An old friend from my Bougainville days who's as gullible as he's greedy, sent me the link financialnewszone.com and wrote, "Hi Peter, I just came across this crypto-currency trading scheme and I am tempted to invest a bit of money in it, are you into crypto at all? What do you think of this plan, they make it sound like you couldn’t go wrong with it, what do you think? I thought of just putting in a few thousand dollars and see how it goes and would value your opinion!"
What, my old employers from fifty years ago, the ANZ Bank, offering a crypto-currendy trading scheme? Never! One quick check with whois.domaintools.com revealed it for what it was: a scam emanating from Bucuresti (Bucharest in Romania to you), and forty-seven days old!
Of course, I immediately alerted the powers that be inside the ANZ Bank that some scammers are masquerading under their good name, and the website - however convingly good it was done, even including a photo of Shayne Elliott, CEO of ANZ Bank - may soon be made to disappear again.
To my gullible friend I sent an online copy of "The Confidence Game". Fearing that he may not take the time to read it, I also added a link to Maria Konnikova's video presentation.
If you ever receive an offer that seems too good to be true, you will know it isn't true, don't you? At the very least, check the domain name with whois.domaintools.com, and if they ask you to click on a link, hover the pointy finger of your mouse over the link for a moment and look at the REAL link name displayed at the bottom of your screen.
P.S. The fake site at financialnewszone.com has since been removed, and my gullible and no longer quite so greedy friend emailed, "Thanks Peter, you saved me, without you I'd have fallen for it, thanks again!"
