The Most Common Scams and Rip-offs of 2010

More scams are surfacing every day and innocent people mostly in desperate needs fall pray to such scams. Better Business Bureaus is an organization that gathers and report information on business reliability and alert the public to frauds against consumers and businesses. Here are some of the most common scams by Better Business Bureaus in 2010.

Job Hunter Scams

These types of scams targeting job hunters and attempts to gain access to personal information such as bank account or social security numbers and sometimes even ask for a fee in order to be registered for the job. This is one of the most common type of scams today with more and more people loosing jobs and it is getting difficult to get new jobs.

Debt Relief and Settlement Services

These services often charge fees and leave the consumer in even more debt. It is estimated by the Better Business Bureaus that these type of services increased by approximately 30 percent in 2010.

Work from Home Schemes

This is again one of the most common scams around. They charge for upfront registration amounts and most often they are not paid for the work they have done.

Timeshare Resellers

With property prices dropping people owning timeshare property want to sell and these resellers charge fees and run with the money. It is estimated that these type of incidents increased by over 40 percent in 2010.

Trial Offers scam

These scams mislead free trial offers online for diet supplements, penny auctions and money making schemes. People are repeatedly billed every month it is extremely difficult to cancel these free offers.

Lottery and Sweepstakes Scams

This is again one of the most common scams around. The victim receives a letter in the mail or phone call that they have won a lottery. Then they ask for taxes and processing fees etc from the victims and are never to be seen again.

Advance Fee Loan Scams

In this type of scam people who are struggling financially are told they qualify for large loans but must pay upfront fees. When the victim wires money to the scammers they never receive the loan.