1. Nigerian Scams
How many times before my spam blocker took over did I get some poorly worded entirely capitalized email stating someone in Nigeria was sitting on a truckload of money and needed someone to funnel it out of the country. This brings up a few items: the first being how many rich people are there in Nigeria, and who is dumb enough to fall for these? Apparently lots. According to Wikipedia, these scams cost the UK economy £150 million per year. Nigerian scams, or sometimes known as 419 scams started off as a bunch of unemployed university students sending mail out to large companies, mainly Nigerian oil sector companies in the early 80’s. Of course, you had to spend a little money to make money and the cost was all in purchasing the stamps. Thanks to online email, they can now put forth their brand of poorly written grammatically incorrect emails to suckers all over the world. And why stop at saying they need you to bail out their cash? Check your latest listing on Craigslist and if you have some dude willing to go over the amount for your used 1986 Tercel, chances are, he’s trying to scam you.
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| Not for anyone that uses F7 |
2. Online Auctions
In today’s day and age you can bid on something without even seeing it. That 1969 Camaro with the racing stripes and acid blue paint job look a little too good to be true? That’s because it is. If you’re wondering why someone keeps outbidding you it’s probably because there’s a room full of dorks with their laptops all bidding and driving up the price so some poor schmuck like you will end up forking over some ridiculous amount to the guy orchestrating the auction. By the time you’ve wired the money, the address is a fake, the guys are gone with your money and that hot chick bidding on that item is really a hairy dude with a ZZ-topish beard.
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| slightly used, otherwise in great shape |
3. Online Banking
I’m not talking about a Swordfish style attack on your bank account, or a group of elite hackers all trying to steal the US Federal Reserve and then distribute it Robin Hood style to all the other, l33t hackers. I’m talking about being dumb enough and leaving your online bank account open, or writing down your bank password on a bar napkin, or unsecured email to someone. Talk about easy pickings; even the most listless person could transfer all the available funds from your credit card onto another online account for a measly fee. Let’s get one thing straight: Hollywood puts that irrational fear that someone is going after the big corporation’s cash which is in turn, your cash. It’s Hollywood propaganda. Do you think any bank worthy of holding Billions of dollars in revenue is going to have a security leak the size of a truck? Truth is, those elite nerds who were at one point trying to hack the bank probably got hired for the Cyber-hacking division and are making fuckloads more and you and me. That’s right. These safe guards in place because for every wannabe script kiddie out there, there’s an equally and almost infinitely smart group of people on the other side protecting the interests of you, me and Bill Gates Super fortune.
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| Must…bid…on…beanie babies… |
4. Identity Theft
This is becoming a real problem mainly because people are either too trusting or too stupid to see the warning signs. Signed up for a new online checking account, that’s “just as good as a credit card”. The only people that should have your bank account number is the bank, and your bookie. You put your bank account number on some forum and you might as well paint a big red bull’s-eye on your back. But that’s the obvious way of getting at your wallet, the more subversive way is through a virus, which tells me you don’t have a good, trusted virus protection or firewall software. Thanks to those smart elite geeks who know how to make a good key logger Trojan virus, you just have to sit there, not update your virus definitions and watch your wages disappear into the sunset. Oh yeah, and if you’re dumb enough to post your birth date, education, social insurance number and address, you’re just asking for it.
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| It’s true, my shadow DOES have a mind of his own |
5. Social networking crimes
Thanks to facebook and myspace just about anyone anywhere can do many of the above things by posing as an innocent little girl or fresh faced teen girl with large breasts. Hop onto any one websites with a Paris Hilton-esque profile pic and watch all the pedophiles come out the woodwork requesting your friend status. Be dumb enough to look for this sort of personality or have an open profile with certain things as: your birth date, where you work, how much you make, where you live and your phone number and you might as well kiss your car, career, house, mortgage and future credit goodbye. It still amazes me that people are actually listing where they live and even help out by posting the Google map link to help potential stalkers, rapists and girl scouts to come to your house and sell you shit, steal your shit or just plain shit on your lawn. Oh yeah, and if you thought your information is protected, think again. Did you ever list some shitty butt-rock music group as one of your interests, only the next day find a banner ad advertising said shitty butt-rock group conveniently placed right under the your login? The same goes for those ‘find a hot girl to fuck in your area’ ads, since they know your ISP, your location and possibly your address already. Just give in already, people know you surf porn, you might as well just come clean about it.
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| About the most fitting picture for the article |