The Nigerian 419 scam still makes headlines as gullible people still believe emails from the mysterious sender that offers a percentage of a hidden cache of money, gold, diamonds, etc. All they need from the victim is a few thousand dollars to bribe an official or two. Then, they need to open a bank account in the country of origin but there needs to be 100,000 dollars in the account for the transfer to take place. The bilking continues until the victim eventually wises up (oftentimes ending up broke in the process).

While it is rare, people still fall for this scam when the email shows up in their inbox. However according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s (IC3) annual report, scams sent through email SPAM are on the rise. While it may not be a Nigerian prince offering you a stake in his captive fortune or promises of winnings from a European lottery, scams sent through email still get enough nibbles to make this a lucrative form of SPAM for criminals.

Over the past year some of the biggest scams that have been reported by the IC3 are as follows:

1. Mystery Shoppers

In a time where work is hard to find and people are unemployed, extra cash is always welcome. Spammers, always looking for the most productive bait know this as well. This scheme involves the victim receiving an email promising a secret shopper position for a large corporation. Those who apply for the position provide their resume and undergo a background check. Once hired, they are sent a check with instructions on what to buy in a specific store along with things they are to note about the store and its employees making the whole process look legitimate.

Next, the victim is told that they are to test the easy and accuracy of wiring money from a retail location. The “employee” is to use a portion of the money from the check sent to make the purchase and wire it to their employer. The remainder of the money from the check is their payment for their work.

The scam works because the employee wires the money to the scammer and the check that they receive as payment and for their tasks is counterfeit. The result is they lose out on the money they wire back to their employer/scammer and they are forced to pay bank fees in many cases.

An alternative is that the fraudster requires bank account information so that funds can be deposited for the shopping purposes. Instead, money is withdrawn from the victim’s account.

2. Natural Disasters

With the devastating Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and the Tsunami in Japan are all some of the tragedies that online scammers have used to rake in millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims.

This scam works much more simply than other elaborate schemes. Here, the fraudster simply spams millions of people requesting donations for those who were caught up in the disaster. Posing as legitimate charities these scammers are able to play on human emotion often including heartwarming stories of what their organization has done to help a child or a family. Oftentimes pictures are included to further invoke the strong emotions that accompany such an event.

After seeing such tragedy, victims are often more than willing to donate money for relief efforts. Unfortunately for the victims of the tragedy and the victims of the scam, the money goes directly into the pockets of the criminals. To make matters worse, credit card numbers used to donate are often stolen and resold and accompanying pictures and files often contain malware.

3. You as the Victim

One of the most interesting avenues of attack is when a fraudster actually use your email account to send spam to those in your contact list. By compromising your email account the fraudster sends out an email blast to everyone in your contact list claiming that you are in dire need of financial assistance. The claim is that you were robbed while travelling and everything is gone. Promises of repayment once you get home are made and playing on the sense of urgency to help a friend or family member in need ensure the likelihood of success is relatively high.

4. Paying for Services Upfront

Again, taking advantage of the financial distress many are facing wily spammers have taken to one of the oldest tricks in the book. Charge an upfront fee to provide a service and then never deliver. People looking for jobs may fall for an email promising work at home or even help finding work through a job placement service. Of course both require an upfront fee.

Debt relief and foreclosure assistance are two others that fraudsters have taken advantage of. Again, for a fee these criminals will promise help for your financial woes, but once your check clears they are suddenly hard to get a hold of.

Like any spam threat, knowing what to look for is the best way to avoid falling victim to such scams. If you have fallen for one of these, or any other type of Internet scam, contact the IC3 and file a complaint immediately.

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4 Types of SPAM Scams

          “Nearly every college and university in the United States was impacted by this scheme,” Matt Whitworth, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a statement. “Illegal hacking and e-mail spamming wreaks havoc on computer networks. These schools spent significant funds to repair the damage and to implement costly preventive measures to defend themselves against future intrusions.”

The operation allegedly netted over $4.1 million. The Shah’s and their company face 26 charges of aiding and abetting each other to access a protected computer without authorization and transmit commercial emails with the intent to deceive or mislead the recipients about the origin of the messages, as well as with conspiracy to engage in an unlawful spam operation and multiple charges of fraud using computers and email. They face a minimum of 10 years in jail as well as stiff fines.

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Grand Jury Indicts 4 In Huge College Spam Ring

The miracle of the Internet has made it possible for me to work at home exclusively, running my small one-man shop from my home office whilst wearing a bathrobe and slippers. And the wonderful thing about it is that there are many more people like myself out there, who do the same thing. One of the marvelous Web 2.0 inventions that enables me to continue putting my name out there is B2B networking sites, which connect businesses looking for contractors for projects, and the contractors who provide them. As a writer, consultant and analyst, I make good use of these B2B sites and have often gotten great projects from them. But scammers too are seeing these Web 2.0 sites as a new target to find their victims.

Lately, there have been a lot of spammy entries on some of these boards, and one entry in particular that masqueraded as a legitimate company. I want to take this opportunity to let everybody know about it, especially if you make use of these B2B sites. I won’t mention the name of the B2B site in this posting, but it worked like this: The scammer posts a job on the B2B board for bid. Everything goes normal at first, with an agreed-upon payment in advance. Then, the victim gets a strange email from the scammer, stating an amount that is in excess of the agreed-upon payment, with instructions to send the balance via Western Union to a previously unknown third party in China. Of course, here’s how it really works: The scammer sends a counterfeit money order to the victim, who deposits it in his/her bank account, and then runs down to Western Union to send off the third party payment. After a few days, the bank returns the money order, recognizing it as counterfeit, but by then, it’s too late, and the victim is already out the money that has been sent by Western Union.

Web 2.0 innovations and B2B Internet sites have changed the game for SOHO operations for the better–but the popularity of these tools and of the work-at-home movement has made this a prime target for scammers like this one.

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SOHO businesses beware of 419 scam