If you have an email address you probably have seen them. E-mail address that look like fgbrehre@msn.com or another strange address, a normal human would never use. Most of the time they have subjects like; 'make money from your home', 'how to become a millionaire', 'Free sex' etc.
I'm probably not the only one that is really annoyed by these messages, and now the FBI has charged 88 people for this.
The FBI--as part of a nationwide investigation code named, Operation Cyber Loss--has charged 88 people of Internet fraud. The bureau says the accused con artists defrauded more than 56,000 people who suffered cumulative losses in excess of $117 million. This works out to just more than $2,000 per person. |
In unrelated news, Steve Madden, 44, former chief executive of Steve Madden Ltd. , has agreed to plead guilty to securities and fraud charges arising out of his role in helping to manipulate 20 initial public offerings, including his own firm's 1993 IPO. The company is in the business of designing and selling trendy platform shoes that are both fat and phat. It was taken public by Stratton Oakmont, the notorious Lake Success, N.Y.-based brokerage with its famous motto: "Never hang up the phone until the customer buys or dies."
Madden's crimes were relatively old-fashioned. The perpetrators nabbed by the FBI in the last ten days were cutting edge--or at least brought new wrinkles to old cons. Among the fraud schemes targeted, the FBI said, are those involving online auction fraud, systemic nondelivery of merchandise purchased over the Internet, credit/debit card fraud, bank fraud, investment fraud, multilevel marketing and Ponzi or pyramid schemes.
"Unfortunately, many criminals have sought to exploit the popularity of the World Wide Web and to turn it into a hotbed for fraud," Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson said yesterday. As with everything Internet, the bureau hyped "Internet fraud" as "one of fastest-growing, most pervasive forms of white-collar crime."
It's a good thing they use their time to find these people instead of software pirates. And I really can't believe there are people who even reply to these messages !
Source: Yahoo.com
