|
Slam the spam
|
 |
April 4, 2000: 6:17 a.m. ET
Junk e-mail offers bogus super diets, investments and 'dream' vacations
By Staff Writer Rob Lenihan
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - In the great feast of information that is the World Wide Web, spam is one thing you can easily cut from your diet.
Operating with up-to-date technology -- but still much like snake oil salesmen of old -- cyber scam artists get their "foot" in your digital door by using e-mail, then proceed to hawk everything from bogus business opportunities to alleged "dream" vacations that are anything but.
Click here for how best to respond to infuriating spam
The Federal Trade Commission has compiled a list of 12 scams that are most like to show up in your e-mail box. So, in the interest of knowing your enemy, take a look at the list of scams affectionately known in Washington as....
The dirty dozen
1. Business opportunities: Start a business. Make lots of money without putting out much cash or work. These e-mails are awfully short on details, but long on promises and usually ask you to call a phone number for more information.
Click here for more on Net business opportunity scams
After that you usually leave your name and phone so some salesperson can call you back with sales pitch. Many of these are illegal pyramid schemes.
2. Bulk e-mail: These solicitations offer to sell you lists of e-mail addresses, where you can send your own bulk solicitations. Some of these offers say or imply that you can make a lot of money using this marketing method. The problem is that sending bulk e-mails violates the terms of service of most Internet service providers. If you use one of the automated e-mail programs, your ISP may shut you down. 
3. Chain letters: This is where you're asked to send a small amount of money to each of the four or five names on a list, replace one of the names on the list with your own, and then forward the revised message via bulk e-mail. The letter may claim the scam is legal, that it has been reviewed or approved by the government or it may refer to sections of U.S. law that legitimize the scheme. In a word: baloney!
4. Work-at-home schemes: You pay a small fee to get started in the envelope-stuffing business, then you find out the e-mail sender never had real employment to offer. Instead, you get instructions to send the same envelope-stuffing ad in your own bulk e-mailings. If you earn any money, it will be from others who fall for the scheme you're pulling. For craft assembly work, you will likely find promoters who refuse to pay you because your work isn't up to their "quality standards."
5. Health and diet scams: This deal offers pills that let you lose weight without exercising or changing your diet, herbal formulas that liquefy your fat cells so that they are absorbed by your body, and cures for impotence and hair loss. Guess what? They don't work! Skip the case histories from "cured" consumers, testimonials from "famous" medical experts and claims the product is only available from one source for a limited time. And watch out for ads that use gems such as "scientific breakthrough," "secret formula," and "ancient ingredient."
6. Effortless income: These include get-rich schemes offering unlimited profits exchanging money on world currency markets; newsletters listing easy-money opportunities; the perfect sales letter and the secret to making $4,000 in one day. If any of this stuff worked, don't you think everyone would be using them? Easy money is a nice fantasy, but it usually is just that -- a fantasy.
7. Free goods: Some e-mail messages offer valuable goods - such as computers, other electronic items and long-distance phone cards -- for free. They ask you to pay a fee to join a club and then tell you that to earn the offered goods you have to bring in a certain number of participants. You're paying for the right to earn income by recruiting other participants, but your payoff is in goods, not money.
8. Investment opportunities: In this, investment schemers promise stunningly high rates of return with no risk. One version seeks investors to help form an offshore bank, while others are vague about the nature of the investment, stressing the rates of return.
9. Cable descrambler kits: A kit that supposedly allows you to receive cable television transmissions without paying any subscription fee. The device probably won't work -- and even it if did, stealing service from a cable television company is illegal.
10. Guaranteed loans or credit on easy terms: Some e-mail messages offer home-equity loans that don't require equity in your home, as well as solicitations for guaranteed, unsecured credit cards, regardless of your credit card history. Usually, these are said to be offered by offshore banks and are sometimes combined with pyramid schemes. The home-equity loans turn out to be useless lists of lenders who will turn you down if you don't meet their qualifications.
11. Credit repair: Credit repair scams offer to erase accurate negative information from your credit file so you can qualify for a credit card, auto loan, home mortgage or a job. Of course, the only problem is the scam artists don't deliver the goods. If you lie on a loan application, misrepresent your Social Security number or get an Employer Identification Number from the Internal Revenue Service under false pretenses, you will be committing fraud.
12. Vacation prize promotions: Congratulations! You just won a fabulous vacation -- maybe you've even been "specially selected" for this opportunity. Yeah, just you and several thousand other people. Then you find the cruise ship looks like a tugboat, the hotel looks like something out of "Psycho," and you may be required to pay more for an upgrade. Scheduling the vacation at the time you want it may also spark an additional fee.
Got a beef?
If you want to file a complaint with the FTC about spam, you can contact the agency's Consumer Response Center by calling toll-free at 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357); by writing to Consumer Response Center, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20580; or via the Internet, using the online complaint form. 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
