Scams and Hoaxes
You know the old saying, “Don't believe everything you hear/read?” Well, that goes more than double for the Internet. There is a lot of good information out there, but there are also a lot of incorrect, or misleading, or out and out lies being passed off as “The Truth™.”
In this article we link to Wikipedia, Snopes, and others quite a lot. That does not mean that we think any of these sources is infallible. There is quite a lot of information on Wikipedia which has been found to be false in the past. The open editing policy of Wikipedia lends itself to such abuses. The open editing policy is also one of Wikipedia's greatest features. We haven't noticed any glaring errors at Snopes, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Just remember what the first paragraph said.
Have you recieved an amazing, or blood boiling, e-mail about this or that? Before you believe it, write your congress person, and/or secede from the Union, do a little research. It may be someone's idea of a practical joke.
Here is a list of sites dedicated to sorting the wheat from the chaff:
- Snopes.com — Rumor Has it — Urban legends Reference Pages
- About.com's Urban Legends
- BreakTheChain.org - Stop Junk E-mail and Misinformation
- Scam o Rama: The Lads from Lagos
There are various types of scams out there:
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Phishing — Wikipedia says “Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”
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Advance Fee Fraud — Wikipedia says “An advance fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a very much larger gain.”
The Nigerian Scam is a form of Advance Fee Fraud. Here is what Snopes has to say about it.
They have a great piece of advice about this:
Should you have occasion to feel something's not quite right about a deal being offered, drop by the websites of both the Better Business Bureau and the National Fraud Information Center.
The people who fall for these scams are looking to make a quick buck by helping to cheat the system. It is said that you cannot con an entirely honest person. It is also said that there is an unclaimed reward for the finding of such a person.
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The FBI has a web page about fraud in general which we recommend reading. Federal Bureau of Investigation — Common Fraud Schemes
