Fake Conference Scams

[Eos of the Eons]

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56185/

I can only assume that the scam involves getting hapless recipients to take the free airfare and accommodation bait, sending personal or financial information to the "conference secretariat."

Something new I haven't heard of, not being an "expert" in anything, and highly unlikely to be approached myself.

These scammers are getting more sophisticated/creative, whoa.

[Horatius]

That one sound pretty stupid. Who would believe that a conference would offer free accommodation in New York, and free airfare to Africa?

A better scam is one that is linked by that page as a related story:

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55895/


This one sounds like one people would more likely fall for, as it's just a straight-out rip off: get people to register for a conference that doesn't actually exist, then steal their credit card info. By using the details of an actual conference as a template, they avoid any obvious errors, and as it's in China, any oddities that are noticed might be chalked up to translation errors, or cultural differences.