What Are Past Effort Scams?

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Past effort scams, also referred to as compensation scams, operate under the onus that the person contacting you had already contacted you in the past in regards to needing you to help them to transfer or receive a large sum of money.

What is different about a past effort scam from a typical compensation scam is that the scammer is claiming to have already successfully transferred the money that they contacted you about before. Their emails will say things like "I'm very happy to inform you about my success in getting the funds transferred". They will also say that they are wanting to compensate you because they didn't forget your "past efforts" in trying to help them.

Sometimes a scammer may also send this type of scam if they sent you a scam in the past which you didn't respond to at all. So the scam is meant to try to attempt to scam the same person, but with a different scam modality.

In other cases a scammer may send you a past effort scam even when they have never even contacted you before. So the scam email is not really linked to any contact made in the past.

Often the scammer contacting you may also act as if they are a Barrister, Lawyer, Reverend Father, Banker, or some other type of professional person who is making contact on behalf of the person who wants to reward you for your so-called past efforts. But in all cases these people are imposters and it is usually the same scammer who originally contacted you previously, but now using a different fake identity.

The scammer will eventually ask you to send some money before any of the money being promised can be sent out to you. This is a type of scam known as Advance-Fee Fraud. Advance-Fee Fraud is best described as an offer of money, merchandise, services, employment, or even romance, but where the victim is asked to pay a fee in advance to obtain whatever is being promised to them by the scammer. The main scam strategy of all advance-fee fraud scams is to try to persuade the victim to send money, and then continue to send more money to the scammer, as many times as possible, until the victim eventually runs out of money and/or goes into debt as a result of losses from the scam. And in the end, the victim never receives any of the money at all being promised by the scammer.

In all cases though these scams involve a type of fraudulent criminal practice known as “Advance Fee Fraud”, a.k.a. “419 Scams”. Please click here to read more about the psychological techniques used to deceive people with Advance-Fee Fraud scams. The following article on Wikipedia also explains more about Advance-Fee Scams in general: Wikipedia Link