Because of the popularity of the internet, scammers have been very clever in using it to easily lure money from an untold number of victims. Learn the different kinds of online scams in order to be aware of how they do it and avoid being a victim of any of these scams.

Today, millions of people around the world use the Internet on a daily basis. This is due to the wide variety of useful information available on millions of websites and the convenience it offers to web users. However, it has also resulted in many Internet users being victimized by different online scams. These internet scams get more and more devious as time goes on which has only further alarmed the authorities.

The objective of these scams is to steal money and property. Some have even caused the death of unsuspecting victims. Based on reports from authorities, there are billions of dollars of lost money due to these crimes, and because of this, many police agencies have organized special units to combat these kinds of crime.

Scammers use different schemes and strategies in order to do their criminal acts. Here are some of the many kinds of Internet scams spreading online.

Phishing Scams

E-mail is one of the most used features on the Internet as itprovides users a convenient means of communication. However, e-mails have become a great way for scammers to easily lure money or personal information from innocent individuals.

Phishing is one of the scams which use e-mails as a way to fool people. These e-mail scams usually consist of letters pretending that they are from a bank or an online financial group, providing a link and trying to convince you to visit that certain website. Once there they will request that you to fill up a form that is aimed to collect sensitive personal information such as bank accounts, credit card information, passwords and many other information.

These sites are “bogus”, in the sense that they look like a legitimate company since they resemble the looks of some of the known legitimate companies offering the same services posted by the scammers. In reality, e-mails from these sites are merely to tempt their prospective victims to provide their personal data. Once they succeed, they will use the submitted information to steal money from the victim’s bank accounts or purchase items through the credit card provided by the victim.

Phishing was first known during the 1990′s when an attacker attempted to steal AOL accounts by sending numerous messages to Internet users. The messages were intended to lure users to verify their accounts and asked the victims to input the password for the account. Afterward, the victim’s account will then be used to do different schemes and even distribute numerous spam mails.

Lottery Scams

Lottery scams are e-mails containing messages informing you that you have won millions of dollars from an international lottery. The message usually informs you that your e-mail address was included among the winners through a draw. In order to convince the prospective victims, they would attach links of real lottery sites or even attach fake documents or ads which claim that the lottery was endorsed by popular companies like Microsoft.

If the scammers are able to convince the victims, they would then ask important information and then request the victim to send some money to cover taxes, processing fees, and other similar charges in order to get the prize when in reality there is no such prize and everything is bogus.

419 or Nigerian Scams

The 419 scam or popularly known as the Nigerian scam is one of the most widespread and very popular among internet scam artists. This also uses e-mails in attempting to steal people’s money. The e-mail basically contains different versions of stories such as an alleged political leader having been ousted from power and having millions of dollars in funds which he needs to transfer to other countries. He will then offer you a share of the funds by helping him.

Another example is an alleged rich person is seriously ill and needs someone to help in managing the funds for charity purposes. The huge amount of money involved usually attracts unsuspecting victims to believe the scam.

Similar to other e-mail scams, the criminal would then request for money to be utilized for processing the transfer of funds to the victim’s account. Some scammers even request their prospect victim to travel abroad to speed up the transfer of funds but the victims will then be abducted and would only be released after paying a large amount of money.