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Jail 'Greedy' Scam Victims, Says Nigerian Diplomat
AcidAUS writes with this nearly unbelievable snippet from today's Sydney Morning Herald: "The Nigerian high commissioner in Australia says people who are ripped off by so-called Nigerian scams are just as guilty as the fraudsters and should be jailed. Responding to a story in yesterday's Herald, which revealed Australians lose at least $36 million a year to the online scams, Sunday Olu Agbi said Australians had failed to heed repeated warnings not to deal with shady characters on the internet."
If you are dumb enough to fall for one of the oldest fraud methods in existence, you deserve to lose you money, but not your freedom.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
"It's hard to con an honest man."
If all the stupid people are put in jail, then it's gonna be very lonely out here.
If only there was a big island somewhere where we could send all these idiots.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Since the summary doesn't make this clear and I'm sure plenty of people won't RTFA, the good professor is referring to jailing those people who fall for scams in which they believe they are aiding embezzlers in order to get rich. It'll never happen of course, but it's not that unreasonable either really.
Somehow being a greedy criminal is OK as long as you're dumb enough to wind up as the victim in the attempt.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Actually they provide a significant form of revenue. Whoever came up with the lottery was a genius!
"Today we are announcing a state tax on stupi... er, a state lottery!"
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Mate, My name is Steve Oakland of Sydney Australia. Recently I have received a large sum of USD 25,000,000 from Mr Aruba of Nigeria. However due to some new legislation I may be having some problems with our bottom-up laws. So I have to transfer that money to a third country ASAP. I will offer you 20% of the money in exchange for your small inconvenience, 70% will be for me, and 10% for the transaction costs ...
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
The very idea that a real flesh-and-blood Nigerian diplomat actually exists feels so strange. It would be like meeting the real Duke Nukem.
Table-ized A.I.
If all the stupid people are put in jail, then it's gonna be very lonely out here.
What makes you think you'd be out here?
This is simply an argument to try to divert blame. I don't really care that the other side is a willing victim. Fraud is fraud, and I have a hard time believing that the Nigerian goverment is really doing all that much about it. Nigeria is a Kleptocracy, so corruption is endemic in the society. I'm sure a few well placed bribes keeps the cops away. It's not really that hard to find these guys after all since the money eventually has to go somewhere.
AccountKiller
RTFA. He isn't suggesting people be jailed for stupidity, he's suggesting they be jailed for willingly aiding in a crime (or at least believing they are).
It's articles like this where the summary has completely missed the point that really highlights just how bad slashdotters are when it comes to reading articles. TFA is short and clear about the what the man was really suggesting and yet already some 90% of (non-joke) comments are about how stupidity isn't a crime.
And shame on the slashdot editor who posted this. I can't believe anyone could miss the point of the article so badly, so either he didn't read it or he deliberately went with a misleading summary for the extra "outrage" comments.
I'll post the pertinent bit here to save everyone the terrible inconvenience of clicking the article link:
In one version, the scammer poses as a government worker who has embezzled millions of dollars and is offering victims a percentage if they help retrieve the money by providing a relatively small amount of money for bribes or other charges.
Professor Olu Agbi said "greedy" Australians who tried to partake in these crimes - even though they are scams - should be arrested as well.
"People who send their money are as guilty as those who are asking them to send the money," he said.
Not so outrageous now is it?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Nigerian High Commissioner Olu Agbi said if I don't send him $1,000 by Western Union in the next 24 hours that he'll throw me in jail!
Swing and a miss. Gotta try harder for a Funny mod.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
As I think about it, this guy has a point. The scams involve approaching you under the guise of embezzling funds. Last time I checked, any of the activities they scammers want you to engage in are illegal. That being the case, it seems like a few crimes are involved -- embezzlement on both ends, and the theft of money by the Nigerian involved.
First Slashdotters blame copyright holders for not protecting their works better. Then it is Nigerians blaming scam victims. What's next? Don't lock your door, you deserve to be robbed? And women who dress provocatively deserve to be raped?
Isn't this the same Web site that wants the government to intervene to lower the price of Windows, or supports early iphone adopters who paid the stupid tax suing Apple because they had the audacity to lower prices?
I'm all for passing a Digital Consumer Rights Act to protect fair use and end user licensees, but some of the amoral "logic" here boggles the mind. If it is bad for Microsoft or Sony to rip off consumers, it's bad for you to rip off them.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
If only there was a big island somewhere where we could send all these idiots.
hello i am allujabullshitname prince of nigeria. i am writing to you in the worst of health, i am afraid i may die soon, but do not worry, god is on my side. i recently have come acrsoss a islannd worth millions of american dollars an am looking for a governnment to deposit tyhe land masses.
this millions of dollars of land is perfect to send all sorts of idiots, but i am afraid that i am to lose it soon, as there are those who conspire against me. but i am not afraid, for the lord will protect me.
please send me your account so i can deposit..
Oh, what the hell.. I actually don't know enough about international property law to know what kind of system you'd deposit land rights into anyway.
Jailing the victim is asinine and a sure sign that the authorities are lazy and stupid themselves.
How is this any different to saying that a girl that goes into a rough neighbourhood in a mini-skirt and is raped should also be jailed? Just because someone puts themself in a position where they are easy prey doesn't mean that we should lash out against them if we find it difficult to prosecute the criminal.
What they'll do is make it a crime to send money. A few years ago they made it illegal in NSW, Australia to leave your car unlocked. The rationale was that stolen cars were being used to commit crime and a deterent was needed to stop people making their cars easy to steal. Never mind the inconvenient fact that glass windows are trivial to break. Personally I think this had more to do with car insurance fraud than a crime epidemic. So now rushing to work and forgetting to lock your car makes you a criminal, rather than just making you negligent (and possibly causing you to forfeit an insurance claim).
I think people who don't understand their role as a public servant and propose solutions like making a victim a criminal should be sacked, if not jailed themselves.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Like we're going to listen to Nigerian officials when it comes to money matters. Hell, they can't even keep their Princes from losing access to their fortunes, requiring honest, hard-working Americans to help them out!
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
I approve.
-Darwin
I somehow doubt he actually believes in jailing these people. He's simply pointing out their guilt, to reduce the guilt of his own country's people.
I am somewhat sympathetic to your argument, but I don't buy it. It can be entirely reasonable to play the lottery, though not very regularly.
Let's say that once a month you get a Powerball ticket with Powerplay, costing (according to Wikipedia) $2. You do this for 50 years. (In other words, you play the lottery starting when you are 20 until you're 70.)
According to this compound interest calculator, if you aggressively invested that money instead and got 10% annual return for that timespan (probably entirely ridiculous), at the end of that you'd have $30,727. If we were to assume an already-optimistic 7% rate of return, that's only $10,500.
If you were to play every other month (or not get powerplay) and get 10%, you're at $15,500, and at 7%, $5,200.
In addition, you're not really going to be out all that money... on average, Wikipedia says the powerball has about a 50% rate of return. Which means that the $15,500 and $5,200 numbers are actually more realistic if you pay $2/mth.
While it's not exactly a shabby sum, it's also not that much money if you've been wise with other investments. Giving up that amount of money is probably not really going to change your lifestyle. You might lose out on a couple vacations you could take when retired or something. (If we are even a little more conservative with how much we spend on the lottery... you play for 40 years instead of 50, spending $1/mth but getting back half, and could get 7% otherwise, you're looking at $1,200. That's barely enough for one "fancy" vacation.)
Now, at the same time, in the very very remote chance you were to actually win a jackpot, your life would change. If you won even a million dollars -- let alone tens of millions -- you might be able to retire now (depending on how old you are), go buy a farm, do almost anything you want monitarily.
It is not unreasonable to say "I'll take one less vacation when I'm 70 in exchange for an almost-zero-but-not-quite chance of a totally life-changing event."
(The fact that a lot of lottery winnings result in people blowing through the winnings quickly, sometimes result in failed families or other bad effects, or that a lot of people don't play the lottery this way and actually put significant money into it is beside the point that playing the lottery isn't necessarily an irrational move.)
They already did, once America was full, they sent them all downunder
The stupid will always be the prime target for those who will take their money. The prime candidate is, of course, government lotteries, you know, taxation for those who are lacking math skills.
Anyone who sends money to an entity that can not be properly vetted is a greedy fool.
Is that a criminal action? No. If we locked up everyone that was stupid and greedy, we wouldn't have any police, state level politicians, public school teachers, car salesmen, plumbers, electricians, car mechanics, etc.
dont know if it's tru? forwarding just incase! love to everyone!
>>> Nverian Hig h Commisioner Ololu Ogelvi warned all RED BLOODED AMERICAN PATRIOTS
>>> that if they don't send him $1,000 by Western Union in the next 24 hours that he
>>> will kill a kitt
>>> en.
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"It is not in the character of Nigerians to be engaged in this kind of scam."
Professor Olu Agbi said there were almost 140 million people in Nigeria and fewer than 0.1 per cent were involved.
140,000 scammers? Gee is that all? :P
They're like...trying to outlaw natural selection!
You are making more stupid people, please don't do it!
Uuhh shiny...
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
No, America got the puritans, we got the criminals.
Come to think of it, I think we got the better deal.
Hey, it's not as easy as it looks. What with all the hopping around and all.
I do NOT think that scam VICTIMS need to be jailed, whether they are greedy or not.
Yes, you'd have to be a total numbskull to believe some of the stories that scammers use. But if you read the next paragraph, you'll see that even someone who isn't "stupid" can be fooled. Ridiculous and obvious scams come with stories that your uncle's long-lost twin (separated at birth) who lived in Zimbabwe and ran a diamond mine just died in a tragic car accident and you were the only beneficiary in his will, please email over your bank account number and routing info, or that Nigeria's silicon tycoon needs to transfer a billion dollars to a company in the United States but due to some extremely complicated circumstances related to a jacked up political climate, they need to park the funds in the bank account of someone who is trustworthy and you came highly recommended, and they'll leave you 1% of the money as a fee for your troubles (that comes out to ten million bucks), please email us your bank account number, routing info, a photocopy of your driver license and passport, etc., etc., etc., well, all I can say is that if you actually believe any of this shit, you need to be educated. Read about the so-called 419 Scam among others. Yes, you'd have to be "greedy" to fall for such a scam. Should you be jailed? No. You're still the victim of a crime.
Some scams sound more realistic than the ones above. For example, I once received an email bearing a friend's email address as the "From:" address and claiming that he had lost his passport and/or wallet while on vacation in Africa, and due to complications with the local authorities, he needed to borrow $1000 to pay some fine and get out of jail (money which he would supposedly pay back upon returning home). I called my friend on the phone and it turned out that he was safe and sound here at home, not in Africa. Someone had jacked his email password or otherwise hacked into his email account. Apparently, everyone in his address book received such an email. This is the type of scam that even discerning people could fall for. You have to be really, really, really careful not to fall for some of this stuff.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Finally, someone else who thinks the lottery is a stupid tax.
Well, I bet other think that but your one of the first I have saw say it.
Then you haven't been paying attention. Ages ago I also called lotteries a stupidity tax, and I doubt I made that up myself.
It's wrong, though. Lotteries aren't any more a tax on stupidity than paying for bungeejumping is. It's not about the money, it's about the thrill, the idea that you could win. Not everything in life is about monetary return on investment.
I never play in a lottery, but I know people who do, fully aware that they'll never win back what they spend on it. But that's not why they play.
Calling lotteries a stupid tax is very profound when you're in highschool and just figured out how probabilities work. But as you grow up, you should realise that people are getting more from it than just money. They pay for a dream, and it's a pretty nice dream, even if it's not true.
Newsflash... Greedy man enters Nigerian scam, looses money. If he thinks he will be charged with something leading to imprisonment, he will _never_ go to the Police reporting the scam. No crime here move along! Guess the scammers will be happy!
but you CAN give it a direction. I've said this a thousand times. There will always be people stupid/desperate/greedy enough to do something like this. Hell, two good friends of mine who I always thought were very intelligent fell victim to an Amway like scam. (Same company different name).
When I showed them all of the websites talking about the scam they realized what a big mistake was. At least they only lost $400. Most people who fall for this lose their life savings.
My mother is internet stupid. She's not a dumb person this is just alien to her. I showed her the power of google to answer her questions and now she uses it all the time to research businesses that she wants to work with. In fact, I think google helped her become Internet savvy.
I truly believe that people who fall for scams like this should be forced to serve time. Give them solid time to think about their actions and how society should be forced to help the Darwin award winners of today.
go to http://www.sweetchillisauce.com/ this guy winds up the scammers all the way in, hilarious stuff. If more people did this, now that would slow the scammers! Jerry