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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."
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
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."
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.
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.
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