posted
It's new to me, anyway. I was cleaning out my spam folder and came across several emails that claimed to be from the FBI. They informed me that the emails I got from Nigeria were letimate and I should take advantage of the opportunity immediately. The return address on the emails was fbi.gov
Posts: 4569 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Derrell: It's new to me, anyway. I was cleaning out my spam folder and came across several emails that claimed to be from the FBI. They informed me that the emails I got from Nigeria were letimate and I should take advantage of the opportunity immediately. The return address on the emails was fbi.gov
Pretty hilarious.
FBI: You know those pleas you've been getting to secretly help the Nigerian Minister of Moneybags launder his fortune, since official channels entail too much risk? Yeah, those are officially legit. You should totally do it, you'll get, like, rich.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Nigerian scam emails are a great invention. Like a lottery, they are a tax on being stupid and greedy, and unlike most lotteries they transfer money to people who are really poor and need it a lot more than their victims.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
A family member of mine, (not immediate) got sucked into one of these scams. He lost over a hundred thousand dollars, had to declare bankruptcy, and nearly lost his business and house. They have no retirement savings now and I seriously doubt the blackguards who took their money were in "dire" need of every dollar.
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posted
A lot of the scams (not all) are run by criminal organizations, which might not be all that poor anyway.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Moving money from the US to Nigeria is a transfer from rich to poor even if the middleman who gets the immediate use of the money is a criminal.
BB, it is sad when people you know are stupid and greedy, but I think this description is accurate.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
The first time I saw the Nigerian scam was in the early 90s. It came not by email but through the US Postal Service.
Posts: 324 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
People getting scammed by this are willing to break the law for quick money. The fact that they have agreed to engage in criminal activities for this money does limit my pity for them. Of course, a lot of people don't understand that they are being asked to do something criminal and I do feel bad for these people.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
It's not as if there haven't been numerous attempts to warn people against these scams.
The Internet, oddly enough, is what will spell the end of advance fee fraud as a significant problem. Sure, at first it seems to exacerbate it. Suddenly you can contact millions of potential victims without the costs of faxing or postage. But this ease of entry means that every Internet user - and in countries rich enough to be attractive targets, this is rapidly becoming synonymous with everyone with a bank account - sees lots of these scam attempts. Now, it doesn't take a genius to realize these offers are fraudulent. But when you see dozens or hundreds of variations on the same thing, even the dustiest bulb will light up. The few that don't use the Internet enough to recognize these scams will be close to someone who's in the know and will get warning that way.
There's no way people can remain ignorant of these scams when they are so prevalent, in other words.
Eventually, when the hit rate goes from .000001 to .000000000000000001, they'll have to think of something else to do.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Ironically, I met a woman from Nigeria who thought she had a large inheritance coming to her in America.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Moving money from the US to Nigeria is a transfer from rich to poor even if the middleman who gets the immediate use of the money is a criminal.
BB, it is sad when people you know are stupid and greedy, but I think this description is accurate.
Oh I fully agree he was extremely stupid. In fact the reason he did not check with certain other family who could have checked the validity of the deal was because he wanted all the wealth to himself and thought they'd steal the opportunity away from him.
But simply funneling money from the rich to the poor has little positive effects, often it's a net negative.
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