Finally, we have reviewed over 500 comments on this site. There were a number of spams, links to "you-know-what", but that really didn't slow things down. Thanks to the new backend interface of this site, they were sieved off pretty fast.

And as you know, it takes quite a bit of effort to run through all the comments. We appreciate encouraging comments, but we couldn't help it (sometimes) when we receive the same old "Oh! Is this a scam!?", "OMG, how do I get back my money!?", etc... take it easy on our reply as well. That is what we mean.

Ok, now that I have cleared the list of comments, time for more reports and news. Just send them in, we are ready for the new HOTSCAMS season, the best scammer will get the HotScams idol award. Remember to attach the scam mails.

WARNING: CUT ALL THE BLOODY CAPS!! STOP WRITING LIKE A SCAMMER!!

Sorry guys, I was sent to China for the past months and it has been a hectic time at work. Anyway, it's time to get back working on this site now.

Are there any scams in China? Ofcourse, there are scams everywhere, so China(though a great country) is not spared from scams. What is the most widespread scam? The first thing that came to my mind is fake cash, especially 100 RMB. Almost every storekeeper would check the money that you gave them, just to be on the safe side. It is very easy to check, so we will just post some of our own experience on this board soon. It has been a great time traveling around here.

Let's see, there are more than 800 comments in the database waiting to be approved... we will start from there. Hang in there! We will check out your scam submission ASAP.

I was browsing the web when I found this analysis of the traffic for hotscams.com.

We are not quite sure if the data is accurate, but its interesting:

Extracts:
"This site reaches approximately 17,651 U.S. monthly uniques. The site is popular among a primarily older, heavily male group."

Link to Report

Remember, the above is just in the US alone.

One thing for sure, another major source comes from Africa... 419 scammers are also trying to find out if their mails are listed here.

2007 has been a great year especially for hotscams.com, and we have screwed quite a number of scammers if not all. Oops, hopefully you were not screwed by the scammers...

I have been relocated to China to work since November and has been pretty tied up with work. Sorry if your submitted scams and emails were not added yet, but your help is deeply appreciated.

Since I am in China, I have also been watching out for scams and might post if I know of any. And I might also share some travelling pictures of places and interesting stuff. China isn't what I thought it was, and its getting better.

Someone mentioned about creating a blog to sell "affiliate products". We would like to clarify that we are not affiliated to the guest writers who posted articles on our site. And we do not earn any money through the "referral" when a visitor clicks the links from the author's page to visit their website.

If you look at the links, they should not be carrying any codes that identify that the clicks originate from our website.

In other words, we are not responsible for the products sold by the affiliates. In fact, we have no plan to sell anything on this website where the sole purpose is to share information and news on scams. If you find it useful, simply share our site with your friends. That is all we ask for.

Having said these, it is a great idea for anyone to create a blog to market their products, simply by sharing valuable knowledge and information. Don't write about what you are doing every day, unless you are a celebrity. However, people are generally interested in finding out what they do not know from others who know more. By sharing the knowledge and information, you may also build up the credibility for your expertise in a particular field or product.

We have always told people that all the lottery winnings on email are scams. But have you ever wondered the people who are playing these "online lottery" or "emailed lottery programmes" for real, and would in fact, win real lottery money for themselves?

These "people" are the scammers. They will send out thousands of spam, lottery scam mails to people like you and me. Its like buying "free lottery tickets". The more they "buy" (send mails), the more they are likely to win.

So when do the scammers "win the lottery" setup by themselves? Obviously, when some victims let greed get over their head, believe in their story, and wire money over the the scammers to pay for "lottery fees, legal fees, transaction fees, etc".

There are many people who asked me if the Pepsi, Coca-Cola, BMW, Guinness lotteries, etc, are real.

They are "real" only for the scammers. They are THE ONLY ONES who will win in the "lottery". If you choose to reply to them, you will be one of the contributors to their "lottery winnings". That also means that you will only get poorer, and nowhere richer.

If you hide that several thousands of dollars somewhere in your house and forget about the lottery scam mails, you will come back richer by that several thousands of dollars after the greed wears off. Don't let the scammers be the winner, but be the winner yourself.

As we know, most mainstream religions would tell us that we go to heaven if we do good deeds, sacrifice ourselves for good purpose, etc. On the other hand, those who continue to sin in their life is destined for eternal torture in hell.

When it comes to scam, scammers can make money to get a better life on earth. But life on earth is short. Most of us don't live past 60-70 years old, while minority ever gets to breath the air when they hit 90 years old. Scammers can make that money just to live a "better life" in the next few living years, but their sins will stay with them eternally.

What happens in hell? From what we know, the soul never dies. It will be tortured eternally with no end of the tunnel in sight. If the torture includes being thrown into a pot of boiling oil, the sinner will be thrown into the hot boiling oil, recovered, and thrown in again, eternally. They will go through the same pain forever and ever, just for that short few years of joy on earth by committing sins. Cheating and stealing from others is a sin, isn't it?

The good people will go to heaven, including those who care to share the scam mails and news that they received. These people would probably gain good karma for every mail they sent to us.

What about us, hotscams.com? For every mail and article that we publish, we might gain good karma and an inch closer to securing a place in heaven. But for every mail we missed out, we might be losing an inch. Ouch! Better get to work!

Some thoughts for sharing.

We had a short break and will resume the updates on our site very soon. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone who is new to the various scams would ever be scammed if similar ones come along with different storyline. For example, 419 scams, fake checks, lottery scams, job scams, etc are similar, except that the storyline and "fake names" stated in the email may differ from time to time. Once you get a hang of these scams, you should be able to spot new ones easily.

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish, he will learn to feed himself for a lifetime. We thank anyone of you who have care to share about our site with your friends so that they are aware about various scams. Though our list of scams are not comprehensive at this point, we have covered the most prevalent ones on the internet, as well as some localized scams.

There are some scams which are not quite easy to confirm at "face value". That is to say, it is not possible to verify if an offer is a scam unless we reply and ask for more information regarding the "offer". Take for example, someone emailed me recently asking if a particular job offer via email is a scam. We are unable to reply to some of these because there is no way for us to tell unless we communicate with the "employers" and find out more. Scammers are not stupid and they may not use the same old mails and tricks for the scam. I will be writing a short article of what I think might be a good way of determining if a job offer is scam.

Basically, anti-scam isn't rocket science. We don't need a college degree for anti-scam. A professor can be scammed, while a school drop-out who is street-smart may be able to spot scams easily. It just requires some common sense, due diligence, and control of your greed. There is no free lunch.

Yesterday, a marketer at a local shopping mall invited us to attend a presentation by a vacation club, in return for discounted lodging at a well-known hotel group. In the past, we had attended several time-sharing programs to get several rolls of free films, but were "forced" to buy a holiday package for several thousand dollars instead. Though we stubbornly refused to buy the package, we heard there were some who succumbed to the pressure and regretted paying for it.

So did we attend the presentation yesterday? Yes, we did, but why? After the first experience, we asked the marketer questions like:

We: Are we obligated to buy the vacation package?
Marketer: No, you do not have to buy the vacation package.

We: Are there any hidden conditions, or do we need to pay anything to attend the presentation?
Marketer: No, this is just a 90 minutes session for the presenter to share with you about the vacation club.

We: Is this a "Time-Sharing" program?
Marketer: No, this is not a time-sharing program.

After we attended the "presentation" by the sales consultant, he said that this IS a time-sharing program, but it is unlike the "bad ones" that we have heard previously. He went on to explain the details of the vacation packages, lifetime savings, and locations, etc. Due to the cost of the packages, we told him that we have decided not to buy the packages. Although he looked a bit sad, he did not continue to pressurize us to buy and he politely ushered us to the counter to collect our discount voucher as promised. In the end, we left with a great impression of the company and agreed that we may come back to buy the package if our bank account allows.

We should not always assume that "everything" of the same nature is a scam. Watch out for tell-tale signs. In our case, we decided to attend the presentation despite the bad experiences in the past because the offer came from a reputed brand name with hotels located in the prime area. Although the marketer who "sold" us the presentation lied that it wasn't a "time-sharing" program, we believed that he did so because the same system has a bad reputation due to misuse in the past.

Its just like "network marketing". Some people will associate this with the word "scam". However, those who care to open their eyes and find out more, will not miss out the terrific opportunities offered by the good companies.

Is "investment" a scam? We cannot say that, we but can say that there are
- good investment and bad investment
- good buy and bad buy
- good network marketing and bad network marketing companies
- and in this case, good time-sharing programs, and bad ones.

Is Email bad? Have you been receiving scams and spams? There are good emails, and bad emails. we hate scammers and spammers not because they hurt us with what they are "selling", but we hate them because they are wasting our time to sieve through to find the "good emails".

The same applies when you try to seive out the scams in the real world, be it network marketing, time-sharing, etc. If you decide to rule them out altogether, you might miss out some really good stuff.

Just my opinion.

We received an email from uvic.ca saying that:

"Phishing E-mail citing:
"Thanks for "supporting" spammers, by hosting their images!!!!"
http://www.hotscams.com/content_images/bankamerica.jpg

The above image was used in phishing email. We understand your concern, but we have decided that this is not a big issue. The following are our reasons:

Firstly, it will be stupid for spammers to "cite" an anti-scam or anti-spam website. Thanks, they just referred their targets to HotScams.com and the readers will know its a scam. Perfect, that is what this site is for, to warn potential victims of scams.

Secondly, their emails did not "cite" hotscams.com. It will be interesting to see what they write when they are referring to us.

Thirdly, regarding the image. The spammers can use images from almost anywhere. If they can afford a website for phishing, why should we need to bother if they intend to link to our content images here. And thanks. If readers would like to check, please find out more about these phishing scams from HotSCAMS.com.

Lastly, we don't bow down to spammers simply because they use our content here, or do funny things. They only have to note that the link will contain the word "scams", because our domain name is called HotScams.com.

So, we are not worried about it. They can use an image from the bank's website if they wish. So is the bank helping to host spammer's image, or maybe all websites should remove their logo to avoid being used in spam mails? Ask PayPal, eBay, or Amazon.com for a start.

We have received some emails where our visitors have responded to lottery scammers with their personal information.

Please, never, ever reply to any email that claims you have won a prize. What is worse, if you send money over to them, there is nothing that we can do. Not even the police or FBI can help you because it is not easy to trace every single scammers when they are overseas.

Whatever you send over is most likely gone forever, unless you are those few lucky chap where the scammers are too stupid to know how the cover their tracks.

Secondly, due to the duplication of scam mails, we might not publish all mails forwarded to us. However, we would like to thank you for the submittal, and we sincerely hope that you can continue to do so at your convenience.

Due to real life work, we will be updating our site 2 or 3 times a week. If you think any of the scam mails sent to us require urgent attention, you might like to add a note on the subject line, e.g. "New Scam" or whatever.

We will be resuming more site updates over the weekend due to work. It has been a great week where the stocks market "appear" to be in the process of recovering, with a total of more than 500 points gained since previous Friday when Bernanke changed the Discount Rate.

There are also scams in the stocks market, but we will perhaps talk about it as part of an article later. Based on our research, scams are mostly related to penny stocks.

For those who would like to venture into the stocks market, it is not meant for the faint hearted. There are many great books such as the one by Toni Turner, so equip yourselves well before you get eaten up.

There is just one thing that I would like to share in this blog, regarding the "Fake" buy and sell queues in the stocks market.

"Fake" buy and sell queues were sometimes used without warning in the midst of day trading. In one particular instance after a stocks price has run up, a large Buy Queue and small Sell Queue can be created to induce other traders to think that the price will be moving up soon, and fast.

While traders quickly buy up the stocks, Short sellers will be waiting on the other end to sell to the buyers at the Sell Queue. The Sell Queue never gets beaten, even if it is smaller than the large Buy Queue, because the Short Sellers tops up the number depending on the number of traders buying into their game. The Short Sellers has evaluated the market volume and selected their price to lay the trap.

Once they have sold sufficient stocks at the Sell Queue, the Short Sellers will then remove the large Buy Queue which is created by them. Within a split second when you thought that you were buying up into an Uptrend, it turns up wrong! Panicked traders quickly sold down to the now smaller Buy Queue and the price starts to fall. The Short Sellers will then proceed with their short selling by increasing the Selling Queue, creating "Fear" and pressurizing earlier buyers to sell down and cut loss.

Let's say a stock,
Buy $17.60, Queue 500,000 shares
Sell $17.70, Queue 50,000 shares

After climbing several points with bullish sentiments, many traders will be even more greedy when the see the above and starts to buy into the Sell Queue (i.e. 17.70) in anticipation that the price will go up quickly soon. The Short Sellers will simply top-up the 17.70 whenever someone buys up at $17.70.

After sometime, the Short Sellers will remove the "fake" Buy Queue that was created by them, and increase the Sell Queue instead:

Now it becomes:
Buy $17.60, Queue 50,000 shares
Sell $17.70, Queue 500,000 shares

The Buy Queue will quickly lose its momentum with weak support, and the shock accompanying such sudden change in numbers. With the Short Sellers manipulating the price of the Sell Queue with big numbers, they will be forcing earlier buyers to sell down quickly in fear.

The Short Sellers will then buy back at the lower price, say $16+, to cover their Shorts and hence profit from the trade.

This is just one example, and there are many tactics used in the stocks market,. So don't "always" think that everything is supposed to work the way they did all the time.
 

Unless you are an experienced scambaiter, simply do not reply to any scammers' unsolicited mails. Who knows, even a cheap 419 scam mail may turn out to be a hacking attempt to steal your personal data. All the scammers need to do is attach some "documents" with virus when you reply to them.

If you prefer to simply delete scam mails, that is great. You don't have to read the rest of this blog.

However, if you decide to play with "fire", not all scammers are the simple and cheap-type.

Let's say that you decided to test the 419 scammers by asking them to send you some "documents" as proof from the banks, or business partners. Would you actually open these documents? What if these documents contain virus, trojans and malware that is intended to retrieve other information from you?

It might be fun to read the relatively harmless replies from those straight and naive 419 scammers, in all those scambaiting attempts. However, with high tech scams on the rise, we do not think it is impossible for the smarter scammers to combine various scam and phishing methods into a single package.

In some earlier news, we have already seen how 419 scammers have hacked into personal email accounts by phishing method, and using the hacked account to request "money transfer" from friends of the email account which was hacked.

Don't always assume that you are always dealing with a simple scammer and you know all his tricks. You might just be the first guinea pig trapped in a new scam package.

We would like to post some kind words from visitors of our site, who have also contributed by sending us scam mails that they have received. While we try to post as many scam mails within the shortest possible time, some of these mails may be posted at a later date depending on priorities. In fact, we already have backlogs, but we always find time to read any latest submission from you.

We believe that anyone who has visited our site and those of our partners (see related links) should be better equipped and educated to deal with similar types of scam - even when they are not exactly the same.

If there is anybody to thank, it should be everyone who has helped to contribute in one way or another to this site.

William:
"Thank you for posting this scam so others can avoid this situation. They are still trying to scam me and i have contacted dateline to catch them but no response. They still want my money but to no avail.

Thanks for your help Jay HS. good luck william"

Gladys:
"As of this year, I must have become the luckiest lady this side of the Sahara. I'm being accosted by people who want to 'trust' me with their money and all these lotterries that 'randomly' select my email address! I'm sending you all that I haven't deleted yet. Thanks for your site, it is greatly needed. We all get tempted to believe these scams. Everyone wants to be lucky and a winner!!"

We also like to thank everyone who is not mentioned in this blog, including those who posted comments in the articles. God bless you all.

Although I am usually careful with my mails, surfing habits, and installed the latest anti-virus + anti-spam + anti-phishing + anti-spyware + world class software firewall on my PC, that does not stop all the virus from getting inside my harddisk.

During a routine scan which I just completed, my anti-virus scanner managed to find and remove what is in fact an old virus called Trojan.Zlob - aka Zhopa previously - and is an old friend of mine (ok, I am kidding)

I did a checkup at my favourite anti-virus website, and found the following summary:

Trojan.Zlob is a back door Trojan that allows the remote attacker to perform various malicious actions on the compromised computer.

Hmm... I didn't get any attack, but the following was received in the report on my PC, which states that it has changed 73 registry entries, added 6 files, and 1 browser cache. For some reason I think the virus came in through the browser cache or when I installed something from the web (see, everybody makes mistake sometimes).

In fact, I am still quite surprised why my anti-virus software has failed to detect this virus.

My recommendation is that you should perform a system-wide scan at least once a fortnight. Some may recommend more frequent scanning depending on how you use your PC. A great time to do a system wide scan is during lunch (office PC) or dinner time (home PC). If you have a large HDD with large number of files, it might take the whole evening to complete. It may be troublesome but necessary.


 
The above picture is to remind myself and to scare you so that all of us will perform routine anti-virus scan and update our virus definition.

Hello, someone forwarded several emails with attachments to us. In case if you are genuinely trying to help submit scam reports and mails, our advise is that you don't have to send these "pdf or picture attachment" mails to us.

We are not worried about such mails but we find them useless and we cannot post them here. Most of these mails are empty less the attachment, and we will not post the file here due to security reasons.

The advise from most sites would be to delete such mails. And for years many online companies(including ISP) have advised their customers not to click on links on suspicious email and open attachments (including PDF, PNG, JPG, DOC, XLS,extensions etc). Such scams are not new but are targeted at new users. Veteran internet users usually yawn and delete such mails because we have been seeing them for years, including the evolution from documents, to pictures, and adobe PDF files.

The more recent attachments are "Software Patches" scam. In particular, we would like to warn Not to download any patches for your browser. That is the most important thing, Not to do. Always download directly from the source. If it is Windows, visit Microsoft.com. If it is Firefox, visit GetFirefox.com. As we have said countering such threat is as easy as countering phishing scam. Simply visit the original site that "email" you, and login to check your account.

Scamming can be a complex process... when you login to your account, we hope that no one with access to your PC has placed a KeyLogger in there to record your typing.

These days, 419 scams and lottery scams (with merely advance fee transfer) is a very simple and cheap scam. In more complex scams, one type of scam can lead to another, but this issue is off-topic.

Ok, please don't forward those empty email with file attachments. We are not concerned about ourselves since we already have plenty of such mails each day.  However, we would like to save your time - just press the delete button and go on with your stuff. You will get used to this, and you can help by passing it on.

We have migrated and added a new category called the Anti-Scam Guide, which is intended to be used as a reference for some common issues related to anti-scam.

These articles will be updated periodically as and when there are new stuff. So do not expect many articles in this category unless necessary because we do not like to clog up the guide section.

A point to note is that in our articles we write as if we are talking to you. We hope to achieve exactly that, so you are free to comment etc. We hate formal report and article writing - leave that to the office and commerical world.
 
About those articles...

We wished that everyone can follow safe guidelines and prevent themselves against all scams. Except when they don't.

We wished that everyone can understand what they can/must do when they have already lost your money or identity. Except when they don't.

(Migrated from News to Blog)

We are delighted to find a "Scam Recognition test" at McAfee Advisor. It is a great tool to test if you are easily fooled by phishing site, also your anti-scam knowledge. One of the important skill used is to check the URL, because that is what we recommend here. In fact, we recommend that you type in the domain name yourself esp. for sites that carries sensitive account information, e.g. paypal, bank accounts, etc.

The test by McAfee also test our ability to spot the language and grammar, e.g. the following will not be found on real sites:

Your account will be limited ! (exclamation with a space)

Please login with your e-mail address and password !

Because of unusual number of invalid loing attemptes on you account, we had belive that, their might be some...

I tried it out and scored 7/10, one of which I forgetfully ticked the site which I knew is a scam. But the following was wrong, first one due to over-confidence (I knew the answer... damn it, but I wasn't thinking), and the second one I should have thought carefully about it. No matter how knowledgeable we thought we are, we always need to be alert.

1) One good way to protect yourself from a phishing attempt is to check the sender's name in the "From" field of an e-mail to see if it is the name of a legitimate institution.
True/False?

2) An SSL certificate ensures that a site is genuine.
True/False?

We recommend that you try out this great test!

Take the McAfee Challenge Here!

We managed to get a screenshot of the visitors to our site here at hotscams.com over the past one month. Though we are considered a smaller site as compared to some of the anti-scam giants out there, we are quite please with the geographical coverage and reach.

Let's see (looking at the picture below), we had visitors from almost all countries in America, Europe, and Oceania, except for a few. Asian visitors are great too, including Japan (WoW), Taiwan and South Korea.

Surprisingly, we have no visitors from a relatively larger percentage of countries in Africa. Visitors from Nigeria is about 70+, but we had no visitors in the past month from Chad, Central African Republic, Mauritania, Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. We know the reasons for some, but they will not  be mentioned here as its not related to scams.

In summary, the visitors came from a total of 127 countries/territories. Anyway, this is just to share the likely geographic distribution of people who have received scam mails or letters based on our site, and not intended to be used as an indication for anything.

We will be adding a new header, where applicable, to our new scam publishes to indicate the type of scam. This is because there are always people asking if a "mail" is a scam even after we publish them in the specific scam category. One example is shown in the comments below the well-known Yahoo Awards Scam article.

Maybe some of you just like to waste our time, but we don't like to miss our chance... to save someone.

As our news have shown, quite a large sum of money were lost in scams and in particularly the 419 type. We also know that the country where the scammer resides is not doing anything about it. And when the country gets too popular for a widespread scam, any other legitimate business offers became suspicious. For example, I am unlikely to doubt any offers from companies contacting us via the internet trade leads portal... but I will be careful or even not deal with anyone from countries with a high rate of reported scams. This is my opinion, so you cannot say that I am wrong. Everyone has the right to protect themselves.

Back to the part about saving "someone"... 419 scam is just like fishing with a fishing pole. The scammers are not expecting a huge harvest like casting a giant net in the big open sea. They are looking that few of us who are naive to believe and send the money over.

And don't forget our domain name, it says it all:

We have included a new page (Latest Hot Scams) with the list of scams that are making its current round on the internet. However, specific 419 scams are not detailed but covered in the daily articles section which we are trying our best to keep up. The "Hot Scams" would show new scams, whereas those that have been making its rounds forever are listed as "Ever Hot Scams".

Also note that we try our best to publish your submissions at random but asap. We have noted the submissions and will plan our time to get them updated.

If you would like to have some fun or play with the fire, please be careful. There are those who are familiar with dealing with scammers (e.g. our friends at 419eater.com), but they know what they are doing. Do whatever you like with those mails, except replying with any of your personal information. If you would like to read some jokes about dealing with scammers, please take a look at Scamorama.com.

Also note that we have updated our related links page (now called Anti-Scam Links) with more relevant sites, and will do so regularly. We also hope to recommend some other great sites here as and when we have reviewed them.

Thanks!

The world economy is currently bullish, stocks market is booming, and luxury products are getting more attention and buyers. Scams are not restricted to just those famous online 419-type of fraud. There might be investment scams that will target on those who are greedy - which happens all the time in a bull market.

btw, what is a bull and bear market and why are they called a "bull" or "bear". According to a book we read, the author says that a bull charges with its horns pointing upwards, so it means that the stocks prices are rising. The bear attacks by swinging its claws downwards, so it is used to mean to falling stocks prices.

In a bull market, there exist what we called "a weakness" called "Greed" --> Strong Buying
In a bear market, there also exist "a weakness" which we called "Fear" --> Strong Selling

These are not new to experienced traders and stock brokers.

A scammer or social engineer will be able to capitalize on similar characteristics and target the weakness of anyone in any "market" condition. Scams happen everywhere, and anytime, since there will always be someone with the "weakness".

So far most of the scams we know are associated with "Greed", e.g. instant cash, lottery wins, fake stocks news, special discounts, freebies, etc.

What about "Fear"?
Ever heard about people scammed into selling their assets thinking that a crash is coming or rumors about changes in policies. Or being scammed into buying something after hearing all the bad stuff if they do not own that particular product?

We will be updating some sections of our sites with some anti-scam site or links. This will include some generic preventive measures against common scams, and including email scams, phishing scams, 419 scams, etc.

The related links page has also been updated with a large number of new sites based on our research with other partners in the same league.

There are many scam news running around, but we found this one which shares the same concern as us here.


The issue with an aging population that is susceptible to scams will only increase with time. The scammers may come from the internet, knock on the door (sales man), or even some new friends they meet at Church, supermarket, or just the gardens. I personally heard about some comments "close to scam" from my mom when she was approached by a legitimate bank for investment.

Elderly folks have a relatively large pool of money during their retirement. But most of them does not have any financial education to judge and decide if an investment plan is worth it. They don't even know what to ask, other than the non-guaranteed "XX%" returns over a several returns.

We are not going to fire-up a war with those investment bankers out there. However, we thought it would be nice if they could talk to the children of the elderly folks before asking the latter to sign on any forms --- just our opinion on ethics.

So there you go, they will be vulnerable to all sorts of scam, such as subscription scam, investment scam, Ponzi systems, and most of the scams we discussed in this site. In the example quoted in the news, someone lost $300,000 to some lottery scam. Like we wrote earlier, those of us who know will simply forget about it, but the scammers are targeting just 1 or 2 out of thousands.

We eserve the part about children to the last:
"burden often falls on adult children..."

I think its a great statement to scare us all (children) to always care and ensure that our elderly folks do not get scammed.

Some time earlier, we had written in our blog that email scamming is becoming a lucrative crime business, and that it appears to be on the rise.

419 scams (aka Advanced Fee Scam/Fraud) is the most prevalent among the various types of scams, and they come in various forms including heritage (someone died), lottery (which u didn't play), stolen cash, etc.

The scammers will come up with some stories about a large sum of money waiting for a foreigner to help transfer out. The only catch is that the foreigner has to pay the scammer a fee before he can "collect the money", after which he will never see the money that was promised.

The scammers appear to come from everywhere other than just Africa, including countries in Europe, Canada, Australia, Thailand, Iraq, and most recently Hong Kong.

Assuming that the internet usage data is accurate, the number of internet users around the world has risen by almost 220% (source: InternetWorldStats.com) since 2000, to more than 2 billion users today.

The larger population of users on the internet will mean the increase in both scammers and victims. We should not assume that everyone is the same. While we can expect most internet users to be smart and dubious about offers that are "too good to be true", there will always be some of those who are just plain naive, misinformed, or at the weakest point in their life (e.g. need cash very urgently).

The best defense against such widespread scam is sharing of information, forwarding of warnings to friends, and broadcasting in the news. Internet users will continue to rise with the increase in world population, thus one of the best way to educate new users is through the ISP. Use of anti-scam brochures or inserts in the sign-up form, for example, may save life.

---

One of our readers dropped us a note:

----Quote----

Subject: pepsi company prize notification 2007

"I think I have been scammed IM WORRIED about identity theft I RECEIVED email saying i won 500,000 british pounds and i emailed some of my personal info i dont know what i should do. Please email me back  I need to know what options i have thank you for your time."

Sorry if we received your mails a bit late... as we have more than a thousand mails to sieve through each day. Our backlog is huge :P

The following is our suggestions:

Firstly, stop further communication with the scammers.
Secondly, check with your bank(s), credit card companies, finance, insurance, etc and let them know what happened. In such cases, I would request the bank to withhold any transaction (esp. via phone call or mails), unless you are present in person.

In US, you can check out this website and follow the recommendations:
Link to http://www.ftc.gov

We can only offer our advise as a friend and we cannot be held responsible for any of your losses. The effects of stolen identity is beyond the scope of our site to advise further. The authorities and institutes are your best defense now.

Its just like losing the key to your house, except that you cannot simply change the locks... but let everyone know about the compromise. They should be able to assist you in their respective areas.

OMG! *Tears well up* We are getting famous... for spamming Wikipedia.org! We are so grateful!

Thanks for publicizing! Either way, for good or bad, a URL being submitted for spamming is free publicity for us. Thanks to whoever the scammers!

And whats more, some editors cannot decide if our lottery scam sections are "relevant" examples of lottery scam, and they are editing the Wikipedia.org. And while we think that scam.com is a deserving site in any category, I doubt that our dedicated lottery scam section is anything lesser than a free forum.

Anyway, we are not interested to be listed there... its a website plagued with vandalism... It would be better off searching for authoritative information from authoritative websites that OWN the information, rather than websites that allow the OPEN community (including vandals ofcourse) to edit and vandalize.

Heard of the "Two Edge Sword"?

We are not complaining about the "open community", because we know that it is a "force" that demands respect. However, a system like wikipedia and dmoz run by such community is also open for criticism, esp. towards those individuals who isn't doing a good job.

Don't get us wrong. We know that there are many great editors out there, but a system as big as dmoz and wikipedia run by free volunteers will have bad eggs.

If a company run by paid employees has bad eggs, what can you expect from an open community of free volunteers?

"Customers who choose Network Solutions largely did so because they were uninformed about the options they have available. That's nothing new for Network Solutions. They've been taking advantage of the uninformed business owner for years."

- Bob Parsons, CEO
GoDaddy.com

Bob Parson (Godaddy.com) never like Networksolutions... ofcourse, they are competitors. He is now complaining that customers have been uninformed about the options available.

The truth fact in any business is that information is vital for both the company and customer.

Our quote:

• A company who is able to find out the best supplier with the lowest price wins the race.
• The customer who takes his time to research and find out more, will get a better price and product.

A simple scenario is that we went shopping today at shop A and pay for a LCD TV for US$1,000, only to find out tomorrow that another shop B nearby is selling the same LCD TV for US$500. Yes, you can complain about Shop A, but you have not done your research for the best price in the market.

Another scenario in world trade - why do companies resort to sourcing in China today? What if there is another cheaper source in South Africa, so do the buyers complain that China is misinforming them?

This is crap.

So now that I found out 1and1.com is offering reliable domain registration at only US$5.99 with Private Whois... who is also taking advantage of the uninformed business owners?

Godaddy.com should thank networksolutions for maintaining the high price, which is why they have been successful in recent years in the low-cost domain market. IMHO, Godaddy should open their eyes and see who their real competitors are - just to make sure that they are not becoming the "next networksolutions.com". What goes around, comes around - justice shall be served.

The following statements will go into the records:

This was where we found the remarks:



Wow! And look what we found:



Now, lets see a new version press statement for a change:

"Customers who choose Godaddy largely did so because they were uninformed about the options they have available. That's nothing new for Godaddy They've been taking advantage of the uninformed business owner for years."

-  CEO
the next GoDaddy.com wannabe

We received a report about a scam concerning http://www.ebasisbay.com

---------
Visitor wrote:

U can check this URL --> http://www.ebasisbay.com/ListingDetails.asp?lid=7835

I've order one laptop from them. And they stop communicate wif me after I paid to them

---------

This is a computer trading website, where anyone can post and sell computers and related products. Apparently, the site is just a platform for the trading, and does not offer 3rd party escrow or protection for buyers. And unlike eBay, it is risky to buy from a "stranger" who does not have any sales record and/or belong to a company. So there is no way for the buyer to trace the seller unless he has the details like phone, address, etc.

If payment has been made, perhaps the easier way is to trace the buyer's bank account - report to the police and see if they can help.

Becareful who you are trading with on the internet. Scammers are known to exist everywhere for years, and we do not think the statistics have ever gone down.

Due to some other commitments, we are slowing down our postings for another week due to other works/commitments. We still have quite a number of backlogs of scam mails, but they are generally the same (esp. advanced fee scam). To date, we have probably listed "billions of dollars" worth in scams under the advanced fee and lottery scam sections.

We also noticed some "sarcastic" remarks on some of the scam reports, probably because some feel that it is so obvious (a scam) and common. These people probably do not believe that anyone would actually fall for it.

If you have read the news, either on our site or over the internet, people are getting scammed almost every day or week. Phishing scams, for example, are not new. But that does not mean everyone are as educated or exposed to the "wilder" part of the internet as you are (yeah, we know that you live and breath the internet air, not the normal air we breath on earth).

That is all for now.

Thanks!

We know everyone is so desperate to make money online, and one of the bad thing that has happened to mankind is the creation of spam emails. Such a tactic has become so widespread that foreign languages are used without regards to whom they are sending the emails to...

Getting the mails from non-English European countries have been quite common... but to get one from Iran?



If the scammers from Nigeria and South Africa can take their time to write (or rather, trying to write) in English to scam the world, I think lawful companies shouldn't be too lazy to do the same.

Hey, spams are NO good. But if you want to send something, make sure that it is readable, understandable by the audience and has something worthy to read or sell.

I do read spam or unsolicited mails from time-to-time, but to get spams in the following category is wasting everyone's time.

• Spams selling illegal stuff, such as piracy, porn.
  
• Spams selling health products (quality issue).
• Spams trying to push up stocks prices by giving a fake forecast.
• Spams in foreign (esp. uncommon) languages, or messages which cannot be understood.
  
• Spams sent for phishing, scamming, cheating, etc.
  
• Spams with virus, backdoor trojans, etc for hacking.

Other than the above, spam mails really isn't that bad provided that they send, say a few times, with some worthy content or products to sell, then stop. Don't you ever receive unsolicited physical brochures, pamphlets etc in your home mailbox (I mean the real physical mailbox outside your house), or even the tiny paper slipped underneath your doors to try and sell you some stuff?

Well, I hate to remove those papers, but sometimes it is interesting to read (and I thank them) because it can be a source of information. For example, someone selling houses or cars could slip the latest offers or promotions. Short of digging the newspaper for information, these adhoc "spam" sometimes save a bit of time while we are busy with our life and failed to notice some of the good things going on.

So, our call is this:

If you want to send spam, we are ok with it. But please send properly written emails with readable content, correctly telling us what you are selling, and making sure that the products are LEGAL.

And Ofcourse, make sure that it is in the proper language. At least something that we can translate easily using Babel Fish.

Geezzz, why doesn't Sony spam us with emails selling Xbox at 75% discount... I will buy that for sure... forget that it is a spam... just spam me more!

The updates on our site has been slower recently due to change in web hosting service.

Recently, it appears that there has been an increased in scamming activities worldwide, and many has lost quite a large sum of their lifetime savings or hard-earned money in scams. This is despite the warnings from the local authorities in the respective country or city.

The scamming "business" has been "profitable" per se, and might have made some of the scammers millionaires if they are not caught yet. The widespread use of the internet in the recent years have helped to push up the figures worldwide. Generally, scams that are conducted by scammers in a foreign country are difficult to catch, while most of those that make it to the news are mainly local scammers - where they can be identified, traced and caught by the local authorities.

We are also investigating and checking out sources of those "overseas-based", advanced fee scams (e.g. fake checks) which "appears" to originate from countries such as Canada, USA, UK, etc. In most cases, it is likely that the scammers have lied about their location until when it is time to send money over. They would require the victims to send the cash over to their "representative", "headoffice", etc in Nigeria or South Africa. That is a clear giveaway, for some.

We find that it is important to confirm the actual location of the scammer. If the money is wired to the scammers account, there is bound to be a way for the bank and police (where the scammer resides) to trace them. We personally think that allowing scams to be conducted in their country would hurt the reputation badly. Perhaps a trade embargo would be good (just kidding).

:-O

Yesterday, it was a cool evening and I was out shopping for some computer stuffs when my wife called me up on my cellphone. Well, I didn't really hear the ringing sound as I was in a crowded mall shopping frantically for a Mini-SD card for my new PDA phone. Some of you may have guessed it, I noticed the missed call only when I was trying to insert my new SD cards into the PDA phone.

So I called her back, and she replied," My mom caught a naked man in the(maid's) room!".

"Huh? What did you say?", I asked again because I was near the entrance of the mall and it was noisy.

"My mom caught a naked man in the(maid's) room, and I am going to call the Cops!", she replied.

I was shocked for a moment.



You can close your mouth now. Some of you may be thinking why is there a need to call the Cops over small issues like this.. The fact is that whatever they did there is really NOAB (none of anybody's business), but the problem is WHERE they were doing whatever they did. So what did they do?

What do you expect a naked man to have done inside a lady's (maid's) room, other than some monkey business.



So there is a punishment for every crime possible on earth, including such adulterous act and especially in the wrong place. While there are many ways a criminal can be punished, the most likely case is when the monkeys are put behind the bars so as to stop them from doing whatever they did again.



I did not find out what happened after the Cops came, or whether "whatever" they did was a crime that justify a prison sentence or some police interrogation.

But one thing is for sure. Any scammers caught monkeying around and cheating other people's money will sure end up in jail.

The following was the message from Mr Ammar:

-----
Name: Ammar
Subject: inquiry
Question/Comment: Ref: 435062725
Batch: 7050470902/189
Winning no: GB8101/LPRC
Dear,
 i have received a letter tell me that I have won the lottery and send me the form to fill and send it back .I look to check the truth of this in order to open an account ,i would like  to know that I am from Iraq.
-----

Yup, 99.9% a scam and that 0.01% to be confirmed if you forward that email to us to take a look.

Thanks.

While we cannot be sure if any of these free online lottery or paid lottery agency are scams, we are pretty sure some of them are spam traps. That is to say, they will keep sending you emails after emails just to ask you to join em.

Here are some popular mail headers from these spam, lottery emails:
---------
From: Prize Co-ordinator
Subjects:
- Mr XXX: We have been trying to reach you
- Mr XXX OF XYZ Country: Urgent Delivery - Please Open Immediately
- Mr XXX: This shall serve as your official notification...

From: International Winner Alert [offers@freelotto.com]
Subjects:
- This message is for Mr XXX of ABC country
- Please Confirm that you are Mr XXX of ABC country.
- Mr XYZ: Private Documents
- Mr XYZ: Account Information
- Mr XYZ, We Urge You to Open This Immediately
- Mr XYZ, Seeking $1 Million Dollar Winner in Country ABC

From: Winner Alert [offers@freelotto.com]
Subjects:
- This message is for Mr XXX of ABC country
- Mr XXX: Who is M.K. Basha? (<--- this guys is supposed to be one of the winner...)
- Mr XXX: Who is Eric Prevost? (<--- this guys is supposed to be one of the winner...)
- Mr XXX: Marked for Urgent Delivery
- Mr XXX: Urgent - Time Sensitive - Recipient's Name Confirmed
---------
We tried to unsubscribe but it does not work .

Firstly, these spam emails are totally unnecessary and a waste of time to sieve.

Secondly, the headlines are so much like those popular Advanced Fee Lottery Scams.

Thirdly, when we don't buy in the first few unsolicited mail, there is no point sending over and over again for ages because it will make us more hateful of these bloody companies.

Lastly, if you own a business and are thinking about using these spam email services, you might catch some fishes for a start but your company reputation won't last long. It does not matter what you sell, be it VIAGRA crap, STOCKS, LOTTERY, OEM pirated softwares, Replicas, etc,. THEY DON'T SELL and WE WON'T BUY.

And we don't care if you like what we write here, and if you choose to spam us more. We are already receiving thousands a day (for collecting scam mails, not spams). So you can send us spam mails about your company, but beware that good legal companies certainly do not want their company names to appear on HOTSCAMS.Com in the wrong category.

It will be very damaging to you and your company but if you join spam services,  we really don't give a shit if once your name appears here in the wrong category.
Thanks for reading.

We received a Spanish email asking about Colon Collections again.

We have absolutely no information regarding that company. We can only say that if you received any offer with an email from hotmail, yahoo mail etc, which says that they are from this company and offering jobs etc, just ignore it. If you are interested in that deal, contact that company directly.

Alternatively, try to perform a search about that company on the internet. So far, we have yet to find any exact report about that company. Most of the emails seemed to be sent from someone with those free email addresses.

(Spanish Trans of above)
No tenemos absolutamente ninguna información con respecto a esa compañía. Podemos decir solamente que si usted recibieron cualquier oferta con un email de hotmail, el correo etc del yahoo, que dice que él es de esta compañía y trabajos de ofrecimiento etc, apenas no hacen caso de ella. Si usted está interesado en ese reparto, entre en contacto con a esa compañía directamente. Alternativomente, intento para realizar una búsqueda sobre esa compañía en el Internet. Hasta ahora, tenemos todavía encontrar cualquier informe exacto sobre esa compañía. La mayoría de los email se parecían ser enviados alguien con esas direcciones libres del email.

This website reports scams related to buying, selling and improving a house. Based on real experiences, this site is worth a visit when you are seeking the variations of real estate scams.

Visit Rouge Agents

As we had know, lottery scams do not just stop after the victim bite the first bait. After losing the money to the first scammer, the scams would multiply on the same victim subsequently. Owen is smart to have stopped dealing with the scammers, but earlier cases indicated others continued to be scammed repeatedly hoping to see their "winnings".

We like this part (after getting scammed once and receiving floods of scams hoping to rip him dry):

---------
“Mr. Owen, you’ve just won $750,000,” the man said. “Do you know what that means?”

“Yes,” Owen replied. “It means it’s over $10 million I’ve won since January.” Click. The caller hung up.

--------

Read Full Story

Kumar wrote:

SIR I HAVE GOT E-MAIL WHICH ANNOUNCE MY E-MAIL ID BUT THEY DID NOT GIVE ANY PROCESS

-----
Hi there, I am not sure if you are complaining that the scammers failed to include the process to claim "the money".

The easiest way to find out is to reply to that email and say "huh? What did you say I win??".

We are quite sure they will send you the "process" after that. :)

We were suspecting the whole issue is a "celebrity scam"!

Quote:
"It's possible that it could be 21 days, 23 days. It's a complicated formula that the state sets down. It's possible that she could do less time," Whitmore told The Associated Press."

What could be a better proof of our suspicion when another celebrity gets to decide her fate:

Quote:
"Hilton intends to appeal and her fans have posted a petition on the Internet urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon her."

Slow publish lately probably because we are tracking this. We have already predicted in our earlier blog about the increase in fame after Paris Hilton goes into 45-days jail sentence. Whether or not she planned for it, this is going to make her famous.

------
"It will actually increase her star appeal in a very sick and demented way," said longtime publicist Michael Levine. "There's a segment of our society that's somehow engaged in the soap opera that is Paris Hilton, and this a very compelling plot line in the soap opera."
------

Anyway, we think Paris is well-known for increasing her publicity in "very sick and demented way". The intentional leaks of video footage, upskirts, fake quarrels, and entertaining the paparazzi - she is doing what other stars hate to do (because other most stars gain their fame using the "normal way", which is boring news for some). And the recent involvement with Britney (see egotastic.com) with those shots that are spreading like wild fire on the internet.

And David says:
------
"The premise of her fame is being naughty," David Brokaw said. "This is a career move for her. It simply fuels the fascination. She can only win with this."
------

We said this first in the earlier blog, though not the exact words. Should we call this "celebrity scams"?

And don't forget, some guys will try to get video footage of her in prison - that is going to create extraordinary web traffic and money for many. Whoever owns the only copy is going to be rich.

Read the full news here:
Jail time likely to fuel Hilton's fame

Omg! Paris Hilton was sent to jail for driving without a valid license!
---
What has this got 2 do with Hot Scams!?
---
Exactly, it has nothing to do with hot scams, which is why it is published in this section. She has a good track records of self-made events that help in her publicity, but we don't think this is inside one of her plans.

Who knows, this is could be exactly what she wanted - to be in the front page of Yahoo news! - for whatever the reason she probably didn't care.

If someone can get the video clips of the 45-days prison stay, that is going to make really good money.




<Photo of Paris during happier times>

Read Yahoo News