Slashdot Mirror
Interview With a Convicted 419 Scammer
An anonymous reader writes "Scam awareness website www.scam-detectives.co.uk has published a two part interview with convicted Nigerian 419 scammer, 'John.' 'John' talks about his experiences of scam victims, how he gains their trust and convinces them to part with their money, and how he would go back for another 'bite' after the original scam, posing as a law enforcement official who has apprehended the scammer and recovered the funds ... for a fee, of course."
When was the last time you had to pay the cops for a stolen wallet or purse that belonged to you?
Very clever. I mean only those foolish enough to fall for the first scam could possibly be foolish enough to fall for that line. "John" clearly knows his target audience.
Are you a convicted criminal in your native country and unable to get a job there? Well, come to the UK, where we'll let in anyone with a sob story on a student visa, not check your background, pay you benefits for as long as you want, then if your sordid past is eventually uncovered after you seemingly inevitably revert to your criminal ways while over here, we'll pay one lot of government employees to try and kick you out while at the same time funding your legal defence to prevent them from doing their jobs.
Oh, would you like some free healthcare while you're here? No problem, all you can eat! Feel free to fly your family in as well - we wouldn't want them missing out. The White Guilt - it burnssss usssss.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Shock news. In a country where $100 a month is considered a reasonable salary and there's a lot of wealth inequality and corruption, some folk are tempted into crime when they see their friends earning $4000 a month...
So what's the solution?
And yet for every down on his luck guy that turns to crime there is a down on his luck guy that stays honest. Dealing with these people as anything other than criminals basically punishes the person who is honest while rewarding the person who isn't.
I don't know what the solution is, other than continuing to support anti-corruption movements within countries and provide any support to help governments clean up their acts. When the governments become less corrupt, everybody in the country wins.
Increase wealth inequality and corruption in the west so we can be more like them? Oh wait, that's already happening.
I really think that the 'journalist' failed miserably.
Although the story felt credible and added some insight into the scammers everyday life the story didn't provide any information. And in the end when the 'scammer' starts providing new information the 'journalist' get's angry and starts accusing him like a child.
What if the 'scammer' can feel better about himself after spreading information? I mean shouldn't people who have done bad things be allowed to make remorse and NOT have to feel guilty their whole lives???? I mean Jesus Christ.....
So what's the solution?
This way, there are fewer possibilities to send money to Nigeria, and we keep users informed about latest tricks.
And after that, if you get caught, you deserved it.
some folk are tempted into crime when they see their friends earning $4000 a month...
The causal relationship you imply here doesn't exist. It isn't inequality that's at fault, its these lads' greed coupled with lack of morals. I'm not tempted into crime where I see a Ferrari on the street -- and I would guess that the same is true for most folks.
Sony ha
The interviewer got angry at the interviewee and hung up on them. Way to be professional.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
punt?
did you say $4000 a month? where do I sign up?
You posed the problem, what is your solution?
Or it's their stupidity.
The could do what's done here in the US: become corporate executives!
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it just goes to show you. NEVER trust ANYONE on the Ineternet. Not even your friends.
Throw in some old adages about "too good to be true," "fool and his money," etc., and it ain't rocket science. Yes, I blame "John" for the evils of these scams. But you know what? There's plenty of blame to go around. I also blame the victims, too, for being so greedy and/or naive.
i once went to three police stations to denounce a fraudster, who i had phone, name, address and several victims for. all three police stations turned me away. one told me it's not crime, as people handed their money voluntarily, so it's actually just a civil case. he was later in the news for being arrested. http://manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/2003-04-23.shtml -- i don't really know what's the deal, but i did notice these cases are hard to prosecute. i'll never forget hanging out with sultan al-sabah as he trailed japanese girls, and later trying to get money back from the royal fraudster.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Nuke them from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.
You're not tempted by the Ferrari because odds are, you can afford the transportation you need. OTOH, if you were living in the alley across from work because you couldn't afford a car or an apartment within reasonable transportation to work, you'd be a LOT more tempted, especially if the odds of being caught were next to nil. I'm not saying you'd take it, but you WOULD be more tempted.
If you grew up and lived in a society where the only people you ever knew who actually had their physical needs met were corrupt, you might never develop a proper sense of morals at all. Every life lesson would be that morals make you starve.
There's actually a very interesting answer to that question. If you send me a small shipping and handling fee (cash only please), I'll mail you the answer.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I'm not tempted into crime where I see a Ferrari on the street
You don't play enough GTA. Man, sometimes I just want to hop in that Ferrari and find the nearest ramp so I can get a stunt bonus!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I don't believe this is real. There are a number of indicators such the language/wording/phrasing being extremely similar between both the interviewer and interviewee. Why would someone fake this? To get more traffic on their site? A con about a con...
I had the same thing happen with my car stereo. I ID'd the stuff at the station (it was recovered a week after it was stolen) and never heard from the police again. Trying to get in touch with anyone who could deal with the problem at the PD was a pain (they insisted evidence was *never* held for more than 30 days and treated me like I was crazy), and when I finally got a hold of the evidence room officer, she couldn't give me a straight reason as to why they were still holding on to it.
Years have passed and I now live in a different city, and sometimes I wonder if my $2000 of stereo equipment still continues to sit in that evidence room. Bullshit.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
So what's the solution?
Send them $100B as compensation for the US burning coal to generate electricity. No scamming involved in that.
/end sarcasm
If you read the entire article you'd see he eventually just gets upset and cuts it off. No good prepared questions, just amateur personal anger. Really a fail.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
But you can't deny that desperation can lead to crime. If the expected payout is $75K a year and I expect to make $2K a year at a legal job, that's $73,000 against the risk of getting caught. That's a choice between living in a shack, eating whatever you can afford that week, or having everything you ever dreamed. If you could find work making $10k a year, the difference then becomes being comfortable enough to raise a family without worying about your children starving or having everything you ever wanted.
I'm certainly not saying don't punish the criminals. If someone shoplifts bread because their child is starving I can understand that and defend that, these people make the local equivilent of a million dollars and do so year after year; they know what they're doing is wrong and there is no moral recourse for it, they deserve to be punished. But there is a cost (risk) and a benifit to doing crime, upping the risk of getting caught should be only one side of a two edged sword. Giving people legal opportunities to support their family and meet their dreams needs to be the other side of it.
It's their culture. They are all Robin Hood. Rob from the rich, and give to the poor (themselves). Just ask them, and that's what they'll matter-of-fact tell you.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
The problem is the general attitude in Nigeria. This scamming is like a national pastime.
What causes it I don't know, but I'd like to point out:
1. Being stupid is no justification for being ripped off, so please no moronic comments that those were were duped deserved it.
2. There are far far worse people around you, from your own country, that are ripping off you and many others for far greater amounts of money and/or doing far worse damage in other ways. An example is of course many politicians. But on the whole, the entire layer of top management and politicians who often end up in those positions, are causing much more harm and sucking huge amounts of money out of companies and healthcare too. Did you ever hear of a manager who performed badly, was fired and therefore got no further payments? No? I haven't either. They make a mess of things, then get fired and get a bonus or severance pay, whatever you want to call it, higher than the first prize in the national lottery here... If you're a lowly worker, you get fired and need to request unemployment benefits and start applying for jobs immediately. Why don't they need to?
These people keep getting such jobs, probably because of friends in boards of various companies. Or if not real friends, then it's done as a mutual favour: I help you and in the future you will help me. Which is essentially what 'networking' is all about, i.e. a form of cronyism.
Another example I recently encountered made me think that there are lawyers who have found the perfect legal scam. The example I'm giving here is Pieter Lakeman, who set up a foundation "stichting DSB leed" for supposed victims of bad mortgages given out by the BSD bank. What is going on is as follows: He identified that there might be some bad loans, badly given advice, then extrapolates this to almost all loans, sets up this foundation, from which you can get help for a small amount of money, sa 50 euro. Now there's no guarantee that your loan is bad/badly done or you were given wrong information by the bank, so this foundation can 'check' loans, say "nothing we can do" and they don't need to pay back any money of that. I read that he and another guy who set up this foundation gave themselves a salary of 300 euro per hour...
That's a nice way of getting yourself self-employed at stratosphere salaries.
This asshole then proceeds to put the word out that people should remove money from DSB and in the end it goes bankrupt because of this (and because the finance minister doesn't want to help. Eh, why not after the billions of loans to other banks? Why indeed...)
It turns out, as checks after this bankruptcy have shown, that very few loans were bad (inappropriate, or given with bad advice etc.).
He has not only caused a great amount of damage, he's also legally scammed almost all the people who paid money for that 'review of their loan'.
It's a fantastic scam: You identify something that might be wrong somewhere, then set up a foundation, which people can become a member of or have something checked out by, for a relatively small amount, such that you wouldn't go to court over it... Then you just check loans or whatever that foundation would do, at 300 euro an hour (i.e. 10 minutes per loan in this case) and of course find nothing wrong or say "it will be included in the legal action". In the end nothing happens, and in this case, making the bank go bankrupt is a pretty good way to say you can't do anything any more as the executors now say what will happen with assets/loans etc.
I have suggestion for another ruthless lawyer: Set up a foundation to counter the scam of Lakeman. Charge 15 euro per case, then of course in the end you say after studying the foundation's charter that there's nothing you can do...
Frankly, I find your "lack of morals" comment appallingly ignorant: the fact that you are posting on slashdot means you have no idea what it's like to live in poverty. Let's throw out the Ferraris completely, and pretend you saw a loaf of bread on the street. Now imagine you and your family had no bread. Would you then be tempted to take the bread? Would this be solely driven by greed and a lack of morals?
Let me guess, you would "get a job" and "work hard" to support your family, not steal. Well, what if there were no jobs? What if the only job was to work for a scammer? You work for the scammer, and you start earning money and then you get sucked in by greed and corruption. But it doesn't start out like that. It's time people started looking at the deeper roots of poverty and its consequences (Nigerian scammers). Are you willing to say its greed and immorality? Because I'm not.
I'm not tempted into crime where I see a Ferrari on the street -- and I would guess that the same is true for most folks.
Which is why most folks don't own Ferraris, and most Ferrari owners have some pretty questionable behaviour in their past. You don't get that kind of money without doing something pretty slimey for a living, like being a bank executive or otherwise participating in the amoral circus that is the American financial system.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
"Close Western Union offices in Nigeria."
You have no idea of the suffering that you would cause if they were to actually do this. Far greater than any Governmental aid is the money that gets sent back home back families living and working abroad. Stop that and you would have the deaths of millions on you hands.
Long story short, there's no way to catch potential fraud without the victim risking going to jail as well.
Ridiculous.
It can be so fun!
http://www.419eater.com/index.php
Make America grate again!
The causal relationship you imply here doesn't exist. It isn't inequality that's at fault, its these lads' greed coupled with lack of morals. I'm not tempted into crime where I see a Ferrari on the street -- and I would guess that the same is true for most folks.
I'm not either. Then again I drive a fairly nice, 5 year old VW, live in a multi-bedroom apartment, and have not wondered how I was going to afford three meals a day in a very long time. It's easy enough, when you are middle class, or even working class, to see these people and feel no sympathy. Hell, you'd even be right, they are criminals, and they are victimizing people. On the other hand, starving sucks. Is the criminal who steals a loaf of bread so he (or his family) can eat the same as the criminal who steals a car because he can, or the one who steals money so he can be rich? At best, poverty is a mitigating factor, not an excuse, but depending on the level of poverty it can be a pretty strong mitigating factor.
It's hard to quantify any of this, but there is a clear differentiation between stealing to take your basically good life and make it better, and stealing simply to eat. At what point the scale tips, and how much of a mitigating factor it will be varies from person to person, and situation to situation (I can't imagine this guy was *that* poor since he could attend school, but he may have still been quite poor), but it is a factor. There is also the question of: if you need to steal to eat, but then you steal much more than you actually needed, are you more or less guilt? Nothing is ever simple, but just boiling it down to a starving man stealing bread being the same as you stealing a Ferrari is overly simplistic in the extreme.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The causal relationship you imply here doesn't exist. It isn't inequality that's at fault, its these lads' greed coupled with lack of morals. I'm not tempted into crime where I see a Ferrari on the street -- and I would guess that the same is true for most folks.
If you were starving or had family in need of basic medical needs, you'll turn criminal really quick.
Although I do not have recourse to all public funds with my student visa, and definitely do not have access to benefits, I still have unfettered access to NHS and other quite pricey public services.
No sorry, as much as I would like to believe that you are correct. Your not. Yes I have been there and yes it is a cultural thing and the poster below stated to a large degree but you also mostly struggle to understand it because you don't understand poverty and deprivation that kills that they do. People die of starvation, not because there is no food, but because they can't afford it. There is no welfare system what so ever. If you are sick you must pay or die (kinda like the USA). And its not cheap. If you do actually succeed in getting a good education, well, there are no jobs so it don't matter. So get this right, you have a country with actually a lot of graduates and talent, but without jobs or a real outlet. What do you get - white collar crime.
Before you say something silly like, well if they were that smart then they would just make work.
Just stop. They live in a nation with so much wide spread corruption, at every stop someone is looking to charge you for something, they often have no real business charging. No stable electricity supply, it goes on and off several times a day(if you are lucky) the nation essentially runs off of generators. You can't have heavy industry without a decent supply. Things cost so much money because of the amount of hands you continually have to grease. The level of frustration for the average poor man is breathtaking.
Dear Mr. Interviewer, I am Director of Research at The International Anti-Scam Association. Your interview of John is an excellent start toward uncovering the truth about these scams. There is so much more potential for investigating committed crimes and preventing future crimes. I would like to offer my services toward further interviewing John and his ilk. Let us cooperate toward this goal. The first thing we need to do is pretend to be scam victims. We will have to put up a little money at first to establish this, but this will open doors into dens of iniquity, providing ample opportunities for interviews. If this plan sounds good to you, please wire $1000 to my account (#2476-02) at The National Bank of Angola. Regards, Bruce L. Norris
Birth is the leading cause of death.
I'm a news reporter, and recently saw the other side close-up. Over a period of months, a local woman had sent cash several times to a man who claimed she'd won a multi-million dollar sweepstakes. A couple of times, she called the cops, who came and talked to her, and tried to convince her it was a scam. Then she'd send more money. When she ran out of money, the scammer told her to buy jewelry on a credit card, and sent that "to be appraised." She was told the up-front payment was a "tax formality" and simply couldn't come out of her winnings, and that the jewelry would be returned to her when the transaction was completed. They also insisted she use FedEx or UPS, not U.S. Mail.
After they got the jewelry, they called and told her that a "courier" had flown into the local airport with her cash, but they hadn't been able to get a hold of her that day. So, they had put the money in a storage locker there, where it had run up another $1,700 in storage fees (in 3 days). When she went to put more jewelry on her credit card, the jeweler became suspicious, and also tried to convince her it was a scam.
Around this time, the woman called the police yet again. Working with the police in the city where she'd sent the jewelry, they raided the address and recovered her stuff. A local cop (who had been assigned to her case, and had been working with her for months) told her in person that the jewelry had been recovered and was being returned. A few hours after the police raid, the scammers called the woman, and told her they were sending the jewelry back to her (and that local police would be delivering it, to ensure it arrived safely).
Then! They told her that there had been a miscommunication, and the tax rules required the jewelry be appraised independently in two different states. The reason they were sending the jewelry back to her was that as the owner, she was the only one legally allowed to request an appraisal. The police returned her jewelry, and she sent it to the new address!
I talked with her several times over a period of weeks, corraborating everything with the police. Throughout that time, she was scared that:
1. If I wrote a story saying it was a scam, she wouldn't get her money
2. If I wrote a story saying it was a scam, the guys might come hurt her.
I, and the police, finally just gave up. People can be so blinded by greed (and dumb to start with) that they'll force this whole thing to make sense.
And for a small shipping or handling fee, your ISP can block these e-mails from coming into your mailbox at all.
The US Military?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
The second part in particular did not seem legit at all. Rather a person posing a question and then answering it himself. There was no real detail in any of it. I know the basics of a 'Spanish prisoner' scam. There is nothing in there you couldn't make up after reading a Wikipedia article.
And honestly you get mad and hang up on the guy because he is scamming people that are desperate. I am sorry but desperate people get scammed all the time. Professional journalist or not come on getting upset is overblown in the situation the 'conversation' supposedly was going in.
This is just a scam by a 'help stop scams' website, and in my opinion much worse than running an upfront scam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
While I agree with your points in general, I'd like to note that something you implied doesn't really hold true.
If someone shoplifts bread because their child is starving I can understand that and defend that, these people make the local equivilent of a million dollars and do so year after year; they know what they're doing is wrong and there is no moral recourse for it, they deserve to be punished.
People often say something along those lines when speaking about well earning people in the developing world. I think that the reason must be all those "Donate 10 dollars now and you'll feed a child for a month!" charity ads. And they are partially true: In poor countries, work is cheap and food is cheap (compared to our prices). But it only applies to piss poor folk. Remember that little things are manufactured in the developing countries (perhaps aside from nike shoes produced by child labor) and certainly nothing luxurious. Those things will need to be imported and their price are comparable all over the world.
So if you have 100 000 dollars in a developing country, you can buy A LOT of food. And probably a small spot of land area. Servants come cheap, too. But that's it. Want that Ferrari or Lamborghini as your car? It still is in the same price range as it is in the developed world. Same goes for computers, iPods, gasoline, etc. etc... They will be cheaper because of lower or nonexistent taxes but it is more along the lines of "20% cheaper" than "one tenth of the price". But even then you have the downsides. Things we take for granted (Good sewer infrastructure, fresh water, steady electricity, broadband access, etc.) might not be available in developing countries even if you have money. It might be that you can feed yourself very well and hire yourself a chef for the same price that it costs to get internet access. And then there are the higher risks of getting robbed and killed if you show off your money, etc.. Because of that, nobody who isn't a millionaire can't have the way of life we assosciate to millionaires, even in developing countries.
Eh, just last week, I lost my wallet? They promised it was in the mail and all they needed was my address and social security and bank details... mail is a bit slow but I am sure I will get my wallet back any day now.
What?
Come on, once a sucker, always a sucker.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
he would have offered him a help with having his conviction voided. for a moderate fee, of course.
But how do I know I can trust you?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wow, seriously?
How do this get modded up? It seems like the only kind of people that you can stereotype and prejudice safely are the rich. "Most" people that I know who own expensive cars or boats are amongst the nicest and most moral people I know. Not everything is like television or the movies.
I'm not sure whether it's worth admitting but I own a Ferrari and I would consider myself having a very high moral code. I treat my employees really well (One of my companies was rated 2nd best company to work for in BC), I pay all my business taxes (in an audit we were caught something like $50 for an accidental missing receipt out of millions) and I declare every last thing at the border.
I know that anecdote (especially personal anecdote) is not data but also my accountant is quite wealthy (he is one of the most morally upstanding accountants I know and somehow his clients are all rich. He is also a philanthropist.), my financial manager runs the Vancouver branch of a financial firm and he is upstanding. And believe it or not (and you probably won't), my lawyer is one of the nicest and one of the most honest and upstanding people I know.
Ok, so those people don't own a Ferrari (I actually don't know any other Ferrari owners), but one owns an expensive classic car and another owns a nice boat and they all could probably afford one.
So are there bad versions of the same? Of course. But being somewhat rich, I don't find that being rich has anything to do with being slimey. I know plenty of people who are both rich and poor who are morally bankrupt and morally upstanding. Generally speaking, in my circles though, the rich people are more morally upstanding as a proportion. That being said, my sample size is small and I'm sure I have a huge selection bias in who I associate with.
Sunny
Sunny
Be my Friend
This is true. When I lived in subsaharan Africa a pineapple was less than 10 cents whereas a coca cola was still about 50 cents for 300 mL.
The article told us nothing new. If you want good background information about Advance fee frauds, read these:
I totally agree. I feel that supporting the de-corruption of governments is the best way to give people legal opportunities. A big part of the reason wages are so low is corruption. Case in point: when travelling around Uganda in local taxis the drivers would stop every 15 miles or so at police checkpoints and pay bribes to the police. Those are wages being stolen by corrupt government officials from people who could really use it. And if they didn't have to pay bribes they could charge less and so their fares would in turn have more money to spend. Also a lot of the foreign government aid sent over never makes it to the people it is intended to help due to the corruption in the local governments.
FTA:
Maybe 9 or 10 out of every thousand emails. Then maybe 1 out of every 20 replies would lead to us getting money out of the victim in the end.
Those numbers are depressing. They're sending out literally billions of emails, and they're getting a response rate of about 1 per 20,000. No wonder it continues.
I suppose the bell curve has to have two tails, and so the dumbest .05% of the Internet is always going to be pretty dumb. It's aggravating that the remaining 99.95% of us have to put up with the barrage of spam so that they can locate that dumbest .05%.
It's even worse, though, of those vast numbers of emails, probably 99% of them never reach a human being, or reach somebody through multiple addresses. That suggests that the stupidity rate is 100 times higher.
Be happy healthier foods cost less than unhealthy foods anywhere. It certainly is not the case in the USA.
So what's the solution?
Nuke Nigeria from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
This is just begging for a MC Frontalot quote.
While in the evidence lockup there 3ft tall pile of marijuana on a pallet and a similar pallet of "shrooms". I bet those got processed a lot quicker.
They sure do.
Back when I was a stoner teenager, my dealer used to buy his large quantities from the chief of police from a neighboring town. Straight from the evidence room.
The main reason cops don't like criminals is because they can't stand competition.
Yes I lived a poor childhood and was convicted, but I am now reformed. During my time in prison I met one man named John Holmes who has hid a stash of $25,000,000 (twenty five million dollars) but is unable to retrieve it, I offer you the opportunity to assist us by posting this on Slashdot and providing an advance on $1000 (one thousand dollars) for administrative purposes. Once I have received the moneys I will transfer $2,500,000 to a bank account of your choice. Thank you and God bless -John
How can I schedule an interview with a 419 scammer, and am I allowed to bring a baseball bat?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This sounded almost exactly like a novel on 419 scams that came out last year. It's called "I do not come to you by chance". The protagonist is almost exactly like "John" here except that he graduates with an engineering degree but isn't able to find a job.
When was the last time there was a major government sponsored ad campain on TV/radio/print warning people about scammers/spammers and the like?
How do this get modded up? It seems like the only kind of people that you can stereotype and prejudice safely are the rich.
No, one may safely stereotype and prejudice fat people too. You can tease them all day long and they still can't run fast enough to catch up and beat the everloving shit out of you.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
And yet for every down on his luck guy that turns to crime there is a down on his luck guy that stays honest. Dealing with these people as anything other than criminals basically punishes the person who is honest while rewarding the person who isn't.
I don't know what the solution is, other than continuing to support anti-corruption movements within countries and provide any support to help governments clean up their acts. When the governments become less corrupt, everybody in the country wins.
Your middle class American morality is not universal. When you are poor, your definitions of honesty and crime are very different. How is taking a few dollars from someone who is wealthy beyond your dreams (the perception of Americans) who got that way exploiting the rest of the world (cheap labor, resources, bolstering corrupt governments, starting wars) bad? You know those movies where the good guys con or rob other criminals, you root for them. When you see America as no better than any other organized crime group, then you have no problem ripping them off.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Wow, seriously?
How do this get modded up? It seems like the only kind of people that you can stereotype and prejudice safely are the rich. "Most" people that I know who own expensive cars or boats are amongst the nicest and most moral people I know. Not everything is like television or the movies.
I am not saying that you are incorrect, by your definitions of moral and good and nice. But I would like to hear what your workers think of you. Their needs and concerns are probably quite different from yours, and you may not even realize it.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
I know I am completely biased but I have a high level of confidence that what I say is true even though it is subjective.
Many of my employees have told me that this is the best place they've worked at and I've had some of them break down in tears while they've said it. Other people we've invited to our Christmas dinner have said that the atmosphere is so positive in a way that they've never seen before. We play games for the last hour of every Friday for bonding. When we make sprint goals every 3/4 weeks, we go out somewhere and just play (canoeing, planetarium, movies). In our new division, which I've been running for the last couple years, we've never had anybody quit. At Christmas I offered to match donations to charities and I like philanthropy. Last few Christmas I've given things like PSPs, Nintento DSs and we have a gift giving competition with big prizes. I can't remember the last time anybody asked for a raise because I pay people fairly. We are all great friends yet we are all quite different. And the 2nd best company award in BC (Canada) is awarded based on what employees say in person to person interviews in private, not on what the owners say.
I agree that it is easy to deceive yourself and so I try to stay fairly conscious of the fact that it can happen. This is why I often ask for feedback and provide feedback. When people don't like what I'm doing, they do tend to tell me, and we always resolve it.
Here's the thing. I actually knew another financial advisor (he had a firm) that I felt was morally bankrupt. This was around the same time as I met the one I talked about above. The morally bankrupt one lost all his money and I know several of his employees who seem to all hate him. When I met my lawyer, the very nice and honest one I mentioned, he was not a partner and he is now a partner and very successful. In my personal experience, the morally upstanding people have succeeded in much higher proportion to those who haven't. I'm not saying there is a correlation between success and a moral compass but at the same time, I definitely haven't seen any signs of an inverse correlation as suggested by the Ferrari comment. The news may say different but all the morally upstanding Ferrari owners probably never make the news nor do they make for great movies.
Sunny
Sunny
Be my Friend
In 1990 there were people who would call back to a pigeon who had lost money on phone scams. Many of these people were chronic losers who purchased phoney deal after phoney deal. Then they would ultimately get a call from a fellow who would claim to be a former FBI agent who was investigating and would recoup their losses. He would ask a $500. up front fee and claim that he needed an additional 15% of all that he recovered. Of course the $500 was a dead loss as he never intended to find money for anyone.
Anyone out there who thinks they can not be taken by such scams had best rethink their beliefs as these scams can be very artfully done. The worst victims will be those who actually get something good at some point. For example a crooked salesman can scam you for $500 with a phoney advertising supply offer. You will get ripped off. Two months later the crook calls back with all kinds of apologies claiming that he quit his former employer when he found out they stopped delivering product. Then he will claim that his reputation is far more important than $500 and send you that $500 plus something really nice on top of it. It may be another $500 as part of the apology. Then another call comes and your new found "friend tells you of this fabulous deal he can give you if you can afford it. Then he will need a much larger sum up front and you will be had big time.
why he didn't publish his email?! I have a few offers...
Has anyone ever done research on the psychology of the victims? There are people who are compulsive gamblers, and people who can't say no to a salesman. It's easy to say that the people who fall for the scams are greedy, but, as was pointed out in the interview, some people are suckered in by hard luck stories too. Even then, something must be going on to overwhelm the victim's common sense, something that ends up being self-destructive, and also destructive for their families. I wonder if any psychologist has ever tried to set up some online pseudo-scam just to locate people who are susceptible to scams so that they could be studied the way, for example, that addiction is studied.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Frankly, I find your "lack of morals" comment appallingly ignorant: the fact that you are posting on slashdot means you have no idea what it's like to live in poverty.
This makes no logical sense.
Let's throw out the Ferraris completely, and pretend you saw a loaf of bread on the street. Now imagine you and your family had no bread. Would you then be tempted to take the bread? Would this be solely driven by greed and a lack of morals? I never said "solely". No, it wouldn't be driven "solely" by greed and shoddy morals, but they'd be in there.
Let me guess, you would "get a job" and "work hard" to support your family, not steal. Well, what if there were no jobs? What if the only job was to work for a scammer?...
Blah, blah, blah. Did you even RTFA? The dude was rolling in a BMW making $75k usd/year in a third-world country. This is not even CLOSE to the 'stealing a loaf of bread for the starving family' scenario above. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that some people are morally bankrupt, and being covetous human nature?
Sony ha
A couple of solutions are publid awareness and scambaiting, a popular sport in the USA and UK.
Just as scammers know most mail will go unanswered and of the few that are answered, only a few of those are successful, Scambaiters take the bait to tie up the scammer's time and resources. They document the communications online. This shows the endless requests for fees. To give the scammer a return of the feeling of dangling on the hook with the endless fees, many baiters have the scammers send letters, checks, pay for shipped trash, make them do time wasting activities and such so they can be "trusted"
One baiter got a scammer to act out the dead parrot sketch. The video is online and has gone viral. Another baiter replied that they didn't have time or money to invest in dealing with getting the consignment delivered, but was getting books translated into local dialects as voice books. They managed to get a scammer to read the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galixy and submitt it. Needless to say there were some problems when the scammer tried to collect the payment.
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2007/dead-parrot-scam-p1.php
The entire book is here in MP3 format about 3/4 the way down the page. Not bad if you need a copy of the book in African accent.
The best part with the book reading is after the reverse scam, the attempt was made to scam him again, a double reverse scam attempt.
It's a great example of how to show those guys how it feels to be scammed.
If you would like to return some pain to these low life, there are great resources online. Don't ever use your real identity. Never use your real address. Never send money. Tie up their time to reduce the time they have to work a real mark, and if possible find and warn real victims.
Some great stories abound on The Scambaiter, The Scameater, 419hell and other great sites. www.419hell.com has some great insight into how some of these lads work as he was successfull in convincing a scammer that he was a scammer and offerd to send victims fake checks. He didn't of course and warned them instead. It is a great read.
http://www.419hell.com/Victim_Warnings/index.html
One final note on baiting scammers, Learn your local law regarding recording phone calls. Some states require that both parties require notification that the call is being recorded, Some states only require that only one party needs to know. I unfortunately am in one of the state that requires notification of all parties so recording my calls is not legal without telling the other party.
My wallet was stolen on new years and I keep hoping somebody will try to steal my ID or extort me to get it back, but I think the little notebook in it filled with voodoo incantations about omnidirectionally conductive high-adhesion photovoltaic materials and other random ideas I've jotted down convinced them i'm not the best mark.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Which is why most folks don't own Ferraris, and most Ferrari owners have some pretty questionable behaviour in their past. You don't get that kind of money without doing something pretty slimey for a living, like being a bank executive or otherwise participating in the amoral circus that is the American financial system.
Or you could be a successful athlete, business owner, doctor, dentist, .... and not all bankers are immoral y'know.
Sounds like envy to me. In my experience of knowing quite a few rich people, they are no different to anyone else in their morals. Perhaps you're thinking of Russian oligarchs or the mafia.
Great Windows SFTP Server!
It's not clear to me how this poor, abused, downtrodden, starving 419er's BMW contributed to feeding his starving family.
On the other hand, maybe he's just a crook.
It got modded up because those of us who've moved around and seen the world have come across far too many scumbags who've been monetarily successful, often while loudly proclaiming their own high moral standards (self-described "Bible-believing Christians" are my personal favourite--there is no better signal that a person is a cheat and a scoundrel.)
I'm not sure why you'd think my impressions come from TV or the movies, rather than a wide range of successful experience in both business and academia in the U.S. and Canada. What I've learned in 20 years of that is that extremely wealthy people generally have a moral compass that points due Self.
Case in point, you rather strangely proclaim obedience to the law as a measure of your moral worth, as if that was the least bit interesting. That's very strong evidence of moral bankruptcy right there: that you think not cheating on your audited accounts and not lying to customs officers who have the power to arrest you for lying to them are in any way evidence that you are a good person. It proves you are careful and cautious, not good. The two have nothing to do with each other.
If you want to get a sense of your own moral worth one question you can ask is: how many highly lucrative and completely legal business deals have you turned down because they deviated from your moral sense?
If the number is zero then you either have very little business experience or very little moral sense, or both.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Try living on a $100/month salary and we'll see how tempted you are to steal that Ferrari (which you could sell, at the minimum, for $500 to a chop shop).
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
It appears he's actually correct. Googling for "best companies to work for in bc" turns up this at number two, and it also happens to be where his "homepage" link leads.
Aside from that, ethical or not, people don't generally acquire wealth without having an accurate view of the situation and how to leverage it to its maximum potential. So, you could question whether or not he's lying (and it doesn't appear that he is), but questioning his perception is probably off the mark.
I send money to other countries Western Union quite frequently to purchase certain goods like Medication (Not Narcotics, stuff for my grandparents, stuff that insurance doesn't want to touch like Provigil that is expensive here) and the occasional lot of stuff that I have a market to resell. For the record I've probably done business with 20 different people in other countries and never gotten burned.
Every single time I send money....even if I've sent it to the same receiver a dozen times....I get asked a bunch of questions by the Western Union or Moneygram rep. "Are you sure you aren't responding to an EMAIL about a business proposition? Are you sure that you know and trust this person? Are you familiar with 419 scams? You do realize we can't help you get your money back?"
I hate to say it, but I can't even begin to imagine the degree of stupid that someone must be to still go through with it when the Western Union rep is word for word describing their situation. These people HAVE been warned, they just don't care.
yeah just because you think your a good boss doesn't mean you are one. Everyone probably thinks your a jerkoff, they just don't want to piss off the boss. JERK OFF!
"Most" people that I know who own expensive cars or boats are amongst the nicest and most moral people I know.
I hope you are right, but really your statement merely amounts to saying that most people who own expensive cars or boats act nicely and morally in company of another who owns a Ferrari.
Which is hardly surprising.
"This John is an unrepentant lad most likely still in the game. Before anyone criticises SD on technique or outcome, read the caveat he placed at the beginning of the article and get a grip on reality. John is a liar who has not reformed in the least. His comments must be treated with great care and a lot of healthy skepticism."
I've noticed some comments here about how the interview sounded fake, or that it was some sort of scam. I do believe that's because "John" is not being truthful. The interviewer not being a trained journalist probably compounds the problem.
So I agree with you, they deserve it...
Probably. Mostly I just wanted to make the point that your step #2 has pretty much been implemented and has been for a few years.
Being a westerner price was not really an issue. I was just agreeing with the parent that locally produced goods were available at prices local people tended to be able to afford while foreign goods were the same cost (after exchange rates are applied) as they are everywhere. When a person makes $1.00 per day with a decent wage a coke (and any other foreign good) starts to look like it costs quite a bit more.
Side note: I really miss 5c avocados. I love avocados but they are basically unaffordable now that I'm back.
I may have middle class American morality but I lived in one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in the world--right on the border between Uganda and DRC. Many of my friends there are incredibly heart achingly poor, and yet they remain honest and feel very called to a very similar morality to mine. Your arrogance that your middle class western existence is the only one that can produce good values is the real problem. You sell people short by saying that they are simply a product of their circumstances. People are much more than that. There are bad people in the world. Some started out rich, some started out poor. Saying that the poor ones aren't really bad because they're poor is insane and disrespectful to all the other poor people who do stay honest.
Also, I have not met a single African who thinks America is no better than an organized crime group. They do think we are fabulously wealthy (and we are), but the African view of money is not even close to ours (it would take me quite a long post to adequately touch on it). Many of them are working to better their country's welfare and many of them use foreign aid to do it. They don't think of it as getting money from a bunch of crooks, they see it as receiving help from people who care.
Finally, the scammer in the article was driving around a BMW which is insane for sub sarahan africa. This means that even if he thought that people in the US were all crooks with too much money he should easily recognize that he was exactly the same way. But if you read the article, he didn't think this at all. He knew he was ripping people off who were poor also. He knew it, he admits he knew it, and he has no excuse for his actions other than straight greed.
Support and fight for economic growth in places that desperately need it. Fight against bullshit like fairtrade tea and coffee, fight against the agricultural lobby that erects huge walls around the subsidised produce of North America and Europe, and try and help win free trade for Africa. The first thing any educated Nigerian does is start planning to leave the country, for very good reasons. Make it worth staying and eventually you'll see a culture and legal system that prevents this sort of thing.
[FUCK BETA]
The point of morality is that it is universal, and if you can't justify applying the morals you have to other places and situations, maybe you should take a long hard look at yourself. The reason that you are wrong - dead wrong - is that security of property is the most essential condition for economic growth. No-one works hard and tries to earn money unless they are reasonably certain they will get to keep it and not have it taken away from them by capricious governments, thieves, warlords, or pirates. Allowing a culture in which theft is permissible is hobbling any chance that culture has of serious development.
[FUCK BETA]
I wonder what his employees would think of not having a job if Ferrari boy wasn't employing them.
[FUCK BETA]
The more I speak to you John, the less I like you.
I terminated the interview at this point as I was getting angry with "John" and felt it was better for me not to continue.
The interviewer had the opportunity to obtain information from a convicted scammer who was willing to talk openly about his experiences, and comes out with quotes like that?
I don't think this interview happened at all.
This comment has been posted by "Admin" on the scam detectives site:
Dear readers.
This post featured on popular website Slashdot.org yesterday, which drove a considerable amount of new readers, and subsequently over 1,000 comments, to the site.
Obviously I am unable to moderate all of them, so have taken the difficult decision not to post any of them, and for equality’s sake, to remove existing comments and close commenting.
I have faced quite some criticism over my handling of the interview with “John”, particularly of the fact that I became angry during the second part and cut the interview short. There has also been doubt expressed as to the legitimacy of the interview, with some readers questioning whether it took place at all.
I would like to address some of those comments here.
1) The interview took place as I reported it, although not verbatim. “John” is from Nigeria and his grasp of English is not great. I took copious notes throughout both (lengthy) conversations and had to construct the interview as it appears, substituting slang phrases such as “Mugu” (Big Fool) for “Victim”, and “Oga” for “gang-master”. This was done for the purposes of clarity and to get across “John’s” responses in an easy to understand manner, without bogging down the interview with translations and explanations of Pidgin English or Igbo phrases. This may have given the overall impression of a “scripted” interview, but it was anything but. You’ll either take my word for that, or not. The decision is yours.
2) I am not a trained journalist, just a guy who wants to help people not get scammed. During my research of online fraud I spoke to a number of victims who had lost everything as a result of being taken in by scammers just like “John”. “John” showed a palpable lack of empathy for the situations of these people, blaming them for their greed and when he spoke about “recovery scams”, hitting these people for a second time by building up their hopes of recovering at least some of their money and rebuilding their lives following their disastrous losses then yes, I became angry and this coloured the rest of the interview. I fully admit that I should not have allowed my emotions to get the better of me, but I did, and took the decision to terminate the interview at that point. If “John” calls again then I will attempt to continue the interview with a more detached outlook. If my early termination of the conversation has disappointed you, or made you feel that I was unprofessional, then I empathise.
On reflection, I hope that “John” does contact me again. If he does, I will try to do better.
Thanks for reading,
Scam-Detective
I am not making this up guys, these are just some of the few stories I personally experienced...
This really sucks, what the Nigerians are doing does really have very stupid repercussions on many innocent ones, both the victims and those victimized by being judged as criminals, I am not saying Nigerians are bad, but what they do is totally unethical and I've suffered many a times by getting passed for a Nigerian while I lived in India, for them, anyone who's dark is Nigerian, hence, you go to the hotel for a room and they are like "No Nigerians...show your passport", you wanna get a flat and they go "Niggers not allowed" because evidently some Nigerian guy was dealing drugs in the vicinity or have killed someone that they have created a nation-wide attitude against them and other dark skinned ones...
Not that Indians are saints, I had a friend whose laptop was stolen, you really have to pay the police to perform the job, they ask you for the laptop price first, and then they go like we would charge you 5% of the price to recover it for you, and after that, the laptop was in the evidence room and the cops at that particular police station would actually charge 10% to give you your laptop but before that you have to go to court to get a judge order (Duhhh guys I am the one's been mugged why go to a court), in there, you have to have a lame lawyer who would squeeze your pockets dry.. at the end we paid like probably $300.
I decided it is time to love someone, I signed up in a dating site, and it looks like a lucrative something for Nigerian girls who tell you they're American or whatever and man you can tell when a girl's faking it because girls are not easy to come by right away and these Nigerian chicks just fall all over you with a typical approach that they are visiting their ill-father in Abuja or importing something from Nigeria and then tell you how you make them laugh and they love you and blah blah, a week on and they are like "Show us the Money"...
In Egypt, another place where police are cons, I had another friend studying there and he brought his car in with him because it is a lot cheaper, the custom officer liked the car so he goes impounding it and in less than a week displays it on Auction so he could buy it quoting logic like "Cars with these types of headlights are are not allowed in Egypt" so we have to Auction it since you have broken the rules...
In Kenya there are two types of funny buses for public transport, the locals can tell them apart, one would be infested by cons and thieves and the other is the normal everyday go-around couch, I know of a brother of a Sudanese friend of mine who was there in Kenya and from many Kenyan friends I met while I kept traveling to many countries, if you got in the wrong bus you are owned, you'd be stripped of everything, your watch, your pants, your wallet....
I know, many would say that those who got owned were to blame, but come on, the original thing in humans is to trust you until you prove to be the opposite and not to preemptively mistrust you and make your life harder and this is where these con-men operate, something is really perverted and stinky....
Agreed. Except the educated leaving which I think is slightly more complicated. It is caused by economics, but there is also a cultural gap between people who have been educated and the majority of the people living in country. A lot of my friends back in Uganda are very educated and skilled Ugandans and they have a terrible tightrope to walk between western culture and local culture that I don't in the least envy. I have a friend who is a PhD student in mathematics, a Kenyan, who is planning to go back home with his degree--but he says he is expecting it to be very hard because skill in theoretical mathematics, and his level of education, are basically so undervalued that people will look down on him.
I'm glad someone else sees that Fairtrade is actually BS. I thought that most people had bought into it hook line and sinker.
Thanks for the anecdote. I prefer to listen to the vast, continuing historical record showing those who are in power (the wealthy) taking advantage of those "beneath" them. Even if one is a nice person (I don't disbelieve you), one may not be able to escape the institutionalized privileges one enjoys - privileges that were most likely inherited from that history of exploitation. Obviously, anyone who thinks about it is going to give credit where credit is due - there are certainly anecdotes about nice, rich people. On the other hand, the problem has less to do with individual wealthy people or families, and more to do with the place of the wealthy in the society.
Well, first of all, morality is not universal. Morality is a construction. In reality, you can do anything you want. Only you decide to limit yourself for selected reasons.
Secondly, Princeofcups said that the "thieves" were not targeting their own people. They were targeting other rich countries that are "criminally" rich in the opinion of the "thieves". In this scenario, you don't really care about the well being of your enemy because you believe that you deserve it.
I take issues with this.
Rather than modding this down into oblivion, let's poke it with a stick.
I have been that guy sleeping in a homeless shelter, head resting on a suitcase, curled up in a miserable little ball, barely able to afford a $4 one-day bus pass to go look for work.
What did I do?
I looked for work, even when there wasn't anything hiring that I could do.
I never shoplifted, scammed, or otherwise removed from possesion something that was not given to me under honest auspices.
I was the guy who asked if I could leave my bags at the front of the store with the clerk, so they would let me shop in peace, and not tail me through the store.
Even when you're down and out, and nowhere near the Magic Kingdom, there are people who go above and beyond to support people that aren't even family, just because that person is making genuine effort to get back on their feet.
I wouldn't say I was the best person, but I know that even when I was down and out, I held myself to what I felt were good standards.
It is, perhaps, because of this, I found a source of employment that is now responsible for me having a place other than a shelter to stay.
I am posting on slashdot, and I have an idea of what it's like to live in poverty. ... you insensitive clod.
Well said sir. Someone needs to defend owners. /. is getting out of control with it's populist attitude. I don't mean that in the "you can believe whatever you want" kind of way. I mean that in a GW Bush-like "you can't just make shit up" kind of way.
And there is lots of making shit up on this site when it comes to discussions of wealth and money.
It's something that has bugged me for a long time. No-one is willing to push the developmental benefits of free trade: it's a space that is dominated by groups and organisations that are so acculturated to left-ish thinking that the drawbacks of many of their activities are simply unthinkable.
[FUCK BETA]
Correct, it is a societal construction (and there is strong evidence humans have an evolved system of instinctive morality). However, that doesn't make it the right thing to do for one group of people to steal from another. It is not OK just because you believe it is OK. If the people who carried out 419 frauds and those who applaud them were to understand this, they would in the long run be better off.
[FUCK BETA]
Hi there. I'm the owner of Scam Detectives. You'll either believe that the interview happened or you won't. That's your choice and I'm only here to report what happened, not to try and convince you of it's authenticity. "John" came back for another chat. You can read about it here - http://www.scam-detectives.co.uk/blog/2010/02/02/interview-with-a-scammer-part-three/ Or not. It's up to you guys!