See: Phishing Scam.
Remember all those letters/emails you used to get from the Prince of Nigeria and his loving Royal Family? They begged you for $5k to unlock a few mil, of which you'd get half. A few old people fell for this ruse, but most laughed and then felt sorry that people would be so desperate and have such low self-esteem that they would try to do this for a living. Then they thought about how corrupt Nigeria must be for so much of its population to engage in this stuff. Then they went and had dinner.
Yeah, we Americans are short-term, annoyance-based thinkers.
Anyway, marketing fraud runs when you are lied to about what a product can or would or should do to you. Lots of companies exaggerate how great their products are (and no, Shmoop does not cure cancer). But outright fraud? Yeah. If you find it, call the FBI, or at least the Consumer Protection Agency, and put their butts in jail.
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Finance: What are Phishing Scams?8 Views
Finance a la shmoop what are phishing scams? all right you know when you're out [Woman on fishing boat with Dad]
on the lake with dad just the two of you trying to haul in some trout when one of
the fish pulls a fast one on you and hangs one of these things on your line [Fishing line with boot attached]
yeah total scam we're telling you you cannot trust anything that breathes
through the side of its face anymore these days really okay so that's a not
quite a phishing scam although the general idea is similar it's someone
trying to make you believe something that isn't exactly true with a phishing
scam the venue switches from the great outdoors to cyberspace never gotten an [A wooden hut appears]
email from a Nigerian prince who's temporarily down on his luck and if
you'll just wire him three hundred bucks in cash immediately well immeasurable
riches await you it sounds like a little good to be true there right yeah and it [Man gives thumbs up in room]
is well usually that Nigerian prince is an overweight balding guy named Jerry
living in his mom's basement in a suburb just outside of Cleveland he'd love
nothing more than to hook a sucker you and take that 300 bucks [Jerry on his computer]
off your hands but many times the scam is much more intricate than that often
its identity thieves who are trying to con you into releasing private
information such as your social security number or credit card information mm-hmm
that's out there well they might try to convince you that
their Amazon support or your bank or your long-lost uncle Yusuf who just [Person flicking through e-mails]
needs a few personal details before he can FedEx you your large inheritance
don't fall for any of it anytime you're randomly asked to divulge any sensitive
information or pop a wad of cash in an envelope stop for a second and ask
yourself whatever you might be well a fish and then ask yourself whether you'd [Cash burning]
like all your hard-earned money to be sauteed or flame-broiled good stuff...
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