Online Fraud

Unfortunately, online fraud is a rapidly growing business. The speciality of the Artists Against 419 will always be 419, but we combat a wide range of online scams. One thing that all the scams listed below have in common is that they are facilitated by a fake company -- and what better way to make your company look real than to set up a fake web site?

To sum up all these descriptions into one short sentence: If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Advance Fee Fraud (419)

You've been contacted by a desperate individual who needs your help moving millions of dollars from one country to another. For your assistance, you get undying gratitude and -- more appealing -- a percentage of the amount to keep. The catch? The fund doesn't exist, and it's just a trick to get you to send fees overseas.

More information about Advance Fee Fraud

Fake Lotteries

Originally a subset of 419, this has really grown into its own industry. A victim gets an email stating that their address has won the lottery, including a ticket number, reference code, tracking number, and various important sounding clauses.

Some aa419 members now have cumulative fake lottery winnings numbering in the billions of dollars (not to mention the cars and computers that are often thrown in). Remember, you can't win a lottery you didn't enter (especially a foreign lottery!), there is no such thing as a lottery tied to email addresses, and you never have to pay transfer, shipping, or paperwork fees if you DO win a lottery. All those modalities are inventions of 419 scammers.

More information about Advance Fee Fraud

Job Scams

Money Mule

A work-from-home job sounds great, especially one that only requires less than an hour's work every week. So that email you just got asking you to be an overseas transfer manager sounds perfect, doesn't it? Slow down -- it's a scam, and you're looking at serious trouble if you get suckered in.

There's two ways these job scams operate:

• Scammer sends fake check to "employee". The check will eventually bounce, but not before a large portion of cash has been sent overseas and can not be retrieved.
• Scammer uses "employee" to launder phishing funds, or to receive payments for fake auctions.

Either way, the employee ends up being criminally responsible for any money they transfer overseas -- either they must pay back the bank that cashed the bad check, or they must pay back the other victims who sent them money. Beyond financial consequences, money mules can face serious legal trouble (even jail time) as well.

An excellent description of money mule scams is found at Bank Safe Online.

Reshipping Scam, aka Postal Forwarding Scam

Yet another work-from-home job offer. In this version, you are asked to receive packages (often high-priced electronics), and send them on to a foreign country. What the "company" doesn't mention is that the items had been purchased with stolen credit card numbers, and by accepting the job, you'll be in the middle of an international theft ring. When the police track down who received stolen property, your address will be the first stop they make!

Fake Stores

These scammers are usually selling electronics (mobile phones, digital cameras, laptops, video game consoles) at . Often, initial contact is made through Alibaba or other online business exchange sites. If you can't independently verify the existence of a store, don't just trust they exist -- it's a scam.

Counterfeit Stores

Beyond being illegal because of trademark violations, counterfeit goods are frequently made with lower quality materials or manufacturing processes, resulting in substandard and even hazardous products. (For example, counterfeit brand-name sunglasses lack UV protection and easily shatter, putting their wearer's eyes at risk.)

The counterfeit goods store will sell a wide range of products (Nike, Prada, Gucci, Adidas, Rolex) -- any name brand or luxury good can and will be imitated. Often they state they have their own factory, or produce "OEM" products independently from the real brand's factories. (There is a subset of counterfeit goods stores that are in fact fake stores, and will take your money without providing products in return. It is not possible to tell the "honest" counterfeiters from the counterfeit counterfeiters.) These "stores" are run by the same folks who send out all that "REPLICA WATCHES" spam.

Phishing

Phishing is one of the first steps of identity theft. A scammer sets up a site which looks exactly like eBay, PayPal, or your personal bank. They send spam stating that new security measures are in place, and account holders should log in to verify the new information (or reactivate their account, or verify a purchase, the excuses are endless). When a victim DOES log in following the provided link, however, the bogus site captures their login and password -- which the scammer can then use however he wants.

The only reason phishing is last on our list is that we don't deal with it much. However, there are loads of great resources that do:

• Report phishing URL's that you receive to the Netcraft Toolbar, and FireFox 2 browsers will automatically warn users that it's bogus
• If you have received a phishing email and would like to submit it to Anti-Phishing Working Group, please send it to reportphishing @ antiphishing.org. (Don't forget to include full headers.)
• MillerSmiles has an archive of hundreds of thousands of phishing spams received over the years.