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Nigerian Scam Artists Taken For $33,000
smitty777 writes "An Australian woman who was being used by a group of Nigerian scam artists stole over $33,000 from the group who employed her. Her bank account was being used to funnel the cash from a dodgy internet car sales website. Irony aside, it makes one wonder how these folks ever got the nerve to go to the police with this matter. Those of you wondering, this article offers some answers to the question of why so many of these scams originate from this area."
Those of you wondering, this article offers some answers to the question of why so many of these scams originate from this area.
There was also a Fortune article on this from years ago. It's hardly anything new. Anytime you combine poverty, internet access, and police/political corruption--you're going to get fraud. That's true in Nigeria. It's true in parts of eastern europe. It will be true about anywhere someone who makes $1 a day gets internet access and can suddenly interact with people who make $50,000 a year. Welcome to one of the downsides of a flat earth.
Bet it pays a helluva lot better than trying to farm on unfertilized poorly-irrigated soil with some crappy non-GM seed that Sean Penn gave you.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
.. you end up in jail and the money isn't yours either.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
The Nigerians didn't get scammed. She merely diverted the funds stolen from the unfortunate Australian car buyers for her own use.
FTFA :
The car buyers who were ripped off reported the matter to police, who traced the account to Cochrane-Ramsey.
From the fucking Summary:
Irony aside, it makes one wonder how these folks ever got the nerve to go to the police with this matter.
Because they didn't.
Oy vey!
She didn't steal it from the scammers, she stole it from the victims and then just didn't forward the money to the scammers like she was "supposed" to. This isn't a story of comeuppance or anything... just someone other than Nigerians ending up with the money. And of course the Nigerians didn't file the complaint... the victims did.
...why so many of these scams originate from this area.
I asked that same question of a missionary who had just come from Nigeria. His answer was that there is a culture there of "you're a clever individual if you can get the other fellow to pay for your lunch." For what it's worth...
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
No actually, it doesn't. Poverty is not a reason for scamming. It might be a reason for stealing food or other things. Scams show a particular mindset, and that the most common type of Nigerian scam has originated elsewhere is irrelevant. What matters is how many people do it, and the information I have is that scamming is commonplace in Nigerian culture, so they do it to themselves, not just to others with a 'lot' of money outside Nigeria. This means poverty has nothing to do with why they all seem to be Nigerians. Though I suppose, being a Nigerian, seeing some scammer from your country make a lot of money, might influence you to do the same thus giving a flood of such people, but as I said, it seems to be commonplace behaviour in Nigeria itself.
I tried to scam some scammers once, for far less money. I can definitely see how that would feel like a huge triumph.
I had gotten a response to an ad looking for a roomate. This fuckwad strung me along for days before revealing that they intended to pay for the first months rent and security deposit with a travelers check and "could you please cash it and forward the balance to....".
Oh I was fuming. I put the room back on the market, and continued with the scammer as if nothing happened. I told them the first set of travelers checks never arrived, even though they had and i already verified with the post office that they were fake.... then I got the second set....and admited I knew it was a scam.
At this point, things took a turn for the hilarious. Immediately he switched over to admitting it was a scam and....trying to recruit me to help! He claimed he needed a mailing address in the US, and needed someone to send out packages....claimed he would pay $500 per package of letters!
So of course, I told him I would do it but I needed the money up front...fully intending to keep the money and spend the next decade gloating over how I scammed the scammer.... he even told me he could get counterfit bills.... which got me thinking how fun it would be if this all resulted in my getting to report him to the SS.
Of course, the whole thing broke down when he wanted to talk on the phone....and I wasn't willing to give out my real phone number. I suppose he already had my address so it hardly mattered, but, I didn't want harassing calls either.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Not that I give any weight to your story, but I think if the only thing that stood between you making 500$ was a telephone number, anyone would go buy a 30$ burner with 10$ of minutes on it.
IMNAL, Illegal contracts are still contracts. i.e., if you sign an illegal contract, you canâ(TM)t benefit by squelching on your end after you have received payment.
Oh no, they are not. A contract to commit a crime is void. If I kill your wife and you refuse to pay, no court will convict you for refusing to pay. And if you paid in advance and I refuse to kill her, no court will make me kill her _or_ refund the money.
One purpose of contracts is to make people work together. You couldn't sell a car if there was no way to make one side hand over the money and the other side hand over the car. Contracts to commit crimes are void intentionally to make that kind of collaboration harder.
> I would call that $80,000 of garbage dumped in Niagara
He's shipping to Africa, not Canada.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein