Hoaxes Preying on the Good Hearted
June 19, 2007
I love getting feedback from readers of Africa Matters! I always welcome any and all constructive comments from you. It's great to hear when you agree and disagree with me. I've gotten plenty of e-mails from Africans on the continent sharing their own unique perspective on their country. I've heard from good people who work overseas with relief organizations. I've also heard from angry readers who think Africa gets too much attention. (Hmmm....)
In any event, I also get a lot of spam mail. The other day, I got an e-mail in my normal In-box that started off something like this…
"Dear Friend,
My name is (insert name here), working with WORLD YOUTH ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN WELFARE in California, U.S.A. We are organizing a global youths combined conferences taking place from August 6th-8th 2007 at California in the United States and in, Dakar Senegal from August 13th-15th 2007.In our request to invite people from various countries around the world, I went in search of e-mails on the web site as a means of contacting youths and organizations. As a result, I picked your e-mail from an N.G.O`s website..."
The e-mail goes on and on using official words like "secretariat" and "passport holder." It goes in to detail about what the conference is about, details on how to contact them. It looked pretty legit. The e-mail piqued my interest. I've been asked to attend or speak at different conferences before. But having worked with several great nongovernmental organizations like Samaritan's Purse, UNICEF and other aid organizations (called NGOs) through out the years, something didn't seem right to me. So I began to dig around on the internet for confirmation. What I found was pretty sad…
Several workers at NGOs have been taken in by this scam and lost a lot of money. What is insidious about this hoax is that it preys on good-hearted people who just want to help the poor, needy and disenfranchised of the world. Many message boards on the internet angrily spell out the details. Here are a few posts from the Peace Corps message board…
"ANYBODY...HELP ME.BAIL ME OUT…ANY ONE DUPED OUT THERE…MAIL ME, I WANNA KNOW THE DETAILS. PLEASE HELP ME OUT…"
"It is good to expose these rascals! I almost got myself trapped in this nonsense. If they can be brought to justice, it would serve them good."
"I was almost tempted to reply because I am working for a youth organization in the Philippines and have, quite a number of times, attended real youth international conferences."
Good thing I did my homework! The legitimate Global Youth Action Network's web site has listed several similar scams that use the name of their organization. The web site suggests that "if you cannot reach someone by phone, or if the event is taking place in more than one country, these are signs of a scam."
The site also lists other hoaxes: Stop Child Abuse/Youth and Women Empowerment conference; and National Youth Action Network.
So…be careful out there. Do your research. If you get a weird e-mail out of the blue, don't assume it's legitimate. Not all spam is caught by spam filters! :^)
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