Word: scams
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...incensed women decided to go public on the general WELL -- if only to keep others from falling into Mr. X's trap. What ensued became "Topic 1290: Do You Know This Cyber-Scam-Artist?," publicly exposing Mr. X to the WELL's 8,000 members (among them, a high concentration of writers, journalists, musicians and Grateful Deadheads) and sparking a network-wide debate on the spoken and unspoken rules of electronic etiquette. Supporters of Lisa, Beth and Nancy sent their messages flying. "E-mail is the last refuge of a scoundrel," said one. But there were plenty of opponents...
...debt by the year 2000," reads the | document promisingly, before descending into a laundry list of the obvious. "Combat waste, fraud and abuse . . . Streamline government." Churlishly, the declaration focuses on the programs of the elderly as a source of income for the young. "Social security is a generational scam . . . Raise the retirement age." Does this mean Grandpa should go back to work...
Money is also a lure. "Scam artists see the opportunity for personal-injury compensation," says Berrill, who notes that "many Americans are generally angry at large conglomerates and believe that a corporation can afford to pay a few injury claims." The quest for money can become unfathomably ugly. To promote their claims of finding ground class in Gerber baby food during the 1986 scare, some parents purposely fed slivers of glass to their children and even cut their kids' bottoms with shards...
...late 1980s, but it still continues, and crime rings are now supplanting some of the Korean women with Salvadorans. In Los Angeles the trade is export oriented: White Americans have been lured to Japan on singing, dancing and modeling contracts and then coerced into prostitution. "It's a recurring scam," says Los Angeles vice detective Fred Clapp...
There is something else too. The idea that his friend Kamin has actually pulled off such a scam intrigues him: "What a notion! Grabbing all that dough and hieing out for parts unknown. The wealth, the freedom, the chance to start anew! I wasn't sure if I was more shocked or thrilled...