1. Stella Muchemwa, English and Communication Department,
Solusi University, Zimbabwe
E-mail: muchemwas@solusi.ac.zw; muchemwas@ymail.com

2. “Civil servants caught up in stands scam” ; “SLECA
warns customers of scam” ; IRS reiterates warning
of pervasive telephone scam” ; “Phishing scams
increase by 87 percent worldwide: Report”;
“Attorney General warns of 2014 scam increase”;
“Pishing scams explode worldwide” and “419
Internet scams on the increase: Global losses to
fraudsters are at least $9.3 billion”.

3. Magazines and newspapers headlines as well as
radio, TV and internet news headings are full of
such scam information warning people not to fall
prey.
Scamming has become a common practice
universally.
Due to this problem, the researcher has decided to
carry out a study on scam for an international
academic paper presentation where audience is
high.

4. It can be argued that although words play a vital
part in society: to communicate knowledge,
experiences, ideas, hopes, feelings as well as to
understand others, they can be manipulated and
used for evil; the use of rhetoric that had been
condemned by Plato as a means to deceit instead
of exposing truth.
An example is the scam language.
A scam is an attempt to defraud a person or group
after first gaining their confidence, in the classical
sense of trust.

5. The con artist (an individual operating alone or in concert
with others) uses various scam techniques which evolve on
daily basis resulting in recipients being drawn into scam
nets one after another losing millions of dollars, valuable
assets and even lives.
The weapon that is used by the con artist to lure the victim
is the exploitation of human psyche such
as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresp
onsibility, naivety and greed.
Despite the preponderance of advance fee in most fraud
scams, many in society still fall victim to such con games.
Unfortunate, the internet has provided scammers with an
opportunity to perpetrate fraud on a global scale.

6. Due to scam widespread, scam language has
emerged, for instance, con artist, vishing, phishing,
pharming, flim-flams and 419s /advance-fee frauds
(AFFs).
Other terms include: skimming, whaling, baiting-
and-switching, pretexting, key logging, boiler
rooms, splogs (fake blog sites), scare-ware and
malware.
Cybercrime and the recently coined abbreviation
RUMBLE, (meaning Recruitment of Unwitting
Money-launderers by Bogus Letters of
Employment) have become terms in usage.

7. E-mail fraud is not something new; however, the
tricks that are associated with it in committing the
cybercrime crime evolve on daily bases.
It originated as spam, that is, the unsolicited bulk
e-mails as a price of an open electronic
communications system.
It is believed to have originated in 1978 when the
first one was identified, however, the spam boom
started in the early 1990s.

8. There are numerous internet-based varieties of scam. Current
scams may be classified according to purpose and channel of the
scam, for example:
 auto scams
 on-line scams
 auction scams
 travel scams
 employment scams
 social network scams
 financial scams
 face to face scams
 telephone scams
 Real Estate scams

9. It should be understood that there is only one intention of
all con artists: to make money unlawfully. This can be
achieved by various techniques which include;
 directly stealing cash from the victim (fake online
banking services)
 subscriptions to online fake stores
 the sale of stolen databases on the black market
 spam mailings
 spread of malware

10. The scam type under study is a relatively new scam, the Capacity
Building scam (the name being derived from the proposed
workshops and seminars, e.g., Capacity building workshop/seminar).
It is a fraudulent e-mail scam meant to trap professionals and
academicians who usually attend workshops and seminars.
It is characterized by:
 an advance registration fee for workshop attendance and paper
presentation
 promise of sponsorship for travel and keep-up for attendees
especially those from the less privileged countries.
 an advance for DHL costs to send electronic air tickets and all
technological assets to use during the seminar /workshop is asked
for
 mirror Websites that vanish when the proposed monies are paid
and this is usually toward the allegedly date of event

11. Many researches on scam usually concentrate on statistics
of victims and the suffering they encounter, most
probably, leaving out the main weapon used: the
language.
This research therefore is a gap filler concentrating on
analyzing language used by these crooks.
The research can also be seen as a respond to Professor
Michael Halliday who, in a recent address to the
International Systemic Functional Linguistics Congress in
Lucknow, India, urged researchers to direct their future
efforts toward applicable research; “research that has
arisen from and meets the immediate needs of the
community”.

12. This hermeneutical study examined and brought to the fore
both the linguistic and nonlinguistic features of e-mail scam
rhetoric which has a rising luring rampant effect on millions of
the earth population today.
The con artist employs a plethora of scam techniques resulting
in recipients being drawn into the scam nets one after another
losing millions of dollars and even lives each year.
The researcher strongly believes that the best defense against
scam e-mails is a comprehensive public education about the
nature and characteristics of scam language that, using Schaffer
915)’s words, “signal a con at work”.
The study explored in depth the scam rhetoric which is hopped
to give an up-to-date and extensive perspective on the scam
issue, thereby exposing even the seemingly “not so important”
aspects that people may not be aware of.

13. The given scam background motivated the
approach of the current inquiry which targets the
persuasiveness of scam rhetoric through Critical
Discourse Analysis of selected vignettes (the
Capacity Building e-mail scams).
Traditionally, content analytical approaches were
norm in critical media studies but have, however,
revealed bias, hence a need for new appropriate
techniques.

14. The qualitative research technique was applied
as it is more appropriate to such a study which
requires nit-grits of scam language.
This technique also enables the researcher and
targeted readers to learn more on the scammers’
persuasive language.
The researcher explored, gained a deeper
understanding and exposed the linguistic
features and the ideologies hidden behind the
Capacity Building scam e-mails.

15. Capacity Building scam e-mails were collected from the internet
from the appropriate websites for the past two years to date.
This period is chosen because The Capacity Building scam is a
relatively new scam.
From the corpus related, e-mails were selected for the study.
They were ready for analysis and were analyzed using the Ruiz
Model; one of the most developed model in communication,
culture and society within the Critical Discourse Analysis
approach.
The primary purpose of discourse analysis is to provide a deeper
understanding of texts and it focuses primarily on social
problems.

16. The Ruiz Model is characterized by three level of analysis, that
is, the textual, contextual and the interpretation levels.
On the textual level, the written discourse was taken as the
object of study, was analyzed and characterized.
The focus was on formal features, for instance, vocabulary,
grammar, syntax and other features where discourses and
genres are realized linguistically.
At contextual level, discourse was considered and analyzed as a
single act and context, though regarded both situational and
intertextual in nature.
Finally, an explanation of discourse, which is the ultimate aim of
the analysis, was given in a coherent narrative form.

17. The Capacity Building e-mail scams are different from other
scams, for example, the Nigerian fraud email that are
infested with mistakes of all kind.
These are professionally and formally written having the
following features: formal e-mail format; proper grammar,
correct spellings; syntactically constructed and varied
sentences with all the necessary punctuation marks and
cohesive devices.
Also, sentences are semantically clear giving the e-mail an
authentic countenance.

18. The e-mails have well-chosen diction, for instance,
reference statement in one of the e-mails reads,
“Forum registration and sponsorship approval”;
this is exactly how the e-mail can be summed up
since the e-mail has information on forum
registration and sponsorship approval.
Another feature that can be seen above; the e-
mails are characterized by formal and appropriate
graphology.

19. However, the Capacity Building e-mails have scam
betraying features: the e-mails have no alleged
institution letterheads and their addressees are
anonymous in their first communication.
Again, the e-mails advertise for too many forums,
for instance, one called for three forums, one in
July and the other two in consecutive weeks of
August of the same year in America, Europe and
Africa respectively.

20. Also, there are embedded links leading to fraudulent
information, for example, “International Delegates' Payments
addressed to … (a link is given); Institute are processed through
the appointed Event Management Firm … (another link)in charge
of processing” and “to confirm your acceptance of the offered
Attendance Sponsorship at… (another one).
More so, the e-mails are generic in nature: In one mail it reads;
“We are delighted to invite you to the International Training
Forum in Sustainable Development that will be held in … (place)
from…to….(date)”.
In another , it says “We are delighted to invite you to the
International Training Seminars in Sustainable Development that
will be held in…(place) from…(date)”. Every word in both extracts
is identical except for one, “forum” in the first extract; which is
substituted by “seminars” in the second.

21. The other scam betraying feature of the Capacity Building
scam is the employment of persuasive strategies, including
flattery. The contents of the packages offered are
extravagant and too good to be true, that is, with
accommodation, per diem (covering daily meals and
incidental expenses), round trip airline tickets and much
more.
The Capacity Building e-mails have pronounced similarities
in form and wording that gives these scam e-mails a
noticeable generic bearing.

22. Capacity Building e-mail scams are grammatically
written in contrast to most of the e-mail scams
making it rather difficult to see the fraud in them.
However, they have scam betraying features, for
instance, absence of letterheads and named
addressees.
They are generic in nature and they contain
promises that are too good to be true, thus
exposing the scam.

23. Scam traps can be evaded by avoiding downloading
programs from untrusted sources and being careful
with e-mails from unknown senders.
It is imperative to check out the credibility of e-mail
source and being skeptical about all e-mail
messages.
One should use one’s knowledge of argumentation,
evidence and proof to analyze claims and the ethical
basis of proposed actions.
Most importantly, it should be remembered that
the best resistance against scam is avoidance.