Lisa, Kathy & Ken

Thank you for dropping by and sharing .... You are absolutely right, scammers are getting more sophisticated.  Ken is right you should always be aware of anyone or anything, like an email, or so, asking for your personal details.

Never give out your personal info unless you are 100% sure of who you are giving it too.  There are no such things as FREE, random, email lottery wins.

If anyone is in the import-export business, as I was, I can, also, tell you that another scam is to ask you for a pro-forma invoice with all your details.  You do NOT need to give your banking details on a pro-forma invoice and you SHOULD not give them at all if you are unsure of who you are dealing with.  There are alternatives such as Bank letters of credit and so forth.

Anyone need any help, just ask ....

Take care friends

Hi, I know what you mean about these scammers, I have received at least 10 of  these emails in the last 3 months. Do people actually fall for this?

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Hello Rana, nice to see you ...

Sadly there is no real way to hand these people over to the police because the Internet is still relatively considered unchartered waters as far as legalities and policing.... A lot of Internet business is done on good faith either on behalf of the purchasing party or on behalf of the buying party.  As with any law, conviction would only occur if there was substantial, factual evidence and, here, we are dealing with virtual reality.

As for scammers, well, sadly in this day of modern technology they buy a cell phone with a pre-paid sim card, use it for a few days and then change sim cards, untraceable account, untraceable charging ...

Even in my case, when I got scammed into going to France for a meeting and even met with the scammers, there was no REAL hard core evidence to suggest that they wanted to do anything illegal .... The only thing we can do is inform each other and stand together in a united fight to stop this.

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Elizabeth,

Nice of you to drop by.  Yes, sadly there are people who fall for this and other types of scams .... I can assure you I am one ... I mentioned going to France and having a meeting with the scammers .... It was not for a free this or that but it was for a "business consultancy" job with reference to real estate.

Scams come in all shapes and forms and sometimes you don't know you're in it ... until you're actually in it!!!  Information and awareness are the key elements here.

Take care and have a great week

Hello Susan,

Thank you for sharing with us .... That is another type of scam I forgot to mention.  There are emails going around, as Susan pointed out, about soldiers needing help with their financial situation ... funds for this and that ...The fact that they ask you to keep everything confidential is a sure clue that they are up to no good.  Any legit and honest will present itself to you openly.

You could try and turn these people in, although you will probably find that they all have yahoo and MSN emails and some obscure service providers in several countries .... Anyone with a legitimate business will have their own website and an email address linked with that site and not a free account.

Hope this helps

Sandra, Melissa, Hortense,

Thank you for dropping by and sharing.  I agree with you all, our community is very special place and filled with amazing, wonderful people .... It saddens me too to think that we have such characters amongst us, but like Hortense said, if we look out for each, perhaps we can eradicate them, at least from Adland and keep it a safe and beautiful networking community ....

We should stand our ground against these people and do all we can, together, to stamp them out.

Best wishes to you all