Email Fraud

Email is a great communication tool, however what provides a fast, cheap means of communication for legitimate purposes can also easily be exploited for malicious intent. All the best junk mail filtering in the world is no substitute for some common sense to avoid being sucked in by some of the scams that are circulating.

Anatomy Enhancements

The most blatantly stupid email scams are the ones promoting such things as penis elongation pills. With a bit of basic high school biology, you should be able to figure out that your penis (if you have one) is not going to start growing just by popping a few pills, and if by chance they did somehow work and start promoting cell division in one part of your anatomy, how do you know when it will stop? Maybe a bigger penis is desirable, but cancer probably not. The reality is that if these things really work, legitimate medical practicioners would know about them. Big drug companies are very keen to promote anything that enhances sexual performance, because they know the potential demand, but their products have to undergo rigorous testing and be certified as actually doing what they claim. The bottom line is that herbal penis enlargement you're being offered by some spammer you've never heard of before is basically a wallet enlargement for the spammer, if you're stupid enough to fall for the scam.

The 'Nigerian' Scam

The next class of email scam I'll look at is the famed "Nigerian" scam. In this scam you receive a message from a former dictator, or family of this dictator, generally from some African nation, although Iraq is quite possibly a popular choice currently. Sometimes also the sender can claim to be some disgraced merchant banker. In the email you'll be told of vast wealth that awaits if only you help the sender to move a large sum of money such as 25 million. Of course to do so, they need your bank account details, and possibly some small payment up front to verify everything is working OK. If all this sounds too good to be true it is. There's no 25 million, and they only want your bank account details so they can relieve your account of its contents. Even if there claims were true, you'd most likely be breaking the law, as effectively they're asking you to help them with money laundering.

Prizes that cost money

Moving on in the annals of infamy, let's look at the "You have won a prize" scam. In this case you are told you have won some fabulous prize such as a holiday or a car, or sometimes a smaller item even. Can

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