Your Daily Computer Security Tips

I have been writing about the Nigerian letter scam, also known as the Nigerian 419 scam (after the relevant section of the Nigerian criminal code) for years. This fraud has in fact been around in one form or another for some 90 years! And guess what? It is still going strong. It seems that when the economy takes a dip and times get tough, it is boom time for all kinds of fraud, whether online, by phone or by snail mail.

The Canadian Competition Bureau is warning that victims are losing millions of dollars a month to this type of fraud. But these are just the people who report they have been scammed, usually because they have lost a fairly large sum of money. The real losses could be five to ten times higher. In 2008, over 11,000 victims said they lost almost $10 million to this fraud.

Losses from identity theft, promises of employment, lottery and other fraud are much larger. Even so, please remember that you do not have a long-lost relative in Nigeria, no one left you millions of dollars, and you are not going to get an instant windfall. No matter how difficult your personal situation is right now, do not fall for these scams. It will just make things worse.