[EAS] Tsunami Frauds

[pjk]

Subject:   Tsunami Frauds

(from NewsScan Daily, 6 January 2005)

BEWARE TSUNAMI INTERNET FRAUDS
     The FBI has issued a warning about online frauds that try to
capitalize on the recent tsunami disaster by offering to help
tsunami victims or relatives for a fee. Audri Lanford of
<http://ScamBusters.org/> comments: "Within hours of 9/11 we had the
9/11 scams. We've seen them for every major disaster."
(New York Times 6 Jan 2005)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/international/worldspecial4/06fbi.html?oref=login>

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As the NYT article points out (for access to which you may need to
do a free registration), there is even a variant of the Nigerian
email scam, though I would have thought that to be a very obvious
scam by now. The vultures never stop circling. Actually, that's a
metaphor rather unkind to the real avian species. --PJK

>  One Tsunami variation now in circulation comes from Miss Helen,
> princess of Somalia, whose "entire village" - and all of her
> relatives - were "wiped away by this terrible flood." Miss Helen
> claims to need help transferring her family's fortune - about $2.4
> million, the e-mail message says - which was sent to Spain just
> before the tsunami. A 40 percent commission is promised to people
> who help. The Internet Crime Complaint Center estimates that $125.6
> million was lost in 2004 to online swindles, with auction fraud
> accounting for about 61 percent of all complaints. The Nigerian
> e-mail scam ranked among the top 10 scams reported to the agency.