The whole.. "Scam alert" thing is not a new phenomenum but sadly there are a lot of people who fall for this sort of thing.

This isn't a thread to lambast or laugh at those who fall for them... after all the intentions for those passing these things on is to warn their friends and colleagues but in fact you've been socially engineered.. The muppet who wrote the scam story in the first place did it with your social conscience in mind and expects you to act accordingly.

So, how do you stop yourself from feeling a liddle foolish.

Well... as is oft quoted... google is your friend...

Running a quick search on google by putting a meaty little quote of about 5 words into your google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22You+are+sitting+at+home+and+there+is+a+knock+ at+the+door%22&btnG=Search) will often return a few results that can verify whether this is indeed a hoax or something to dig a little deeper about.


For example the recent scam alert here:
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?postid=231949#post231949

Putting the quote:
"You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door"
... into google turns up this link:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/phone.htm



It's worth noting as well that you will sometimes find that someone stands by their warning and says "it happened to a friend of mine and I trust them"... I mean... my old University department head held up one scam on the basis of the secretarys friends experience which, if I'd not been bothered about my degree mark and done some digging, would probably have turned out to be nothing but a scam...

But ultimately, if in doubt, don't tell the world and their wife..

Very wise post Martin, but can you tell me what the originator of the 'scam alert' gets out of it?

ie. what do they 'get' of people forwarding thier 'alerts' onto others, I dont get it :confused:

Ta

Mat:)

The same thing that virus writers "get" out of writing a program that does no damage, but spreads itself all over the place without you knowing it. Just the knowledge that something theyve started is now being spread all over the world gives them a kick.

Originally posted by mat1978
can you tell me what the originator of the 'scam alert' gets out of it?

ie. what do they 'get' of people forwarding thier 'alerts' onto others, I dont get it :confused:
I don't profess to understand it totally but my pet theory is much along the same lines of slh73...

They get to see the world respond to their actions and they get a bit of a power kick out of it... in much the same way that vandals seem to get their kicks...

Of course, there's probably some that start out as a fictional post that comes with a "imagine if..." type disclaimer and someone else just picks it up and sends it out... chinese whispers are a wonderful thing...

Originally posted by Martin_s
[google]

For example the recent scam alert here:
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?postid=231949#post231949

Putting the quote:
"You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door"
... into google turns up this link:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/phone.htm

But ultimately, if in doubt, don't tell the world and their wife..

Good advice Martin.
Or as the in the article I directed people to read try searching snopes (http://www.snopes.com) before google.

I got one this morning which I suspect was a 419 scam. It had a full London address along with telephone numbers and fax numbers offering me a 40% share of 15 Million dollars for me pretending to be some dead blokes only surviving relative.
I was surprised it turned up nothing in google.

Hmmmmmmmm...... I hope it was a scam!!! :P

Originally posted by nomme
Good advice Martin.
Or as the in the article I directed people to read try searching snopes (http://www.snopes.com) before google.

I got one this morning which I suspect was a 419 scam. It had a full London address along with telephone numbers and fax numbers offering me a 40% share of 15 Million dollars for me pretending to be some dead blokes only surviving relative.
I was surprised it turned up nothing in google.

Hmmmmmmmm...... I hope it was a scam!!! :P


Theirs one born every minute! TUT TUT

Looks like you blew your chances of becoming a millionaire then nomme !?

One think I've noticed about passing on 'warnings' or other kind of information is this:

People will generally not thank you if you were right and you ended up doing them a favour.

However ... people *will* blame you if you got it wrong ...

So why bother trying to help by passing of any (un-verified) info !?