What's the difference between hoax and scam?

Hoax


Definition:

  • (n.) A deception for mockery or mischief; a deceptive trick or story; a practical joke.
  • (v. t.) To deceive by a story or a trick, for sport or mischief; to impose upon sportively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Despite reasonable evidence suggesting the plot letter is a hoax , it has sparked debate in the city, with far right groups looking to capitalise while some prominent Muslims claim the allegations are baseless and rooted in Islamophobia.
  • (2) Following the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance's Hoax of Hollywood conference in Tehran this week, it has been reported that Iran may "sue Hollywood" over what it considers to be unrealistic portrayals of the country in several films.
  • (3) The Syrian ambassador to France has denied resigning from her post claiming she was the victim of a hoax aimed at embarrassing her country.
  • (4) Here are three things you can do: • Use the corporation's online complaints form • Take the issue to the BBC Trust • Complain to Feedback on Radio 4 Otherwise, expect our bastion of editorial values to keep collaborating in the time-honoured tradition of hoaxing us on behalf of corporate money.
  • (5) Exxon’s beneficiaries in Congress include the Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe, who called global warming a hoax, and who has received $20,500 since 2007, according to the Dirty Energy Money database maintained by Oil Change International.
  • (6) It also offers advice on how to talk to your employer, as it’s common for abusers to bombard a target’s workplace with false accusations, hoax phone calls and other tactics designed to discredit them.
  • (7) During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Pruitt said he disagreed with Trump’s past statements that global warming is a hoax.
  • (8) But if the Gay Girl in Damascus is indeed a hoax, it is a fantastically elaborate one.
  • (9) Earlier this month the ANC said it wanted Twitter to take action after a hoax report of Mandela's death was widely distributed on the social network site.
  • (10) Man can’t change climate.” The quick thinking from Inhofe now leaves Wicker, the new chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as the only Republican to still embrace the entire idea of climate change as a hoax.
  • (11) We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here.
  • (12) She's learned from the Born This Way debacle Lady Gaga's head crudely plonked on the front of a motorbike was not what the world needed, and yet that's exactly what we got with 2011's Born This Way cover – an image so appallingly 80s-hair-metal and wildly out of step with the rest of the campaign's artwork that even her fans assumed it was some elaborate hoax sent to test them.
  • (13) On Monday a member of staff at the tourist centre had denied the disappearance was a hoax, telling Guardian Australia she “wished it was”.
  • (14) To justify their large advance they invented a story that Otto Skorzeny, the man who organised the ex-Nazi escape network Odessa, had financed the robbery, a hoax that Read only learned of when he went to Brazil to interview Biggs.
  • (15) Hillary’s health hoax Most of the recent flurry stems directly from InfoWars, a conspiracy-fueled political site run by shock jock Alex Jones that funds itself partly through the sale of supplies necessary for doomsday prepping such as bulk vitamins and a year’s worth of long-life food.
  • (16) Ostensibly signed by Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, it was aimed at getting recipients to take part in an online survey about the party and the future of the country whose spectacular banality suggests that the whole thing might be a hoax.
  • (17) Because they are determined to expose the nature of this total hoax of a Russia-Trump connection currently under investigation by the FBI.
  • (18) He has called climate change a “ bullshit ” hoax invented by the Chinese and has a history of conflict with Native American tribes over competition in casinos.
  • (19) They were victims of a swatting attack, a malicious form of hoax where special weapons and tactics (Swat) teams are called to a victim’s home under false pretenses, with potentially deadly results.
  • (20) He said his interaction with Amina was purely coincidental, "a major sock-puppet hoax crash[ing] into a major sock-puppet hoax."

Scam


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There is a perfectly illogical explanation for it; polio drops are meant to make us impotent and these programmes are run by the same people who managed to locate Osama bin Laden by running another scam vaccination campaign.
  • (2) Some scams appeal to veterans’ sense of loyalty and patriotism by employing affinity marketing – using military and US related paraphernalia.
  • (3) Today, Britain is broke and broken, everyone's on the scam and excessive right on-ism is forcing ordinary Britons into retreat.
  • (4) Lloyds Banking Group has apologised for the impact of the £245m loan scam at HBOS and pledged to examine whether any of the small businesses affected should receive compensation.
  • (5) The scam has left one of the world’s largest carmakers facing fines of $US18bn for breaching environmental standards in the United States, and numerous customer lawsuits.
  • (6) The latest scam, termed "Coalgate", involves the government allocation of coal and is estimated to have cost the country more than $50bn.
  • (7) Generals and other senior officers accused of running the scam have yet to be brought to account.
  • (8) Bank of England governor subject of $6.5m text scam Read more But the commissioner’s comments were met with an immediate backlash from consumer groups, victims’ rights groups and digital security experts.
  • (9) Facebook scams are also used to gain access into organisations – this is where the big money is and these targeted ‘watering-hole attacks’ appear to be on the rise,” says James Maude, senior security engineer at Avecto.
  • (10) The money came from a scam and he was jailed for fraud but his thirst for money remained unquenched.
  • (11) "This book is about how Bill has identified the 60 people involved in the scam and the murder of Magnitsky, and tried to shut down the rest of the world to them."
  • (12) But now the pensioner, whose first husband left her over her refusal to stop responding to the letters, has spoken of the impact this has had on her life in a bid to warn others who have become addicted to the scams.
  • (13) India has seen many scams before, but few have been as brazen and on such a scale as those that have come to light in recent weeks.
  • (14) "The organisers of this scam went to great lengths to provide a facade of legitimacy.
  • (15) A New York Magazine profile from April 1995 described Cinque as a “small-time mobster, a scam artist and an art fence” who “used to be friends with John Gotti” – the former boss of the Gambino crime family.
  • (16) Belgian prosecutors highlighted the massive losses faced by EU governments from VAT fraud today after they charged three Britons and a Dutchman with money-laundering following an investigation into a multimillion-pound scam involving carbon emissions permits.
  • (17) Being a good mother is not a scam perpetrated by the patriarchy on women at a vulnerable moment in their lives.
  • (18) What we seem to have here is a prime example of the anti-PC back-flip scam.
  • (19) The Central American nation was praised for its crackdown on corruption in September after former president Otto Pérez Molina was ordered to stand trial for corruption, illicit association and bribery linked to a multimillion-dollar customs scam.
  • (20) Cunningham, who was an MP for 22 years and served in Tony Blair's cabinet, said he had been testing his suspicions that he was being targeted by a scam.