E-Mail Fraud Booms Don’t Let Your Inbox Rip You Off By Susanna Donato
These criminals use modern technology, turning first to faxes and now to email. Their letters perpetrate a crime called “advance fee fraud” or “419 scams,” named for the Nigerian criminal code they violate. The scam, however, has spread to other African countries and throughout Europe, with victims worldwide, frequently targeting higher-income level professionals like physicians. 419 scams on the rise This con game comes at no small price. According to the National Consumer League, the scam costs U.S. victims $250 million a year. “Now that the vast majority [of pitches] are sent via e-mail, it’s a much more efficient method to reach a lot more potential victims,” said Marc Connolly, agent of the United States Secret Service 419 Task Force. “As a result, the scam is on the increase.” Brightmail, an anti-spam software company that screens mail for many of the large Internet service providers and corporations, tracks unwanted e-mails, including scam e-mails. “Recently, we’ve seen two categories of spam that have grown tremendously, and those are adult content and every type of scam,” said Francois Lavaste, Brightmail’s vice president of marketing. “We’ve definitely noticed the number of [spam] attacks increasing.” Brightmail tracks the number of messages the company’s software filters for all clients. In March, the firm filtered a total of 55 billion messages, and 45 percent of them, or 24 billion messages, were spam, Lavaste said. Those 24 billion messages represented 6.7 million individual spam attacks, of which 10 percent were scams. The vast majority of the scam e-mails were 419 scams. How the scam works The letter writers play on the recipient’s sympathy and greed. They pose as a family member of a deposed leader, a high-ranking government official or the widow of a physician with insider knowledge. The e-mails offer to split millions of dollars garnered from “over-invoiced” sales of goods, government transactions or similar shady deals. The sender asks the recipient to transfer these funds to his or her U.S. bank account, then transfer them out later. But the funds, of course, do not exist. Instead, the scammers make money by requesting thousands of dollars to cover taxes, court costs or other transfer fees. “It is very difficult to quantify the losses to this scam because it is an underreported crime,” said Connolly. “We conservatively estimate — and it is an estimate — that the losses to this family of fraudulent schemes exceed $100 million a year.” Connolly said victims often do not report their losses for two reasons. First, they are embarrassed that they were “taken.” Second, Connolly said, “Depending on the proposal, it can be obvious that it is an illegal transaction,” and so victims are reluctant to participate with law enforcement. In addition to money down the drain, victims run the risk of personal danger. Scammers have persuaded victims to travel to Amsterdam, Nigeria or other areas. Often they are brought into the country without appropriate travel documents, which puts the victims in violation of that country’s laws and leaves them very vulnerable. Several people have been hurt or even killed by the criminal gangs. No victim profile You might think this couldn’t happen to you, but Connolly points out that 419 scams target a range of victims. “Many people falsely assume it is the elderly or people who are uneducated who fall victim, and that’s certainly not the case,” Connolly said. “There really is no accurate profile. Educated, professional people of all ages have fallen victim to it.” Plus, the scam artists can be very convincing with the official-looking documents they send to victims, complete with government seals. Physician practices and other health care organizations should educate employees about this scam, so the entire practice is on alert. Also, so that employees with access to business funds are not tempted to “borrow” from company accounts to fund the scam. Some victims have done so, rationalizing that they will repay the funds once the scam makes them rich. “There have been cases of victims who have made tremendous efforts to keep the possibility of being significantly rewarded alive, even embezzling funds from their business accounts,” Connolly explained. “Once they put a thousand or two of their own money, and there’s a request for an additional $4,000 or $5,000, they think, ‘Hey you’ve already invested.’ You want to keep that dream of that $20 million or $30 million award alive.” If victims agree to make the first initial payment, they know they’ve got you and can string someone along for months or until you go broke. Don’t fall victim “You have to be careful in the same way that you have to be careful when you answer the door or pick up the phone,” said Lavaste. “And you should watch out when people promise you can get rich fast because we all know it’s not true.” Protect your e-mail address so you can avoid scams, Lavaste recommends. “The number-one thing we recommend people do is be careful with your e-mail address,” he said. “If your e-mail address is posted on your Web site or a news group, spammers have software that will harvest those addresses and collect them in a database.” Instead, Lavaste suggests you create a dedicated e-mail address to post on your Web site, with the understanding that it will receive a lot of spam. Or, you can use HTML or other scripting to make the email address more difficult for software to harvest. The most important thing, both Connolly and Lavaste stress, is to never respond to these types of e-mail. “These gangs are trying to win [victims’] confidence or make you feel that you must help them, or that they’ve been endorsed by the government of their country,” Lavaste said. “None of that is true.” People who have lost money to a 419 scam should contact their local United States Secret Service field office, Connolly says. That number can be found in your local phone book under the U.S. government listings. If you have not lost money to the scam, you can delete the messages or forward them to the Secret Service at 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov for tracking. Lavaste also suggests filing complaints about 419 scams or any spam with the Federal Trade Commission, which investigates unsolicited commercial e-mail, by sending the e-mail to uce@ftc.gov. “Filing complaints ultimately will help with spam,” Lavaste said. “It’s not going to immediately reduce the volume, but especially in the case of fraud, it will eventually help arrest the criminals behind it.”
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