A TroxBlog Compendium Of E-Mail Scams

In my column last Sunday, I asked readers to pass along examples of e-mail scams, and boy, did they comply. I've been reading them all week and they've long since started running together. I think that one night I even dreamed about getting them. I've broken them down into general categories in the several following posts.

My thanks to everybody who took the time to reply. But as I said on the blog yesterday, you can stop sending them now. Please! At this point they seem to be variations on a few basic themes, all of which lead to an attempt to get you to supply your banking account, credit card or other vital information.

The list below doesn't even cover the additional universe of "phishing," in which someone tries to fool you by saying that your eBay account is messed up or that all customers of Bank So-and-So need to go to a special website. These are "narrative" scams, in which someone tells a story or yarn to try to lure in the recipient. Here's my breakdown:

I. Somebody is trying to get money out of their country

II. A business or investor wants to give you money

III. Someone has left you money

IV. Someone was killed or is sick and dying and you can have his or her money

V. You have won a lottery or a prize

VI. Miscellaneous scams

Check out specifics in the posts below. And again, thanks for submitting them!