What are the top scams of 2006?

The lists are coming in from everywhere.

One of the best comes from ConsumerAffairs.com. It's definitely one of the best because other sites and bloggers have plagiarised the whole thing. Imitation, as they say in the classics, is the sincerest form of flattery. Anyway, this list covers the bizarre and the reprehensible, everything from fake lottery scams, where people are told they have won a fortune and are told to send money to pay for insurance or taxes in order to get the bogus prizes, to the pump and dump scams. Those are where the fraudsters create spikes in penny-dreadful stocks, and then walk away with the profits.

The better business bureau in Vancouver has comes up with its own list which includes identity theft and bogus work-at-home scams.

Earlier this year, the IRS produced its dirty dozen tax scams which include dodgy trusts and promoters who get their victims to report zero income.

Read through the lists and you can see the common theme. Greed. Not just of the scammers, but of the people getting ripped off.

But scammers also prey on another human emotion in fear, says The Register which has an interesting piece on how the Internet has changed the ancient art of the con.

So scam-meisters prey on good old greed and fear, the same stuff that can drive markets. And it's all avoidable.