The Worst Internet Scams We’re Still Falling For

In 2001, I planned to move to a new town in Connecticut. I put my house up for sale, but it sat there, unsold in the recession, for over a year. Not a nibble, even after I dropped the price and made some improvements.

Then one day, my realtor called with some astonishing news. “You’ve got a full-price offer!” she said. “And get this: The buyer doesn’t need an inspection, she’s paying cash, and she wants to close at the end of this week!”

OK, what? She didn’t need a mortgage? She didn’t want to negotiate?

Well, whatever. I showed up at the closing—but the buyer herself was absent.

Her lawyer was deeply apologetic. “She just called; she’s in tears. She won’t be buying your house after all. She just keeps saying, ‘The Nigerian man promised that I’d have the money by today!’”

Oh come on. Really? There’s one person left in America who fell for the old Nigerian email scam?

No, not one person—a lot of people. Internet scams are still a huge business. We sent Internet scammers $13 billion last year, and our gullibility shows no signs of abating.

All Internet scams are fundamentally the same: Someone offers you something you want for nothing. It’s usually money, but it might also be male sexual prowess, weight loss, or a cure—for baldness, herpes, cancer, cellulite, heart disease, diabetes, or deafness.

Here’s a shocker: Not everything you read on the Internet is true. And so, for your own entertainment and education, here they are: The 11 hottest Internet scams that we’re still falling for.t

It comes to you by email:

“I am Mr. Paul Agabi,” it says. “I am the personal attorney to Mr. Harold Cooper, a national of your country, who used to work with Exxon Oil Company in Nigeria. On the 21st of April, my client, his wife and their only child were involved in a car accident. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives.”

Amazingly enough, rich dead guy left behind millions of dollars—and your correspondent wants you to have it! If you’ll help Mr. Paul Agabi get those millions out of the country, using your bank account as a parking spot, he’ll share the dough with you.

So you get excited. You write back. Maybe you make an offer on a house in Connecticut.

But then a funny thing happens: Mr. Agabi asks you to send some money to him, to cover bribes to officials. It’s only a couple hundred bucks, so you send it.