FTC'S dirty dozen Email scams

After examining over a quarter million email messages from around the nation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued it's top-12 list of email scams.

Called the "dirty dozen," these scams closely match similar scams transmitted by postal mail and telephone solicitors.

The 12 email examples were collected at an FTC email address created to study and help prevent email fraud. The address, uce@ftc.gov, receives 1,000 to 1,500 emails daily.

The jargon of cyberspace identifies unsolicited email as spam. Its senders are spammers. Using the address lists, spammers solicit by sending spam.

Here are the FTC's dirty dozen, listed in order of frequency.

Business opportunities: They offer a lot of money for a small amount of time and money that are usually too good to be true.

Making money by sending bulk email: They offer money for simply emailing a lot of people, but bulk email violates email service rules for most Internet service providers.

Chain letters: Chain letters generally claim to make money simply by sending the letter to a certain number of people.

Work-at-home: Two popular versions for making money from the comfort of home include envelope stuffing and craft assembly, but nobody will really pay you for stuffing envelopes, and craft assembly promoters usually refuse to buy the crafts, claiming the work does not meet their quality standards.

Health and diet: Bogus cures offered via email, guaranteed to cure all ills.

Currency trading: These deals offer the chance to make unlimited profits exchanging money on world currency markets.

Get something free: Computer or phone card offers are common in this scam. The consumer is urged to sign up for membership fees but then receives nothing in return.

Investment opportunities: The senders suggest they have inside financial information or they promote high rates of return with no risk.

Descrambler kits to allow you to receive cable TV signals without paying subscription fees. The kits generally do not work, and stealing cable signals is against the law.

Guaranteed loans or credit: Promoters may offer credit cards, regardless of credit history for a fee, or offer home-equity loans that turn out to be lists of lending institutions.

Credit repair: For a fee, the sender offers to clear up a bad credit record.

Vacation prize promotions: Deluxe vacations for a cheap price which never turn out to be the luxury vacation touted by the advertisement.