by Brian Braddish

Created on: October 27, 2008   Last Updated: November 05, 2008

Cyber Crime is a criminal act committed by a person using an internet connection and a personal computer, laptop or any other electronic equipment that can be used to go 'live' on the internet. Cyber crime is a growing concern for police agencies throughout the world. It is unclear where cyber crime first took place, however it has been around for a long time and the problem is a getting alot worse.

There is countless scams operating on the internet, one of the scams is the Spanish lottery { e-mail version }, which basically the operator{s} of the scam contact people by e-mail, telling them they have won a lottery { which they have not entered }. How does the scam make money ? If you read on, i will explain to you how the scam works. The 'winner' { scam victim } is asked to pay a fee , so they can obtain the 'winning' money, the fee is an admin { lottery } fee. When the 'winner pays the fee, they never hear from the scammer again. The scammer disappears with the victims money and that is the scam works. There is also another way how this so called lottery works, i will explain this also. The second way this 'spanish lottery' scam works is by phishing - this is another cyber crime, which is a huge concern for the public/police worldwide.

As above the scammer contacts the victim by e-mail claiming that they have won a lottery { that the victim has never entered }. By using the phishing system to scam the victim, the scammer will not ask for money upfront, however the scammer will still con the victim out pf money if the scam attempt is successful. By the using the phishing method the scammer will ask you for your bank account details, so they can 'deposit' the money the victim 'won' in the lottery. When the scammer gets all your bank details and personal information, they { scammer } will proceed to clear out your money from your bank account. After your bank account has been cleared out, you will never hear from the scammer again { unless they try target you again in the same/different scam } This is common for scammers to try con the same victim twice or more. And that is generally how the Spanish lottery scam works. I would like to add though that there is a real spanish lottery operating and it is legitimate. However you can not win it unless you have entered it. The best way to avoid this scam is to ignore all e-mails saying such things as you have won a lottery, you know in your heart that if you have not entered a lottery you cannot win.

Although this article is about cyber crime, I think it would be worth mentioning that this Spanish lottery also exists in the same way by post. This scam lottery is particularly aimed at old people who the scammers think it is easy to fool. There are countless cyber crimes being committed/operated, I won't mention them all here, as I would not have enough time to nor would I have enough space to do so. However there are lots of websites available detailing lots and lots of scams/cyber crimes being operated. The best way to find these sites is to 'google' the following 'scam busters' , 'scam websites' and similar words. I hope this article helps it's readers in defining cyber crime.

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