Internet Scam: 2012 Olympic Scams

No surprise but scammers have gotten an early jump on beginning their 2012 Olympics scam campaigns. It's almost like they've begun their holiday shopping. But in a mad way.

High on the scammer's preference list will be emails pretending to leverage well-known brands associated with the Olympics, such as Coca Cola, Microsoft and Nokia. The scammers will use any names that help make their email look like a legitimate Olympics Sponsor email.

The e-mails are typically disguised as lottery and sweepstakes promotions, and claim to offer cash prizes in exchange for personal details. They inform the recipients that they have won a substantial amount of money and to contact the lottery manager. The victims are then asked to pay "processing fees" or "transfer charges" for the winnings, which of course don't exist.

In some cases, the scammers even go as to ask for a copy of your passport, national ID, or driver's license. Once they have your personal information, they can plan out further identity theft activities.
While the attacks come less than two weeks before the 2012 Olympics, this is just the start.  I completely expect to see bogus pages where people will be lured to in order to get competition results, where scammers will also attempt to collect personal information. And don't forget their favorite scams to pretend to sell discounted tickets to the games (that don't exist) or offers of free merchandise, exclusive videos or even alleged breaking news could infect computers with viruses or programs known as malware. Hackers can place malicious links on search result pages for certain key words. Smart phones, tablets, and other wireless devices are also vulnerable to the viruses and financial scams.

The closer we get to the opening ceremonies, and even during the Games, expect to see a lot more such scams and spam.

Scared yet? You'll have to remember to use lots of your scammer bug spray. Just be careful what you click on and who you send money to during this time.
 
I'll continue to report on what I see here as scams are revealed. If you get any of these scams, feel free to email them to me and I'll post them so others can be alerted.