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Times Are Tough For Nigerian Scammers
The Narrative Fallacy writes "The Washington Post reports that online swindling takes dedication even in the best of times but succeeding in the midst of a worldwide economic meltdown takes patience, resolve, and hard work. 'We are working harder. The financial crisis is not making it easy for them over there,' said Banjo, 24, speaking about Americans, whose trust he has won and whose money he has fleeced, via his Dell laptop. 'They don't have money. And the money they don't have, we want.' US authorities say Americans — the easiest prey, according to Nigerian scammers — still lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year to cybercrimes, including a scheme known as the Nigerian 419 fraud, named for a section of the Nigerian criminal code. 419 is cemented in Nigerian popular culture. and the scammers, known as 'yahoo-yahoo boys,' are glorified in pop songs such as 'Yahoozee,' which gained even more fame after former secretary of state Colin L. Powell danced to it at a London festival last year."
I only wish the reason was because our education was getting the job done.
If these Nigerian scammers were any good, they'd be working at Goldman Sachs, not pulling penny-ante internet operations...
I would have suspected that Americans might have fallen prey more easily. Hard times can lead to more desperate measures.
Or maybe people are turning off their Internet service...
Dark Reflection
Hello I am a Nigerian judge Mumbasa Mfune III. I am collecting funds to create a task force to reclaim lost monies in Nigeria.
If you have lost monies in Nigeria, for the low donation of $2500, I can reclaim ALL lost assets.
Please contact me immediately at Judge.Mufune@yahooze.ng
How did this interview take place? Why did the interviewer not do the world a favor and kill the guys on the spot, or at least identify him to authorities that will shut them down?
I wonder if any nigerian has ever tried it? By the way, about the 419's, check out http://www.419eater.com/ Scambait is great!
Evidentally, it's even possible to run low on fools. Or at least fools who have not yet been separated from their money. P.T. Barnum must be rolling in his grave.
There must be some kind of famine or something in Nigeria, I've received about 15 emails in the last 3 months, all from people telling me their father/brother/uncle/etc. had "caught death". Terrible!
And to make matters worse, they can't get the money that's rightfully theirs from the banks! Honestly, something should really be done about this.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Well, once this recession is over they'll have their business back, people being none the wiser. It doesn't matter what experiences humanity goes through. There will always be at least a small fraction who is unequivocally stupid.
I tend to believe it is warfare not genetics.
Both Japan and Europe at one point in time had the feudal system.
When you have hundreds of sovereign neighbors who want to kill you it gives you good motivation to develop educational instututions which help you develop both hard and soft power through innovation.
Probably also why the greek city staes had a reputation for innovation.
Meanwhile the African tribes were lucky to ever even come in contact with each other and never needed to develop educational institutions.
-
Scamming works, even for schemes widely known from years. Be an scammer and will be pretty rare that you get caught, in your country will make songs about you, and even the Washington post will put your name in big letters. And money flow so much that even in this troubled economic times is still profitable, even with the amount of people doing it.
A bit remembers me the amount of people buying what is offered by spam, and making it still a profitable activity, but this one goes some levels deep into the illegal realm.
Who should I make the check out to?
Who should I make the check out to?
My name is 'Shakrai' but my good friends call me 'Cash' :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Anyone else see the poetic justice in some back-jungle Shaman fleecing these guys out of their hard-swindled cash?
$300 for mojo powder...probably ashes from the fire he burns his extra cash in...Turtles on a string. I love it.
Hours of hilarious reading, pics and audio- these guys get very creative. Freight baits ROCK!!
http://www.thescambaiter.com/
Not so. He won the Nobel Prize for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
But in these tough times, the scammers said, they are relying more on a crucial tool: voodoo. At times, Banjo said, he has traveled six hours to the forest, where a magician sells scam-boosters. A $300 powder supposedly helps scammers "speak with authority" when demanding payment. A powder, rubbed on the face, reportedly makes victims viewing the scammer through webcams powerless to say no.
Scammers having a hard time in this economic climate? Boo-fscking-hoo.
Let's play Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'll be Pestilence.
Google, Yahoo, msn, all you guys...
1. Figure the expense of Nigerian spam
2. Ask Nigerians to stop
3. ????
4. Profit
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
You need to look at African history again - I am certainly not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but warfare (and incidentally slavery) in Sub-Saharan Africa is as old as civilization in Sub-Saharan Africa. For example: Military History of the Mali Empire. The scale of the conflicts was never what it was in Europe and Asia until the 20th century, but that Africa was a collection of totally peaceful isolated tribes until Europeans arrived on the scene is a myth.
Futurama. What an awesome show.
My mom says I'm cool.
I'm sceptical: there is plenty of evidence of contact and conflict between populations, tribes, and whatnot in Africa. Further, there are known instances of innovation in the service of success in those conflicts(Shaka's career in empire building being perhaps the notable example).
I'd be more inclined to blame quirks of geography and environmental biology. Africa has a massive interior area compared to its coastline, and IIRC, the worst ratio of navigable rivers to interior area of any inhabited continent. It also has few usefully domesticated animals. There goes most of your trade, beyond seriously high value/unit weight stuff.
The continent also, because of its climate and biology, has an enormous disease load, which imposes a substantial toll on all activities of life, particularly dire for dense populations(of the sort almost always associated with division of labor, and intellectual, technological, and social development).
How can you have sympathy for anyone who falls for this crap? In Nigeria 419 is viewed as a game. Anyone who plays (poor innocent Americans) is just greedy themselves. How dumb do you have to be to think that you can get something for nothing ? I hate the fact the Nigeria is given a bad rep for this, but Americans are xenophobic to anything especially from that country "Africa". Just wait until American realize Nigeria has a large Muslim population.....
...419 Eater. My favorite is the Harry Potter handwriting scambait (search in the page for "after the call").
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
It's ironic, actually, the (arguably legitimate) western reaction against the excesses and cruelties of imperialism and colonialism ended up, in a fair number of cases, actually weakening understanding of the local populations, cultures, and history(and in a way oddly similar to the one that colonialism itself did).
The stock "history" of the bluntest anti-imperialist position is basically "And the noble savages lived happily in idyllic little tribes and Harmony with the land, until the British showed up and shot everyone and nicked their stuff." is almost exactly as reductive as the stock "history of the bluntest pro-imperialist position, which is basically "And the barbarious savages lived in primitive tribes, practicing devil worship and savagery, until the British showed up and civilized everybody and put the land to productive use."
"Agents of the colonial powers arrived on the scene of what was already, and had long been, a complex political and social stage, full of all kinds of various actors and groups, and had to shrewdly navigate a complex web of political interrelations and interactions in order to get anywhere." is much less cleanly satisfactory to either party; but is arguably much more accurate.
I think that last bit could be a bit more accurate..
"Agents of the colonial powers arrived on the scene of what was already, and had long been, a complex political and social stage, full of all kinds of various actors and groups. And then they showed them how gunpowder works, whereupon the natives were so impressed they fell over and died."
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
I read this days ago.
in 2003 I recovered $15,000 for someone who lost their money to a web based computer scam. It was not easy and I didn't kill anyone (at the request on my client). Africa is a dangerous place. I have been doing stuff for a while, the odds of you getting all your money back are pretty much 0%. In fact I would say I did not get my clients money back, I probably got them someone else's money.
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
When I read the article, the thing that struck me was that the scammers are so desperate, they trying voodoo majic to boost their believability. One guy has a live tortoise hanging around his neck to boost his mojo. Sounds like a market ripe for a new product idea:
Your sma11 unit sales got you down? Bulk up that member ship!
Girls find you more attractive with our herbal honesty reproduction enhancer. Get more faith-time from those gullible Americans with new ultra power Premier gold medal deluxe Truth Be Told powder. Distilled from the pulverized testicles of tobacco company lawyers, this is genuine disingenuity at it's most potent concentration. Guaranteed to have them eating out of the palm of your hand, you will be invincible in email encounters.
http://gxzyxkqkdjh.cn/
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Imagine being tricked by a con artist named Banjo. I wonder if he has a friend Kazooie.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Whatever happens, we have got
the Gatling gun, and they have not
- from a poem about the Abyssinian campaign
You forgot to include American funding to the third world, mainly Nigeria.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
As others have pointed out, you need to review history a bit more. For about 1200 years, the "Moors" (derived meaning "Black") were the conquerors, taking millions of europeans and middle eastern people. Some estimate the number to be approx 40 million. When the Moors sided with the Arabic people, it was very very bad for the Europeans.
Not to say the Europeans were exactly innocent. The "political" systems in place lead to slavery of the general population by the nobility. Needless to say, border disputes were anything but friendly for centuries.
It's easy to believe that the Africans were simple people running around in small tribes who knew nothing but peace and avoiding being eaten by lions, but the Euro/American slave trade triangle was just another very dirty chapter in human history, not the only one like it.
But, if you'd prefer to believe your way, that's your decision. I must quote...
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana (1863-1952)
The Life of Reason (1905-1906)
Volume 1, Reason in Common Sense - pg 284
I like to believe that humanity had a kind, gentle history at some point, but in reality there's been an awful lot of blood shed and oppression. It's important for us to know the mistakes we've made before, so we can be better in our future.
Genetics have nothing to do with behavior. All humans are the same. They do learn from their environment. Greed has spread like an epidemic around the planet, and we're seeing the collapse of that system now. It's funny that the scam artists are now complaining that their marks are all running dry.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
If you mean this : Media misunderstanding on GS and zloty it was more like media not making real research on a subject and repeating hearsay. IOW business as usual, as media these day , except for a few rare exception, are glorified parrot.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I find your ideas intriguing and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Le français vous intéresse?
Who knew Jim Watson hung out on slashdot?
(The rest of your bullshit isn't even worth addressing)
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Yeah, that's how all the kids decide which songs are hot nowadays.
Secretary's of state need to be more careful, lest we have another summer like that time Warren Christopher danced to I Saw the Sign by Ace of Base.
skin color?
You need to read "Guns, Germs & Steel" by Jared Diamond. The conclusion he comes to is that it's absolutely not genetics - it's a combination of geography and natural plant & animal life, leading to more stable populations (farmers vs. hunter/gatherers). This then leads to disease resistance (contact with domesticated animals boosts our immune systems), better, more nutritional crops, and greater population density leading to faster innovation.
They just target a different segment of the population now. When times are good they seem to focus on the not so bright who are slightly greedy with a little cash to spare. When times are tough they seem to focus more on the more vulnerable and desperate. To give an example I have been looking for a new apartment, and have been using craigslist to look for rentals. They still have deals that are too good to be true, and not just bait and switch deals from unscrupulous realtors. I ran across one where the rent was very low, but the owner of the property was out of the state and would have to mail me the keys, application, etc, after I mailed an application (that would require my ss #, bank info, etc.) and money order (not check) for doing a credit check.
I can kinda see being taken by some scam artist where there is some face-to-face contact. The way the "pidgeon drop" works is that the con artists drop some envelope full of money behind you, the con calls your attention to it "is this your money you dropped. Part of how this work is that an accomplice walks by posing as a "disinterested third party" to build up the crucial network of "trust, but distrust" so you get sucked in putting up "earnest money" until the "rightful owner is attempted to be located." Yes, the thing works on the mark's greed and the notion of an impromptu conspiracy, with the mark not knowing two of the three parties are in collusion, but it probably also works on the idea of a person "getting sucked in" by events and not thinking quickly enough on one's feet about what is happening and what should be happening.
The Nigerian thing, however, I just don't get. The Nigerian thing is as hackneyed a cliche as "In Soviet Russia", "All Your Base Are Belong to Us", and ". . . Profit!" I mean, what planet is a person living on who falls for it?
I could even understand if there was some variant to this game. Say, the "Nigerian dude" contacts you by spam e-mail, and you go "ha, ha funny, the dude doesn't even know English", and then it would be followed by an another e-mail "This is Agent Sam Smith from the FBI, and we need your cooperation tracking down a Nigerian con-artist." But they don't even try anything as basic as the "supposedly unrelated third party." It is completely transparent and utterly unsophisticated.
Are some people compensating for what they think is racial bias against Nigerians that they are willing to help the Nigerian dude to demonstrate they can act against their prejudice? Is it just a compulsion that grips a person to respond, kind of like a Simpson's episode where Homer knows he is being hypnotized and croaks out "must . . . not . . . hit . . . reply . . . to . . . spam . . . e-mail!" I mean, just who are these people who reply?
Heh, I guess I belong here. I just spent a moment trying to figure out which were the "geek city states"...
That would be me. I always mod trolls up.
I cruise at -1. Those that don't would never see the humor in some of this stuff if people didn't mod them up. Personally, I find some the humor absolutely hilarious but too many people will reach for the troll mod before the funny mod.
A wish for mod points.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's like a radio call in contest, once you win you have to let someone else have a chance.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Coccotti: Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm a Sicilian. And my old man was the world heavyweight champion of Sicilian liars. And from growin' up with him I learned the pantomime. Now there are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give him away. A guy has seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty, but a guy's got seventeen. And if you know 'em like ya know your own face, they beat lie detectors to hell. What we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothin'. But you're tellin' me everything. Now I know you know where they are. So tell me, before I do some damage you won't walk away from.
Cliff: Could I have one of those Chesterfields now?
Coccotti: Sure.
Cliff: Got a match? Oh, don't bother. I got one. So you're a Sicilian, huh?
Coccotti: Uh-huh.
Cliff: You know I read a lot. Especially things that have to do with history. I find that shit fascinating. In fact, I don't know if you know this or not, Sicilians were spawned by niggers.
Coccotti: Come again?
Cliff: It's a fact. Sicilians have nigger blood pumpin' through their hearts. If you don't believe me, look it up. You see, hundreds and hundreds of years ago the Moors conquered Sicily. And Moors are niggers. Way back then, Sicilians were like the wops in northern Italy. Blond hair, blue eyes. But, once the Moors moved in there, they changed the whole country. They did so much fuckin' with the Sicilian women, they changed the blood-line for ever, from blond hair and blue eyes to black hair and dark skin. I find it absolutely amazing to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, Sicilians still carry that nigger gene. I'm just quotin' history. It's a fact. It's written. Your ancestors were niggers. Your great, great, great, great, great-grandmother was fucked by a nigger, and had a half-nigger kid. That is a fact. Now tell me, am I lyin'?
:)
PS: Please direct all credit (or scorn) to True Romance.
Happy people make bad consumers.
"Genetics have nothing to do with behavior. All humans are the same."
How can that be true? Just take the most extreme cases and you will see clearly that you are wrong. Modify the genes of a zygote so that it does not develop legs. Now you will get a human which does not walk where you would have got one that frequently walks. How can never walking be considered the same behaviour as frequently walking? Add an extra chromosome 21 and you will get a human with mental retardation where you would not have. Do you suppose the behaviour will be the same? Remove genes that allow the development a functioning auditory system. Do you really suppose that speaking a language is the same behaviour as signing one?
You might as well argue that breeding dogs or cattle is a frivolous activity, in that doing so will never deliver the behaviour for which the breeder is looking. But those who know dogs for example still describe various temperaments for which the various breeds have preponderances. That is, unless you suppose that, in contrast with other mammals with the same nervous structures whose behaviour is plainly influenced by genetics, there is something so special about humans wherein their behaviour is not influenced by genetics.
I have noticed that it is harder to engage in this activity. I used to enjoy wasting as much of these cat's time as possible and then arranging to meet them in London and never show. Then, when I get the response, "I was greatly disappointed to see that you never arrived for our meeting," I would come up with some other excuse like a sick family member or something or other and arrange another meeting. I would do this until I heard from the scammer no more. Might be that these guys share information because my email no longer gets 419 scams. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
Now I have a machine gun.
Ho Ho Ho
Funny but wrong.
A successful culture will adapt when new technology arrives. Japan dit it. China is doing it. Europe itself dit it, gunpowder after all isn't a western invention. Technology only gives a very temporary advantage, it is culture that matters.
Anyone who generalizes about slashdotters is a typical slashdotter.
the "Moors" (derived meaning "Black")
In Latin, the word maurus (plural mauri) means coming from Mauretania...a Roman province on the north western fringe of Africa (-> Morocco) (see wikipedia) So basically Moors means those from North Africa. They aren't sub-Saharan. The core people of the Moors were "berbers"...Not arabs but not black either.
If you need a real successful "black" civilization. I suggest you to take a closer look at the Nubian civilization. They fought for centuries against the Egyptians, the Greek dynasty and they finally crushed a Roman invasion. The defeat was so devastating, that the Romans signed a peace treaty and they never came back. The Nubian queen are famous (Amanishaketo, etc) nowadays due to recent discoveries.
Or the Ethiopian one, they succeeded to stop the early Muslim invasion (this where the legendary King John was supposed to live, European crusaders tried for years to get in touch with him to fight together the Muslims). They fought for decades against the Italians and they were the first to gain their independence. The famous city of Timbuktu having healthy intellectual/philosophical debates while Europe was experiencing inquisition, etc.
Bullshit! Is all humans are the same then surely Africa does not need our help and should be as thriving a community as any other western civilization. Since that's clearly not the case your above statement is just a bunch of shit, and the rest of your statements as suspect...
You might be interested in Guns, Germs, and Steel.
I beg to differ. Arguments tend to fail easily at their extremes. In order to really prove his argument a fail, you have to use a mundane and simple example. But I couldn't be bothered, as he's just an ideological idiot who has issues of his own without commenting on others'.
It is actually mildly amusing. I was just annoyed because I haven't seen a single mod point in almost a year and yet someone mods up nigger jokes is apparently getting them. Maybe that's what I should have been doing more of back when I was getting them :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"This should be modded -1, Racist. It's not a culture thing. "
Race, however, is not culture.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
You would never see a white or Asian society thinking that "smack hoes and pimp bitches" is an okay thing.
US ghetto culture hasn't very much to do with Africa.
I really don't care about some ideological "we're all equal" idea. No we are not all equal.
I think we are.
And I, as proud racist, will be the first one to admit that my race is not the best.
Would you care to tell me what your race is? And which race you consider the best?
Good luck getting a non-racist to admit to that.
Well, a non-racist would consider all races equal by definition.
This should be modded -1, Racist. It's not a culture thing.
Culture is by definition something you learn, not something that is in your genes (like race). It is passed from one generation to the next and each generation can 'decide' what to keep, what to throw away and what to add.
There's a big difference between 16th century firearms and an AK-47.
Yes, what is your point?
Anyone who generalizes about slashdotters is a typical slashdotter.
The new scam is "I make $159/day on Google! Find out how with Fast Google Cash!" You want scams that thrive in recessions, there they are.
I read that as Geek city states. Consider for a moment how a geek city state might work :)
But, if you'd prefer to believe your way, that's your decision. I must quote...
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana (1863-1952) The Life of Reason (1905-1906)
This simply is not true.
It exaggerates an obvious truism in four ways. Those who go about repeating this catch phrase don't seem to have thought very deeply about what it actually says.
What is true is something like this: those who are UNAWARE of the LESSONS of the past are MORE LIKELY to LIVE SOME SIMILAR VERSION of it.
Important distinctions.
Race isn't bound to culture. Neither is culture bound to race. Not forgetting the 1940's but I must admit that today the term 'racist' is used to keep minority populations in more developed countries happy. I hate politicalcorrectness because it often not a reflection of reality. It always ignores certain inconvenient truths.
They seem to come and go in batches. About once or twice a month in 2007 I'd get mod points, then not at all in 2008 and I figured my run was over. For the last three months I'm getting them so frequently it seems like the pool of available moderators must have shrunk pretty dramatically.
tl;dr fuck alone knows what detirmines if you get mod points, if you had them before you'll probably have them again.
Fools and their money being parted?
"Please help me, I just engaged in an act which even the lowest member of the primates would know was illegal and now I am upset because I was ripped off?"
The fundamentals of the law is that you must limit your own liabilities.
The mythology of the 419 scammer is similar to the street corner drug dealer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics. Most of them barely earn enough money to get by since they have to pay tributes to all of the criminal elements above them and most of them live with their moms.
Certain slashdotters may experience some affinity with the last sentence.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
A few things you're leaving out. 1. European slave traders didn't raid anywhere. All the enslavement and selling was done by other Africans, who mostly sold the slaves to Arabs, who sold them to the Europeans. So really all the Europeans did was give gold for a resource that was already being exploited. 2. Egypt was the worlds most powerful military force before rome came along, and was considered one of the most important provices of the eastern roman empire until the Arabs and Turks took over for them. 3. The library at Alexandria GREW under Roman and Eastern Roman rule for most of history. There were a few exceptions. Also, it was lost because of an earthquake, not because of book burning.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
*hmz* That sounded funnier in my head
Invita Invidia
That would be silly. Racist is +0, for - lest we forget - Everyone's a Little Bit Racist...
Luckily, it wasn't my quote, and the man who said it is long since said.
How about, "Those oblivious to previous events and outcomes are likely to encounter similar trends in the future."
Or the class blunders... The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
Hmmmm, and Iraq and Afghanistan are in Southwest Asia, aren't they?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I will only consider it "tough times" if the number of 419 scammers of dropping so fast as a result from hunting parties or all kinds of accidents that they suddenly become an extinct species. before that moment, life is too good for them.
Privacy is terrorism.