Damn those Scams

My sister is in Ghana for the summer educating the locals on the dangers of HIV/AIDS. She’s in a small village and recently just found a small local internet cafe shop in the village. Before, she had to trek 30 minutes by car into the city to have access but now its a small walk away. What’s surprising is what she told me while she was in the cafe:

all the locals here
are doing internet fraud
i see people here with notebooks of cc numbers buying crap online
it’s VERY SCARY
west africans since they have access to the internet
countries like uganda are too poor or war riddenn
here they are free and have time to do it they literally buy crap!

You’ve been warned.

There was a story this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America about scams. Here are the 5 but you’ll probably want to go and read the whole story to get an in depth view of what each entails.

5 Scams Consumers Need to Know About
No. 1: The Phony Job Scam.
No. 2: The Overpayment Scam.
No. 3: The Lottery Scam.
No. 4: Vishing.
No. 5: Called ID Spoofing.

They also have a “Savvy Consumer” site that has lots of information about not getting scammed. Probably a good idea to skim over the site.