[Publib] The librarian and the scam

[Rebecca Bronson]

What you're doing certainly falls under information literacy, I would think. As a computer user, (or anything else for that mater), you start where you start. It may be hard for many of us to believe that there is a soul left who would fall for this sort of thing, but we still get folks in our building who have had very little experience with email or who have a hard time sorting out the ads from the editorial on a website, so no, Joe, you're not butting in. 

Rebecca Bronson
Reference Librarian
Handley Regional Library
P.O. Box 1300
Stephens City, VA  22655

540-869-9000 (voice)
540-869-9001 (fax)

www.hrl.lib.state.va.us


-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Joe Schallan
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 4:14 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] The librarian and the scam


It happened again this morning.  A patron
sought my help with sending email, and
I discovered she was about to send personal
information to someone promising $1,500,000
left to her in a "bequest" from someone she
had never heard of.  The transaction involved
an "officer" at a London, UK, bank, whose
email address was obviously a spoof of the
real address.

As I looked at the material that had been
sent to her, it reeked of the classic advance-fee
scam:  To get her "bequest," various advance
payments from her will no doubt be required.

Unless I was successful in preventing her
from following through with this.

Last month a gentleman asked for help in
attaching image files to an email message.
Turned out the image files were scans of
his Social Security Card, credit cards, and
Arizona Driver's License.  He was about to
send them off to someone he had never
heard of prior to receiving the email from
that party offering a windfall.

One would think that by December 2006
most Americans would have heard of
advance-fee fraud and all the other
email-delivered scams.  One would think
that they would now know that no one is
ever, ever going to contact them unsolicited
with the offer of a vast fortune.

Yet, according to a recent study published
by the British think-tank Chatham House,
in 2005 British citizens lost 275 million
pounds to Internet scammers, and US
citizens a stunning $720 million.

The Chatham House report was
discussed in a recent British newspaper
article (The Scotsman):

http://tinyurl.com/yn33w6

I suppose the scale at which everyday
citizens continue to respond to these
schemes is a testament to human
credulity . . . and, I suppose, hope.
Many millions of us cannot disabuse
ourselves, it seems,  of the notion that
there is a tooth fairy out there who will
swoop in out of the blue and leave
$1.5 million under our pillow.

My two recent experiences beg the
question whether it is a part of our
professional duty to save patrons from
themselves. We have always asserted
that when it comes to WHAT our patrons
are doing with our resources, we maintain
an arm's-length relationship.  We provide
the resource; it is none of our business
what you do with it.

In this case, however, I plan to continue
to intervene.  I believe that we are not
just in the answers-and-books business;
we are explainers and educators.  If I
am knowledgeable about the various
traps scam artists lay on the Internet, I
should share that knowledge.

Or am I nosey and butting in where I
shouldn't?  (I do try NOT to pay attention to,
or judge the content of, emails I am asked
to help with, but sometimes the content
screams at you.  If I knew that I let
someone fall into a trap that may cost
him or her  hundreds or thousands of dollars,
when I could have clued them in . . .
well, I would feel very bad about that.)

Comments?

(The interesting philosophical point here is
where the line between educating and
butting in falls . . . )

-- Joe Schallan
   Phoenix







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