One of most known types of Internet frauds in recent years are Advance Fee Frauds. This type of scams try to use good will of victims and persuade them to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain. Most common type of scam are the Nigerian Letter or 419 fraud.
The number “419″ refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with the fraud and The American Dialect Society has traced the term “419 fraud” way back to 1992. So, as you can see this problem is not new.
One of earliest types of this scams are called the Spanish Prisoner fraud, back in early 1900s, where the fictional prisoner promise to share non-existent treasure with the person who would send them money to bribe their guards.
In modern variant of this scam a self-proclaimed relative of a deposed African dictator offers to transfer millions of dollars into the bank account of the mark in return for small initial payments to cover bribes and other expenses.
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