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Why 'Nigerian Scammers' Say They're From Nigeria
angry tapir writes "'Nigerian scams' (also known as '419 scams' but more accurately called 'advance fee fraud') continue to clog up inboxes with tales of fantastic wealth for the recipient. The raises the question: Do people still fall for this rubbish? The emails often outline ridiculous scenarios but promise millions if a person offers to help get money out of a country. The reason for the ridiculous scenarios seems obvious in retrospect: According to research by Cormac Herley at Microsoft, scammers are looking for the most gullible people, and their crazy emails can help weed out people who are savvy enough to know better. Contrary to what people believe, the scams aren't 'free' for the scammers (PDF): sending an email might have close to zero cost attached, but the process of getting money out of someone can be quite complicated and incurs costs (for example, recruiting other parties to participate in the scam). So at the end of the day, the scammer wants to find people who will almost certainly fall for the scam and offer a good return."
For once in my life, I want to say "FIRST POST!"
"According to research by Cormac Herley at Microsoft, scammers are looking for the most gullible people"
Well no shit sherlock!
is therefore a good tactic, perhaps when we get these we should make a response, to lower their average rate of return.
They found my neighbours* - a couple whom my mother (a psychologist) took one look at and said "adult mental health" - and they thought they'd won £450,000 in the lottery. It's a funny story.
They knocked on my door and asked if they could use my computer to register with the bank as they couldn't register on their phone. The first red flag was that URL he typed in sounded incredibly long, but not reason enough to say anything. Anyhow, when he was done, they mentioned they were looking forward to getting a laptop & television like mine as they'd just come into some money, $450,000 to be precise.
I was too dumbstruck to say anything, so called a mate and started the conversation with "you're going to laugh, but it's not funny", he wasn't helpful so I called my mum as she's had plenty of experience dealing with people like this. My main concern was that they'd think I was making fun of them when I told them, or that they'd want to shoot the messenger - they'd already started spending the money mentally.
The next morning I knocked on their door and told them that my computer flagged that I'd visited a dodgy site - they one he went to - and that before they do anything they should talk to their bank, thus absolving me of not telling them the previous evening. And that was the end of it, so I though.
However, they told the police - fair enough. They also told the scammer - they'd got a call from him after entering their details - and told him they knew it was a scam and that they'd informed the police - fair enough.
Then, about a week later, I bumped into them and they showed me an email they'd received. it read:
I am the man sent to kill you. I have been watching your house for two days. I will be paid £1,200 for this job, but if you pay *me* half I will not kill you.
So they tell the police again, they also tell the council who then have to send out a risk assessment team to determine whether they have to be moved.
In short, there are always people that will fall for these scams, and they tend to be the lowest common denominator, or just greedy and unethical. However there's always a cost, even if you catch the scam before any money changes hands.
* These are the same people who asked if they could use some of my weed killer (enough for 400 sq m) and used it neat on their garden (20 sq m)
For whatever reason, people do fall for it. Big time.
Other than by pure greed, I don't know WHY people would really fall for it, especially if one gets many of those mails a day (easily a dozen or more a day for me - it's about half of the spam that makes it through greylisting). If you get just one such mail, then I can imagine: the first one I got, well over a decade ago, also made me wonder: is this legitimate, is this real, it certainly sounded quite real but the whole thing was just too unlikely to be trusted. Why trust a random strange contacting me by e-mail? At the time I had never heard about such scams.
But anyway, yes, people do fall for it. And there must be quite some people that fall for it. If not, it would die out quickly: that is pure economics. This are relative expensive scams to carry out, time and effort wise, and if they do not get any response on their mails (or no return on those responses) the activity would stop.
The real answer is because they are actually from Nigeria. I think the researchers are over-thinking this problem.
The summary does not answer the question in the title. Why Nigeria? Why not Congo, Ecuador, Brazil... ? Didn't RTFA. Does it answer the question at least?
So ... it told me why they send crazy emails but didn't say why they purported to be from Nigeria.
After a read of the attached article, these are perceived to be crazy email because of the low likelihood of anyone in Nigeria having substantial wealth.
Makes sense being 177th in per capita GDP, although 31st in national GDP.
But I don't see why that rule them out from saying they were from Congo or Liberia or Somalia or Niger or Malawi or Uganda or Kenya or Cameroon or ... well, you get my point !
Interesting analysis, particularly the original paper. It's almost like a two-step optimization problem--very much a game theory topic.
I happened to marry into a family of Congolese immigrants. My in-laws have told me in no uncertain terms that Nigeria has a strong reputation among central & west African cultures for being, if you will, a den of scum and villainy. If there's a scam, theft, or petty crime that involves an African individual, one of the first thoughts is, 'they must be Nigerians.'
Of course, this strikes me as a strong stereotype. I've met several Nigerians at family events (I've even attended the wedding of a real, bonafide Nigerian prince, I kid you not), and they're pretty much normal people. Surprise! (That doesn't change the fact that the Nigerian restaurant down the street ripped me off last Sunday... On the other hand, I've never had spiced goat larynx before, so I guess I came away from the experience with something new.)
It's all about standards compliance. They've simply implemented RFC 3514, only a bit differently.
Ezekiel 23:20
It seems that Microsoft Research uses Google and not Bing. (Just like everyone else)
All you have to do, is tell them that you are not available to meet them personally, but you have a friend who lives nearby and can meet them (wherever they suggest). This will result in immediate cessation of contact on their part, because they suspect they will be meeting authorities instead.
It worked for me, when I received one of these scam letters (this one ostensibly from the Netherlands) and I replied to them just to find out how far they would go. They wanted me to meet them in Amsterdam to seal the deal (which they claimed was worth millions).
I told them that rather than travel many thousand miles, I had a friend who lived a few miles away, just outside of Amsterdam, and she would meet them to talk about it.
I never heard another word out of those people.
All you have to do is pretend to be interested in their offer, then propose something other than THEIR plan, but which is perfectly reasonable. They will back down every time.
The article didn't explain why Nigeria, instead of (say) Kenya or Uganda -- or Sri Lanka or Bolivia or Uzbekistan.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
I like replying to these. It's a bit of game that entertains me endlessly. I pick a style and use it to respond. Mostly recently in haiku and in iambic pentameter. I usually get replies from them for a few iterations. When they start asking for details I usually just ask more questions until they give up. All prep work for a bot to do exactly the same thing. Believe it or not I do have a day job - I'm just an insomniac.
Those emails succeed for the same reason that sellers and politicians do: we humans are stupid.
Well, sometimes the scammers get screwed as well... http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm
And time is their biggest cost, this is why I like to fuck with one now and again. Respond, play dumb. Play real dumb.
In fact, preferably play real dumb, and out for a quick buck yourself.
I strung one of these assholes on for weeks after he replied to an ad for a room claiming to be a hot spanish girl moving to the US. My favorite part was, after he was good and invested, I told him I knew it was a scam (even told him I had seen better fake money orders before...I had...from the previous shithead who tried to pull this crap)... he spent hours over the next 3 weeks trying to recruit me to help him.
Every minute they spend on someone who knows the deal is a minute they are not scamming someone else.
You are using your (first world) time
Some call this "entertainment".
Lot's of people have different hobbies.
There are people who like to play the latest "Call for Warfare" on their "PlayBox"
There are people who like to hack a Linux into their toaster.
There are people who like to build an all purpose robot using a cluster of arduinos
And then, there are the people who get their kicks from baiting scamers (the whole "feeling superior by scamming the scamer"). All in all it's a rather cheap form of hobby, because it doesn't require much beyond time. But on the other side it's less healthy than going outdoor for some sports.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I do this all the time with phone solicitations...string them along as long as possible and waste their time. It really, really pisses them off when they finally find out. I wonder if that would also work with Nigerians scammers
Usually I copy the content of one spammer, change it up just enough to sound unique and interested and gradually, as they read down the letter realize they're reading another spam letter. Occasionally I send them the CIA's phone and address. At other times, I sound normal at the beginning and slowly start raving. Great Sunday afternoon fun!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Found a note taped to my house yesterday, offering to paint my house number on the sidewalk - which, as we all know, is very helpful for aiding EMTs, etc. Just $20 cash, or write a check to 'Tony Reed.' %10 discount for senior citizens. I showed this to a worker at City Hall, who recommended I report it to the police via non-emergency line, of course; who wouldn't think this is just a bald-faced scam? Not even imaginative. Maybe I'd pay 20 cents. The City employee pointed out the other obvious fact that they'd need a permit. But apparently some think this sort of work is on the level: Painting Address Numbers on Curbs | Neville's Financial Blog Boggles the mind. Perhaps it's the novelty of the idea?
That money was wired to Colorado, where the Vasseurs allegedly collected it, took their 10 percent and wired the remainder back to Nigeria, according to a Colorado state Grand Jury indictment handed down today.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Dear Madam, Sir:
please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Kwane Mbiko, Esq. I am writing to you regarding an urgent matter. The Copyright Group of Nigeria is (for tax reasons) the effective rights holder of a large number of US based artists. Unfortunately, we have evidence that you infringed on our copyrights by means of BitTorrent downloads and we are currently finalizing litigation against you in the Capital District Court in Abuja. You are hereby advised to start making travel preparations to appear before the court as required per Nigerian law as well as that you have to option to retain a local sollicitor to stand beside you.
Because of the travel distance involved, I am by exception authorized to offer you a settlement agreement. Please call my assistant Beka directly at 011 419 55 555 5555 to discuss payment details.
Yours faithfully, etc. etc.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
To the Attorney General. Waste his time too.
I am a scientist, and my office mate is a scientist working with computers for more than 20 years. He received last week an e-mail telling asking for money with an attachment. He opened the attachment, and oh surprise! a trojan virus !!! two days lost reinstalling the computer and many important files forever lost. Two days after, he received a similar e-mail and he opened the attachment again !!!
But is this really such a low risk passtime?
The idea is yeah, yeah, 3rd World dimwits, let's see how stupid they are. But I would think that con artists of all cultures might have a certain sophistication about them, and if they lack sophistication, they might have some "muscle" they could apply if you got them angry.
I say, if you really, really know what you are doing, have your fun, but unless I knew these guys couldn't figure out personal info on me, I wouldn't poke them with sticks just to get a reaction.
1) Hi... we're selling stock that you should buy because you think someone else will buy it for more later.
2) What can I do with stock? Can i eat it, use it for fuel, medicine, or exchange it freely for those things?
1) No. But as an added bonus, when you buy it, we will give your cash to bunch of people so they will be richer than you will ever be.
2) Thanks, where do I sign up?
I know of an 85-year old retired engineer who FELL for this scam two years ago. I got into assisting him after he had lost $500,000, his life savings (which he had wired to a Swiss bank account). The scammers contacted him after he had lost his money, pretending to be attorneys in London who could help him "recover" a part of the money for an additional $40,000. He was to fly to Amsterdam with the money, and give it to them. I got involved after he came back, when he requested that I assist him in finding the "London attorneys". Turns out he actually had flown to Amsterdam with $40,000 in a money belt, and saw the men outside the terminal holding up a card with his name on it. But the Amsterdam police found his money belt, and deported him back to America. Those police saved his last dime! It took me two weeks of intense persuasion to get through to him that he had truly lost his money, and all he could do was turn in a futile report to the FBI. He finally got it, and is truly a sadder but wiser man now. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been a part of it. With that kind of return on their investment of scamming time, I see why they put so much energy into it!!!!
"Con" is short for "confidence," in that a con artist plays with the victim's sense of confidence (usually in themselves). Looking like a moron inspires the victim's confidence in their own intelligence, their own ability to outsmart the con artist. Making you think that you can come out ahead, one way or another, is the entire point of the con.
If you think you can out-con the con artist, you've already lost. That's exactly where they want you.
So it's not about "aiming for the least informed" as much as "looking so inept as to be harmless."
"weed out people who are savvy enough to know better"
"process of getting money out of someone can be quite complicated and incurs costs"
Therefore would not a good way for us to combat this spam be for everyone to always reply seemingly being one of those gullible types and end up going back and forth as many times as possible while not giving up any real information to the attacker?
If enough people did this the payoff would be completely offset by the cost of determining actual gullible people.
"Do people still fall for this rubbish?" There's a thing called google. You can search for things and find all sorts of info. The answer is yes. We even had some lady a few years back in my state keep sending money over and over that the FBI said they'd charge her with some crime if she didn't stop. She just refused to believe it was a scam. I've even watched an episode of Judge Joe Brown where you could tell the lady getting sued fell for it. She had a relative die and needed to pay some money to get the inheritance. So she borrowed, and kept borrowing, money from a co-worker until he got sick of it and sued her to get it back. She said everything but that she got the info about the relative from an email but it was enough for me to figure it out, even though the judge didn't. Now consider this. This scam has been going on for longer than the internet. Why would you think it still exists if people didn't fall for it? I can't tell who is more stupid, the people that fall for it or those that can't figure out they can spend 5 seconds to do a little research to come up with an answer to if people still fall for it.
I mean, if they're not offering me at *least* $25M USD, I know they're frauds, trying to cheat me out of my money.
mark "diss *me*, will they?"
As a native Nigerian I must say I am outraged about the use of my homeland.
I am Stella Amah 19 years of age the only daughter of late Mr Boni Amah whom was killed by the rebels that attacked our country cote d'Ivoire west Africa and took over our town (BOUAKE). I ran to Abidjan the economical capital of cote d'ivoire from were I am contacting you. Before the death of my father he told me that he has a sum of US$9,000,000(Nine million united states dollars) kept in a private security company here in cote d'ivoire in my name as the next of kin,
I appreciate the exposing of this information and I am honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways.
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you to stop these Nigeria scammers. I have the believe you are a reputable and responsible and trustworthy person I can do business with from the little information so far I gathered about you during my search for a partner and by matter of trust I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business.
Dear, in the capacity of the next of kin and with all the documents in my hand now, I am contacting you with due sence of humanity that you will give it a sympathetic and mutual consideration.
(1)To serve as the guardian of this fund and to come assist me visit the security company here to retrive the consignment.
(2)To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and to secure a residential permit for me in your country.
(3)To provide good investment plans for the fund and to manage the fund for 5 years, during the investment period,only our profit will be shared annually 70% for me the investor while 30% will be for you the fund manager annually.
Moreover, I am willing to offer you 15 % of the total sum as compensation for your effort /input after the successful transfer of this fund to your nominated account overseas, before the investments starts.and I have maped 5% for any expenses that might be incured during the course of this transaction.
furthermore, you can indicate your option towards assisting me as I believe that this transaction would be concluded within a stipulated period of time you signify your interest to assist me.
Anticipating hearing from you immediately.
Thanks and God bless.
Best Regards.
Stella Amah.
My first Nigerian letter was a real typed postal letter in the late 1980s. In those days the email community was just a few 10,000s of academics. It had the same elements as always: asking for assistence in taking a dead official's money out of the country. You'd send them some money to help them. Then they would split the money when they got it out of the country.
They somehow got a hold of professional society address book and wrote to people in the book. Maybe they thought those people had money. Maybe it was a way to get some real addresses to Nigeria.
Many don't, I've gotten all sorts claiming to be from various European countries, China, Japan, the US government, and so on. They don't all claim to be from Nigeria, they just sound like it because they suck at the English worse than I do.
Also, the scammers are usually pretty stupid, only slightly smarter than their marks, which is probably why they are in that line of work in the first place.
For those who don't know what RFC 3514 is and are too lazy to google it: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt
-- The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header --
The high-order bit of the IP fragment offset field is the only unused
bit in the IP header. Currently-assigned values are defined as follows:
0x0 If the bit is set to 0, the packet has no evil intent. Hosts,
network elements, etc., SHOULD assume that the packet is
harmless, and SHOULD NOT take any defensive measures. (We note
that this part of the spec is already implemented by many common
desktop operating systems.)
0x1 If the bit is set to 1, the packet has evil intent. Secure
systems SHOULD try to defend themselves against such packets.
Insecure systems MAY chose to crash, be penetrated, etc.
This is also why many of them start with "Dearest in Christ," and other religious stuff. They figure if you've already been fooled once you are a good target.
...unless you are in, or have the permission of, law enforcement.
And yes, if you respond and get fleeced, that would only be the start of your punishment.
"correcting" their English to make it worse? It might be fun seeing how bad you can get them to write.
I know that for renter scams they are all "from" the UK, and often christian.
If you get a email or even phone call from someone from the UK looking to rent from you, you can pretty much just ignore it.
But another good way to tell is that they always tell you so much about themselves, and often ask lots of question (particularly ones that were already answered, in previous messages or in the posting).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I just thought of a fun plug in/mail filter program. It automatically detects Nigerian scams and starts up a conversation, pretending to cooperate, and tries to stretch out the conversation for as long as possible.
The important question is how to respond in a way that will most hurt the scammers. Is it worth giving them a dummy email and false personal details. It should be at least possible to ask for some evidence that causes them some work and effort in composing messages in good English?
Running away from a challenge, little mere STUDENT boy? http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2933305&cid=40421131
?
* Absolutely, and I take IMMENSE PLEASURE watching little wannabe computer guru NOOBS like yourself, a mere STUDENT, running away from a challenge that I put to you there in the link above, where I challenge you to disprove points of mine that show custom hosts files get end users of them the following items:
---
1.) Better "layered-security"/"defense-in-depth"
2.) Better online speed/bandwidth while websurfing
3.) Better "anonymity" to an extent vs. DNS request logs
4.) The ability to circumvent DNSBL's (DNS Block Lists) IF the user finds them inconvenient or unjust
---
(Now, I could care less for your pussy-like "std. evasion replies" here, but instead? Well - let's see you disprove my 21++ points in favor of custom hosts files in the link above, where you're running away like the scared little rabbitt NOOB you are!)
A few years ago, I "knocked-the-chocolate" out of a post doc student named StarKruzr (Jarrett DeAngelis) whom I also caught LYING as well, right here on these forums & also @ Windows IT Pro (where I also knocked the daylights out of Dr. Mark Russinovich of Microsoft as well on memory mgt. (MS too, I was correct that "dedicate all free memory to caches" would FAIL on Windows, because *NIX variants manage memory @ a GLOBAL LEVEL, rather than by process/atomic threads as well as showing his ideas incorrect by examples from MS themselves, then lastly correcting his work for "hardcoded" (blew me away a PhD would make errors like THAT) mistakes in pagedefrag.exe as well... which he ended up THANKING ME FOR no less in email also @ least!)).
I am going to laugh @ you since you have evaded a challenge put to you, and everyone else reading's seeing you do the same too... shame, shame, shame, lol!
APK
P.S.=> What's the matter pussy? Your grad school masters/doctoral training (good luck paying off your debts) not enough to face up to a challenge & face the music in the link above?? Obviously... you're WEAK, a punk, and you make me laugh! apk
Oh Peter ! Ooooooh yeah ! Oh yeah ! Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
I cast Level 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman !