The governor of the Central Bank of Samoa is warning, the public to be vigilant against scams and the work of con artists.
Maiava Atalina Ainu'u-Enari has revealed examples of recent scams to the Samoa Observer, whereby individuals and a company were tricked into parting with large amounts of money.
In one case, a woman thought she had found true love on the internet and carried out a lengthy courtship on Facebook, email and later on the telephone.
She parted with US$13,000 to pay for her liaison to come to Samoa, but she never saw him or her money again.
In another scam, a bank received email instructions from a company to remit funds overseas as payment for construction supplies.
The instructions included what looked like genuine invoices and an authorization letter, but the money has never been retrieved.
Another victim was told she had won an online lottery in the United Kingdom and she paid fees to process her winnings.
The cheque she received for $US20,000 US was fake.
Maiava said scams do not always involve large amounts of money and even intelligent people can be misled.
She said people need to apply common sense, especially when sending money off island