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Spam, scam, a lam a ding-dong

It looks as if NZers need to put their shields up to deflect an increasing amount of scamming and spamming from local or regional attacks.

A number of TradeMe users were tricked by a phishing attempt that nabbed the fraudsters several accounts earlier in the week, and now those domain name fraudsters from Oz are at it again, trying to dupe folks into needlessly parting with their cash.

But, closer to home, the infamous Dennis Smith has been spamming folks with a commercial pitch to attend meetings of his WDANZ operation.

But you'll never guess who seems to be best-buddies and onboard with Dennis...

Well here's a clue, he's touted (by Dennis) as being "intimately involved with Internet marketing in many capacities, working for large international corporate companies, and many other large businesses, including several of his own"

We're also told that he "has enormous experience in a wide range of business marketing activities and will be a valuable resource to WDANZ Members".

Give up?

Well it appears to be none less than alleged spammer Brendan Battles of Auckland.

Of course Brendan denies that he's *the* Brendan Battles of "50-million spams per day" notoriety, but many others question that denial.

I'm sure web designers from all around the country will be flocking to sign up to a spammer-friendly organisation like this.

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Another useful resource is Consumer.org.nz where you'll get plenty of general information about dangers lurking on the net.

Fair Go also covers a number of scams and frauds that you might encounter while on the Net (or elsewhere) so is worth the occasional look.

What does seem to be missing however (or I've just not found it) is a website that keeps a daily update on scams, frauds, phishing attempts and other low-life activities targeting Kiwi Net users.

If there's enough interest, I'll add a section to this site which lists the latest detected threats/schemes. Hopefully, such a resource would allow you to bookmark the page for your mother and granny so they are not as likely to be sucked in by such schemes.

We already have such sites for virus and worm attacks -- but it seems that scams are now more commonplace than these and are thus deserving of their own warnings -- aren't they?

Have your say on this...

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