Scammers Flourish in Time of Crisis

The National Consumers League (NCL) has recently announced that Americans are currently more at risk of falling victims to scams and frauds, on account of the global economic downturn and the fact that many of the country's citizens are now broke and looking for easy money. And, apparently, so are various types of crooks, who organize all sorts of “games,” “lotteries” and other such practices to convince people to play, for the chance of winning large sums of money.

But the organization says that US citizens should be aware of the very rich bags of tricks con artists are sporting, as they will quickly end up without their last savings. The advocacy group adds that, last year alone, it received some 15,000 complaints of fraud from many people, of which 5,742 reports concerned them losing money to various scams. The numbers have been released to Reuters a few days ago.

“Consumers today should be even more on their guard than they were in the past. When you're in desperate straits, you're going to be more attractive to scammers. Anecdotally, we have been hearing more than in the past that 'I was trying to make a few extra bucks because I just lost my job. They're more susceptible because they're more desperate,” NCL's vice president for public policy John Breyault shares.

Statistically speaking, all those involved in scam scandals lost on average $2,332.03, which means that crooks won $500 extra from each of their victims as compared to the 2007 levels. There are a variety of ways for con artists to use when they attempt to deceive people, including e-mail offers such as lotteries and work-at-home-type of services, and financial schemes such as illicit lotteries.

What's even worse, the NCL says, is that Americans who would have dismissed get-rich-quick deals in the past, are now searching for them, looking for a way to make an easy buck. Some Internet fraudsters take advantage of that, by sending phishing messages designed to look like they are coming from the banks, and which require the user to input personal data, which can later be used for identity theft.

There is no “recipe” that authorities can give to people in order for them to avoid increasing numbers of frauds. Citizens just have to be vigilant and avoid suspicious schemes, even if they appear to bring benefits over night and are backed up by some mathematical formulas. Usually, these types of calculations are made to look good and to inspire confidence, but the tricks they hide mean that all the money invested in them go down the drain.