Recently I heard of a devious scam that demonstrated how easy it is to be taken in by on line fraud and cyber crime. If you have already heard about this one I apologise in advance but I thought I would mention it as an example of things aren’t always what they seem.
A conman managed to acquire a large number of emails addresses . I am not sure how many but let us say 1,000,000 for example. He then announced across the web that he was an expert on the Stock market.
He proceeded to write a load of fiction that he knew which way the market will go over the next weeks. To half of the pool of emails he sent the message that it would go down and half it would go up. Of course in half the cases he was right.
He then took the addresses where he was right and split them again half up half down. In half those cases he was right again. A third repeat would leave 125,000 which represents one eighth of the original million suggested he was right every time. He had done that very special thing internet users hang onto he had built trust.
He was seen by many of the 125,000 as the guru of the stock exchange within the on line community. He now sells his online course, dvd boxset and the rest for a highly inflated price. I am not sure exactly how, if at all he managed to keep within the law though many scammers are able to just keep clear by burying a (do this at your own risk ) warning within dozens of pages of small print, inside the terms and conditions.
There are those who would regard this as legitimate business in terms that people did this willingly. I and most legitimate businesses on the other hand regard it as fraudulent, bringing the vast amount of legitimate activity on line into disrespect.
In recent times the Net is tightening up on these scams and there is much better protection especially around unsolicited emailing. However we must remain vigilant . There are few people on the planet who are beyond falling for this type of racket.. The two conditions that cause this to occur is when people are vulnerable ( during financial austerity ) and the infinite ability of crooks to fake up sites to look authentic.
Peter.