Ever received a spam e-mail that has correctly predicted the outcome of a series of sporting events? If so, then you may have been targetted by a scam we like to call "The Predictor".
The concept behind this scam is for a con man to make the mark believe they are able to correctly predict winners and, for a small fee, they will share this information with them. The mark will then use this information to place wagers and laugh all the way to the bank as they cash in their winnings.
In reality, The Predictor is a simple numbers game where every outcome is covered. Using football (soccer to you folks over the pond) to illustrate this con, you have three possible outcomes for each game - win, lose or draw. Splitting their contacts into three groups, the con artist would send each group a different result - win, lose or draw. For two thirds of the people contacted, the outcome would be incorrect, but one third would receive your correct prediction.
Predicting the outcome of one event wouldn't make even the most foolish mark hand over their hard earned cash. But what if they predicted 3 games, or 5 or 10? To pull the scam with 5 correct games would only need 243 groups (1 x 3^5) and when you consider that e-mail lists can be purchased in the millions, this still leaves a lot of people receiving the winning combination.
Now that the hustler has the attention of a group of marks (the group who received the e-mails with the correct predictions) it's time to extract some money out of them, most likely by offering a tipster service that either charges a subscription fee or is linked to a premium rate telephone number.
