Telamonia dimidiata spiders, unclaimed funds, and political spam: Internet ScamBusters #199
Internet ScamBusters™
The #1 Publication on Internet Fraud
By Audri and Jim Lanford
Copyright © Audri and Jim Lanford
All rights reserved.
Issue #198
Hi,
We've been getting so many good questions from subscribers, we decided to do another subscriber Q&A issue today. You'll find out the answers to:
- Are Telamonia dimidiata spiders being found under airplane toilet seats -- and can they really kill you?
- Does my sister really have $7900 of unclaimed funds coming to her?
- Should I brace myself for an onslaught of political spam?
However, before we check out the answers of these questions, we
first encourage you to take a look at this week's most popular
articles from our other sites:
Why You Need to Take Special Precautions When Disposing of Credit Cards
How Opening a Children's Bank Account Can Be Beneficial for Your Child
Five of the Hottest
Money-Saving Websites on the Web
Ideas for Great Halloween Gifts
Let's begin...
Internet ScamBusters Q&A
Question: Right after seeing the movie Snakes on a Plane, I got an email warning that spiders called the Telamonia dimidiata were found under an airplane toilet seat on a flight from India, and they had killed several people on the plane. Is this true or just another hoax?
Answer: It's a hoax. This urban legend seems to have originated about seven years ago.
The initial email hoax involving the story was easily recognized as a fake because the spider species in the story was fictitious (arachnius gluteus), so it was easy to disprove.
Of course, those who propagate urban legends can't let a "good" story die, so they had to do something about the believability factor.
To make the story more credible, the story was rewritten to include an actual spider species, Telamonia dimidiata. The story also now mentions a medical journal (Journal of the United Medical Association) where this incident supposedly was reported, but this medical journal doesn't exist.
The two most common current versions of this story are: 1. the Telamonia dimidiata spiders are appearing in North Florida and came from airplanes from India; and 2. the spiders are from South America and were found hiding under toilet seats in a restaurant in Chicago's (nonexistent) Blaire Airport.
Many of the current emails also often mention the Civilian Aeronautics Board (CAB), which never existed. The similar sounding Civil Aeronautics Board was abolished in 1984.
While it's not unheard of for spiders to take up residence in a public bathroom, toilet seats themselves are not a habitat of choice, and the disinfectants used to clean airplane toilets would probably displace them shortly.
Perhaps the only true part of the story is that the Telamonia dimidiata is a real species of spider from Indonesia and India, but its venom is harmless.
So, although there are many legitimate concerns regarding airplane travel, finding deadly Telamonia dimidiata spiders under the toilet seats is definitely a low priority worry. ;-)
Question: My sister was recently contacted that she and her
husband (who is deceased) have unclaimed money in the amount of
over $7900. They are not asking for any money up front, but do
charge a 15% fee of the money collected. Do you know of any
scams regarding this? I think it is a scam.
Answer: Whereas this is not an outright scam, you can recover
any unclaimed money that is owed to you by yourself quite
easily -- and there is no cost for this. We've written about
how to get unclaimed funds here.
Question: I heard that I'm going to be getting an excessive
amount of political spam (as you call it). Should I brace
myself for a huge amount of new spam, or is this just an
urban legend?
Answer: Many experts are quite concerned that we all will
indeed get a huge amount of political spam (from both
parties) during this election season.
They predict that a new loophole in the regulations approved by
the Federal Election Commission in March, which governs
election spending, will most likely produce an onslaught of
political spam.
This exemption to the election spending regulations allows
wealthy individuals to make unlimited contributions to be used
for Internet communications -- without having to disclose
either the identity of the donor or the amount contributed.
Companies that sell email addresses to political campaigns have
been rapidly expanding their staffs over the past several
months.
Critics have been very worried that the amount of political
spam will grow exponentially during this fall campaign
season.
Bloggers supported the idea that their writing should not be
regulated and should be seen different from campaign
contributions.
This is a complicated issue. There are important First
Amendment issues here. Regardless, it is likely that you'll be
receiving a torrent of political spam shortly, if it hasn't
started already. (We hope we're wrong on this, btw.)
That's all for now. Have a wonderful week.
