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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.
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.
When did Slashdot become The Daily Mail? Getting a student visa isn't as easy you think (they do check your background. You know, to make sure you're a student, for a start) and you can't claim benefits if you're here on a student visa.
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.....
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.
If you read the comments after part 2, the interviewer freely admits he is not a trained journalist. Blogger != journalist, no matter how many people tweet to the contrary.
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
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.
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...
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.
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
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.
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)