What can you do to avoid 419 spams and scams?

What can you do to avoid these spams and scams?

The difficult answer is that you really can't avoid them, and that at some point in your life on the Internet, you'll find an e-mail account or two or even all susceptible to these spam and scam e-mails. You can however avoid the potential dangers of being financially scammed or emotional and or physically harmed from these situations. 

Just simply ignore it and delete it.

It's unsure if we will ever find a foul-proof e-mail provider that won't be susceptible to scams (or if it's feasibly possible to avoid them at all) so the next best thing is to avoid the dangers of losing your money and identity and just send that e-mail right to the trash bin! It also helps if you can report the e-mail as spam and send to the spam folder, which might aid e-mail providers in being able to obtain numerous reports from the same e-mail and deduce whether it is a scam and spam e-mail.

Be careful on how you continue to converse with these people if you have already responded. Ceast contact with these people immediately. Ignore all e-mails and block if able to, but keep your initial e-mails intact in case of proof of conversation and verification of the scammer's e-mail address.

DO NOT DIVULGE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION BEFORE VERIFYING OR IF YOU HAVE, DO NOT CONTINUE TO GIVE OUT ANY MORE INFORMATION.

VISIT THIS SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WHAT TO DO IF YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE BEING OR HAVE BEEN SCAMMED OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN SCAMMED AND NEEDS HELP ON WHAT TO DO: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/phishingwhattodo.php

It is strongly discouraged for you to respond to these e-mails as you are technically conversing with a stranger if you know very well that it is a scam and know exactly what they want. That, and you might be giving off the wrong impression to these scammers that if you were easily fooled into responding, that they should continue and see if others will fall into their prey to, putting innocent people at risk.

Over the more recent years, equivalents of cyber vigilantes against online predators that focus on baiting scammers have become an online activity as well that various people can participate in to help stop scammers and inform others and support victims who have been scammed. While various sites and organizations vary from their intentions of scamming and methods of scamming, these forums usually include people who intentionally respond to these online scam e-mails pretending to believe these scammer's ludicrous claims. They take on a variety of alias and personalities (sometimes humorous to make the scambaiting more personally entertaining) and continue conversations with these scammers, pretending to be completely fooled and following the scammer's directions on how to make the fake transactions. Instead, scambaiters in the past have sent from junk to not sending anything at all to these scammers, or have turned the tables around by turning the scammer themselves into becoming the bait in a number of jokes or situations. The main intention of scambaiting is to waste a scammer's time into believing that they have their next potential target, and drawing out the process so that they invest all their time, money, traveling time, and efforts on this one person who turns out to be fooling them back the whole time. Scambaiting takes their time away so that it might prevent the scammer from having the time to fool other potential victims who might truly fall prey to them, or simply keep the scammer engaged enough for them to believe that the transaction in question might be more than what they expected and lead them into the false belief that they will no longer have to scam others to make as much profit.

Because these activities are mostly done by the work of everyday people and supporters against these kinds of Internet crimes, the level of skills varies from person to person. Scambaiting involves these people conversing with the scammers themselves, and thus scambaiters are intentionally conversing with these scammers at their own risk. It is important as well if you are interested in becoming a scambaiter whether through a group or on your own to consult corresponding sites that may also contain more information on how to take extra precautionary measures, as well as similar common tips as ones mentioned here when dealing with scammers.

In all cases, never sacrifice your common sense. Always be safe when dealing with these e-mails. Especially within children and people who are not as familiar with the Internet, it is important to keep others and yourself informed of these sorts of scams. Some people may be more likely to feel special or fall for these ploys by thinking that they have won free items or money (avoid clicking those free PSP and other items ads or the 1 millionth costumer ploys too!) or are able to help out someone, but the unfortunate truth is that scammers are only interested in your money and will do anything to get it.

Protect your emotions and yourself from physical and emotional harm as well.
As unfortunate as it is to say, but people have been emotionally and even physically harmed from dealing with these scammers. While most of the time, the physical aspects do not involve the scammers themselves visiting or finding the person and harming them (though it has happened and vice versa with victims visiting their scammers and being harmed), other victims who have been drained out of their wallets after innocently sending money to these scammers have committed suicide or have fallen into depression and other serious consequences due to the nature of the situation. Your ability to trust the Internet as well, and your own sympathy for others may also be compromised throughout the process, and therefore it is extremely important to understand that taking these precautions may help you have better experiences on the Internet and avoiding the pains of financial loss or simply the loss of trust, sympathy, and other emotions that you have invested onto this scam and have received nothing. Do anything you can to also protect the wellbeings of others close to you as well and prevent them from falling into prey and having their generosity and emotions taken advantage of or being threatened and intimidated by a scammer.

If all possible, if you have come across a an e-mail you believe is a scam and take steps to verify if it is one, visit http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org or other trusted resource sites to report the scams and help raise awareness to others and provide healthy tips on how to avoid these scams.