Nigerian Scammers Scammed

sbinning writes "At least one Nigerian scammer has had the tables turned. A website admin retaliates against the fraudsters, with hilarious results." From The Age article: "When he found a willing victim, his anti-scam unfolded in much the same way as a typical 419 scam, promising payment only after a substantial investment had been laid down — in this case the receipt of a series of commissioned wooden carvings from a local artist. With some creative photo editing, Shiver Metimbers was able to string along his quarry with claims that the two carvings sent had mysteriously been damaged enroute, the first through a mysterious shrinking process, and the second by a rogue African hamster."

Comments

Why not link directly to the actual content?

[GeekLife.com]

Wood carving scam:
http://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm

and another great one where he gets the scammer to tattoo himself:
http://www.419eater.com/html/okorie.htm

Dont screw with these people

[affliction]

I don't think it is a wise decision to play jokes on these people. They are very serious about what they do. There have been at least 3 murders directly related to 419 scammers, see Wikipedia.

Re:The morality here is dubious

[mcpkaaos]

From the website (but not the article):

UPDATE - June 2006:

Just to give some additional information on John Boko. As I write, I have been in contact with "John" posing as a fellow scammer looking for work. John has just offered me a job as just one of several of his European representatives to help cash and transfer payments from scammed victims for him. I was offered between $2,000 and $3,000 per month just for the simple job of gathering victim's payments together and forwarding the money into his bank account.

Re:The morality here is dubious

[suckmysav]

Actually, the artist and the scammer were not the same person. If you properly RTA (oops, this is slashdot, sorry) you will find that the scammer paid the artist to produce the carving in the hope that "Derek Trotter" would ultimately pay up big time in the form of a large "art scholarship".

As for the GP suggesting that this might be a case o ripping off "the one honest artist in Nigeria", again, if you properly RTA you would learn that this all came about after the fake "Derek Trotter, Director; Trotters Fine Arts" replied to a standard 419 scam letter with something like "Sorry I'm too busy giving out $100K art scholarships right now to help but do get any artist friends you might have to contact me".

Two days later the same scammer replied back under a different name claiming to have read about the non-existant "Trotters Fine Arts" on the internet and was interested in applying for a scholarship. From there it was game on, the scammer paid an artist to produce the works thinking some naive western art dealer would in turn pay huge money to foster the scammers non-existant artistic talent. He also ended up paying the freight costs to ship the pieces as well.

It appears this 419 scammer has just learnt a lesson that he should already well know, that unchecked greed will make people do the stupidist things.

Scamming Nigerian Artists is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm not opposed to scamming the 419 scammers, I find the tactics used in this case to be revolting.

Here's why.

Contrary to what one of the earlier posters said, there are not merely one, but MANY serious and honest artists in Nigeria, who are choosing to try and make a living in a field that is not typically financially rewarding. I worked in Nigeria, with Nigerian artists, and let me tell you from experience, many are hardworking and creative, and most importantly, THEY ARE NOT 419 SCAMMERS. They certainly do not deserve to be used as pawns in a scam.

Furthermore, many of them are quite aware of the 419 scams, and condemn them. They're quite aware that the 419 scams damage the reputation of Nigerians in general.

Visit www.nigeria-arts.net for a good example of what's out there in the world of Nigerian arts.

Bottom line: this Australian sysadmin and his "artwork anti-scam" scheme may have scammed an innocent third party artist rather than a 419 scammer.

Re:Scamming Nigerian Artists is wrong

[FroBugg]

If you read the entirety of the original website, he claims at the bottom to have gotten in touch with the scammer through another alias, gotten the name and contact info of the artist, and confirmed that the artist was paid for the pieces (though he wasn't able to find out how much).

Re:Nigerian?

[dfjghsk]

MOD PARENT DOWN

Nigeria has a notable income level when compared with Africa? Maybe if you only look at the GDP of the entire country. Take a look at the GDP per capita:

Nigeria: 1400

Botswana: 10,500
Namibia: 7,000
Zimbabwe: 2,300
Mozambique: 1,300
Angola: 3,200
Congo: 1,300
Gabon: 6,800
Uganda: 1,800
Sudan: 2,100
Chad: 1,500
Ghana: 2,500
Cote d'Ivoire: 1,600
Algeria: 7,200
Libya: 11,400
Morocco: 4,200

Nigeria does have a GDP of 174.1 billion.. but it's hardly "notable":

Algeria: 233.2 billion
Morocco: 138.3 billion
Sudan: 85.65 billion
Ethiopia: 62.88 billion

I'm not going to go through the whole list..

BTW:
South Africa GDP: 533.2 billion
Spain GDP: 1.029 trillion

So South Africa alone is 1/2 of Spains output.. so that also disproves your claim that Spains output is 4x all of Africas..

Perhaps you should do your research instead of telling other people to do it.