @ 12:45am

    how about this...

    I think this proves that there's a market for Scam-checker software. Like a Virus-protection program, it will read through your email and tell you if you have any potential online scam offers.... I'm pretty sure if there are people gullible enough to fall for scams, there are people gullible enough to buy software to help them avoid scams....

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      kai, 19 Nov 2001 @ 6:54am

      Re: how about this...

      Actually, that's an interesting (and probably easily-done) idea. I think it's more like a spam filter (reads through your email and discards things with certain combinations of words). Maybe it just discards things like $XXX,XXX,XXX from it. Do the large web-based mail services already remove scams? (they supposedly remove spams, but it only works maybe 50% of the time)

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        mhh5, 19 Nov 2001 @ 9:26am

        Re: how about this...

        heh. Actually, I was joking. And you're supposed to say my ideas are "baked" if they've been done before and then try to find a URL to prove it. Oops, sorry that's halfbakery...

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Phillip, 19 Nov 2001 @ 11:03am

      Already for sale

      I already have one of these for sale. Send me $50 and I will send you a CD with the software that not only stops all scams, it has many ESSENTIAL features that you cannot LIVE WITHOUT. Been in debt? Click on the "clear credit rating" icon. The search function allows you to check online databases that EXIST BUT NO-ONE KNOWS ABOUT giving you credit and medical details about your potential loved ones or your rivals. Because we create the anti-scam software we know the HIDDEN SECRETS how to get around it... the software can email your own scams to 20m people without getting filtered. That's right, 20m people for just $50. Please send payment in Beenz to del_trotter@hotmail.con.

      Phillip.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    andrea, 19 Nov 2001 @ 5:51pm

    Nigerian money scam

    I got that e-mail the other day. I want to reply with a scam-exposing e-mail, while trying to sound completely vacant. My boyfriend votes for corresponding with the scammer for at least a month, making them think they've found a sucker, then sending the scam-exposing e-mail.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike (profile), 19 Nov 2001 @ 6:03pm

      Re: Nigerian money scam

      I think the best would be if you could figure out a way to get them to give you some money... Now that would be impressive.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]


The Salon Of Brazil
The Latest Savior For Online Advertising: The Session?
Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

Friday

19:39 Important Announcement: Techdirt Is Migrating To A New Platform (0)
More arrow

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.