A hoax is an act intended to trick or deceive (2009, in Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary. (Retrieved October 18, 2009, from http://www.Merriam-Webster.com/dictionary/hoax). There are a lot of hoaxes going on in the Internet these days, as people are trying more and more to trick people out of their money, or to get their financial information in order to steal from them. There are people who say they are one thing, when in fact they are the polar opposite of who they want you to believe that they are.
A hoax can be as simple as telling someone that you are an established travel writer, simply because you write travel articles in your own blogs, or on writer's websites, where you can publish articles under any title (as long as the titles and contents conform to the site's regulations). Writing about travel and being a travel writer are two completely different things, and presenting yourself as a travel writer simply because you write articles about travel is a hoax.
A hoax can be a criminal offense, as well. There are countless Russian and Georgian females who take advantage of single men looking for that one, beautiful girl to fall for him, knowing who he is and what he looks like. These girls tell the men exactly what they want to hear, then start with the "if you paid my ticket, I could come and visit you". Then, after paying for her tickets, she says that she needs money for a passport, along with bribe money for the dishonest officials. The chances are very good that it is not even a female that these men are talking to, yet they send thousands of dollars to the "women" who fell in love with these men over the Internet.
Yes, love has been found by many people on the Internet, but rarely by people who were contacted out of the blue, by people who they have never had any contact with before. When something seems too good to be true, there is a definite probability that it is.
Nigeria is a hotbed of hoaxes for the Internet. There are deposed dictators, bank managers who want to get a load of money that was left by someone who died and had no family or will out of the country. All you have to do is to give them your banking information so that they can start making deposits of tens of thousands of dollars at first. Then, the payments will increase as the arrangement is shown to be mutually beneficial. The reality sinks in when money starts to disappear from your bank account, and loans and lines of credit, and credit cards are made against your bank and personal information.
There are "Doctors" who need you to help them to get financial assistance that was meant for poor and destitute people who had the money that was sent to help them stolen by the government henchmen. If you would help them to get the money away from the dictator, and hold onto it, they would give you a major percentage of the money for soing so. Again, expect to see your finances dwindle, and new charges against credit cards that you never applied for showing up in your name.
Falling for a hoax can be a life-changing event. Just ask anyone who has lost everything to these hedge-fund "specialists", or to ponzi scheme runners. Bernie Maddoff was so good at this that he made over $50 Billion dollars off of investors through his financial pyramid hoax. He might have gotten away with it if he would have left the country to another country with no extradiction treaty with your country, or the country that he performed the hoax from.
If you have fallen for a hoax, do not be overly embarassed, as millions of other people have fallen for hoaxes of different natures at some point in their lives. Contact the police, so that no other people will lose their life's savings to the same nefarious souls.
In the past decade, five people have been responsible for stealing over $1 Trillion dollars from unsuspecting people trying to do the right thing, or trying to increase their already healthy retirement funds. The problem starts when they realize that all of their retirement funds are gone, and they stand no chance of getting any of it back.