419 Scam – Video 3 – Most Popular Internet Scams

419 scam

Ok now that you picked your jaw up from the floor after watching the phishing scam demonstration, you can see how anyone, including me can fall for a scam or a hack like that. Going forward I’ll be teaching you how the scams work, and empower you to spot them and avoid them. So without further ado, let’s move on to the next scam which is the money laundering scam, or the 419 scam, it’s also known as an advance-fee scam. By the way, the name 419 refers to the area code for Nigeria, which is also known as the Nigerian scam.

This money laundering scam is actually one of the oldest and most popular scamming schemes. Most of us already encountered it in our own inboxs in one form or another and many have lost it all to this scam as well. Just google “Victims of Nigerian scams” to hear the heart breaking stories.

The typical scam starts with an emotional email message. It can be from an official government member, a businessman or a member of a very wealthy family member usually a woman or a prince who asks you to provide help in retrieving a large sum of money from a bank. They’ll initially ask you to pay small fees for papers and legal matters. In exchange for your help, they promise you a very large sum of money. Pretty straight forward.

13) Now what the scammers are doing is trying to trace your heritage using Ancestry.com to find long lost relatives that used to be a gold miner from the great Gold Rush of the 1890s. This way when they contact you, you may not believe them at first, but when you start researching, you’ll find out that you really did have a relative from that time.

14) Of course, this is just how it starts off. Afterwards, they ask you to pay more and more for additional services, such as transactions or transfer costs. You even receive papers that are supposed to make you believe that it’s all for real. In the end, you are left broke and without any of the promised money. This scam is a very expensive life lesson if you fall for this. The elderly are the biggest victims of this scam, especially if they have Alzheimer’s so please watch over them for me.

Terry Cutler

I’m Terry Cutler, the creator of Internet Safety University, an educational system helping to defend corporations and individuals against growing cyber threats. I’m a federal government-cleared cybersecurity expert (a Certified Ethical Hacker), and the founder of Cyology Labs, a first-line security defence firm headquartered in Montréal, Canada. In 2020, I wrote a bestselling book about the secrets of internet safety from the viewpoint of an ethical hacker. I’m a frequent contributor to National & Global media coverage about cyber-crime, spying, security failures, internet scams, and social network dangers families and individuals face daily.