Since the invention of currency, swindlers have been trying their best to cheat money from others. Last year, about 28 million people in Britain became the targets of fraud. According to figures released by the British government, the loss of financial fraud is about 6,543.8 billion pounds. Some media listed the top ten boldest scams in history to remind the world to be alert to financial fraud.
First, serial letters
Dave Ross is the initiator of the most famous serial letter in the world. Twenty years ago, the first formatted serial letter was sent from the post office. The title of this serial letter is "making money quickly". The letter requires the recipient to send a certain amount of money to several names listed in the letter, and then copy the letter to other addresses. The serial letter promised that the result would be to make big money with small investment and earn 40 thousand pounds in 60 days. No one knows if Dave Ross really exists.
Second, the lottery scam
Organized criminal gangs in Canada called some British families (usually elderly people) and told them that they had won the lottery prize in Canada, and they had to pay a certain handling fee before they could win the prize. Although the means are poor, many British people have been cheated, and some people have even been cheated out of 40 thousand pounds.
Third, pyramid scheme fraud.
In 200 1 year, a pyramid scheme fraud case named "Women Empowering Women" became the focus of attention of major newspapers in the world. This fraud case swept across Britain, causing many British women to suffer huge losses. This scam takes the form of paying membership fees, encouraging women to invest, promising a return of 24,000 pounds for investing 3,000 pounds, and trying to get contact information of family and friends from members. Many people lost 3000 pounds in membership fees.
Iv. "4 19 fraud case"
Have you ever received an English email, in which the writer claimed to be the family of a senior Nigerian government official, whose bank account was frozen due to coup or corruption, and needed help to transfer tens of millions of dollars, and then asked you to provide the funds and details of the bank account to help them transfer funds, and promised you a generous return, but in fact they would empty your account. This is the "4 19 fraud case" in Nigeria.
According to a survey, Nigerian scammers cheat 40 million dollars online every year.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) marriage scam
People often say that love can blind people. This may be the reason why more and more loverboy cheat through online dating centers. At the beginning of this year, a married Singaporean woman named Ram was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for defrauding an American man of $45,000 (22,000 pounds) with marriage as bait.
Six, "Ponzi scheme"
One of the most typical scams in the 20th century is Ponzi scheme, which is one of the templates of pyramid schemes. Many subsequent scams were derived from Ponzi schemes. Ponzi scheme got its name from Charles Ponzi. 1920 began to engage in investment fraud. About 40,000 people participated in this scam, and the amount cheated reached150,000 US dollars, equivalent to today's150,000 US dollars. Ponzi ended up in prison.
Seven, pyramid selling
In the 1990s, two-thirds of Albania's population lost their life savings in the most destructive pyramid scheme, which triggered street riots and killed thousands of people. It almost triggered a civil war in this poor country and finally led to the collapse of the government, because the plan was supported by the government at the beginning.
Eight, close the scam
Baroque Ross scam is one of the most notorious scams in British history. In the 1980s, Barlow Cross Company absorbed the funds of18,000 private investors, who thought they were investing in risk-free government bonds. In fact, a large sum of money went into the private account of Peter Cross, the founder of the company. He used the money to buy private jets, luxury cars, luxury houses and luxury yachts and lived a luxurious life until it was exposed and imprisoned.
Nine, leukemia scam
Some swindlers know how to touch people's heartstrings. A few years ago, a couple in Indiana claimed that their child had leukemia and wanted to fulfill her dream as much as possible before her child died. The whole town mobilized to donate money for them, and finally raised 13000 dollars. It turned out that their children were all healthy, and their family flew to Disneyland in Florida with the cheated 13000 dollars.
X. Virtual bank fraud
A virtual bank "Ginko Finance" appeared in the online game Second Life, which is popular all over the world. It claims to bring high returns to investors. However, the virtual bank quickly closed down, resulting in many people unable to get their investment back. After that, a bank appeared in Second Life, which went bankrupt after absorbing a lot of virtual currency-Linden coins. The two founders of the bank converted 2.5 million Linden coins into real currency-5,000 dollars, and never appeared in Second Life again.