The conference scam

I haven't seen this one yet, but it has all the hallmarks of a scam:

PARTICIPATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND UNITED KINGDOM EVENTS OF (IWCO) 


Greetings, 



We at Ideal World Concept Organization (IWCO) send our warm greetings to our entire

members worldwide. And with great enthusiasm, we wish to invite groups, youths, women

and youth focused organizations to be part of our forthcoming combined international
conference on child labour, abuse and neglect taking place in the United States and the
United Kingdom respectively. The combined conferences are of two segments.



The first segment shall commence in Andalusia, Alabama USA on 16th till 19th June, 2009.The venue is BLUE LAKE AUDITORIUM, 8569 Oakwood lane, Andalusia, Alabama 36241, USA.



The second segment shall take place in London from 22nd till 25th June, 2009 at FLOSSIES CONFERENCE CENTRE Station Road, East Tisted, Near Alton, Hampshire, GU34 3QP, United Kingdom.



THE OBJECTIVES:



1. To discuss the root causes of child labour, abuse and neglect in order to help in
eradicating these social ills.

2. To re-educate and enlighten the youths and adults about these social vices and
also promote community organizing as a tool to re-connect people to each other with
a common goal of building safe, supportive and good communities.

3. To create spaces for the youths of the world to acquire the power of collective action,
critical dialogue and community organizing to undermine child labour, abuse and neglect.

4. To equip the youth and adult participants with vital tools and know-how.
This will aid them in conducting such workshops amongst youths and women in their various
countries.



We have noticed that this is an incredible means of interacting with different organizations
of the world on a particular issue as it affects youths, women and adults. Moreover, funding may
be provided for individuals from qualifying organizations. Provisions have been made for
all delegates to this event, all round tickets, feeding and accommodation in USA by our sponsors.
Please note that all delegates will take care of their feeding and accommodation in the UK as the resources of (IWCO) do not cover that.



CRITERIA FOR PARTICIPATION:



Only groups with member delegates between the numbers of five (5) minimum and ten (10) maximum selected would be allowed to participate from each of the selected countries. Also individuals who do not belong to any of the organizations but are sincerely interested to participate should form a group of at least five and then apply as group. Please note that all participants MUST be part of the two segments (U.S.A. and U.K.) or their registration forms will not be processed by the IWCO secretariat.



MODE OF APPLICATION:



Interested organizations should forward the following information about their organization.

1. Aims and objectives of their organization.
2. Organization profile.
3. Achievements so far.

N.B. Intending participants are expected to direct their responses to the coordinator Wilson Divine at willsondivine.iwco@gmail.com for more details. The deadline for application is as set by the Organizing Committee of (IWCO). Also note that (IWCO) will only respond and attend to the applications forward to the above contact email address. 

Yours Faithfully,



WILSON DIVINE.

(Coordinator-IWCO)

willsondivine.iwco@gmail.com

MS word document appended.

This text looks like a copy from the ICO web site
This web site about ICO looks also a bit funny, could find any information that this is a legitimate NGO.

In any case, there are a lot of similar conference frauds listed here.

Pyramid scam leader convicted.

The BBC News reports today on a Chinese man, who masterminded a pyramid scheme. Investors lost a total of ~250 Million US$, and the man was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Any investment opportunity that promises unrealistic returns, such as HYIPs etc. are simply a fraudulent pyramid scheme.

Conficker worm sinks French navy network

The Conficker worm is a highly dangerous worm spreading through USB sticks or cameras when connected to a PC. A recent victim was the French navy, see this report. The Houston justice system was infected, computers at three London hospitals were infected. It is estimated that by the end of January 10 Million Windows PCs were infected. Conficker could possibly be activated at some point in the future to wreak havoc.

Google blocks this blog, because it thinks it's a virus??

Hmm, Google is getting wacky, blocking access to one of its own blogs, because it thinks it's dangerous???



Ok, this blog is about viruses etc., but it gives warnings, it doesn't spread them...
And even so, if Google blocks their blogs in their own site, does it mean www.blogger.com is infected?? Or did the ads from Google's very own adsense pose a threat?
Well, let's see this blog will ever be readable again at some point...

The biggest pyramid scheme of them all... 50 Billion dollars gone

This is arguably the biggest con of all times: It is the pyramid scheme of former stock exchange chairman Bernard "Bernie" Madoff. Over 50 Billion U$ have disappeared, see these BBC reports: 1, 2.
The old adage holds true: If it's too good to be true, it's not true. This should be a wake-up call to all people investing into HYIPs, and other investments that promise high returns. These things are just plain fraud. In case of Madoff, he got away with it for so long, because he "only" offered 10% in return. But as can be seen, even in this case it was a scam.

Telephone and mobile phone SCAMS

Telephone and mobile phone scams are going around.
For example, you may get a phone call saying you won a cruise, and to claim your prize you have to press a number on your phone. This will pass you to a line for which you have to pay dearly - and no prize.
Or you get a short phone call (they don't really wait for you to answer) from some number (e.g., +88213229003) on your mobile. The hope is that you call back - for a hefty fee, of course. These 88213 calls are usually a scam. 88213 is a virtual country code to Telespazio S.p.A. in Italy, see this link. The 88213xxx callers try to lure you to call back, and you would have to pay quite a lot for it (e.g., 9 Euro/min). See also this list of suspicious numbers:
whocallsme.com

Thousands of Columbians defrauded in pyramid scheme

Defrauded investors have rioted in several cities in Columbia. They were cheated out of their savings in a pyramid investment scheme, and now the crooks have closed shop, though some have been caught.
See the BBC News for the full report.