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Credit crisis fueling email scams

If there's one thing that gets the purveyors of email scams all hot and bothered, it's the thought of bad news, whether it's a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or some other form of human misery.

And the latest to get cyber space all flustered, is the current economic woes.

The credit crisis is fueling email scams. As with previous worldwide problems and disasters, the spammers are quick to exploit people's feelings of anxiety and vulnerability.

So, with banks failing all over the world and financial institutions backing out of mortgage deals and other loans, people are beginning to see their whole financial infrastructure collapse and they will be prone over the coming years to scam emails offering them a way out.

The re-mortgage offer is a popular email doing the rounds at the moment. And for those people that are panicking about having to re-mortgage their house, this particular scam could not come at a worse time. It offers, in return for an upfront fee, a better deal than the person might have expected. Of course, the fee is paid and the person never hears about the re-mortgage again.

Other scams are more simplistic, offering easy money in return for a little favour and a little advance fee, which disappears into the fraudsters back pocket.

Another good one - for the criminal that is - is the overseas lottery email which says that hey, you've won millions in a South American lottery in which your details were entered automatically. Now, quite why your details would be entered automatically should be the first cause for concern, especially if the email doesn't even use you name but appears to be of the round-robin type (everyone gets one) and then goes on to say that you have to pay an administration fee to get the winnings released. And you might think that yes, what's £50 to get your hands on ten million dollars. Except that the only real thing is your £50 and that's long gone by the time you realise you're not going to get your fortune.

And industry observers and the police are particularly worried this time because it's just the start of the worldwide economic downturn and things could get a whole lot worse, whereas the cleverness of the email scam could get a hole lot more ingenious.

So, if an email pops into your inbox bearing untold offers and riches, press the delete key and dispose of it.

Remember, beware of emails bearing gifts.

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