I Won $2 Billion: Spam Dreams

Elderly people are seen as easy scam targets.

Every Monday morning, when I check my e-mail I find more than 2,500 waiting to be read. Nearly 90% of those messages are SPAM.

By Citizen Correspondent Cecilia Jamasmie , Canada

Date Posted: 08/22/07

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According to the latest report from ICTWorld, between 60 and 80 per cent of e-mail traffic is spam. For companies that do not have mechanisms in place to manage the copious amounts of unsolicited mails entering their systems everyday, this can severely hamper their ability to conduct their business. And for ordinary people like me, who receive more than 2,000 e-mails a day offering Viagra, free trips to Las Vegas and gift cards, the phenomenon has only one name: ANNOYING.

The first time I got an e-mail telling me I had won the lottery, I knew immediately it was a scam. It wasn't only that I'm a skeptic and I tend not to buy the "too good to be true," stories I hear. It simply was that I don't buy lottery tickets- ever. But what about people who do buy them? What about those hundreds of users who had filled out coupons to win free trips or simply want to alert their friends about a new virus by forwarding a 'warning' message?

Well, several of them are potential victims of Internet fraud and scam dissemination. If you have an e-mail address and have at least one friend in the world, you have probably got more than one joke/story/whatever sent to you and you've probably done it too. We are all more than likely guilty of at some point having forwarded on something that ended up not being true.

Because I have been on the receiving end of some very public e-mail addresses, I somehow end up on the mailing list of everyone that still believes these things and forwards them right on through to their entire address book. Adding insult to injury, I get the same message more than once as everyone wants to be the first to let me know that [insert name here] virus is running rampant and you better protect yourself! Thanks, 50 other people have already given me fair warning.

Some of my favorites? Making money from Microsoft/Gap/Disney/ if I simply forward this message on to 10 other people.