If you receive an e-mail offer that sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Urban legends and hoaxes have been around for centuries, but their popularity is on the rise because the Internet makes it easy to spread fraud e-mail scams.
Many e-mail hoaxes will trick you into forwarding messages about fake viruses or other fabricated stories. These e-mails waste time, clog inboxes, and might cause embarrassment when they're proven untrue. But there are other, more insidious types of fraud that might end up costing you a lot of money.
About advance fee frauds
An advance fee fraud is a scam that hooks you with the false promise of large sums of money for little or no effort on your part. Once you're deeply involved in the scam, you're asked to pay certain amounts of money to expedite the process. You end up not making a dime.
Here are a few examples of the most popular advance fee frauds:
- A foreign government official would like your assistance in transferring funds and will pay you a hefty commission if you agree.
- You stand to inherit millions of dollars from a relative you don't remember.
- You've won a prize or a lottery (perhaps one from a foreign country) that you don't remember entering.
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