Slashdot Mirror
Nigerian Scammers Brought to Justice
KaushalParekh writes "Almost all of us get those junk emails from someone in Africa usually promising millions of dollars if you give them your bank details. Finally good to know that they are being caught by the authorities and punished. These are also known as 419 emails named after the Nigerian penal code for fraud. As an interesting aside, fooling these scammers by responding to their emails is a fun passtime for quite a few who call themselves baiters. Check out the trophy pictures of these spammers.. pretty funny."
See Subject
Prince Wathisname is in jail and to pay his bail, we have to get rid of this US$14.2 from his bank...
The 419 in the article says the most common for is email fraud, but the person arrested didn't use email, it was a bank job.
You can't take the sky from me
Recently I received a mail asking for a quote for delivery of a crate of a particular Texas Instruments integrated circuit to a location in Lagos, Nigeria
It was blatantly not a misdirected mail as my email address couldn't be confused with any major electronics retailer. Is there some ongoing scam that relies on getting goods sent and not paying for them? (Escrow fraud?)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
...third world debt relief. Let us hope that the scammers actually are from Nigeria and spend their money in their local economies.
The Nigerian Scammer has used all of his money he got from scamming people. I am Blahahe Blahemoni and managing his financials. I hate him. I think he might actually beat the charges so I want to make sure his money isn't here when he gets out. Please send me account information to dump this large pile of ill gotten money. You will have the last laugh. If you got ripped off by this scammer also include how much he got you for and your account will get preference. Although, judging from the account balances there is plenty of money to go around.
T-3 days. Just you wait.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Dear,
My name is Offori Atta, I am the Regional manager of SSB Bank of Ghana Takoradi branch in the western Region of Ghana.I am married with two lovely kids. I am a man of peace and I don't want problems, I only hope you can assist me. I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit you and I, as the Regional manager of SSB Bank it is my duty to send in a financial report to my head office in the Capital city Accra at the end of each Business Year.On the course of the last year 2004 Business Report, I discovered that my branch in which I am the manager made Three million five hundred and twenty thousand US Dollars ($1,520,000.00) which my head office are not aware of and will never be aware of. I have placed this fund on what we call escrow call account with no beneficiary. As an officer of this Bank I cannot be directly connected to this money, so my aim of contacting you to assist me receive this money in your Bank account and get 30% of the total fund as commission though is negotiable. There are pratically no risk involved, it will be a Bank to Bank Transfer, all I need from you is to stand claim as the Original depositor of this funds who made the deposit with my branch so that my head office can order the transfer to your designated Bank account.if you accept to work with me I will appreciate it very much.My private phone number and my email is the above. Call me if you think we can work together so that we can go over the details, Thank you in advance and may God bless.
Yours truly,
Offori Atta.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
"Hello I am a rich computer businessman! I am in currently in jail for rich money making schemes and have money to make bail but it is being tyied up in mutual funds! To being make bail I must deposit it in your bank account and..."
Scambaiting is a fun hobby, but it takes time and patience. Often, the first few responses from the scammer are made from templates. However, when you start to talk about more specific areas, the man has to write you the emails himself. It's very clear when this happens; the language goes from quite proper and polite to sloppy and personal. To take the thread to this point can take weeks in the worst cases.
:-D
Some scammers have also become used to scambaiters, and stop the conversation when you start asking strange things. But it's amazing how far you can get these people to go. Fooling them to travel to another continent and being shown on public webcams is nice.
On the other hand, scambaiting can be rewarding. Getting a picture you requested of the scammer bathing in milk with a goat is pretty priceless!
Sig Nature
Dear Ms Slashdot I, for myslef, am the widow of Dr. Muembe from Burundi. My husband was killed by a coalition of rebels, corrupt militaries, 419 scammers and AOL suscribers. He left me with assets over 1,000,000,000,000,000 US$ in a bank in Cape Town. I heard you were a very reliable person an seek your help...
\u262D = \u5350
may be shooting nigerian diplomats to death by victims of this fraud (as actually happened in Prague) helped to resolve the issue but i do not think that even such crimes give an excuse for killing
Deliriant isti Americani.
The case in this article is a large-scale bank fraud, not the spam-based crap we all get. "Amaka Anajemba admitted helping her late husband to persuade an employee of a Brazilian bank to transfer millions of dollars into overseas accounts." Additionally, this all happened in 1998. Don't hold your breath for any relief from the 419 spam.
Looks like the 419 scammers submitted the 419 baiters' website to Slashdot.
paintball
When they're serving time in their jail cell, be sure to slip them messages like: "Get it up in seconds- for your cellmate Butch!!" "Free keys to YOUR cell!! Limited time offer!!" "Refinance your confiscated home today!!"
This is confusing. The press confrences and interviews where Republicans make similar statements are starting to make me wonder if the whole world has gone crazy or if it is just me. I thought Wilson said that there was no African uranium, and of course there was none. I thought that was why Karl Rove outed Wilson's wife. Did I miss something? What did the Democrats do?
It's rather interesting to see that they were caught in Nigeria. Nowadays it seems that more and more of these scammers are actually based outside Nigeria.
Many of the scammers are based in Amsterdam and though they might be originally from African nations, the easy access to technology and communications in more modern cities brings them there.
Let's hope that the more modern policing in western countries helps to catch more of these scammers.
--
BB
Travel the world - virtually
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
...that trophy pictures link is Slashdotted already.
Kids, do not do this at home. These people may seem stupid (at times), but they are full blown criminals and quite probably organized criminals at that. From the 419eater website: "Violence and threats of physical harm may be employed to further pressure victims. In June of 1995, an American was murdered in Lagos, Nigeria, while pursuing a 4-1-9 scam, and numerous other foreign nationals have been reported as missing."
This is not fun. Really.
*sigh* OK, so it's O.T., but where *could* I post this?
This happened to me last year. I recieved an e-mail stating that I had won $500,000 in a cash giveaway drawing sponsered by a jobsite that I was a member at. After 5 days of e-mailing and lots of international phonecalls I finally learned that it was a group of nigerians operating out of amsterdam trying to get me to send them a money order. I was totally hooked at first...making long distance calls to switzerland to open a swiss account for my 'winnings', booking plane tickets to Amsterdam, etc.
Luckily I figured the whole thing out in time, I nearly sent them a western union money order for $1200 to cover the 'financial legal fees' involved in processing and transferring the 'winnings' into my back account.
I'll admit that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these guys had a pretty convincing and elaborate scheme going. I forwarded all of their contact information to a bank in Amsterdam whose name and letterhead they were using. Hopefully they took action.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
There was a 60 Minutes peice on a country in South Africa, I think it was Mozambique, but I don't remember.
The news story was about how Exon went to the country, and told their King (the country had a monarchy), they told the King they found oil and wanted to set up Exon refineries and the such. The King, knowing his own people did not have the skill to extract the oil, agreed to sell the oil for $0.02 on the dollar. In one way Exxon was ripping off this country big time. But when one saw the amount of money in the aggregate, one thinks maybe some new roads, hospitals, and schools could be built with this money because this nation was dirt poor, and the people have nothing.
What did the King do? He learned to speak French and purchased a $10,000,000 condo in the Riviera, in the south of France, and another one in Paris. He own dozens of sports cars, including porches. And he will buy 20 suits at once, $10,000 suits, some of which he will never wear. He buys them on impulse.
And what about his country? His brother complained in the newspapers about needing a new school for the capital, for the children. His brother was sentanced to 7 years in prision. Others were executed.
60 minutes went to Exxon to ask them about buying the oil for $.02 on the dollar, about the poltical climate in this African country, and Exxon refused to comment.
Oh, I remember what 60 minutes wanted to ask Exxon. It seems that Exxon has paid for some helicopters to be used in the area, and when there was an uprising, Exxon let the King use those helicopters, sending gunners up in Exxon helicopters to shoot at protestors. Why was Exxon helping the King kill his own people, to protect a contract which was making Exxon executives very rich?
Anyways, the whole point of this post is about greed and self love. Exxon did it, finding an idiot to exploit. The King in return did it to his own people. The only ones who made any money was Exxon and some very overpriced French tailors. It is sad, because the people are the ones who lost out on their resources. The natural resources in the area did not belong to the King, but to ALL the people who lived in that area. And they are the worse off for it.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
The link says "Trophy Pictures", but the link goes to the "Hall of Shame", which features really god-awful attempts to fake trophy pictures. Oops on submitter.
Hello, I am a lawyer representing a 419 scammer that was recently placed under arrest for his alleged actions. My client has a substantial amount of cash in Nigeria and needs your help to move the money out of the country before his trial. We are prepared to give you 10% of the $30 Million US Dollars that my client has stashed away in his various safety deposit boxes. All you have to do is give us your bank's routing number and account information, and we will contact you shortly. Thank you for your assistance,
M. Buddha,
Legal Counselor
Lagos, Nigeria
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
"Spear-chuckers"? Most Africans are agrarian (i.e. small-scale farmers), not hunters.
There are plenty of good books about South Africa.
I have heard that once you go for the bait, you are typically asked to send more and more small sums of money for information. But they actually do mail you some documents which can be typically reproduced free at the many government run social centers. The thing is, they never do actually send any useful information till you give up. Remember, you always send a self addressed envelope so they do not lose. As I write this, a colleague tells me a similar ad exists in todays' free Metro news paper! These Canadians - What are they good at?
The website will celebrate two years of baiting scammers this September. No word if there will be a contest this year, as there was last year (plugging my prize-winning contest entry there), as Shiver is running a Christmas contest (and already has killer entries).
If they're not, you can always get them to join a church or two.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Niger-baiting is no laughing matter.
I myself have quite a bit of experience at leading these folks on. Yes, I'm quite the master baiter... but I figure they deserve it because they keep jerking me around. They're such wankers!
And the whitewas... eh, subsequent investigations were, of course, conducted by loyal GOP party members and supporters.
It looks like this one had a dream of being a great professional wrestler, only to accidently send a letter to one of those folks at 419eater.
c ammer.zip k e
http://members.419eater.com/~homerjfong/wrestlers
http://community.webshots.com/album/397026494naLU
The slashdot servers claimed another trophy
Which is worse - get a thousand spam emails or get slashdotted. Ohhh, well...I think for now we won't get answer from 419eater.com guys. :)
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
please cite yellowcake evidence.
Also "lied about about being ordered by Cheney" is small peas compared to vast web of lies, misdirection, and deception used by the Bush administration to justify the war. Justifying a war with lies is about the worst thing a President can do to democracy.
Anyone else remember "We know where the WMDs are."? Because I do, and I remember thinking to myself, "Why don't you go to where they are (there were inspectors on the ground at the time) and bring them back and show me?" It seemed like a pretty bald faced lie at the time, and it seems even more so now.
Oh well, at least Bush is pro life, even if has ordered the death of thousands based on falsified evidence. Remember? The yellowcake papers cited in Bush's state of the union were forged!
Actually it's a shame you gave up so quickly. There is a shit load of literature, documentaries and new media out of Africa (unsuprisingly, it's a massive content, with a massive population), it just takes a smidge of effort.
Perhaps even a visit may help? The three categories you mention are rightly so cliches - there are poor whites in South Africa, and there are corrupt native africans across the content (and vice versa).
It's a complex place, with complex issues, and a complex history. The best we can do is encourage reconciliationa and support what we assess as noble and valid causes - we may not always be right, but we can try.
...getting a 419 file not found error on that last link?
Shut down all connections to Nigeria until they clean up their act.
We do it with spammers and irresponsible ISP's, Why not a country ?
I receive Nigerian mails everytime i sell something locally here in Sweden, their translations are laughable (Drunken babelfish) and i can't believe anybody would fall for it, but people do.
I don't know why but i really feel pure hatred for the people who try to scam me with their rediculous mails, and it insults my intelligence as well.
Where can one turn to do some vigilante stuff on these people ?
I hate to be a grammar nazi, but passtime is not a word. I believe you meant pastime. I can see why you may have thought it was "passtime," but now you know it's not ;)
I remember getting one of these letters in my inbox when I was about twelve or thirteen(1992?). I was fooled...
For about half a second.
Even then, I knew it was utter BS. I responded to the guy, letting him think that I was interested in his scheme. While this sucker was waiting for bank information(didn't have) and the like, I was researching(on the net, of course) this sort of thing to see if it was a common scam.
To make a long story short my final response to him included a copy of what I sent to the FBI(including his first mail, full headers) and some more colorful references to his parentage, ancestry, and sexual orientation.(Hey, I was thirteen!)
Too...many...jokes...
...must...mock...America.
The next logical step is to represent themselves as 419 scam artists who have received enormous amounts of money from the scams and need to move large amounts of cash out of the country. In return for them transferring the money, say $20,000,000, to your bank account, you will be able to keep 25%.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/27/14 52230&tid=133&tid=111&tid=17
Posted by timothy on Wed Oct 27, '04 01:51 PM
from the no-really-send-me-the-money dept.
trusteR writes "Always in the pursuit to rid the world of 419 scams with new and often very entertaining strategies, the class of 419eater.com have set new records in making scambaiting an entertaining and funny artform. Shipping ANUS laptops, $$$, Death treats, Audio and lots of pictures." This beats the amusement value of a Captain Kirk passport; the scam-baiters here managed to get cash in the mail and get rid of some less-than-perfect hardware.
Anyways, those of you familiar with a certain Terry Nation science fiction series might enjoy knowing that I had a great time as Kerr Avon, from the Liberator Group.
For those unfamiliar with the series, Kerr Avon had a penchant for trying to walk off with the contents of the Federation banking system - and any others he could access - on several occasions. The episode "Gold" was particularly useful to me for baiting this particular scammer...
(It was also a good test to see if the scammer actually did come from England, as (a) it is absolutely NOT a name anyone there actually has, and (b) it would be recognizable to at least 50% of those over the age of 30.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You would not think some spear chucker could outsmart an American.
Statements like that are immediately disproven when made by an American.
Who ordered that?
Not true of South Africa. You do find some billionaires here, eg. Sol Kerzner (Southern Sun Resorts and Casinos), Raymond Ackermann (owner of a large chain of supermarkets), Mark Shuttleworth (Thawte), but the average white (and now black middle class) South African is on par with a lower middle class US resident. The salaries are lower over here, the cost of living is higher, the taxes are 40% on earnings, plus a VAT of 14%, petrol tax, television licence tax, tax on aerial on your burglar alarm system etc. Cars, electronics etc are at least 40% more than in the States. State health is incredibly bad (although used to be one of the best in the world in the 70-80's - first heart transplant etc) most people who want some assurance of proper care need to pay hefty insurance fees (as high as 20% of their income sometimes). Cost of Internet broadband (512k max) access amounts to between 50% and 110% of the salary of the average person see
http://www.hellkom.co.za/
Regarding culture this is a backwater too, they maybe have one semi-pathetic symphonic orchestra, there is hardly and theatre, opera etc. Social serurity payouts are very low for most people.
AT present there is also a system of affirmative action excluding younger white males from jobs - who are going abroad, often to the UK or the US.
The whites here are definately not richer than most Americans, unless you only speak of trailer park residents and the homeless in US cities.
The BBC article is about one case of fraud. There was no mention about other arrests or trials. One of the defendants got a 2 1/2 year prison sentence for a $242 million scam. Compare that with Bernard Ebbers who just got a 25 year prison sentence in the US. I don't see this as a turning point in stopping Nigerian scammers.
I live in South Africa myself, so I can't really recommend any good books on the country, never having had to have read one that gives a visitor's perspective :-)
I can however give you two URL's: the SA Tourism Department's portal to the country : http://www.southafrica.net/ and a privately run website which I know little about but appears to have a fair amount of factual data about SA, at least after a cursory examination: http://www.southafrica.com/
Incidentally, there are plenty of poor white people (although many more black ones) in SA, and plenty of middle-income to filthy rich black, indian and coloured people in SA too. That all white people in SA are filthy rich is just not true, and never has been.
Daar is nie 'n lepel nie
Seriously, if scammers tracked down and killed every baiter that came their way, the human population would have halved in the past few years. That hasn't happened, so my guess is that scammers only go after vigilantes who actually get physically in their way, pose an actual threat or who have managed to convince the scammer that there is an actual threat.
If a criminal decides there is actual danger to life and limb, they are probably going to take the path of least resistance, especially if it is in a relatively lawless area or if there is minimal risk to them personally.
On the other hand, if they have absolutely zero idea of where you are in the world, are pretty sure you pose no danger beyond a sanity check, and are not part of some rival gang, then almost any action they take is likely to put themselves in danger for negligable or zero benefit. I doubt many scammers would find that appealing.
If you mess with a scammer involved in an "Organized Crime" gang, all bets are off. There is really no telling what might happen then. However, most scammers are likely loners and spam merchants of equal skill to your typical skript-kiddie. (That is why most such scams are near-identical and obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell. Anyone with a modicum of skill is likely to be rather better at social engineering and much harder to detect.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
i am so glad to see this. my biggest problem with these people are on ebay. if anyone can relate, this might sound familiar:
:)
"Hello, my name is [whatever], and i am buying item for my daughter final year project. it must be shipped right away, the method of payment is money order by western union, blah blah."
these people tear up ebay when it comes to selling high priced items. they caused me so much money in ebay seller fees that i had to demand my money back from ebay. for one instance, i sold my old laptop computer, and it was bought 5+ times by scammers wanting to pay me through western union and ship it to nigeria. it isnt just people in africa doing this, however. as far as the laptop computer goes, i actually recieved a payment in paypal of $500 more than i wanted for the computer. this was in russia, not nigeria. i was skeptical- and that same night, a representative from paypal called my house to tell me that it was fraud.
my point is, it's not just the guys from nigeria that are scammers. you just have to treat every deal carefully. if it looks too good to be true, it most likely is (of course excluding the samples at costco)
...are probably broke students who can't afford the Red Light District -or- the drugs. (You don't seriously think they're there to spend the money on tulips, do you?)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/901e33539d0aca849 2c211d9766ee079/index.html
Secondly, in order to win a contest, you must first enter. This is one time where "nothing for nothing" really does apply.
Thirdly, if you don't supply someone with your e-mail address, then they don't know who you are, where you are, or indeed anything else. Many sales staff have gimicks, but they rely on being effective at drawing in potential customers. Drawing in someone who won't buy anyway is of no use to them, so that isn't the sort of person they are going to promote to.
Finally, almost any competition with a large prize attached will cost more to win than the prize is actually worth. That is why lottery corporations are richer than even the most successful of "winners". Indeed, there would be little point in running a lottery if they weren't.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Gee.
... ...
;-)
Lucky me.
Would you guys believe it?
I have just won (1,500.000.00) One Million FiveHundred Thousand Euros.
LOTTERY PRIMITIVA SWEEPSTAKES/INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS held on 20th of April 2005. Your name is attached to ticket number 004-05117963 198,with serial number 99375 drew the lucky numbers 05-07-11-12-13-27, and consequently won the lottery in the 3rd category.
Psssst. Do not tell them I didn't take part in any lottery.
The american olympic javelin team must certainly be confused.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
It is still all functioning for me. Slow yes, but alive.
Nigerian scam is so 1999. In the past years I received more scam emails from Russia, especially since the owner/CEO of Yukos Oil is arrested. On the second place is the internet lottery. I win there two times a day, must be billions already.
is there any particlular reason that this kind of scam comes mainly from Nigeria? Is it related to the laws there, or a cultural thing? What makes that place different from 100 other countries?
I have been wondering about that for a long time...
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
I had a roommate who starting getting packages dropped off on the porch. There were GAP jeans, shoes, camcorders and other such items. The packages were not addressed directly in her name. She started taking them and sending them back out. I saw the packages were being shipped to Nigeria. A RED light went on. There was no way she could afford all this on her own. I confronted her and found she was reshipping packages to Nigeria for someone she met on the Internet. She told me the original "buyer" could not send packages to Nigeria from where he lived in Florida. I told her she was an idiot to even believe that. When the next package came, I opened it up and looked at the invoice. There was a Florida address and a phone number on the invoice. A quick check on Superpages.com revealed the area code of the phone number in question was in Texas, not Florida. She was like "it's a cellphone". I did the old *69 and called the number. A lady with a foreign accent but passable english answered. As soon as I started talking about the shipment, she hung up on me. I was now worried that stolen property was being sent to my address. I made my roommate get some of the boxes she had recieved. Next, I started looking at the tracking info on UPS. the packages were marked as "left on porch". So no one could claim I signed for them. I said fuck this, I'm calling the stores. I began calling the stores who were shipping the packages. I found a stolen credit card was used for at leat one purchase. Other merchants would not reveal anything and did not even care if the merchandise was returned. Next, I called the local police. They came, did the paperwork and told me just to ship it all back. They came back 1.5 hours later and arrested my roommate. She had already fallen for the Nigerian check cashing scam to the tune of 3500.00. She was already reporting to the court weekly to take drug test and was awaiting trial on the check scam/bank fraud. I knew nothing of this. The police said only "drug addicts" could fall for something so stupid. I kid you not. I guess the fact she was still involved was enough to get her re-arrested. Her sister came and got her stuff. I've not heard from her since. I shipped back what I could, If the merchant did not want it back, I gave it to Goodwill, and got receipts for it.
I understand that some have attained great skill in the application of this art...
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I feel almost sad for my nigerian spammer alter-ego
First off, by the way most 419's work .. the 419'ers in Nigeria think they are taking advantage of people who are already willing to do criminal activity.
.. but I don't think it's right for people to be judging what punishment is appropriate for individuals without knowing the circumstances of the crime.
.. don't pleasure yourself over this. There are far worse and more evil criminals out there who take advantage of innocent people rather than those who don't mind helping some evil dictator get away with their money.
Please think about the design of the scam.
Second, these are people living depressing lives in a country that's pretty screwed up. From their perspective, every westerner is super rich (makes 100 times more than they do).
Why not just ignore the emails? Are you the law to know what's appropriate punishment? How would you like it if your picture was put up on the wbe and made fun of if all you did was speed?
Sure, they did more than just speed
Every crime's punishment takes into account levels of premeditation, intent, etc. So please
Had a 1986 BMW 318 for sale for 1600 bucks on a few online classifieds sites. I hadn't really heard of 419 scams before.
I get an email from a guy saying he wants to buy it and have it shipped to him overseas. He says he's going to send a cashiers check in the mail. I figured, yeah right - this guy is totally nuts, so I ignored him and forgot about the whole thing.
About a week later, a certified bank check shows up via fedex at my apartment for $10,000.
I took it to the state police barracks down the road from my house and asked what to do. They gave me the number of a secret service agent. I asked if there would be any harm (or if I would be doing anything illegal) if I deposited it into an empty account to see if it cleared - they said no.
So I called the secret service agent and explained the situation to him. He said that there have been a lot of fraudulent emails coming from nigeria, but most of them involved scamming people out of their bank account numbers. I asked him if there would be any harm in depositing the check to see if it clears. He said that there shouldn't be any harm in doing so as long as I wait to see if it clears first (duh).
So I did.
A few days later, I went back to the bank and asked them if the check I had deposited had cleared. The teller told me, yes, it cleared. I said "Are you sure it cleared" and she looked again and said "Yes, it cleared the system."
I couldn't believe it.
I told them I wanted to withdraw the money. The teller gets the manager to approve the large withdrawal. The manager checked the system, shook his head and then went into the vault. They gave me 10k in cash and I walked out.
I got home and called the secret service agent back. I said "You're not going to believe this, but I have 10,000 cash in my hand right now. - What should I do??" He said, "Well, the check cleared, nothing illegal has been done, proceed with the transaction." So I had the bank telling me that the check cleared, handing me 10k in cash and a secret service agent telling me to proceed with this transaction.
So I did. I had not witheld any information from anyone. I felt uneasy at first, so I went directly to the police. The confirmed that what I was doing was okay. So I sent about 8,000 via western union to the "shipper" who was supposed to pick up this piece of shit 1986 318.
Three days later the bank account went 10k in the red. There was no way I could pay them back. I explained EVERYTHING to them, emphasizing the fact that THEY had told me that the check had cleared and I acted on that premise. Their response basically was "too bad" and they sent it to a collections agent. I called the secret service agent back. He felt really bad about the situation, but basically said "there's nothing I can do".
I've felt angry, embarrassed, and stupid about the situation ever since. My credit is completely screwed and I don't think there is anything I can do about it.
It's too bad that it took a million dollar scam for them to start going after these bastards.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
...compare the conditions in a typical US jail to those in a typical Nigerian jail and see which sentence seems hardest.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2F www.419eater.com%2Fhtml%2Fhall_of_shame.htm
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
No they don't. Do you even know what kinds of people fall for this? It isn't always greed.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Agreed. 242 million dollars was just too much to pretend "we cannot help you, go talk to this other office". Stealing that much money would get Interpol and the various countries embassies to actually notice, and cut off Nigerian bankloans and aids.
The Nigerian scams will continue unabated as long as Nigeria is so poor and fraud one of their main sources of good solid foreign currency.
I think we both know the answer to that. The lucky kind!
When I reply to these scams, I usually tell them they need to fax me whatever "important documents" from "the bank" that I need to fill out, along with all of our email conversations "to save for my records." I then give them a random fax number at the FBI, and encourage them to send me as much information as possible.
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As well as Nigeria, many other Western African nations are the source of all of these wonderful offers. As most of these are done "by hand" rather than by bot, blocking Nigerian IP blocks isn't going to work. Not unless you are willing to block yahoo email. Many of these emails will ask you to respond to a different address (from a different provider), as they are willing to let the original email address be burned by complaints. I've seen some that originate from public proxies too. 419 scammers seem to be quite organized too. As a bait moves along, you can tell that you are being passed up the food chain. The spelling and punctuation are much better, and these guys are much smoother. These cats are the ones that work out of the business centres around the world. Many of the scams will involve convincing the victim to travel to one of these places to close the deal. That is where the big problems can happen. The best way to get a grip on the problem is education. If you hear someone make mention of a "big sum of money coming in" they may be getting involved in a scam. Part of the scammer's pitch is to make sure that the victim mentions the deal to anyone. That keeps someone with common sense from learning of the scam. We baiters cannot state this enough; If you are going to bait these guys, ensure that you reveal NO private information. Details of what to check are at 419eater.com
I block yahoo email, and hotmail. It prevents a lot of spam, and out of all the email I manage, I got one complaint about it being blocked, from a VP whose wife I talked to and gave her a direct dialup line on our corporate hosted external spamtrap server. It saves my spam filters a lot of work.
To reiterate -- these are hardened criminals! Unless you feel competent to handle such (i.e., you're a real-life Rambo/Serpico/Superman), you're almost certainly risking far more than just money.
Does this mean I'm not getting my 2.9 million USD from the wife of the late vice president of Nigeria? WTF?!?!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Caveat: This anser deals with Canadian law, not US.
About 10 years ago, a lady went to her bank with her statement that showed C$10,000 (I think) deposited to her account. She informed the bank that they had made a mistake. She told this to the teller and the branch manager. They both informed her that she was wrong and the money belonged to her. She withdrew the money and put it into another bank. (She also got the names of witnesses to all this.)
Shortly after this, (You know what's coming.) the bank discovered they had indeed screwed up and asked the lady for the $10K. She said, "No!"
Naturally a law suit followed and was fought all the way up to the Supremem Court of Canada. The court declared in favour of the lady, and she got to keep the money.
The principle of law that the Court invoked is (and I paraphrase), "You can't profit from someone's honest mistake, but if you're going to be stupid about it, tough noogies!" The success of the defense against the suit, in other words, turned on the fact that she had done her best to inform them that she was in error. (The witnesses helped to prove that.)
IANAL, certainly IANAAmericanL, but I'd go see an attornery and see if this principle hold in your jurisdiction. Sure as beejezus the bank won't tell you this, and your friend is not a lawyer.
They are the Nigerian elite, so to speak.
Actually, the individuals sending out the messages and responding to baiters are employees of organized crime bosses. They don't own their own computers, nor do they belong to the Nigerian elite. At best they make a commission on the funds they can swindle for their bosses. They're basically telemarketers.
The BBC article this slashdot story is about is unique in that the Nigerian responsible for the swindle appears to be the one who received the $242 million. But it happened in the nineties, when the industry was so young...
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Visit http://www.419eater.com/ for a good laugh at these scammers being scammed!
If you make a mistake in your little game, they will screw you over royally
Please provide some examples of Americans being physically attacked in America by 419 scammers. It's pretty expensive for Nigerian con men to punish Americans for yanking their chain over the internet. It's much cheaper for them to simply move on to the next mark. What do they have to gain? Revenge, yes. But from a business perspective, they've simply silenced a single crank.
I'm afraid you're not looking at this from an organizational perspective. The folks sending the emails and responding to the cranks are real cheap telemarketers. Labor in Nigeria is super cheap. The people you see in those photos on 419eater aren't nearly as educated as their bosses or the foreigners who persuaded them to take silly photos of themselves. They're being double-team screwed by their bosses and the foreigners. Their bosses aren't going to lift a finger to put the hurt on an American overseas for convincing one of their foot soldiers to bathe in a pool of milk with a goat.
As for that guy from Poland who disappeared, it sounds like he may have confronted the scammers on their own turf. Of course he's going to disappear.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Gather up all the "evidence" you can: bank statements, receipts, mail, emails, etc.
Get all the names to all the cops/Secret Service people you spoke with.
Get all the names to all the bank staff you spoke to.
Get dates/times for as many of the conversations you had.
TAKE ALL THIS TO A LAWYER!
The lawyer will weigh your situation and make a determination as to how to proceed in your best interest.
The bank says you owe $8k. Frankly, that is not a lot of money to them, but to you I'm sure it's quite significant.
One thing I know for sure. If your lawyer even files a dispute, you will owe nothing until the dispute is resolved. Filing is easy. Don't roll over and take this lying down. The bank is playing hard ball in hopes that you simply cave in and feel helpless. If you show some back bone they are going to have to make a cost/benefit analysis as to how much they want to fight for this $8k.
The Bank got screwed too. Bringing the law enforcement officials into this in the context of a legal case may actually put everyone on the same side.
It may also prompt a settlement.
Get a lawyer, play hard ball, but keep an open mind. Your going to have to be the bigger person in this situation.
Oh, and BTW, talk to a lawyer.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
As a matter of fact, the UAE uses foreign oil companies as well. You might be thinking of Saudi Arabia, which nationalized its oil industry (ARAMCO), but that is largely run by Americans and Europeans as well, in fact I think ARAMCO's first non-American president was only a few years ago.
.02 cents on the dollar thing is also misleading. Exxon pays all the costs of extraction of the oil, paying locals to do it, using local suppliers/contracters when possible and then pays a royalty of so much per barrel extracted. They aren't getting oil for 2 cents a barrel, they're getting it for 2 cents a barrel more than whatever it costs them to extract it, which varies immensely from place to place. This isn't a "dirty deal", this is a government taking oil revenue and doing bad things with it.
The idea that everyone in the UAE is a millionaire is also an exaggeration. They receive free education, free land and so on, and it's pretty hard not to be well off if you're from there, but it's not a given. Also the sheer quantity of money that passes through the place in relation to its native population size is totally out of scale with what we're talking about here.
And exactly who do you think does the labour for Exxon? Believe it or not they don't fly American's into the heart of Africa to do grunt labour. Providing jobs for locals is one of the key attractions for a third world government. The
In order for the locals to "drill the oil themselves" they would have to buy their own equipment, find their own suppliers and markets, find the oil themselves and so on. All with people starting from zero education. Spending time in such a place will make it immediately clear how ridiculous that idea is, in most of the middle east never mind Africa
You hit on something about democracy not necessarily being the best way, but for all the wrong reasons. Every third world country that has pulled itself up the development ladder in the past century has done so through market reforms and education. Ask south korea if they regret working in factories for pennies for a few decades.
I think you have a completely warped perception about the oil industry, who the "bad guys" are and the third world in general. Not to mention capitalism. I hope you stick to talking about stuff you have some clue about in the future.
Baiter? Or is nobody really that good at it?
Traditionally, fraud rings in Nigeria have operated with broad support from the government and the population. I wouldn't be surprised if the trials aren't in part a con to make it look like the government is getting serious about combattting fraud because the _real_ successful fraud artists are finding these small fry to be a problem.
These 419 letters are a small part of what operates out of Nigeria. Credit card fraud rings are also _really_ big there. The 419 letters are just what is visible to the public.
the Secret Service in fact.
Forward the full email, with full headers etc to:
419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
That's what I do.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Now - if you had said you had gotten such a scam via regular post, I might believe it - but I doubt in 1992 or thereabouts you got it via email (which you may or may not have had - maybe you had access to a university account, you don't say - all I know is that in 1992 consumer access to the internet was all but non-existant).
Spam, of which the 419 scam is a part of, showed up in great amounts first on internet newsgroups - ie, the Canter/Siegel Green Card Lottery spam, which went out in 1994. I know - I was there - I was an indirect.com customer (the first "consumer" ISP in Phoenix, Arizona - now long since gone, having been gobbled up by Goodnet, then they in turn by Earthlink), and I got the spam myself. At the time I didn't think anything of it, and I didn't appreciate what had happenned. But, then again, I had only been on the internet since the fall of 1993, having gotten tired of the BBS scene.
You may want to re-think your dates and timeline...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Scamoramma and theScamBaiter are 2 more sites that fight these crooks.
1 32&page=1&pp=25
the guys at http://thescambaiter/com/forum have made this 1 nigerian spend almost $30,000 in shipping costs because he shipped him heavt equipment like washing macines and clothes dryers.
read about it here:
http://thescambaiter.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1
You'll have to register, but its the fuinniest thing I have ever read.
lol.... outsmart an american ? a spear chucker...
...
m er/reading.html
that spear chucker is YOUR freakin ancestor ! genetically, anthropologically, archaeoligically, just about any ology there is
why you keen to distance yourself from our ancestors....
bloody fool !
and when are the USA and British scammers (and murderers) gonna be broguth to justice...
ya know that ones that have sent our troops off to die and murder civilians ?
bout time we took that silver spoon out our azz and actually thought about the foolishness we 'quip' about in here...
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stephenoppenhei
Outdated modes of thinkin are just that....
So the oil companies are our buddies now? Where were you the last time they jacked up the price of oil by 30cents/barrel in one day because a weather change MIGHT happen and MAY effect the production in another part of some distant country with 1/20th the oil places like canada and saudi arabia produce?
Yes... just ask my fiance's ex-husband who openly admits to not only falling for the scam (twice), but having also lost substsantial amounts of money in day trading and buying into a mobile home business which was being propagated by an ex-con.
/sigh
Some people never learn
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Basically Dean responded as a fake character, saved all the emails, and turned it into a two-person play, very much in the style of A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. It's very funny. The best thing is that since the play was partly written by the scammer(s), Dean is saving half the proceeds in a trust account until the scammer comes forward.
Where were you in the 90s when oil companies were posting losses year after year? Oh right, you were whining about some other uncontrollable element of your life.
Exxon and other oil companies don't set the prices, market forces do, with OPEC holding some sway from time to time. The objective of oil companies is to produce as much oil for as little money as possible. That big (sometimes inconsequential) news increases the price of oil is unfortunate but speculators are to blame for that, not the oil companies. I challenge you to find a single case of price fixing between the big oil companies in the last 10 years.
I didn't say oil companies were great. But they're just businesses like any other. Unfortunately they have to deal with some shady people from time to time, and they sometimes enter shady territory like Talisman did in the Sudan. But I think for the most part oil companies act fairly reasonably given their situation. They are too busy making lots of money through established and legitimate means to stir up controversy.
And for the record, Canada now produces an oil surplus, it's true, but it is still a relatively tiny player on the world market. America produces over twice as much as Canada does, and consumes roughly 10 times as much.
Perhaps the nerds get their news somewhere else, because people who know enough about the internet know that scambaiting is perfectly safe IF YOU ARE CAREFUL.
Use a free email account like gmail or fastmail.fm that does not show your IP. Use a fake name and address - just make it up, they will never know. 419eater has a mentor program so you can get help with baiting safely right from the start, from someone who has been doing it long enough to know how to do it safely. You can even have the scammers call you (spending their $$) via VOIP to a US telephone number using IPkall - wherever you are in the world, you can get the calls. They cannot trace you if you know what you are doing.
If you would like to make a difference and perhaps save some victims some money because you're wasting the time and money of a scammer, sign up in the forums at 419eater, get a mentor, and get baiting. It's a lot of fun as long as you bait safely.
I hope the prisons in Nigeria are more fun than the prisons here.
I think we, er, accidently killed all the native Tasmanians, didn't we? Careless, huh?
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're not.
Reading about your loss, Fahrvergnuugen, gave me this simple(?) idea that should put a stop to this kind of 'the cashier's check cleared' crap.
Get 2 bank accounts. Keep a token amount in one of them to keep it open to use as follows:
If somebody wants to pay by cashier's check (or anything other than 'dead presidents') for something like this, tell them to use an Electronic Funds Transfer and give them the account number to one of the accounts. NEVER EVER GIVE OUT THE ACCOUNT NUMBER OF THE SECOND ACCOUNT! If the transaction is legit, the money instantly appears in the account. Once it does, transfer it to the 2nd account and completed the sale. Everybody is happy ('cept the banks): You got paid, the buyer got their stuff and you used the bank's EFT service legitimately for free. No checks/money orders/Western Union/whatever bounced as the funds transfer was instataneous. If the buyer was a scammer/crook, he/she will move on to another sucker to fleece who isn't savvy like this.
Paypal has been doing stuff like this on the internet for years. They get paid by you leaving your funds on account with them which they use to earn interest to pay for the upkeep of the Paypal system (and earn a tidy profit). To put Paypal out of business, everybody who uses it have to keep their balances at zero at all times.
Problem solved.
I have received these emails, but if you read the email address information. The emails are coming from UK, CH, TW, RU or other country codes. I have even received regular mail from some one in New Jersey trying to use similar scams. I called the number to see what happens. I got a package sent over night with a check for Manhattan Chase Bank with one name at the top and a signed different name at the bottom. The check was also missing its water mark that it claimed to have. The package had instructions to deposit the check and send $3000.00 Western Union money order back to him and I would receive $100,000.00 dollars that I had supposedly won from a lottery in Australia. I was told that it was illegal to invest in a foreign lottery, which I never did. I have even received emails from Canada claiming they would loan me $10,000.00 if I paid a $1000.00 as a down payment. For those Americans who may not know, I was told by the Better Business Bureau that this practice is illegal here in the US as well. Some scammers tend to use what works till some one builds a better scam. LOL