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Oracle Tips by Burleson |
Web Stalkers
Chapter 7 -
Internet Scams
Web Resources Scam Victims
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The Attorney General (AG) - The state’s AG will
usually be interested in taking a report of criminal activity that
is targeting residents of their state. If there are enough reports,
they may investigate and, if possible, pursue criminal charges
against the perpetrators of the scam.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - The FTC
accepts fraud complaints when users register them via the link
marked “File a Complaint” from their main page at www.ftc.gov.
Nearly 90% of reported online scams are related to web auctions and
the FTC has created a special web site called “Consumer Sentinel” (www.consumer.gov/sentinel)
to address this growing problem. Consumer Sentinel offers buying
tips and guidelines but has little to offer in the way of
investigation.
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IRS - To report suspected tax fraud to the IRS,
call 800-829-0433 or address a letter to the Criminal Investigation
Branch at the same address where taxes are filed.
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Quatloos.com is a web site with the goal of
educating people about the financial and tax fraud scams that
surface on the Internet.
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TruthOrFiction.com and snopes.com are also good
sources to confirm or deny a possible scam story.
Using the Wayback Machine
Scammers who use web sites to entrap their
victims are often caught through the use of the “Wayback Machine.”
Since web scammers quickly create and destroy web pages, victims can
use
www.archive.org, also
known as the “Wayback Machine” to view the content of web pages long
after they have been deleted. The Wayback Machine is the creation
of the altruistic Internet billionaire Brewster Kahle, who has
generously donated this wonderful forensic tool so that everyone can
see the web at any time in the past.
Named after the cartoon
machine of the popular ”Peabody” cartoons of the 1950’s, the Wayback
Machine is a great tool for gathering evidence of web scams. The
Wayback Machine indexes everything on a web page, including images
and chat room discussions. As of 2004, the Wayback Machine had
archived over 10 billion web pages dating back to 1996. It has an
amazing search function that permits searching of their massive
historical database to find exactly what is needed:
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