Internet Scams

Internet scams come from many different places in the world. Some of the countries that Internet scams come from are Nigeria and Cote dIvoire or Ivory Coast. There are many more African countries besides Nigeria. These include but are not limited to Ghana, Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal. These countries are found in west sub-Saharan Africa and most of them are along the coast.

Outside of West Africa, Internet scams also come from Sudan and South Africa. Scams coming from these countries typically consist of scam letters arriving in people's email in other countries. Many kinds of Internet scams rely on email for their transmission.

Many of these email scams found on the Internet include business proposals by the scammer that tries to convince the scam victim that they have found a lot of money and that they would like to give some to the scam victim in exchange for helping them get access to a bank account or to get the money out of the country.

African scams are just one kind of scam found on the Internet. Scams similar to the ones from Africa also come from Europe. Most of these seem to come from the UK, Spain or the Netherlands. The UK lottery scam is a major type where the scammer tells the scam victim that they have won millions of dollars or pounds. All they have to do is to send their personal information so they can collect their prize.

Internet scams also include the check scam which may or may not follow the scam letter. If the scam victim responds to the scammer, they might be told that certain expenses have to be offset. The scam victim is told that they don't have to pay anything. All they have to do is to cash a check that the scammer will send them. The scam victim can even keep a small portion of the check proceeds for their trouble. The check is fake and when the bank realizes that the check is fake after it had already been cashed, it will take the money out of the victims bank account. Meanwhile, the scammer receives the money from the check.

It Nigeria, the check scam is also known as 419 fraud which is advance fee fraud according to the Nigerian code of laws.

One of the top Internet scams is the Nigerian inheritance scam where the scam victim is asked to pose or act as a relative or next of kin. As the story usually goes, a businessman millionaire left an unclaimed fortune in a bank account in Nigeria after dying of cancer or in an accident. The bank employee who found the money wants to claim it before it reverts to the government. Since the person who died was a foreigner, the scammer needs the scam victim's help to get the money. If the scam victim is interested, they are told to send their information back to the scammer. Sometimes, the scam victim is told to call the scammer and a phone number is provided in the email. The scammer usually states in the scam letter that the amount of money is in the millions even when the scam victim is told that they will only get a percentage.

Another type of Internet scam is phishing where the scam victim is tricked into logging in on a fake website after receiving an email telling them that there was a problem with their bank account. They are told that their password and username are required and later on they are requested to enter their credit card number. In many other cases, this might be a request for a Social Security number or a bank account number.