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."

Comments

Nothing surprising here

[mustbepatient]

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.

Re:Really?

[Mysticalfruit]

Worse, your subjected to his national policy... Unless your affliated with Halliburton or an oil company, then everything is peachy...

419 Emails From A Cultural Perspective

[Bloke down the pub]

Other proposed thesis subjects from this year's liberal arts majors include:

• Gender roles of minerals: is porphyry like totally gay or what?
  
• Chocolate and it's[sic] affects[sic] on tactic's[sic] of the Franco-Prussian war
  
• God not only exists but he drinks too (there's no way evolution could have produced the Aardvark)