What Does Scam Mean or What is Scamming?
A scam is a rip-off, or a fraudulent scheme performed by a dishonest or deceitful individual, group, or company, in an attempt obtain money or something else of value. Or, basically it means to trick or deceive someone to get something desirable. Someone who does scamming or carries out a scam, is called a scammer or fraudster.
Examples of Scam
Say someone went around asking people for money to support a charity, but really kept the money for his/herself, that would be a scam. Or, someone contacts people telling them they are winners in some so-called lottery, and ask them to send money to receive their prizes or winnings; but once the money is sent, that individual takes it and disappear, leaving the people who have sent their money disappointed.
Here are some more examples of scam:
- victimize: deprive of by deceit; "He swindled me out of my inheritance";
- "She defrauded the customers who trusted her";
- "The cashier gypped or conned me when he gave me too little change"
- “The lottery scammers tricked me into sending thousands of dollars to them, by claiming I won the lottery and need to send money for taxes and processing fees, in order to collect by winnings”
Some of the most popular scams on the internet are: lottery scams, scam baiting, email spoofing, phishing scams, inheritance scams, donation scams, grandparent scams, romance scams, shopping scams, Binary Options Trading scams and Nigeria 419 scams. In Western Africa, a scam is called Sakawa.
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Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.