Internet Fraud - Searching for an Explanation
In seeking some form of rational explanation to comprehend theunderlying reasons for the widespread, relentless, annoying scams on theInternet, looking at the classic strain theory (CST) puts things into ahelpful context. According to an article in Youth & Society (Agnew, etal., 1997), individuals engaged in any kind of wrongdoing - such as scamsinvolving phony spam-spawned email promises on the World Wide Web - arevery likely people who were (or are) unable to "achieve their goals." Thedominant goal, as has been very obvious for many years, is "monetarysuccess or middle class status." Significant segments of society, thejournal article continues, "are said to be prevented from achieving thisgoal through legitimate channels" - and somehow, getting a good education,and doing an honest day's work and saving and investing for the future areconcepts that haven't worked for this deviant segment. And so, certain ofthese individuals "employ illegitimate means to achieve their goals," suchas theft, "striking out at others in their anger, or retreating into drug
He (or he and his tech-smart pals) sits in his own little messybedroom, with some money coming in, and he doesn't have to even leave thehouse. And so, by the deviant using the ployof someone trying to escape the horrors of Africa, the innocent personreceiving the email may well sit up and take notice. Then, once the "business" showedfinancial promise, a crime network bought him out, or just took his littleracket over and shoved him out, to start a new scam using a differentfalsehood. This gives the deviant personhope for a future payday beyond his wildest dreams. This scenario supposes that thescam began with a single person, likely a hacker or other deviant person,who could not obtain "middle class" status legitimately, and so launchedinto crime. And so, with a thousand orso of these solicitations emailed - asking the innocent "victim" to deposita phony check from the scammer and then withdraw money from a bank accountand wire it to the "Nigerian" seeking help to get out of the country -perhaps one or two succeed in their purpose. What is more heart-rending, heart-breaking than the thought of all thepain and death in Africa' AIDS is killing thousands of children per day;starvation, famine, civil war and politically-motivated bloodshed andbrutality take many lives as well. The Secret Service says the perpetrators of this scam are"hardened criminals" but it is also possible they're just deviant young menwho know the Web and its technologies. The young man perhaps was smart enough to read the newspapersto see what heart-tugging issues were out there that informed, caringpeople online might respond to. As to the "Nigerian Money Offers" email scheme - which anyone withemail has no doubt seen in their "in box" - the persons behind this phonypresentation may be having success, and don't want to stop, or perhaps theycan't stop - like the drug smuggler who needs to make "just one more run"to put money away for the future, and only then will he quit. It may bethat a fairly young, Web-savvy, technology-empowered individual - or smallgroup of friends - started the Nigerian letter scam with just a fewmailings, to try to make money because he (or they) didn't have good enoughgrades to get into the college his parents wanted him to go to. Or didn'twant to go to college and was hooked on drugs, and needed money to keep hishabit going. And it is also possible though, that the instigator was or isa drug pusher, and needed cash to buy large quantities of cocaine - andfound his pot of gold in the Internet. His parents don't know what he's doing up there - they likely thinkhe's "surfing the Net" or in a chat room on some Web page - and maybe, asthe article suggested, he is supporting a drug habit with the ill-gottengain he receives from the Nigerian fraud.
Common topics in this essay:
Africa' AIDS,
Money Offers,
Wide Web,
,
Society Agnew,
Secret Service,
middle class status,
class status,
middle class,
achieve goals,
deviant person,
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