Nigerian prince still wants your money!

This article from CNN discusses something that I've always found funny, because of how ridiculous it seems. Unfortunately, people do fall for it.

Internet fraud cases surged by 22% in 2009, and financial losses doubled compared to the year before as scammers took advantage of Americans rendered desperate by the recession.

This article details how much money has been lost collectively by the American people because of internet scams. You've probably seen them in your junk email folder, they ask you for your banking information and you will apparently receive lots of money. Of course if you gave out your information, you would quickly lose lots and lots of money. This is very unfortunate for those who were so desperate in this recession they took a risk, and lost.

A long-running Internet scam involving a fictional Nigerian Prince is still in cyberspace, Kane said. In this scam, a "prince" promises vast riches in exchange for your banking information.
Most people don't fall for an obvious scam like that, but there are enough gullible victims to keep the fraudsters in business, he explained.

So when roaming the net, be cautious. Anything asking for things like your social security number or other personal information should be approached with care. A place where scammers find opportunities is in the job market, where they will post fake job applications to receive your personal info.

The message is, be careful kids.