Austrailian Investment Online Hoax Fools 233 30
John Larson wrote
in to tell us about This ZD Story
about the Australian SEC setting up a Y2k scam web site
(selling insurance I guess) that apparently fooled over
200 people, and would have netted $4M had it been real.
There are a lot of gullible people out there. Kinda
scary. But definitely an interesting form of entertainment.
Re:P.T. Barnum would be proud... (Score:1)
DaveT
That's Broken Too (Score:1)
hmmm (Score:5)
Re:P.T. Barnum would be proud... (Score:1)
You'd think that older people would be wise enough to check something out pretty well before investing their money in it. If you don't know what you're doing with your money, then you're likely to lose it. I agree that the criminals who set up online scams should be prosecuted for it. I also think that it is quite preventable if people would just look before they leap.
Bad URL. (Score:1)
The URL is... (Score:1)
SlashDUMP (Score:1)
Is it really that bad without Hemos? ;-)
big dumb stupid heads... (Score:1)
If they're just going to give money away, my address is _________________.
Re:Bad URL. (Score:1)
I hope they keep it up! (Score:1)
Somehow, people seem to implicitly trust anything they see on a computer. You have to smack them a couple of times before they seem to get the point - Think before you hit that [Send] button!!!
Hacker 101 (Score:1)
Chuck
Anyone ever see "The Music Man" (Score:1)
talking con artist dupe a town full of people?
(Such as a traveling medicine show?)
The ability of people to be fooled is legendary,
not just the young or the old -- almost everybody
can be targeted by a good scam. Some of the more
skeptical by nature may be immune...
The classic form of con is to discover what the
people of the area want or fear, and pitch a
solution to that. Modern scams go a step further,
attempting to create a want or fear that, lo and
behold, they alone have the answer to.
Some people will fall for it. Many won't. Want
proof? Look at the number of people that forward
the net legends and hoaxes to you all of the time
-- hoaxes that can be disproven with just one or
two mouse clicks.
Is there a solution? I don't know. Nowadays,
the psychology of selling is well known to the
marketers -- it tips the balance heavily in favor
of those selling to the unprepared. And there
will always be people who are unprepared.
When I get forwarded a hoax or scam, not only do
I reply back to the sender (and often, the entire
distribution list) the proofs that it is a scam,
but I also try to give a link or two to sites that
teach them how to spot scams for themselves.
Educating the net, one gullible person at a time.
P.T. Barnum would be proud... (Score:1)
Re:Australian (Score:1)
Ammerika is land of the free, freedom of speech, freedom of spelling, and et.all..
It's not like Oz is backwards, But I remember in the 80's when all out computers where just light bulbs, a switch and a battery.. those were the days...
P.S. This is sarcasm. You do know that, right?
Re:Australian Spelling!!! (Score:1)
Corrected URL (Score:1)
It was in all the papers here (Score:1)
Re:That's Broken Too (Score:1)
They weren't all dumb (Score:1)
The 233 who instantly said they would send money ofcourse were complete morons but the article makes it out as if everybody was going to pay.
Re:Australian Spelling!!! (Score:1)
Re:They weren't all dumb (Score:2)
On the other hand, a person pointed me to http://www.realhamster.com I was just flabbergasted. I thought, this can't be real! And of course it isn't (it's still worth a look tho!!)
Australian (Score:2)