Do people still fall for spam?
Posted by Deborah on October 28, 2006 in Anti spam
Unfortunately yes, they still do. According to a study conducted by the University of Oxford and Purdue University, the latest lucrative spam practices are stock spamming. You know those messages that warn you that company Xyz is hot right now and will make you a fortune? It turns out that spammers buy up stock before they send out the messages, then whilst people fall for the scam and buy the stock the spammers sell theirs at a profit. It sounds so simple (not to mention highly illegal) and yet people are falling for it. According to the survey, on days that no spam messages about the company stock were circulating, there was a 6% chance of this stock being traded. On days when spam messages were sent out urging people to buy the stock, the chance of the stocks being traded rose as high as 81%. The study also calculated the percentage that investors are losing. On average, investors who fall for the scam are losing 5.25% in the two day period following the stock touting. However for the top 20% of stock scams, investors lose as much as 8% value. . Unfortunately people are still falling for spam, and as long as they do, spam will keep on coming.
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