US Financial Quagmire Bringing Out the Scammers

coondoggie contributes this snippet from NetworkWorld: "You could probably see this one coming. With all of the confusion and money involved you knew there would be cyber-vultures out there looking to cash in. Well the Federal Trade Commission today issued a warning that indeed such increased phishing activities are taking place. Specifically the FTC said it was urging user caution regarding e-mails that look as if they come from a financial institution that recently acquired a consumer's bank, savings and loan, or mortgage. In many case such emails are only looking to obtain personal information — account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers — to run up bills or commit other crimes in a consumer's name, the FTC stated."

Comments

well ...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

I've heard Americans are so broke they are now scamming Nigerians

Re:well ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard Americans are so broke they are now scamming Nigerians

Did you see the latest?

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am ministry of the treasury of the republic of america. my country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars us. if you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with mr. phil gram, lobbyist for ubs, who will be my replacement as ministry of the treasury in january. as a senator, you may know him as the leader of the american banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. this transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. we need a blank check. we need the funds as quickly as possible. we cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. my family lawyer advised me that i should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, ira and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov
so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. after i receive that information, i will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours faithfully minister of treasury paulson

*illegal* scammers

[Anonymous Coward]

As apposed to the mortgage brokers, sub prime lenders, financial institutions,ceos that got us into this mess and will walk away loaded and scott free.

But what about the real scam?

[gillbates]

That allows investment bankers to pawn off responsibility for their misdeeds on the American public?

So I'm supposed to pay an additional $10k in taxes to finance the bad decisions of those who foreclosed on middle class Americans? And if I have to pay it over time (as Congress proposed), I'll end up paying even more (because Congress will borrow money to finance the bailout).

I would say that I've got that money in my 401k, but I doubt it's worth anything now.

I've got a better idea. Start printing money. Yes, devalue the currency to the point where I can settle my mortgage for a few hours worth of work. If bank CEOs can get bonuses for shafting even the Americans who were smart enough to avoid bad lending practices, we should be able to just print the money to pay off our debts.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[PunkOfLinux]

Yeah, but then your retirement becomes essentially worthless...

It's wrong that we're paying for their mistakes, and we will be paying for that for YEARS to come.

This is not capitalism - by influencing the market (especially so heavily) and giving money to institutions just because they're 'a huge part of the economy' we gave up capitalism. These people fucked up - by the tenets of capitalism, if they can't survive this on their own, LET THEM FAIL. Oh, boo hoo, a tough few years. Better than going even further into debt just to bail out a few rich pricks who made the mistake of doing things where the benefits were far outweighed by the costs and potential risks.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[Quasar1999]

I was going to mod you, but I couldn't find '+1 really bitter but ultimately on to something'.

Sadly your idea of printing money to devalue it to the point where you can easily pay off your debts would work, but only if the US was self-sustaining, which it isn't. And I doubt you'd get the Chinese to agree to devaluing the US Dollar much more, they seem to have a very large amount of US dollars in their hands... some sort of insane trade deficit? They'd probably invade the US to over-throw the government and attempt to stop the devaluation of the currency (and their investment). Somehow I see world war 3 coming out of this royal fuck up by the US.

It's times like these I'm so happy to live in Canada, and look forward to enjoying the nuclear winter that's inevitibly coming sooner rather than later.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[Maudib]

The bailout isn't a bailout. The bankers who screwed up are for the most part being wiped out, along with the investors. Please see AIG, LEH and BS stock prices and you will see that the company owners and the company employees are being entirely wiped out. The "bailout" is preventing the guys who screwed up and are wiped out from wiping out everyone else. Its about liquidity and fear. Good companies are being destroyed due to too much fear and too little liquidity. It isn't a lie when the Fed says that most of what will be bought with the $700 million will be good or profitable. So the feds loose a couple hundred mil on this. Several trillions are being wiped out every week in the stock market.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[Maudib]

While things are certainly going to be bad you have badly misread what is happening.

(1) The liquidity crisis is actually preventing inflation and there is a good chance that we could even witness some deflation if things don't change. Economic downturns are not necessarily couple with inflation, in fact we could even see deflation during this recession.

(2) Treasuries (U.S. Debt) have become even more valuable. Yields are almost effectively zero while prices are sky high. This is because everyone is so afraid of the markets that they are running to pick up the safest instrument available: U.S. debt. You really think China or anyone else will dump treasuries? Where would they put the money? Europe? China? Russia? Europe is as screwed as we are while Russia and China are even worse.

(3) The U.S. Dollar has actually been gaining value lately, likely due to point #2.

(4) "Buy land, seeds, guns and ammo cause Darwin is going to come knocking for the slow and trusting. Real assets are the only hard currency left." This is a nonsensical point. In order for "Real Assets" to trump cash it is likely that we would need a total failure in the rule of law, at which point having bought land or seeds would be meaningless as anyone with a gun would simply take them. Logic points to a couple years of slow or negative growth, not the collapse of society. I bet you spent Y2K in a basement.

You can have your land and seeds, I am going to start accumulating value stocks at all time lows.

not just phishing mails..

[owlnation]

Also, look out for legitimate emails from banks -- they are probably being sent by scammers too.

Yep.

[Shadow Wrought]

One of the scammers was so brazen he came right to my doorstep! Said he needed a "contribution" so he could "go to Washington" and "fix this mess."
Yeah, right! I fell for that one four years ago!

Bringing out Scammers??

[arthurpaliden]

Hell, it was started by scamers, they wore three piece suits but they were still scammers.

Make it an even trillion!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mr. Norris,

Why don't we make it an even $1,000,000,000,000 (ONE TRILLION) dollars? We can use the extra $300,000,000,000 (THREE HUNDRED BILLION) dollars to buy up mortgages so that taxpayers lose money when the loans default, instead of the banks. My economists are convinced that it's a great way to prove that I'm actually a Socialist who understands the economy so that those loony liberals elect me instead of that one.

I look forward to your reply, my friends.

Sincerely,

John Sidney McCain

Re:Of course, it was caused by scammers.

[Konster]

Always a bad move basing a currency upon poorly made Italian cars.