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<DIV>Yes, the elderly are prone to such things, though not as often by email
(simply because the vast majority aren't as active on the internet as other
age groups). They more often are victims of the telephone frauds.
There's a handful that fall for the mail or telephone versions every year in
this city for example. My elderly mother has her carpets cleaned far
too often (even with my efforts to monitor things) that we could all eat
off of them. Her memory span isn't very long. These scams are
more targeted at the elderly, or new immigrants (but that latter group are prone
to a particularly vicious type of scam).</DIV>
<DIV>.</DIV>
<DIV>Friends of friends I don't think included elderly aunts. Someone
should be monitoring the email account of any elderly person who could be
easily duped though. Setting up mail rules that work using a coded
word in the body of the email for example. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There are many other reasons why these scams are sent out. You can't
imagine how many millions go out. Some of them are simply looking to see
if they've hit a valid address or not. In some cases opening the email
will allow the sender to know that a valid account has been found. Could
be targets then for more subtle activities that lead to your pc becoming
infected by some worm or virus.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>More danger of people falling for the Paypal message to verify your
account, or the message from your internet provider asking you to verify accts,
I suppose. Though I think if someone was foolish enough to provide
personal data by email, then the responsibility falls on their shoulders...
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Larry</DIV></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=amy@amyjohnsoncrow.com href="mailto:amy@amyjohnsoncrow.com">Amy
Crow</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=apgpubliclist@apgen.org
href="mailto:apgpubliclist@apgen.org">Mail list APG</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, June 25, 2010 11:01
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [APG Public List] [APG
Members] SCAM: My Predicament!!!!(NeedHelp).</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>> This idea that 'friends of friends' wired money sounds
like a classic urban legend. Usually phrased in the manner "some friends
of friends" did it, or saw it, or it happened to them. When you go
looking to see who these people were, it's like trying to drive to the
horizon, it keeps advancing in front of you through a continuous chain
of new 'friends of friends'. And you never reach an actual person who
fell for it.<BR><BR><BR>I can personally vouch for one person who was a breath
away from falling for this scam. My elderly aunt received a similar email from
her "grandson." She went to her local grocery store to wire the money.
Fortunately, the clerk thought the whole thing sounded like a scam and asked
my aunt if she had tried calling her grandson. She said no, she hadn't,
because the email said that he was in a foreign country, etc etc. The clerk
kindly suggested that she try calling him anyway. She did and discovered the
whole thing was a hoax. If it hadn't been for the heads-up action of the
clerk, my aunt would have been out several hundred dollars.<BR><BR>It's
important for us to remember that just because we're savvy to these sorts of
things, not everyone who uses email is. (And it doesn't necessarily have to be
an elderly person falling for it, either. I've seen plenty of bonehead
decisions by members of the supposedly tech-savvy generation.) Just because
someone uses email does not automatically mean that (1) they're savvy about it
and (2) they're immune to social engineering scams. (Social engineering scams
defined by Online Cyber Safety as "a scam that preys upon our acceptance of
authority and willingness to cooperate with others.")<BR><BR>> they keep
doing it simply because it's easy to do. Not because it succeeds.
Someone somewhere lives in hope of finding a dupe. I guess it keeps them
busy. I imagine the return on their efforts is very small.<BR><BR>I
don't agree with the statement that "...the return on their efforts is very
small." These emails are sent out by the thousands in a very small amount of
time. Let's say it takes 30 minutes to send out 10,000 such emails (it's
likely much less time than that, but let's be over-cautious with our
estimate). If just 1% of those recipients respond, that's 100 respondents. If
each one sends just $100, that's $10,000 the scammer made in 30 minutes -- not
a bad hourly rate, if you ask me. If there isn't money in it, they wouldn't be
doing it.<BR><BR>Amy Johnson Crow, CG<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>