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419 Emails From A Cultural Perspective
dasboy writes "The LA Times has an article entitled I Will Eat Your Dollars about Nigerian 419 scammers that presents some of the cultural basis for the crime. They follow some young men in Lagos who toil over computers all-day and long into the night to snag a new victim. They even have a fight song entitled 'I Go Chop Your Dollars.'" From the article: "Scammers, he said, 'have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy. They say the American guy has a good life. There's this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way.' What makes the scams so tempting for the targets is that they promise a tantalizing escape from the mundane disappointments of life. The scams offer fabulous riches or the love of your life, but first the magha has to send a series of escalating fees and payments. In a dating scam, for instance, the fraudsters send pictures taken from modeling websites."
Then it probably is. An email from a young, great looking, hard bodied male/female who is rich and has gobs of cash to spend on *you* is probably NOT for real.
More likely is that you will find someone who has your same interests and general income level, whom you will start a relationship with and then waver in and out of interest with.
That's real life.
Of course I still buy an occasional lottery ticket.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
419 is... prime.
Walk a mile in my shoes, buddy. You'll find out it ain't all peachs 'n cream.
I'll buy a beer for anyone who admits to being taken in by these chumps. Could it be that... the conned deserve everything they get? Greedy melon farmers.
I demand that King Neferspamstu cease and desist using my modeling photos for financial gain. I do not waive my rights under the DMCA.
"the American guy has a good life. There's this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way."
This is not a new thinking. Many crooks try to justify what they are doing by making it seem that they are not hurting anyone, at least not as much as they are.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
I would have to agree that the anonymous American is a greedy fool.
Where else do you see people react to being in an accident like they won the lottery? Be it medical, car, workplace. Get hurt and bingo, how can I get paid.
Tough to admit, but deep down everyone has some greed. Greed is a survival trait. Greed doesn't apply only to money, but to status, acceptance, and a miriad other indicators be them material or immaterial.
Most scams rely heavily on the scamee forgoing rational thought to bite the lure. Nothing clouds judgement like a big payday or a supermodel.
American's are in for a rough ride when China becomes the next superpower and greed is a major reason why.
--signed "A greedy American"
--so readers are supposed to forgive the stupid ass-wipes who perpetrate this?
Please. Give the author of that article a cookie and tell him to go away.
Only greedy people fall for the "I have $18346205826.54 US, and I need someone to help me get it out of the country." So, how can you feel truly sorry for someone who is attempting to commit a crime and gets scammed out of his money?
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
http://www.419eater.com/
An informational website that helps you scam the scammers.
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
The lyrics there are helpful because the accent is hard to understand.
"have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy."
Heh. White men have the same views about black men. Kinda funny.
I'm sure that the scammers have tuned their art extensively, and know a thing or two about the human psyche. However, I always wondered why they promised such huge payoffs. If someone offers me $100 million dollars in easy money, all my scam detectors go off at once. On the other hand, if someone asked me to do that same thing for $20, I would probably be more willing to go along with it.
We have a lot of cultural greed in North America, so its understandable how some other cultures would perceive us as greedy. It's too bad they don't realize that the people they scammed do not get paid back for the money they lose.
If I were stuck in a 3rd world country with corrupt governments and no legitimate way to feed myself, I'd be tempted to turn to scamming "rich" people too. And in North America, the middle class is rich compared to most of the world's population. In Canada it would take about 5 Earths* to sustain our current level of consumption. [*source: The Nature of Things from a few days ago.]
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Of course the scammers have to convincet themselves that what they are doing isn't that bad. I find people's ability to fool themselves fascinating. The thing that gets me is that the only people I know that might fall for a scam like this are senile - I don't have any statistics to back myself up but I'm guessing most of the people they scam from can't afford to lose it.
I love getting 'questions' from Romanian people on ebay when I'm selling something saying: "Can please you end auction early and ship product Romania me! I have wife, she likes fun games to play. We like product and offer good dollar!"
"This type of scam, originally known as the "Spanish Prisoner Letter" [2], has been carried out since at least the sixteenth century via ordinary postal mail.">>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_f raud
-- my high-school Economics teacher
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I think scammers give us lots of evidence of their own stupidity and greed. Some of my greatest laughs come from reading over their mail (it comes about once a week right now):
That is genius at work!
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-U
For quite some time I've sent replies back to them, simply because I'm curious (or maybe I am a greedy American and think it'd make a great documentary film). Interesting to see what's on the other end of all of those 419s.
What an amazing hack. What wonderful piracy. What a sad testimony to the stupidity of the average person.
insensitive clod.
You can only lean on cultural relativism so much.
What I mean is, regardless of the culture you were raised in and the social climate of your environment, at some point, wrong is wrong is wrong.
In this category, I would put anything that infringes on the rights of other human beings, including murder, assault, and, yes, simple theft.
Justify it all you want. Yes, the people who fall for it are often greedy and stupid, but that doesn't make the act of the perpitrators any less wrong.
But they do make great penpals. Like the guy in my sig, for instance.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Aren't these scams just what "social justice" is supposed to be -- stealing from people because INSERT JUSTIFICATION HERE ?
Justifications:
- It's their fair share.
- They did XYZ THING in the past
- Their ancestors did XYZ THING in the distant past
- They have a different skin color than me
- They have a different religion than me
- They can afford it
- Etc.
The justifications aren't really relevant, BTW. They're just flavor. People steal/tax/defraud/embezzle/con because they want the money and because they can.
Kovacsics said victims can't believe that a scammer would spend months of internet chat just to net $700 or $1,000, not realizing that is big money in Nigeria and fraudsters will have many scams running at the same time. If you take that attitude, not realising money is actually worth something, I think it'd be pretty inevitable people thinking you are "greedy."
Any grammatical or spelling errors above are for comic effect, and do not signify imperfection in the writer.
The truth is people don't have time to investigate every purchase or offer they're made. And often the more desperate someone is the more eager they are to grasp at straws that purport to offer a way out of their desperation. Just watch the televangelists who sell prayer rags for debt relief.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Possibly a story in "Asimov" magazine, or somewhere ... I'm sure it gets repeated a fair amount. Regardless of the source, a quote springs to mind: "Just think of it as evolution in action." It is obviously not evolution when an elderly person who is betting their last hopes on this being real (as I hope to god they don't breed after 70). But for the rest of the greedy suckers who fall for this crap, well, let's just hope it was expensive education. Maybe the kids will turn out better.
, 2-7-1442_1641875,00.html
Then there are the fools that actually fly someplace for these deals, I guess they get educated most of all. http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,
FORUM TOPIC
It's an incredibly catchy song too. Here are the lyrics, for those of us unable to play wma files:
Eater, Eater we love you
Eater, Eater yes we do
With the modalities of bread
We will decorate our head
Eater, Eater we love you
Eater, Eater yes we do
Don't bother searching the thread for a link to an mp3 version either. It seems that 419eater is visited only by Windows victims.
The song is definitely worth a reboot if you're a dual booter though, and you'd be surprised how many mp3 players support wma, so give it a look.
like stealing from a homeless person or punching someone in the dark...
what it's like to live in such conditions with no way out.
You mentioned a way for them to build a better life yourself! Sell someone's house while they're still in it. I never liked my current neighbors much, anyway. brb
--- What
Cripes the Ukranian dating site scams have been around for over 5 years now. I remember a friend getting sucked in on that at work paying for "fees" and then paying for "english lessons" for the girl he really liked. he was eventually bilked out of $5000.00 before he got a clue.
The nigerians are way behind in their scams.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I had one of these people contact me via Yahoo IM. "She" claimed to be stuck in Africa and in need of money to get back to the USA.
I had a lot of fun playing along. It reminded me a little of D&D. I picked a persona and then played it to the hilt, knowing all along that it was a scam.
I was fascinated to learn from the article that these guys have counterparts in the USA who will try to intimidate you into paying up. I guess I didn't take the scenario far enough to get a call from some Nigerian "Guido".
It would seem that the US counterparts would be easy to nab if they are really willing to come and "intimidate" you in person.
Someone should remind these guys that even fat, stupid, greedy Americans still have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms!
(HFS--I sound like a redneck!)
Read any good sonnets lately?
From the article:
"Samuel said Shepherd employs seven Nigerians in America, including one in the San Francisco Bay Area, to spy on maghas and threaten any who get cold feet. If a big deal is going off track, he calls in all seven."
Well, I'd advise 'em not to try that in where I live, in the good old mid-west. Maybe a bunch of Nigerians can get away with threats in Frisco, but around here they're likely to end up on the wrong end of a large caliber handgun....hmmm, that might be a fun sport. (insert big evil grin)
f I were stuck in a 3rd world country with corrupt governments and no legitimate way to feed myself, I'd be tempted to turn to scamming "rich" people too..
So the scammers do have time to practice theivery but do not have time to fight for their own freedom and a better way of life for themselves and their families.
That kind of lazyness isn't deserving of financial support from the individual (American) idiot nor the American government.
Cogito Ergo Sum
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
What you have not been watching the news lately?
Ever heard of Katrina? Rita? New Orleans? St. Bernard? Mississippi?
Endemic poverty that exists in the south ( and in almostt every major city in the US ) with no apparent way out. How about the homeless that live on the streets in every city in America?
Don't tell me that a guy with a PC in Nigeria is down at the same level as a homeless person in the US.
Yes, many people in the U.S. are living a very good life, but that is not all of us.
I grew up in the Fulda Gap, where did you?
Gee, I'm not all that certain parent *was* a troll.
The 'message' might have been conveyed in a more tactful manner, to be certain, however; the essence is correct.
Racism is a two-way street, and it's my own belief that the racism expressed by blacks towards whites is more vehement, damaging, and violent than that racism (what little remains of it) of whites towards blacks.
The sanctimonious behavior of whites, many of whom are over a certain age or of a certain political bent and feel some kind of guilt about their inner feelings about blacks, is more appalling than overt racism.
Unless we all face our own bigotry - black people, too - the manifestations of it will present themselves in perpetuity.
If we had an uncontrollable lust for war we would have bombed Cuba a long time ago.
Fact is our efforts to help Iraq's citizens the opportunity to choose their own destiny have been very specific- whether one agree's with the "reasons" for it or not.
Cogito Ergo Sum
The scammers are at least as greedy, probably far more greedy than those they are scamming. Their comparitively lesser wealth is an excuse to try and justify it to themselves and others as ok, not a legit reason. I would also be willing to bet that the scammers are not the ultra-poor in Nigera, they are at least moderatly well off by Nigerian standards. That doesn't mean they are well-off by US standards, but still.
All this talk about American greed and reimbursment is just the greedy scammers trying to convince people (and themselves) that what they do is ok. "It's ok to scam the Americans because they are all greedy pigs and their government bails them out anyhow." Well guess what? That's a crock of shit, and you are a greedy fucker if you use that as justification for what you do.
I don't think greed is unique to any culture, I think it's part of the human condition.
[They] have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy.
That's rather ironic. If you read 419eater or any of the other "scam the scammer" sites out there, it's pretty clear who the stupid and greedy ones are in this game.
While I don't have too much respect for the intellect of the average American, the people who actually fall for these scams are probably the most stupid and greedy among our population, but they are a fraction of a percent of Americans. Most people have long since been trained to spot these things for what they are now and recognize that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. The Internet is no different from the rest of life in that way.
The scammers, however, are too stupid to realize that if a scammee is asking for absurd, ridiculous acts to be documented on film, then the joke is almost certainly on the scammer.
I have pretty much no empathy for these people, no matter how poor they are or what adversity they have faced. They have turned to common thuggery to steal that which they feel entitled to, instead of trying to earn an honest living the way we, or our parents, or our grandparents who came from equally poor backgrounds in other parts of the world did. Every time a scammer dies a miserable death, baby Jesus smiles.
Until the entire continent of Africa learns a more constructive ethic of hard work and self-help, all the charity in the world won't help them.
I can't tell you how many times I hear about welfare fraud where someone might net a few hundred dollars a month, but these same people never once mention the corporate people who steal millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. Or corporate bosses who steal the pension plans from people who have worked hard all their careers and are left with nothing. Thank god for social security so they won't starve.
So right now we're worried about some Nigerians stealling tens of millions a year when we've got tens of billions in medical fraud going on in this country.
Get some perspective.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
There are greedy and/or stupid people everywhere; and there are scammers everywhere.
And nobody deserves it because they are stupid. What a callous statement. An old lady, who is not as sharp as she once was, get cheated out of her life's saving - HA HA!! She deserves it! Right?
Not that I can expect any honesty, but I'll ask anyway: if you somehow could make that much money *that* easily, would you turn it down? If not, are you greedy?
BTW: I have never been taken by any such scam. Percentage wise, I doubt many people are.
We do not have to go to Nigeria to find somebody to lie to us and rip us off. Just look at congress or the white house.
LOL
American's are in for a rough ride when China becomes the next superpower and greed is a major reason why.
I'm guessing fear, ignorance, and a religious erosion of our science base will be the major reasons why China becomes the next superpower.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Dude, I agree with you. And you being marked a troll is confirmation.
Your point is a serious one, in that their is a current in American society that wants to make people feel guilty about their success.
It's a shame, given how hard people work here. And how hard their ancestors worked here.
Is the average american stupid and gullible? Let's see what Mr. Infomercial can tell us.
"Forget about diets! Forget about exercise! With the new fat-o-free efervescent pills, you can get from THIS (fat lady in picture) to THIS (supermodel)! Forget about those tight clothes (B/W scene shown)! Start your new, slim life, with fat-o-free! 1-900-IAMA-DUMB. CALL NOW! Our operators will be pleased to help you! And if you call in the next 30 minutes, you get F-R-E-E our how-to-lose-weight manual. (blinking)C-A-L-L---N-O-W!!!!!"
As I said in an earlier post, the media and commercialized culture has "educated" the american mind into believing there are easy magical solutions for all our problems, instead of investigating the problems from the root and encouraging hard work. And if material solutions don't work, then somebody must be affecting your karma (and there we go, to the next degree of scams: If it doesn't work is because you don't have faith!).
The apparition of 419 scams was just a matter of time. (Kinda brought it upon themselves, if you ask me)
I'll be sending them 920 emails with requests for them to help me transfer my untold millions to their banks provided they can help finance the deal.
Ahh yes... what goes around comes around. LoL
These people think they're scamming the "rich american", when I bet that more often than not they're scamming some old person who lives off medicare and drives across the border to Canada to get their medication, or some poor guy who's retarded and subsceptible to the weakest of scamming tries.
In which case, they (the victim) isn't exactly guilty of greed as much as being gullible.
The phrase "stealing candy from a baby" comes to mind.
After writing the above post and clicking to read the article, look what I found on the banner ad!
It really must be a weird coincidence... a newspaper talking about SCAM, and such a blatant ad on the side. And it has a "CLICK NOW!" on it.
Somebody shoot me.
Stupid people often do not get rich, there is enough scams in everyday America to rob the weak minded of their cash.
If it were so easy to scam the wealth off the rich off why do these guys thing that the poor Americans wouldn't have already picked the meat off the rich American's bones.
But I guess out of sight, out of mind does really apply here.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
And a person from Africa contacted me... I looked at the photo in the person's profile, and imagine my surprise to find out that Tyra Banks wanted to date me!
Apparently the fact that there was a slight distance and ocean between us didn't seem to matter.
When I pointed out that, "hey Tyra, the copyright notice is still on the photo" (from a well known magazine), the person sadly stopped sending me messages...
At one party, he looked at me and said that with my blue eyes, Nigerian girls would like me. His wife looked at him and said, "They'd wipe his account clean and leave."
That said, I've known other Nigerians who didn't seem to have this nonstop scamming attitude.
Kindof scary for me, the last time I heard from the guy with the wife, he called out of the blue, maybe a year or more after I had previously heard from him. He wanted me to cosign on a car loan so he could get a better deal. Seems all his Nigerian friends and other black friends (some lawyers, some engineers, all with money likely) wouldn't put themselves out for him. Since he had by and large been a good friend I consented. After the deal later didn't go through, he never called in followup to thank me or anything. While I am sure he is still in the area and working, I think I really lucked out. I take it as an affirmation that the old adage to not let personal issues cloud business decisions is a good idea.
"When you get a reply, it's 70% sure that you'll get the money," Samuel said.
I find that replying to scam email can make for great sport. Just be careful to use an anonymous account and you can play with these guys for days. I can just imagine the guy on the other end salivating when I ask for information on where I can wire my $1000.
an ill wind that blows no good
If it's dead, you killed it.
Yes most people in America have a good life. If you are on Slashdot complaining odds are very good that by the standards of many places in Africa you are rich.
However that doesn't justify stealing. My question is did anyone notice how racist these people are? All white people are stupid? It is okay to steal from them? They will just get the money back from the government???
Imagine if someone said, "It is okay to steal from Africans, they are all stupid and the government will just get more money from the government?"
Humm..
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You think that's racist, eh? Well isn't this racist?
"the scammers have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy"
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
I have once been on one of those online trading sites (like e-bay) and someone offered a single new laptop for about 700 USD. It seemed nice enough, still in the box and the price was very good. I suspected something about the price but replied anyway. The dude said he was selling it because he was a yuppie from the UK and he ordered the wrong product but couldn't get refunded.
I myself am from another EU-state so it had to be shipped over. He told me he was going to use this and this shipping company with 3-way system (escrow service) and take all the costs on him.
The site seemed legit, even had some sort of certificate of a known site for e-commerce (it said on their site) but before I agreed I checked the "click here to certify" link which took me to another site saying the certificate was correct but not quite the site of the issuer. Checking the real site of the advertised certificate the site was not in their lists.
I contacted that certificate site to verify and they said there was no certificate issued for the site so they were going to do the necessary steps. I mailed the dude saying that I wanted to use another escrow service because the site was abusing the logo of certificate issuer and that I contacted authorities and never heard from him again, his e-mail doesn't exist anymore etc.
I was almost tricked into such scam and I understand that some are being scammed buying christmas gifts for their grandchildren. But some promises are indeed too great (like the nigerian scamming letters) and should trigger something inside any sane persons head that there is something fishy.
My advice to anyone with online business: if it looks, hears or smells fishy, then check everything being said and promised until the bottom!
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
http://www.aa419.org/vampire/ladvampire.php
Let your bandwidth do the work.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
It's not like they're your shoes, after all.
I've personally known several people who have bought into pyramid schemes. You would not believe how hostile they get when you tell them it's a pyramid scheme and that they'll never get any money. Usually they come back with "But (guy who recruited me) said it's not a pyramid scheme because..." The reason is usually something completely nonsensical like, "You get the money from the people you recruit before you send it on to the person who recruited you" or something. People get really hostile when you suggest to them that the thing they're placing their hope in will not deliver the results they hope for.
And I would disagree that "most people are trained" to see through these. That is not true in my experience. Some people might get lucky and get burned in a relatively minor incident that teaches them to be more cynical, but I don't recall ever running across a college course covering such things. There ought to be one, though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's an old truism of the con artists' trade that the best kind of mark is the person who thinks they're getting something for nothing--that they're really scamming the con artist.
This is my favorite element of the crime: taking advantage of a desire to take advantage.
Hooray for duelling dishonesty!
I love those Nigerian scams, if only because I like the fact that someone says, "I'm going to pull a fast one on this Nigerian yokel for all that money."
If people are still "biting" after these scams have been known for years, then I must conclude that they're even greedier and stupider than people give them "credit" for...
My mom received a 419 message over 7 years ago, and even then -- when she was still relatively new to the internet -- she knew it was a scam right away.
My sig is too lon
People who far for this don't even deserve to have money in the first place.
...
I get 419s all the time, but for reasons I will never understand, I never get them from Nigeria. It's always Sierra Leone this or Niger that.
I'm willing to wager a guess why...
Scammer1: Dude, our scam is all over the American media, no ones goinna fall for our empty promises of Nigerian riches!
Scammer2: What if we... hum... say we're from Niger? It's not like the stupid Americans can figure it out
Scammer1: Brilliant!
Idiot: What's this? Some poor fellow in Niger wants me to help him get $100 Billion out of the country, and will give me... 20%! Oh, but is it a scam... no, of course not! This ones from Niger, not Nigeria like those other emails!
If China does become a superpower, its probably because the Chinese are as every bit greedy as Westerners, if not more so. Do you think we got to be a superpower by being generous, kind and loving? I don't know where to begin in dissecting the idiocy of your statement. Go to China and see for yourself, you moron.
that people in Africa don't have the skills to use computers (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/20/02 41209&tid=109&tid=218)!! WTF???
I've actually had convervastions with [black & white] people that claimed it wasn't not possible for a black person to be racist, because a) they did not have any socio-economic power, so could not suppress others AND b) black persons' (in America) dislike/hate/whatever of white people was justified by their historical enslavement, and therefore was not racism.
The truly frightening part is that these people had all learned this particular view in class, from a professor, at a prestigious college. Ignoring the condescension (no black person has socio-economic power?) and (in my mind) extreme moral/philisophic/political view (whatever I do to you is justified, b/c your ancestor did something bad to mine), the thinking skills that are obviously being taught (or not taught) in this class make me cringe. It's almost enough to make me sympathize with the people who sneer at "liberal educations" (but not quite).
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Yes, but you think that now only because the collection agencies haven't come after you yet as the cosignator on that bad debt.
As much as I hate spam, I hate stupid people more. And when I see a good con man movie, *like you*, I root for the con man to fleece the mark for everything he has.
In Canada it would take about 5 Earths* to sustain our current level of consumption.
"Cultural greed" my ass. This is the same old, same old "dwindling resources" myth from the Far Left: the idea that technologically advanced nations (i.e., the "greedy rich") are "raping the planet" by "consuming resources" at a pace that is "unsustainable."
All of this quackery was disproved somewhere around thirty years ago, but the Left continues spewing this nonsense. Living well in a technologically advance culture is not "greed" (at least, not in the pejorative use of the word) and does not deprive anyone else on the planet of a good life.
But it's no surprise that the criminal bastards in Nigeria use this excuse to rationalize their greed.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
Much like muslim terrorists, I think it's always better to have an understanding of what's going on with the people who try to screw us over so hard, instead of just imagining them as mustachio twirling villains who are out to get us because, well, they're the bad guys.
That is the most insightful thing I have seen in a while and totally agree...
Like the UK Transit bombings when someone says "Maybe they bombed us because we have troops in Iraq?" they get shouted down as providing excuses for the Terrorists, but the fact of the matter is that people just don't wake up one morning and say "Well I am going to blow myself up today for no good reason!"
Whatever reason they may have is actually important to the situation, but I stress it is not excusable to go and murder, steal, and scam people, but if you want to defeat the enemy you must know their motives.
It is how the detective and intelligence catches these criminal... To psychologically understand who this person maybe and also recognize signs of another possible criminal.
And it irks me to no end when I see police or soldiers refer to the enemy as "the bad guys" with no respect to understanding why they do the things they do. Sure it is there job to kill or apprehend the criminal/enemy, but these people are doing it for reasons that may seem justified in their own eyes.
If you sit back and recognize these justification you might have a better chance of avoiding and preventing being scammed, assaulted, or surviving the attach when it happens.
As Sun Tzu said "Know thyself, know thy enemy and win the battle every time.". (paraphrased)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Who here seriously doesn't think that anybody stupid enough to fall for the Nigerian bank scam doesn't deserve to lose their cash?
... was the guy who responded to one of these emails, saying that the money would really come in handy, as he was in dire financial straits. As the series progressed, he escalated it to the point where he had killed his girlfriend (he sent the 419er a picture of her blood-soaked "body" in a bathtub), and now needed the money to flee the country. Meanwhile, the 419er is still trying to get some money out of him. One of the funniest things I've ever read on the net.
What makes the scams so tempting for the targets is that they promise a tantalizing escape from the mundane disappointments of life.
What they offer for the very poor in the US is a way out. Desperation colors your judgment. Not everyone in America has an SUV, a cell phone, a laptop, a satellite dish, a nice house/apartment and plenty of cash to spare. There are some very poor people on this continent too, and in some cases, these Nigerian scammers are better off than their targets. You just don't see too much of that on tv, where almost everyone is good-looking and well-to-do (part of the reason I stopped watching tv a couple of years ago). And they may think "well, I barely have a job, and these Americans have better jobs", but an awful lot of America's poor have jobs and work their assess off, but it's tough to get a better-paying job when you didn't get that lucky break the successful take for granted in the first place.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Did anyone ever look into how many of the victims are seniors? Seniors are preyed upon by corrupt people everywhere. Alot of seniors barely have enough money in their retirement years to live. Alot of them require expensive medications to survive. The slightest chance of not having to worry about money, or being able to leave something for their children or grand children is enough for them to sink their last dollars into something that is most likely a scam. At some point in your life, the hope that it is reall is all you have left.
My my, who would have expected such racism from poor blacks. ;-(
That's the point. No one expects to get ripped off by an idiot. Then when you get the "cheque" thats way too high and you're asked for a refund, you're supposed to think "What an Idiot! He sent way too much money. Good thing I'm a nice guy and will send him back a cheque for the difference"
They do it cuz they're fucking niggers. Duh. They don't have morals or values. All they care about is themselves. Niggers like to steal.
It is clear what is neccessary. We must we nuke Niggeria. Kill the Niggers!
Question. If niggers are the winner in the 419 game, then why are 1 in 4 American niggers in prison? The niggers may have temporary success with their scams, but it is only a matter of time until we execute the final solution. We'l see who is the winner is when there are no more niggers left.
"Accumulated" capital? What a tidy, intransitive verb, quietly disregarding who they robbed and evicted at gunpoint to get those resources. Our forebears were no smarter or more industrious than others; anyone sufficiently ruthless and isolated would have prospered as well.
The one thing we offered to the world is an example that a secular, individualist, democratic state can function. And now we're starting to lose even that.
Whatever reason they may have is actually important to the situation, but I stress it is not excusable to go and murder, steal, and scam people, but if you want to defeat the enemy you must know their motives.
The problem is many people don't understand the difference between an explanation (why something happened) and an excuse (why what happened is okay).
This has led to the belief that understanding terrorists is the same as excusing the terrorists.
This has led to us not understanding the terrorists, and thus being ineffective at fighting them.
I have a real problem with any life view that makes failing to solve problems a requisite outcome.
The enemies of Democracy are
Ebola Monkey Man. Turning the tables on the scammers!
i wont say anything else but sit down, have a snack and dont sit too close to your computer while drinking anything b/c you might spit it out on your keyboard.. LOL
here is the main page.. main page
Is that America is a society of 'Caveat Emptor' - let the buyer beware.
We've got laws and a social order that reviles scamsters, conmen, and thieves BUT there is also a sort of Robin-Hood admiration for someone with the chutzpah and intelligence to pull this over on someone. Hollywood has been fascinated by these characters for decades: Paper Moon, The Sting, The Grifters, etc
Let's be totally honest: when you read about some grandma or naive intarweb n00b being taken in on one of these scams, your gut reaction isn't "that darn naughty criminal!" it's "WTF? Who could be STUPID enough to fall for this nonsense?"
It's financial Darwinism. Frankly, if someone with $200,000 to blow loses it to a Nigerian scammer, it's practically justified. If they were a different moral character, they'd blow it on drugs, gambling, the Church, or any number of the millions of expensive tarpits lying around for the unwary.
-Styopa
People don't like to acknowledge these kinds of arguments because they seem to say that people are influenced by their environment, instead of acting with perfect free will, where every decision comes entirely from the individual will and is unaffected by reality.
If this kind of argument was true, then maybe there is no real merit in making good decisions. You didn't make the right decisions because you are good, smart and hard working, you made those decisions because of circumstances beyond your control. Most people's ego is based on a sense of worth stemming from their beliefs in their own correct life choices. If choices are determined by environment, the entire sense of ego and self worth disappears.
People also don't like even the hint that there might be a reason for bad behavior. The reason is because those are bad people. Bad people should be punished. End of story. Simply saying, "they might have done that bad thing because of poverty, or inequality, or whatnot" is like saying, "not only are they not fully to blame, but you may be partly to blame for contributing to an environment that makes their bad behavior unavoidable." No one likes to hear that.
This mindset is so prevalent that it discourages most people from ever using their brains to look honestly at the patterns and cycles that lead to negative behavior. Couple this with the fact that many people (police, politicians, etc.) indirectly profit from the bad behavior of others, and you can see why these bad behaviors persist.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm going to restrain from calling you names. I'm just going to put it very simply.
If you believe what you just said, you are mistaken. Yes, some people in the United States have it very bad. They have to sleep in misery or on the streets and they have seemingly no way out. But anywhere in america, if you have the intelligence and the willpower, you can pick yourself up, get yourself 6 dollars for a shower, get yourself 10 bucks for some new clothes from the corner salvation army, get yourself an interview and a steady job at the miriad of McDonald's or janitorial positions that are available everywhere. You can be in debt for ten years but work your way out of it, perhaps even earn a degree and go to a better job.
In some parts of the world, there's nothing man. NOTHING. No job. No McDonald's. No janitor position. No scrubbing the shit from someone's ass for money. NOTHING. The only thing that is in some places is crime. So they do crime. It's just that attitude that caused us to bomb afganistan instead of go after the terrorists and really work with the country to solve their problems. We were spending like 1 billion a week in Iraq at one point (I'm not sure what it is now). Do you think that if we gave an assasin 1 billion dollars they couldn't kill Sadaam Husein? Or if we gave an assasin 1 billion dollars they couldn't kill Osama Bin Ladin? Ok, how about 10 billion dollars? Cause that's still cheaper than going to war.
Don't be silly, some people really have no way out. Not like spoiled little bums in the United States that don't feel like going to work because they got laid off from their previous job. I understand hurricane victims. But in Haiti it's like that EVERY FUCKING DAY. No, it's not peaches and cream in the absolute sense. But compared to some other parts of the world, yeah, it's peaches and cream.
... is that they have people working over here to scare people into finishing the scam. We have one of the best criminal investigation groups in the world (the FBI) - why can't they can find out who these people are and deport them?
I don't know if it's because there are fewer scams going on these days, or if my email filter is finally working, but I havn't gotten one of these scam emails in over a year now. Of course I AM still getting ads for Viagra and BOTH male and female enhancement products......
I think you miss some point there.
True, it is important to know your enemy, but it has little to do with the extreme left-political-activists who are ready to blame everyone except the actual criminals.
You should be rest-assured that the security forces and the goverment perfectly understand where are the terrorists in UK come from and there are quite enough specialists who understand the tensions with the muslims.
However, understanding-by-the-security-forces is a long way from understanding-by-mass-media. The problem is that mass media is a propoganda tool to the masses. You have some stupid news reporter spewing bullshit on day one and on day two you have millions in the streets believing it. For the masses, understanding is the first stage of compassion, sense of guilt and illogical behavior.
When you have a rape-attack the newsreporter don't go to lengths explaining what a terrible childhood the rapist had and how provocative the dress of the victim was. Sure, it'd make us understand him better but what use is it for the masses? He raped someone.
I suppose it doesn't sound too good but sadly, I see no other solution. The majority of the population can't handle ALL the aspects of the truth. You need to be selective and show your side before any others because most humans just can't grasp it all.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Artists Against 419, you let the link run in an extra tab, and it sucks bandwidth from 419ers and fake banks. Lad Vampire
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
Not so much with police, but soldiers need to think of the enemy as "bad guys". Once a soldier thinks about motives and justifications there's a human face put on them. At that point the enemy is a lot harder to shoot at. A soldier's job is to do what he/she's told, not what they think is right.
All true wisdom can be found in sigs.
"...have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy..." Wow, they have the ability to selectively send email to only White men. Amazing.
One of the first things you must do to hurt strangers is to dehumanize them, war propaganda is a classic example of this. Anti-abortionists portray pro-choice folks as "baby murderers", Muslim extremists portray all Westerners as "immoral perverted satanists", Iraqi insurgents are all "freedom hating terrorists", etc. Serial killers are notorious for referring to their victims as "things".
These conmen in Nigeria can work without bothering their consciences by just dismissing Americans as gullible and rich fools who deserve to be ripped off. Maybe if they saw how real the damage was that they inflicted on the desperate some of them might think twice. The ones without consciences, lock 'em up.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
A soldier's job is to do what he/she's told, not what they think is right.
This is a good recipe for genocide.
How were you connected out of 30 quid? What was the trick?
my blog
Many anthropologists argue that, being white in America, it is impossible to not be racist, as much of the privelege we enjoy is due to "whiteness." Whiteness, the dominating force in American culture, semiotically interpreted signfies power, wealth, and education. All binary oppositions are attributed to the "other", or non-whites.
Coco Fusco argues that race is a construct, as there is no essential, or biological difference between races.
Glossing over the details and saying "we are all one race" and ignoring the issue of prejudice existing will not solve the problem--only by being cognizant of the consequences of whiteness and its diminionizing effect on the 'other' can we overcome it.
When you take into account 'typing' and 'stereotyping', the complexity of the problem becomes overwhelming. It's easy to say 'stereotypes must be based upon something' without recognising that the alleged truth of stereotypes might indeed stem from semiotics--blacks are underpriveleged which can result in illiteracy, poverty, crime, etc.
We create our own hell.
Who contradicts the scammers and calls it CRIMINALITY, instead of "culture"? (Ah, the 'soft-racism of low-expectations' -- or is this just my interpretation??) It IS, after all, Nigerian criminality that's continually-justified by supposed American "greed" -- right up 'till the NEXT famine caused a godforsaken African-shithole's bigger-than-necessary government... And Nigeria has various natural resources (including oil) so it's not like they should be all that poor anyway, if they'd just put some effort into something BESIDES celebrating crimes of various sorts. And SO WHAT if these sources of idiotic spam now have a rap "music" tune? It's STILL *CRIMINALITY* we're talking - if there's also 'culture,' it's a culture of _criminality_.
Very interesting article. This is kind of like how the big movie, software pirates justify their theft of products. It's always "who are we hurting really"
On the other hand the "victims" should have known better. If you don't know about email scams by now then you are incredibly naive. Most of the victims of these scams got trapped due to their greed.
This doesn't let the criminals off the hook but please, the victims deserve a mighty big dope slap.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
It's a fascinating peice of commentary, but it leaves the reader wondering who is really the magha ?
Is it the fat well off white American in his middle class 4 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood, mercedes in the garage, or is it the scamming black kid living in squalor with some other scammer trying to sell his house from underneath him ?
It's a rhetorical question, clearly something is wrong in Nigeria and these supposedly smart kids are just making it worse for their fellow countrymen.
They could be using their computer skills for the betterment of their country, rather than trying to rob and fuckover the better off.
I suspect the real Magha here are the 419'er themselves, for every dollar they steal from an American they are hurting the own country 10 times.
It is how the detective and intelligence catches these criminal... To psychologically understand who this person maybe and also recognize signs of another possible criminal.
I seriously doubt that Nigerian police are really trying very hard to catch any of these people. Despite what the officials say about "being serious about 419" there were only 12 convictions for this in all of Nigeria in two years. I guess I'll rely on the results of the police rather than their words.
The real question is, why should Nigeria work to stop these scams? They bring in a lot of money for the local economy from foriegn sources. From what I understand, Nigeria is a "kleptocracy". That is the government runs on corruption. The problem with kleptocracy is that theft is rewarded and legitimacy isn't. Economies are largly built on trust. Without trust it becomes impossible to pull a country out of poverty.
AccountKiller
Great, add "magha" to the "slang for 'stupid american'" category along with gweilo, amerikanaki, a merkin, meguksaram, bushkrieger, gaikokujin, amerloque, kalboj, pindos, yank, and gringo. I am so very proud.
This sig is exempt from disclosure under the privacy Act of 1974.
A soldier's job is to do what he/she's told, not what they think is right.
I know a few soldiers who would disagree with you. A soldier is supposed to think for themselves and not be a robot. That way they can act on their own if the chain of command fails (ie they are surrounded with no communication or their commander is killed).
Secondly, (at least in the US forces) you are not supposed to follow orders that contradict certain rules of engagement such as shooting POWs and civilians with no just cause or following orders that overly endanger fellow soldiers. Example, following an order to drop a payload on a certain target when you know damn well that your own men are there would result in court martial.
Remember My Lai massacre in which US soldiers killed Vietnamese civilians... There were several soldiers in the group that refused (or at least claimed) to participate (ie not follow orders).
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Poverty and lack of education, while certainly not justifications for crime, are often part of the cause.
I think you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. The reason you mention poverty at all is because you are trying to justify (or, in your parlance, "understand") the crime, but pretend like you're not by saying the exact opposite. If there is no justification for the crime, then there is no need at all to talk about poverty. The reason I think it's a justification is because your argument naturally leads into, "If we solve poverty, then we'll solve the crime, as poverty is the root cause of the crime."
See also, "Hitler will calm down if we let him have the Sudetenland."
The poverty justification is flawed anyway. Suppose there are two individuals. One of them chooses a life of going out, hooking up, and using drugs. The other has a much less glamorous life of studying, earning degrees in higher education, and fetching a high-paying job. The first individual ends up in poverty while the other has a nice lifestyle. The first individual, seeing the other's wealth, decides to mug him. A cosmopolitan leftist with a "nuanced understanding" decides to blame the crime on "poverty" -- meaning, if only the first individual wasn't poor, then he wouldn't have committed the crime.
We'll solve that "root problem" by using the force of government to steal money from the second individual and give it to the first. The first individual rewards us with his vote.
Much like muslim terrorists, I think it's always better to have an understanding of what's going on with the people who try to screw us over so hard, instead of just imagining them as mustachio twirling villains who are out to get us because, well, they're the bad guys.
You make it sound as if the mujahideen were chosen as "bad guys" out of racism, cowboy stupidity, or even chosen arbitrarily. This is part of the militant ingorance that leftists display toward the mujahideen and what they want to do to everyone in the dar al-harm (that's the land you and I live in). In their minds, you have three options: death, conversion to Islam, or subjugation (including jizya, the "infidel tax", which you must pay in shame). The mujahideen are more than willing to detonate a nuclear weapon in New York City (imagine what that would do to the *global* economy) for the cause of harming the Kufr (that's you and me). No, not because of "poverty". Because of their religion in which black-and-white thinking in terms of "us" and "them" is so stark and so absolutist that it makes George Bush look like a finely-nuanced cosmopolitan reporter for the New York Times.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The problem is many people don't understand the difference between an explanation (why something happened) and an excuse (why what happened is okay).
This has led to the belief that understanding terrorists is the same as excusing the terrorists.
This has led to us not understanding the terrorists, and thus being ineffective at fighting them.
I always considered this phenomenon a nasty rhetorical trick, akin to debate-spoiling tricks like ad hominem. Your observation reminded me of a phrase in a paper by Umberto Eco, who grew up under Mussolini:
When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
They are constitutionally incapable of doing so because rational debate on foreign policy will erode their power base, and therefore they are condemned to lose the war to keep their power. The puzzling thing is why this type of argumentation works for politicians, and why so many people copy these arguments.
Of course, by quoting this I put myself in the situation described by Godwin's Law, which is itself both an observation on a nasty rhetorical trick and a new nasty rhetorical trick.
Have you ever tried to apply for a janitorial position or McJob with no ID, no phone number and no home address? If you did, you simply wouldn't get the job. That 16 bucks will be wasted. On the other hand that 16 bucks can buy you a couple bottles of cheap liquor or enough drugs to let you forget for a night or two.
However the $10 thrift shop outfit for applying at a job really isn't that out there. I know some people in sales who have to look money that always fake it buy hitting up the thrift shops for new work clothes. Takes a little more time than shopping at the mall, but you can find a good enough suit for less than the price of a movie and popcorn.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
indeed...
Well, I'm off work today, so I had some time to read that. Not the best I've seen, but still pretty damn funny.
There is no cultural relativism even needed here. Greed is greed is greed, regardless of the culture or race. All we have here is greedy dishonest people trying to rip off other greedy dishonest people. Intelligence isn't an issue here. The only thing that makes it work is the arrogant pride that comes with greed.
I speak from experience, because my boss was trapped in this scheme. He would routinely rack up $10,000 phone bills to Nigeria. He would send large amounts of cash, and then spend the rest of the month screaming on the phone to some 419'er about his shipment of money. All the while he was boasting how he was going to beat them at their own game... He wasn't a good guy, he was greedy. He bankrupted his company on a yearly basis and hurt a lot of decent people working for him. I think this was actually his business model. If he wasn't doing this, he was blowing his employees paycheques at the casino.
It's not your average person who falls for this 419 scheme, no matter what people say. It doesn't take a naive or stupid person to fall for this, it takes a greedy person who's too arrogant to ignore even their own misgivings. This guy had several degrees. He kept sending cheques!!! He was too full of himself to admit he could be wrong.
I am glad I got out of there relatively intact. I came away with a very good education on human nature, and how utterly illogical even the most intelligent people can be. I'm sure in his own world, everything made perfect sense...
Bork!
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go drag a blind in my jalopy to some speakeasy before a hard boiled torpedo catches us in the struggle buggy."
;-)
You owe me a new keyboard...
...is how someone who was dumb enough to cough up $200,000 to a scammer was smart enough to have accumulated $200,000 (or maneuvered themselves into a position to get their hands on that much) to begin with.
Perhaps it was some naive person squandering an inheritence. That's the only scenario that even begins to make sense.
SCO suing over Linux source code: "I go chop your code."
MS killing Google: "We go chop their search."
Moderator's modding this post down to -5 OT: "You go chop my post!"
Ah, hah ha ha haaaaaa! The pirates of the high internet reborn!
Call me names if it makes you feel better about your point of view.
I do not and did not mean to imply that the U.S. is at the same level as Haiti or Nigeria or any other third world county. The U.S. is a land of plenty and is extremely rich in comparison. But that does not mean we do not have our fair share of people at the bottom.
Yes, ****YOU**** probably could work your way out of it. I am assuming that you are not mentally ill and have an IQ above room tempeture. You probably have a background of support and encouragement from friends and family.
However, their are lots of people in the U.S. who are either mentally ill or who do not have the intelligence as you put it to lift themselves out of it. Even beyond those special cases of mental illness or less than average intelligence many people just do not have the skills to lift themselves out of poverty.
If your parents are not high school graduates you are much less likely to become one and will in general earn a lot less than a High school graduate. Working at a minimum wage job does not supply you with much of a safety net. One serious illness or upset and you are back on the street. Severe poverty is a vicious thing it saps people of a hope and a belief they can do it.
I am an example of the American Dream: Wife, Kids, Good Job, House, cars etc in general a good life. I am doing better than my parents. But to think I did it by all by myself would be very egotistical. I did it with help from my family and friends. If I see farther and do more, it is because I stand on their shoulders.
I grew up in the Fulda Gap, where did you?
You Americans really got it easy.
Words to live by! Such an unassuming line, so many applicable contexts. Dozens of faith-based philosophies and dogmas spring instantly to mind. Thank you, that's my favorite quote of the day.
Sure, it'd make us understand him better but what use is it for the masses? He raped someone.
We can catch him and punish him and hold him responsible for his actions, but shouldn't we also be responsible if we did nothing to stop others in the future from carrying out the same crime.
Think of it as a infestation. You find ants crawling in your kitchen. You can keep killing them over and over again, but it won't keep more ants from coming in. "Shame on you ants!" you scream, but they keep coming and coming. Later you find an open bag of sugar that you forgot about and then you clean the mess up and the ants stop coming.
It is the same with terrorism. We can kill as many terrorists as they throw at us, but until we get rid of the proverbial "bag of sugar", they are going to keep coming at us regardless of how many laws we pass or how much tax money we dump into security or how many cells we destroy.
It only takes one of them to slip through the net to be successful. You have to solve the problem at the core to make the solution permanent.
Like I said... We should not use this to exscuse their actions, but we must also put forth and effort to fix the problem that leads to their actions or else we are doomed to have it happen again.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
mod parent up (insightful).
I agree with you. Mental illness nonwithstanding, there ought to be something that helps the mentally ill. But the majority of impoverished people in america are white people living in the vicinities of farming or industrial communities. You may be able to see farther and do more by standing on the shoulders of your family and friends, but my dad didn't stand on anybody's shoulders. He dug himself and his entire family along with some friends out of a post communist country without doing a single illegal thing and a single immoral thing. If he can make it from one of the shittiest situations possible all the way to a rich suburb in America with virtually everybody trying to bring him down let alone help him, I believe most of America's poor can as well. They're already here, they already have citizenship and have won half the battle.
I agree though, people should have a second chance. This bullshit about no phone number, no address, no job, is just stupid. Giving people a second chance is the foundation of this country. The government should also provide access to libraries and information to anybody anywhere regardless of class status.
I agree with you on that. But, as I asked before, whom you want to try to understand the "Why"s? The goverment/police/army has plenty of people that their own job is to understand why and how.
The common man, on the other hand, shouldn't be bothered with the whys simply because it isn't his job to kill these "ants".
When you get an email from a 419 scam, you could have a program set up to auto-respond to *just that sender* with generated garbage. You could have a Markov-chain algorithm that feeds in the scammer's email or a Dr. Eliza-type program - whatever, but the idea is to waste the scammer's time reading through emails that appear to be from interested parties, but are actually just bots that will bounce useless replies back forever! Wadda yah think?
from the lead... Scammers have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy. They say the American guy has a good life. There's this belief that for every dollar they lose, the American government will pay them back in some way.'
...
Now if I were a white man in North America who made his living by stealing and defrauding black people in Africa, and if I were to say in an interview that "Black Africans are stupid and greedy. The African has a good life. For every dollar they lose, the UN and various relief agencies will pay them back in some way."
You can believe that there would be an international effort to track me down and crucify me. Newspapers from Boston to Brunei would be calling for my head in the editorial pages. Third world intellectuals from every two-bit sleazy little slave-trading 'daylight democracy' would be lined up outside the UN waiting to get the opportunity to demand that I be turned over to the 'International Court of Justice' and how my statements were 'typical of white America's long history of Imperialism and systematic oppression'.
But a bunch of black Africans can make a career of defrauding thousands of people in the West, and toss off racist and ignorant comments as a justification and people just say " well that's what they are and that's what they do"
Now is that racist, or what?
PEOPLE!!! Dont you people want Nigerians to have some piec of the cake? I mean, they are not getting their fair share of OIL revenues, and the little that is going to government ends up in the pockets of corrupt officials. What is the average Nigerian to do but scheme. Historically Nigerians are crafty traders and draining a poor white man's bank account in some form is just another page in the dirty chapters of man's attempt to out do each other by wit. Stupid bastards Nigerians are but it compensates for what we cheat for in terms of OIL revenues.
Empathy is in short supply in this age of sound bites, photo-ops, and knee-jerk reactions.
Why address the problem when we can raise a stink and spend billions of dollars to "fix" the symptom?
This is utter nonsense. If race is just a 'construct', and there is no biological difference between races, how do you explain the whole skin color thing? Dumbass.
The P-P-P-Powerbook scam.
Incidentally, last time I checked the guy who pulled the scam was never heard from again, at least online. Does anyone know what happened to him?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
- The scammers do this, because they are poor and unemployed.
- The victims are white and rich.
- The (American) government will compensate them anyway
(The last one is my personal favorite, BTW).It is sickening, that over 49% (give or take) of my fellow Americans will find these reasons to be reasonable complete or partial justification for many crimes...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I got to the 3rd page of the article, and it turned out the whole thing was a scam by an underpaid editor to trick me into registering for the LA Times.
Anyone care to reveal the end or is there a "slashdot@slashdot.org" or similar user registered with them?
This may be the dumbest thing I've ever read on slashdot. Calling someone a dumbass and obviously not understanding any of the concepts discussed.
As Sun Tzu said "Know thyself, know thy enemy and win the battle every time.". (paraphrased)
Sun Tzu was giving advice to generals, not soldiers. He also emphasized that in battle, fleeing should not be viewed by one's troops as a possibility. You fight close to home or with your back to a mountain, and your strength will be doubled. In ancient warfare, most casualties occurred during a willy nilly retreat rather than actual battle.
To put it another way, one strategy in a game of 'chicken' is to throw your steering wheel out the window and make sure your opponent sees it.
Enemies are less likely to fight if they see their defeat as inevitable and their opposition's will is unbreakable and the possibility of a just peace is offered to them.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
heres a great example:
YES!!!! I bait them a little every once in a while via the myspace messaging, but rapidly get bored with it.
Anyone sles seeing this kind of crap on them other goofy FoaF sites?
s'wut i sed.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Howdy yall, now thet we knows whar they is hidin', we is a-gonna bomb th' muverfuckers. No mo'e 419 scams! Jest you remember this hyar in th' next eleckshun. - George
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
What a load of crap!
What's going on in all the CIA & military torture camps around the world then?
And why won't the US sign up to the international criminal court?
US soliders are encouraged to torture their prisoners and kill the rest.
The US has even been caught out killing journalists. How about that tank that opened fire on the Palenstine Hotel and killed a number of journalists? The official excuse was that they were fired on first, but all the journalists who survived beg to differ. I know which story I believe.
I read a story just 2 days ago about a guy in Guantanimo who had US prison guards claw his eyes open with their fingers while others sprayed mace in them. He's now blind. Surely this 'contravenes' a couple of US and international laws re: POWs. Oh
My favorite 419 e-mail was from the gentleman who had a "preposition" for me.
Alas, there was no reply when I sent him the definitions of "preposition" and "proposition" from dictionary.com.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
for all victims of 419 and potential victims i share your sympathy. but if you search your mind objectively, you will discover that you gambled, and like every gambler, you either loose or win. the same scam letter you recieved was sent to a 1000 people including me, but you choose to reap where you had not sown. you are aware that one of the major challange facing african countries is the issue of government officails stealing money and stashing it abroad. you are always ready to conive with criminals be it 419 or real government officials to defraud nigeria, in the process you get duped. the only way 419 can be eradicated is not by shooting or treating the scamers as terrorists, it is by not trying to reap from strangers and where you had not sown. do not reply a mail whose sender is not known to you. if you must reply, do not send money to any body in nigeria, unless you personally want to.
Dudes that's Joe Six Pack's reply and is funnier than the scam one!
"With that much beer I could live out my lifelong dream of drowning in booze."
lol
Agreed. There's also the danger of blaming the victim. After 9/11, terrorists would pose "Don't you want to know why the world hates America so much?" That's a lot like blaming a rape victim for walking alone. Or dressing attractively.
A nerd friend was mugged in the subway -- glasses knocked off, physically knocked down, wallet taken. He somewhat blamed himself for being weak, unaware, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's smarter from the experience, but the mugger was clearly wrong. But yes, it helps to understand the mugger (feed his family? on drugs?) to solve the problem.
The scammers have been showing a lot of creativity lately.
I get the classic ones (African dictator/official dies and widow/son wants his money transferred for a hefty share). But I also get ones that have a Christian theme], others with an Islamic tone [baheyeldin.com], and yet another with an Arab tone featuring none other than Yasser Arafat, with links to news articles from ABC News, just after he died.
These guys could use their imagination writing fiction or something. If they had better English that is...
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You always hear how white men have all of the power in this country. But there's a small caveat- it's OTHER WHITE MEN.