Internet scams are something
that everyone has seen, heard about and unfortunately often fallen victim to. Cyber
crime is a huge money making business for internet swindlers and that is the
reason why these scandals are prevalent widely in the web. There are virtual thieves
out there who steal your money either by tricking you with these scams or
stealing your identity and using your personal information to access your
money.
There are many ways by which you can be cheated online and reporting scams online can signal an alert to others so
that they may not fall victim themselves.
- Reporting scams - forms of Internet scams
Some
of the common email scams that are circulating till date are as follows
- Nigerian Scam – You receive an email from a person who addresses himself as a multimillionaire from Nigeria and that he does not have children and wants to deposit all his properties to someone reliable. You will also be asked to give your personal information and deposit a small amount to receive this big money.
- Lottery Scam–You will receive an email with a subject line that you won so many million dollars on a lottery and asking your personal information to deposit the money. Before opening such mails, you should always remember that if you did not participate in a lottery, how could you win one?
- Hacked profile scam – You might have received a mail from one of your peers telling that he/she went abroad and lost passport and money. They would request you to send money and promise to pay back once they return. This is because your friend’s email has been hacked.
- Sick baby scam – You might receive a call from someone or a mail or a Facebook post that a sick baby is about to die and his/her parents are very poor to afford medical expenses. There is no actual sick baby, but a trap to make you fall.
- Is there a way of reporting scams?
If you have become a victim of an
internet scam, then you are obliged to report the same. Even if you are not a
victim of such frauds, you can still consider reporting scams if you receive
such an email.
Report to the Internet Service
Provider (ISP) through which you received the mail. If the mail came from a
Yahoo account, put a mail to abuse@yahoo.com. Gmail
has a ‘report spam’ option and Hotmail has a ‘report phishing’ button. The ISP
will close the account of the spammer after receiving a report from you.
In UK, if you want to be
reporting scams, which come in the form of a premium-rate telephone service, you
can contact Phone PayPlus. This is an official organization of the United Kingdom
which is set up to put an end to such telephone scams. You can also contact the
local police station forreporting scams which you have encountered. Do not dial
999 for reporting scams, as it is meant only for emergency.
For reporting scams in the USA, file a
complaint to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (ICCC or IC3) which is a joint
venture of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.
We often understand such scandals and
do not take necessary action for it. We feel that it does not make any point as
it such a huge network of scam which is happening and there is no way to stop
it. But time has come to fight back. Only by individual effort to stop this
scam, they can be stopped overall.
If you are looking to find out more
about internet security, visit www.bigscammers.com
