How to spot an internet scam
The two most common scams are the Nigerian and Russian ones. The great point to note with the oem
software scam, is that not only will you not get the software you have ordered, your credit card will
be charged for the purchase... and a few more purchases you did not make.
Nigerian Purchases
These are very easy to detect that they are fake, and here is how.
The return address is using a free email provider. for example YAHOO.
Most, if not all, the text in the message will be in captials
They will order several hundred of a common item; and wish to pay by credit card
The company they are acting on behalf of does not exist - a quick search on GOOGLE will reveal little, if anything
Watch out: they may even mention a business that is supposedly operating in your country
For examples, check out the links on the left.
Russian OEM Software
Don't click on any link in the email. The links often contain a "random" sequence
of numbers and/or letters. This sequence is used to confirm that your email address is valid.
Anti-Spyware distributed by Adware
This is a very lucrative source of income for vendors who push adware onto computers.
Relying on client ignorance, and an unpatched operating system, they will get their popup ads onto your computer.
One of these ads will be for [a free trial of] an anti-spyware product. It will find excessive amounts of spyware on
your computer, then require payment to remove the spyware.
What they won't tell you is that you will keep getting spyware installed on your computer because you
still haven't installed the security update that will fix the DCOM exploit for your operating system.
Such examples of this type of marketing are: www.spywarenuker.com and
www.nuker.com.
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