experts predictions on credit cards for year 2011
- Posted January 21, 2011 by Monty Loree

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Experts’ Predictions on Credit Cards for Year 2011

In 2008, the lending market had gone down and the recession came about. In 2009, credit card issuers significantly increased the interest rates and fees, lowered credit limits and closed accounts. This year, most of the Card Act regulations became effective. 2011 seems to be to be a year of smaller, more restrained changes as credit card issuers look for ways to control risks, add new accounts, and boost their revenue. With the cardholders, they continue to pay off their balance and probably utilize other forms of payment. Here are several predictions for the credit card industry for year 2011:

1. There would be an annual percentage rate increases.

There have been a considerable number of limitations given to the card issuers for the past two years and this has had a notable effect on the revenues earned by the issuers. Because of the Card Act, card issuers cannot raise the annual percentage rate on an account during its first year except if there are several distinctive circumstances. With that, issuers have basically increased the APR on new accounts prior to customers’ application of the card.

2. Delinquencies will continue to drop

A lot of delinquent accounts have been canceled as it has reached its peak during the first quarter of 2009. Base from TransUnion, 1.21% of all credit cards have 90 days or more past dues during that time. TransUnion anticipate that card delinquencies will drop to 0.75% as 2010 will end and eventually will decrease to 0.67% in the end of 2011.

3. A lot credit card offers will be send through mail

You will be expecting for a lot of credit card information in your mailbox, particularly if you are having good or excellent credit. Those are the kinds of customers that are very attractive to card issuers given that they will have lower risk of getting defaults with their loan.

4. The lending standards will gradually loosen

As the financial system is getting better, card issuers will look for ways to change what customers are branded as higher risk. Card issuers can probably broaden the lending circle including the individuals that had a problem which has affected their credit score. However, they still have the ability to pay for their bills.

Even if lending has trim down their losses from bad loans, it is also off-putting revenue. Regulations have cut the profits of credit card companies and banks. They will find ways to make up for this. As the economy start to get better, issuers will have to search for ways to practically boost lending.

5. Credit card debt will be expected to start increasing

Issuers had an important role in lowering credit card debt. They have reduced credit limits for the reason that customers will not charge much. They get rid of high risk accounts and maintained firm approval rates for new applicants. As credit card issuers begin to loosen lending standards, a lot of high risk consumers will be getting credit cards, and consumers with good credit scores may notice that their credit limits are increased. This might all direct to the first increase in the nation’s overall credit card debt in 2011.

6. Great rewards for spending and new reward credit cards having annual fees

Credit card issuers once more are increasing the rewards to draw new credit card applicants. They are currently utilizing bonuses to push cardholders to use their credits when they spend. Nearly all cards will keep on offering these rewards not requiring the client to pay any annual fees. Yet, several issuers are offering new cards with outstanding rewards to catch those individuals who spend a lot using their cards that have annual fees.

Issuers will persist in testing and tweaking the rewards and bonuses to get the perfect formula that will successfully make use of rewards as a perk for consumers to frequently use their card. Rewards are one of the marketing strategies for card issuers. It is not simply a gift for the cardholders.

7. Card Issuers are offering new prepaid cards

Due to the recession, credit card regulations, and strict lending requirements, it has produced an attraction to prepaid cards. Credit card issuers, banks, and private companies are focusing on prepaid cards for the reason that they can incriminate higher fees. The policies that limit the fees for credit as well as debit cards are not applicable to prepaid reloadable cards.

In the past, banks disregarded prepaid cards since they get much revenue coming from debit and credit cards. Set of laws have cut much of that revenue. With that, banks now are searching for other alternatives that include prepaid cards.

8. Long-term introductory periods for balance transfer transactions

As the economy was not in good shape, card issuers slashed the striking balance transfer offers, dropping several of it to as little as three months. However, a big change has transpired in 2010 as a lot of issuers have lengthened the grace period of these 0% offers. There are various offer of 0% interest on balance transfers for 12, 21 or 24 months. These longer introductory periods for balance transfers will go on for the first half of 2011.

9. Does the Federal Reserve have plans in raising interest rates?

Rates cannot remain to be lows forever. They will sooner or later go back to a certain rate. When an increase takes place, it will have an equivalent effect to each credit card’s APR. In the current economic decline, nearly all credit card issuers changed their fixed rate cards to variable rates together with an index such as the prime rate. Thus, when the prime rate increases, those variable rate cards will present a consequent APR increase. This will then lead to an increase in the payments for the cardholders that holds a balance in their cards. Credit card APRs are already high and it will be difficult on the cardholders when rates begin to increase again.

10. Smart Phones are utilized for doing any payment

2011 can be a year where consumers will tap their smart phones at cashier to make a payment. Smartphone manufacturers, credit card companies, and Google are put a test on mobile payment systems. However, there is presently nothing offered to the consumers. We may notice a development in 2011 with this kind of payment.

A lot of individuals and small businesses will also utilize these programs to allow credit card payments using their mobile phones. As banks are trying to make advancement further than the magnetic strip, other companies are willing to compete with Visa and MasterCard. These two companies hold 82%, or $2.45 trillion, of the consumer spending on credit cards.

External Links

Paymentspulse.com

Credit.com

Today.newsvine.com

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Advance Fee Loan Scams in Canada - Don't get scammed

I did a search on facebook for advance fee loan scam and came up with this page. It's full of good information about scams on the internet.

The page was put together by: Ramona Heiner (Vancouver, BC)

The Facebook page is entitle: TRUST

Internet & Technology - General
Description:
Are you really safe in the internet at all nowadays?

We all got to be so careful....alot of crime has reached the new technology era "internet"...cyber crime can be done in loads of ways...I particulary want to talk about online scam and fraud done via emails, chatrooms, dating websites etc...the internet has become a massive medium, on which criminals found interest to play with.
Becoming a victim of a so called "sweetheart - scam" makes me now realizing how carefully we got to be.
With making up this group i want to warn others and give support to victims of internet crime....as it happens everywhere!
Read the news and inform yourself, help yourself, help others and be safe!
Ramona

DON'T TRUST ANYONE, especially if we have not met someone in real life before...

A) Common elements of Fraud:

1. FAKE CHEQUES
Fraudulent cheques and money orders are key elements in many advance fee scams, such as auction/classified listing overpayment, lottery scams, inheritance scams, etc, and can be used in almost any scam when a "payment" to the victim is required to gain, regain or further solidify the victims' trust and confidence in the validity of the scheme.

The use of cheques in a scam hinges on a U.S. law (and common practice in other countries) concerning cheques: when an account holder presents a cheque for deposit or to cash, the bank must (or in other countries, usually) make the funds available to the account holder within 1-5 business days, regardless of how long it actually takes for the cheque to clear and funds to be transferred from the issuing bank.The cheque clearing process normally takes 7-10 days and can in fact take up to a month when dealing with foreign banks. The time between the funds appearing as available to the account holder and the cheque clearing is known as the "float", during which time the bank could technically be said to have floated a loan to the account holder to be covered with the funds from the bank clearing the cheque.

The cheque given to the victim is typically counterfeit but drawn on a real account with real funds in it. With a piece of software like QuickBooks and/or pre-printed blank cheque stock, using the correct banking information, the scammer can easily print a cheque that is absolutely genuine-looking, passes all counterfeit tests, and may even clear the paying account if the account information is accurate and the funds are available. However, whether it clears or not, it will eventually become apparent either to the bank or the account holder that the cheque is a forgery. This can be as little as three days after the funds are available if the bank supposedly covering the cheque discovers the cheque information is invalid, or it could take months for a business or individual to notice the fraudulent draft on their account. It has been suggested that in some cases the cheque IS genuine - however the fraudster has a friend (or bribes an official) at the paying bank to CLAIM it is a fake weeks or even months later when the physical cheque arrives back at the paying bank.

Regardless of the amount of time involved, once the cashing bank is alerted that the cheque is fraudulent, the transaction is reversed and the money removed from the victim's account. In many cases, this puts victims in debt to their banks as the victim has usually sent a large portion of the cheque by some non-reversible 'wire transfer' means (typically Western Union) to the scammer and, since more uncollected funds have been sent than funds otherwise present in the victim's account, an overdraft results.

2.WIRE TRANSFER
A central element of advance fee fraud is that the transaction from the victim to the scammer must be untraceable and irreversible. Otherwise, the victim, once they become aware of the scam, can successfully retrieve their money and/or alert officials who can track the accounts used by the scammer.

Wire transfers via Western Union are ideal for this purpose. The wire transfer, if sent internationally, cannot be cancelled or reversed, and the person receiving the money cannot be tracked. In fact, that person often does not have to provide identification; they only have to know the identifiers of the transaction such as the control number and secret question. Thus, the overwhelming majority of scams involve making payment via wire transfer. Other similar uncancellable forms of payment include postal money orders and cashier's cheques, but as wire transfer is the fastest method, it is the most common.

3.ANONYMUS COMMUNICATION
Since the scammer's operations must be untraceable to avoid identification, and because the scammer is often impersonating someone else, any communication between the scammer and his victim must be done though channels that hide the scammer's true identity. The following options in particular are widely used.

4.WEB-BASED E-MAIL
Because many free e-mail services do not require valid identifying information, and also allow communication with many victims in a short span of time, they are the preferred method of communication for scammers. Some services go so far as to mask the sender's source IP address, making the scammer completely untraceable even to country of origin.

These services, when notified of an address being used illegitimately, are generally quick to suspend the account. However because a scammer can create as many accounts as he or she wishes and often has several active at one time, finding and shutting down scammer accounts presents only a minor hindrance to scammer operations.

5. E-MAIL HIJACKING / FRIEND SCAMS
Some fraudsters hijack existing e-mail accounts and use them for advance fee fraud purposes. The fraudsters e-mail associates, friends, and/or family members of the legitimate account owner in an attempt to defraud them.This ruse generally requires the use of phishing or keylogger computer viruses to gain login information for the e-mail address.

6. FAX TRANSMISSIONS
Facsimile machines are commonly used tools of business, whenever a client requires a hard copy of a document. They can also be simulated using web services, and made untraceable by the use of prepaid phones connected to mobile fax machines or by use of a public fax machine such as one owned by a document processing business like Kinko's. Thus, scammers posing as business entities often use fax transmissions as an anonymous form of communication. This is more expensive, as the prepaid phone and fax equipment will cost more than a free e-mail service, but the end result to a skeptical victim can be more believable and thus make faxes worth the added cost.

7.TELECOMMUNICATIONS RELAY SERVICES
Many scams use telephone calls to convince the victim that the person on the other end of the deal is a real person and telling the truth. The scammer, possibly impersonating a U.S. citizen or other person of a nationality - or even gender - other than his or her own, would arouse suspicion by placing an ordinary voice call to the victim. In these cases, scammers use TRS, a US federally-funded relay service where an operator or a text/speech translation program acts as an intermediary between someone using an ordinary telephone and a deaf caller using TDD or other TeleType device. The scammer might specify they are deaf or not, and that their use of a phone requires the use of a relay service. The victim, possibly drawn in by a sense of sympathy for the caller in light of a stated disability, might be more inclined to agree to the fraudulent arrangement.

Because of current FCC regulations and confidentiality laws, operators are required to relay every call verbatim and must adhere to a strict code of confidentiality and ethics. Thus no relay operator is permitted to make judgements about the legality and/or legitimacy of any relay call and must relay the call without interference. As such, the relay operator cannot warn victims even when they suspect that the call is a scam; some sources claim that up to half of all IP Relay calls are scams.

Due to the relative ease at tracking phone-based relay services, scammers have a tendency to use Internet Protocol-based relay services such as IP Relay to place these calls. A common strategy consists of binding their overseas IP address to a router or server located on US soil, thus allowing them to use US-based relay service providers without interference.

TRS is sometimes used to relay credit card information for the purposes of making a fraudulent purchase with a stolen credit card. In many cases however, it is simply a means for the scammer to further lure the victim into the scam.

8. FAKE WEBSITES
Though 419 scams are often perpetrated by e-mail alone, some scammers enhance the believability of their offer through the use of a sham website. Such websites can imitate real sites such as eBay, PayPal, or a banking site like Bank of America for the purposes of phishing, while others are totally fictional and used to lend credibility to a scammer's story. Though phishing is only a secondary interest of most scam operations, as the object of the scammer is to deceive the victim into sending the money through legitimate means, the use of websites for advance fee fraud is common. For instance, a scammer may create a website for a fictional bank, then give the victim details to login to the site, where the victim then sees the money that the scammer has promised sitting in the account. The victim is then more likely to believe the scammer and send the requested advance payments. Fake (or hijacked) websites are the centerpiece of false online storefront scams.

Another twist on scamming is where links are provided to real news sites covering events the scammer says are relevant to the transaction they propose. For instance, a scammer may use news of the death of a prominent government official as a backstory for a scam involving getting millions of dollars of the slain official's money out of the country. These are real websites covering legitimate news, but the scammer is usually not connected in any way with the events reported, and is simply using the story to gain the victim's sympathy.

9.INVITATION TO VISIT THE COUNTRY
Sometimes, victims are invited to a country to meet real or fake government officials. Some victims who do travel are instead held for ransom. In some rumored cases, they are smuggled into the country without a visa and then threatened into giving up more money as the penalties for being in a foreign country without a visa may be severe.Sometimes victims are ransomed or killed.

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B) Variants:

1. CHEQUE CASHING
Some schemes are based solely on conning the victim into cashing fake cheques. The scammer will contact the victim to interest them in a "work-at-home" opportunity, or asking them to cash a cheque or money order that for some reason cannot be redeemed locally. A recently-used cover story is that the scammer wishes the victim to work as a "mystery shopper", evaluating the service provided by MoneyGram or Western Union locations within major retailers such as Wal-Mart.The scammer sends the victim a cheque or money order, the victim cashes it, sends the cash to the scammer via wire transfer, and the scammer disappears. Later the forgery is discovered and the bank transaction is reversed, leaving the victim liable for the balance. Schemes based solely on cheque cashing will usually offer only a small part of the cheque's total amount, with the assurance that many more cheques will follow; if the victim buys in to the scam and cashes all the cheques, the scammer can win big in a very short period of time. Other scams such as overpayment usually result in smaller payoffs for the scammer, but have a higher success rate as the scammer's request seems more believable.

Some cheque-cashing scammers use multiple victims at multiple stages of the scam. A victim in the U.S. or other "safe" country such as the U.K. or Canada (often the country in which the cashing victim resides) is sometimes approached with an offer to fill out cheques sent to them by the scammer and mail them to other victims who will cash the cheque and wire the money to the scammer. The cheque mailer is usually promised a cut of the money from the scammer; this usually never occurs, and in fact the cheque mailer is often conned into paying for the production and shipping costs of the cheques. The cheque information has either been stolen or fictionalized and the cheques forged. The victim mailing the cheque is usually far easier to track (and prosecute) than the scammer, so when the cheques turn up as fraudulent, the one mailing them usually ends up not only facing federal bank fraud and conspiracy charges, but liability for the full amount of the fraudulent cheques. Because the cheque mailer is taking the fall, the scammer is even less likely to be caught, which makes it a popular variation of the scam for scammers in nations with tougher anti-fraud laws.

2. ROMANCE SCAM
A recent variant is the "Romance Scam" which is a money-for-romance angle. The victim is usually approached by the scammer on an online dating service, on an Instant messenger (like Yahoo IM) or even social networking sites. The scammer claims to have become interested in the victim, and have pictures posted of an attractive person who is not actually the poster. The scammer uses this communication to gain the victim's confidence, and then ask for money. The offending party may claim to be interested in meeting the victim, but needs some cash up front in order to book the plane, hotel room, and other expenses. In other cases, they may claim they're trapped in a foreign country and need assistance to return, to escape imprisonment by corrupt local officials, to pay for medical expenses due to an illness contracted abroad, and so on. The scammer may also use the confidence gained by the romance angle to introduce some variant of the original Nigerian Letter scheme, such as saying they need to get money or valuables out of the country and offer to share the wealth, making the request for help in leaving the country even more attractive to the victim. A newer version of the scam is to claim to have 'information' about the fidelity of a person's significant other which they will share for a fee. This information is garnered through social networking sites by using search parameters such as 'In a relationship' or 'Married'. Anonymous emails are first sent to attempt to verify receipt, then a new web based email account is sent along with directions on how to retrieve the information.

3. LOTTERY SCAM
The lottery scam involves fake notices of lottery wins. The winner will usually be asked to send sensitive information to a free email account. The scammer will then notify the victim that in order to release the funds, some small fee (insurance, registration, or shipping) is required. Once the fee has been sent, the scammer will invent another fee and attempt to collect it.

Much like the various forms of overpayment fraud detailed above, a new variant of the lottery scam involves fake or stolen cheques being sent to the 'winner' of the lottery (these cheques representing a part payment of the winnings). The winner will then be more likely to assume that the win is legitimate and subsequently more likely to send the fee (which he does not realize is an advance fee). The cheque, and associated funds, will then be flagged by the bank when the fraud is discovered and debited from the victim's account.

In 2004 a variant of the lottery scam appeared in the United States. Fraud artists using the scheme call victims on telephones; a scammer tells a victim that a government has given him or her a grant and that he or she needs to pay an advance fee, usually around 250 United States dollars, in order to receive the grant.

4. HITMAN
An e-mail is sent to the victim's inbox, supposedly from a hitman who has been hired by a "close friend" of the recipient to kill him or her but will call off the hit in exchange for a large sum of money. This is usually backed up with a warning not to contact the local police or FBI, or the "hitman" will be forced to go through with the plan.This is less an advance fee fraud and more outright extortion, but a reward can sometimes be offered in the form of the "hitman" offering to kill the man who ordered the original hit on the victim.

5. BOMB SCAMS
Related to the hitman scam, the scammer will contact a business, mall, office building or other commercial location with a bomb threat. The scammer says they will detonate the bomb unless the management of the business does as the scammer tells them. Often, the scammer says that they have the store under surveillance; however, analysis of the calls by police have established that the vast majority of threat calls are made from other states or even from outside the country. Some evidence exists that points to the scammers hacking into the store's surveillance network, but this has not been confirmed in any case and has been refuted in others.The scammer usually demands that the store management or people in the headquarters office of the store (if the store is a chain) send money via wire transfer to the scammer to spare the store and the people in it. Other demands of these scammers have been more personal and humiliating, such as demanding that everyone in the store disrobe.

Because the underlying threat in the scam is a bomb threat, local law enforcement very quickly responds to the site under threat; however, because the scammer is usually nowhere near this location, the scammer is in little if any danger of being apprehended while the scam is playing out. Law enforcement, in the meantime, cannot assume the threat is anything but genuine, and therefore can do little to intervene without risking the detonation of the bomb. The fact that the threat was in reality a scam has usually not been discovered until long after the situation is over—and the extortionist has collected the money demanded.

6. CHARITY SCAMS
The scammer poses as a charitable organization soliciting donations to help the victims of a natural disaster, terrorist attack (such as the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack), regional conflict, or epidemic. Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami were popular targets of scammers perpetrating charity scams; other more timeless scam charities purport to be raising money for cancer, AIDS or Ebola virus research, or impersonate charities such as the Red Cross or United Way. The scammer asks for donations, often linking to online news articles to strengthen their story of a funds drive. The scammer's victims are charitable people who believe they are helping a worthy cause and expect nothing in return. Once sent, the money is gone and the scammer often disappears, though many will attempt to keep the scam going by asking for a series of payments. The victim may sometimes find themselves in legal trouble after deducting their supposed donations from their income taxes

7. FRAUD RECOVERY SCAMS
This variant targets former victims of scams. The scammer contacts the victim saying that their organization can track and apprehend the scammer and recover the money lost by the victim, for a price. Alternatively, the scammer may say that a fund has been set up by the Nigerian government to compensate victims of 419 fraud, and all that is required is proof of loss (which usually includes personal information) and a processing and handling fee to release the amount of the claim. The scammer is counting on the victim's dire need to recover their lost money, as well as the fact that they have fallen victim before and are therefore susceptible to such scams. Often, these scams are perpetrated by the same scammer who conned the victim in the first place, as an attempt to ensure the scammer gets every penny possible from the victim. Alternately, the original scammer will "sell" a list of the people he has scammed but who have ceased contact to another scammer who runs the recovery scam. Sometimes the scammer impersonates the foremost "fraud related crime-fighters" in Nigeria, the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), which not only adds credibility to the scam, but tarnishes the reputation of the EFCC once this second scam is discovered

8. PUPPY SCAMS
Lately scammers have been finding new victims using puppies (usually English Bulldogs or Yorkies; a cute, expensive breed coveted by families who cannot afford them) or exotic pets. A scammer first posts an advertisement or sets up a web page offering these sweet little puppies for adoption or for sale at a ridiculously low price, most often using stolen pictures from other websites and respectable breeders. When a victim responds to the aid and questions the lowered price or reason for giving up such an adorable and expensive pet, the scammer first explains that they have recently moved to Nigeria or Cameroon from the US for work (usually volunteer work as missionaries) or for studies, and claims either to have no time to properly care for the pet, that the weather has had such a terrible toll on the pet or that they have too many pets to care for. Keep in mind that in order to fool the victim into believing that they truly care for these pets and that they are not interested in money, the scammer will probably continually remind the victim that they only want the best for their "babies" (and they will, at least once, call the animal a baby, not only to fool the victim, but to also avoid fouling his own scam by referring to the pet with the wrong name, breed or sex). The scammer and victim will exchange a few emails to build trust. Once it is established that the victim offers the right home for the pet, the scammer will then offer to ship the pet and requests that the victim only pay for shipping. The victim, who now has an emotional attachment to the pet, feels obligated and even happy to do so, as shipping would be such a small price to pay compared to actually buying the pet from a breeder or pet shop at full price. The scammer requests Western Union to keep the deal going in a timely fashion as the pet is ready to go to a new home and the victim is now excited. However, after wiring money, the victim will not receive the pet (as the pets don't exist), and if the victim does hear from the scammer again it is only for more money (to get puppy out of airport holding, or to pay unexpected vet bills that have come up) until the victim stops responding.

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C) Consequences:

1.MONETARY LOSS ESTIMATES
Estimates of the total losses due to the scam vary widely.
Although the "success rate" of the scam is hard to gauge, some experienced 419 scammers get one or two interested replies for every thousand messages. Stephanie Nolen of The Globe and Mail said that an experienced scammer can expect to make at least several thousand dollars per successful scam letter.

Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations, a Netherlands-based firm which has been studying 419 matters since the mid-1990s, has prepared a table quantifying 419 operations by country for 2005 and 2006. These stats are based on Ultrascan's in-house investigations and include, by nation: number of 419 rings; number of 419ers; income of the 419ers (the amount of losses by victims to the 419ers); and additional data. 419 Coalition view is that these stats present a reasonably conservative and realistic look at the extent and magnitude of 419 criminal operations worldwide.

Since 1995, the United States Secret Service has been involved in combating these schemes. The organization will not investigate unless the monetary loss is in excess of fifty thousand US Dollars. However, very few arrests and prosecutions have been made due to the international aspect of this crime.

In 2006, a report by a research group concluded that Internet scams in which criminals use information they trick from gullible victims and commonly strip their bank accounts cost the United Kingdom economy £150 million per year, with the average victim losing £31,000
The Nigerian scam is hugely successful. According to a 1997 newspaper article:

"We have confirmed losses just in the United States of over $100 million in the last 15 months," said Special Agent James Caldwell, of the Secret Service financial crimes division. "And that's just the ones we know of. We figure a lot of people don't report them."

2. PHYSICAL HARM OR DEATH
Some victims have hired private investigators in Nigeria or have personally travelled to Nigeria, without ever retrieving their money. There are undocumented cases of victims being unable to cope with the losses and committing suicide. In November 2003, Leslie Fountain, a senior technician at Anglia Polytechnic University in England, set himself on fire after falling victim to a scam; Mr. Fountain died of his injuries. In 2006 an American living in South Africa hanged himself in Togo after being defrauded by a Ghanaian 419 con man.
In February 2003, a 72 year-old scam victim from the Czech Republic shot and killed 50-year old Michael Lekara Wayid, an official at the Nigerian embassy in Prague, and injured another person.

3. KIDNAPPING
On June 2, 1996 in Lomé, Togo, 419ing kidnappers held a Swedish businessman for $500,000. Swedish police and the kidnappers negotiated before the kidnappers released the man on June 12, 1996.
From September 1995 to April 1997, conmen held at least eight Americans against their will. In 1996 the embassy repatriated ten Americans who fell victim to 419 schemes.
Joseph Raca, a former mayor of Northampton, England, was kidnapped by scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa in July 2001. The captors released Raca after they became nervous.
Dănuţ Tetrescu, a Romanian who flew from Bucharest to Johannesburg to meet with con men in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, was kidnapped in 1999 and held for $500,000.

4.MURDER
29-year old George Makronalli, a Greek man, was murdered in South Africa in December 2004 after responding to a 419 scam.
Kjetil Moe, a Norwegian businessman, was reported missing and ultimately killed after a trade with Nigerian scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa (September 1999).
One American was murdered in Nigeria in June 1995 after being lured by a 419 scam.From 1994 to April 1997 419 scammers murdered 15 people in total.

5. EMOTIONAL HARM
Victims, in addition to having lost tens of thousands of dollars, often also lose their ability to trust. The 419 Eater website says, "Although there is no serious physical injury, many victims of con-men speak of the betrayal as the psychological equivalent of rape". Victims may blame themselves for what has happened, resulting in overwhelming guilt and shame. If the victim has borrowed money from others to pay the scammer, these feelings are magnified. Further compounding the problem is the public opinion of scam letters and scam victims. Scam letters are often viewed as humorously moronic, and the people who fall for them equally so, in complete disregard to the fact that people from all walks of life at every level of education fall for these scams. The victim, having lost money through the scammer's manipulation of payment methods such as money orders or cheques, may become distrustful of the financial system. Scam victims may stop trusting and giving money to churches, legitimate charities and, in the extreme, even service providers such as their electric company because of their requests for money. Some victims commit suicide.In other cases, the victim will continue to contact the scammer after being shown proof that they are being scammed or even being convicted of crimes relating to the scam, having been drawn so deeply into the web of deception that their trust in what the scammer tells them overrides everything else in their life.

6. ARRESTS
In 2004, fifty-two suspects were arrested in Amsterdam after an extensive raid. An Internet service provider had noticed the increased email traffic. None were jailed or fined, due to lack of evidence. They were released in the week of July 12, 2004.

On November 8, 2004, Nick Marinellis of Sydney, Australia, was sentenced to 4 1/3 to 5 1/4 years for sending Nigerian 419 e-mails.

In October 2006 the Amsterdam police launched Operation Apollo to fight internet fraud scams operated by West Africans and notably Nigerians. Following this investigation police have arrested 80 suspects, most of them from Nigeria, and seized from their homes lists of email addresses, as well as fake documents. On June 16, 2007 111 people were arrested for being in The Netherlands illegally and suspicion of fraud, although their implication with the email scams is yet unknown.

Authorities in Nigeria have been slow to take action and for many years nothing was done. Nigeria has a reputation for criminals being able to avoid convictions through bribery and rumours abounded of official connivance in the scams. In 2003 however the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was charged with tackling the problem. A couple of success stories including convictions in a large 419 case were reported in 2005.

Edna Fiedler, 44, of Olympia, Washington, on June 25, 2008, pleaded guilty in a Tacoma court and was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment and 5 years of supervised release or probation in an Internet $1 million "Nigerian check scam." She conspired to commit bank, wire and mail fraud, against US citizens, specifically using Internet by having had an accomplice who shipped counterfeit checks and money orders to her from Lagos, Nigeria, last November. Fiedler shipped out $ 609,000 fake check and money orders when arrested and prepared to send additional $ 1.1 million counterfeit materials. Also, the U.S. Postal Service recently intercepted counterfeit checks, lottery tickets and eBay overpayment schemes with a face value of $2.1 billion.

7. THE VICTIM BECOMES A CRIMINAL
Victims of the fraud sometimes fall directly into crime by "borrowing" or stealing money to pay the advanced fees, thinking an early payday is imminent. Credit-card fraud, check kiting, and embezzlement are among the crimes committed to pay the advances, with an expectation of having the money to repay the unauthorized loans.

Former Alcona County (Michigan) Treasurer Thomas A. Katona was sentenced to 9-14 years for his embezzlement of more than US$1.2 million in county funds in a Nigerian fraud scheme, which represented 25% of the county's budget for that year.
Another example of this was Robert Andrew Street, a Melbourne-based financial adviser, who fleeced his clients for over AU$1 million which he sent to the scammers in the hope of receiving US$65 million in return. Eventually the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigated the victim, who had now become a conman himself.

*********************************************

D) TERMES USED BY 419-SCAMMERS:

1) Fall mugu = (to)
To be fooled, to become victim of advance fee fraud.
Flash of account

Cause the victim's bank account to temporarily show a large credit. This is intended to induce the victim to believe in the deal and send money. The credit gets reversed by the bank when it is discovered that the original cheque or electronic transfer was fraudulent.
Format
The scheme or script of an advance fee fraud, e.g., the late dictator format (the scammer pretends to be a relative of a dictator, e.g. Maryam Abacha, "Wife" of Sani Abacha), the next of kin format, the lottery format.

2) Guyman, guy =
Scammer engaged in advance fee fraud.
3) Jokeman = A scambaiter.
4) Luxcini =An investment scam involving a line of men's luxury clothing based in Beverly Hills, California
5) Maga, mugu, mugun, mahi, magha,[23] mahee, mayi, mayee, mgbada(antelope) = Victim of advance fee fraud. "Mugu" is Igbo for "fool" and is often used as an insult by scam-baiters referring back to the scammer.
6) Modalities =commonly used term for methods of funds transfer.
7) Nwachukwu = An advanced fee fraud posing as a Stock Options trading corporation.
8) Oga or Chairman = Boss or Owner of the job, Catcher
Scammer who makes the first contact with a victim and then passes him on to another scammer who finishes the job. The latter shares the spoil with the former.
9) Runs = An (illegal) activity.
10) Yahoo millionaires,yahoo boys = Scammers
The act of scamming, especially through the use of a Yahoo! mail address.

******************************************

C) Some Pidgin English Words and Phrases can be found on here (used in Nigeria):

http://www.ngex.com/personalities/babawilly/dictionary/pidgina.htm

Recent News
One of my recent experiences with a criminal you can read on my myspace blog listed below under files posted or click on this link and go to my blogs.:
http://www.myspace.com/butterfly75rh

Check this out how easy people get access to your private informations and might be stealing your idendity.:

How I stole someone's Idendity:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=anatomy-of-a-social-hack&sc=WR_20080819
***************************************
Does somebody want to transfer millions of dollars into your account?
Does someone want you pay you to cash cheques and send them the money?
Met a new friend/penpal on a friendship/dating site who's asking you for money?
Has a dying person contacted you wanting your help to give his money to charity?
Have you sold an item and are asked to accept a payment larger than the item amount?
IT'S A SCAM!
Don't fall for common scams like this
fight them!
ALL SPAM EMAILS = SCAM!!!
***************************************

Avoid scams
All spam emails/unsolicited phone calls/letters and faxes are
scams.
As a general rule - ANYTHING involving Western Union/money
gram = Scam.
my Advice: Don't deal with anyone out of state or from a foreign country or Accept or cash checks from strangers and
never use wire/bank transfer services.. you risk losing your
$$ and your mind.
If you sell stuff online.. Accept Cash or paypal only.
If you buy stuff online.. Use Paypal only.
Remember, if it sounds too good
to be true, it probably is! NEVER(ever) give out your personal
information to strangers online or offline! Always be on
guard.

http://www.OnGuardOnline.gov

***********************************
5 RULES to apply....

NEVER pay anything up front for ANY reason.

NEVER extend credit for ANY reason.

NEVER do ANYTHING until their cheque clears.

NEVER expect ANY help from other countries Government.

NEVER rely on YOUR government to bail you out.
****************************************

this page "TRUST" is still under construction...be patient please ;-)

Comments (26)

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