ABSTRACT
It has been said that there are only three basic jokes in the English language and that all other jokes are variants or combinations of these three. Similarly, scams can be reduced to three basic types:
pretending to sell or provide something whilst taking money (for nothing) up front;
supplying goods or services of lower quality or quantity than the buyer thought that they were paying for; and
persuading people to buy something they did not want/need to buy.
Countering these three simple concepts is complicated by the ingenuity that the scam merchants use to dress up their offerings as something that they are not. The following list therefore has more than three points, indeed more than three sections and it still probably is not comprehensive.