I belive this scam has been discussed somewhere on the SDMB, but search couldn’t find it. Anyway, here’s today’s (5/2) Dilbert.
I got one of these awhile ago, too. I thought it was pathetically obvious that it was a scam, but I suppose people fall for it. I thought about setting up a phony bank account, deposit $5, and see how long it takes for it to be cleaned out, but then I said, “Naaaaah!”
Not wise, you’d be hit with overdraft or insufficient funds fees as withdrawals were attempted.
good point, Padeye - thanks!
While providing your banking info to a stranger is never a great idea, the modus operandi I’ve been aware of in the conduct of this scam does not so much involve directly draining your account as it does knowing if your account can sustain the damage they’re going to talk you into, once you’ve committed to partnering up to an obviously criminal enterprise.
Scam that it is, I can muster at best faint sympathy for those drawn in because it is always presented as an illegitimate deal.
The more I think about it, I’d have to say I can’t muster any sympathy for those bitten, because larceny in the heart has to exist before one would even consider participating in the endeavors proposed.
Are people still trying to do this? I remember first hearing about it over 4 years ago. We got a letter at a company I worked for and it was obvious from the start that it was a scam. My co-workers and I got a laugh out of thinking that someone would actually try something so lame and that there were people that would actually fall for it.
I get these all the time. They used to arrive by fax, and now by email. The amazing thing is that these guys do pull in the odd fool.
Once, when I was working in London, a client contacted us and said he’d received a Nigerian scam letter (although he didn’t call it that) and asked us, in all seriousness, if we thought he should go for it. And no, this guy was not a complete babe-in-the-woods. He was a multimillionaire businessman of many years standing.
So of course we told him he was a complete fucking idiot (as politely as possible, of course…)
I asked my bank manager about this and she said that it was impossible for someone to just make a withdrawl by knowing your bank information.
I got one of these back in 1991, in London. They’ve been around a long time! Several friends have had them too, over the years since.
I wonder why it’s always Nigeria? A mere handful of Nigerians doing the whole scam?
I got a few of thoose before as well. For unconnected reasons I was taking to Fraud Squad officers here and I showed it to them. They pretended to be interested and were all “Oh we’ll take this seriously” but it was hard not to see the “Any idiot who believes in this crap deserves to be taken in” look in their eyes.
Here in Dublin soem time back a group of Nigerians (again? what is it with that?) were running the black money scam.Quite a few people were apparently taken in completely.
The story goes like this:
Their bank back home was terrified of theft and it was common pratice to coat all cash in an indelible black substance that could only be removed by a mysterious special solvent.They would be told that Prince Waheem was looking to reactivate the money following the closure of the bank and the dissapearance of the solvent.The mark would be taken to a wharehouse or whatever and shown stacks and stacks of what look like black money. He would be invited to choose a bill , any bill from the stack (can you see where we are going with this yet?). The chief would take the bill and produce a small bottle of the clear liquid (water) and would then studiously proceed to wipe away the “black” with a couple of deft swabs. The mark could try this with as many notes as he wanted.Chief guy was obviously fairly deft with the 'ol sleight of hand.
Once convinced of the authenticity of the cash the mark would be told of the cost of finding a chemist who could prepare the solution and the huge amounts that would be needed. In return for helping fund the operation…
We got one of those a few years ago, which I retained for my collection of chain letters. They didn’t bother to make up a story, and the letter was printed so sloppily it’s hard to believe anyone would think it was the work of a professional concern.
The post office must not have looked too closely at the envelopes (I’m assuming a quantity of letters were mailed together); on our copy the supposed postage meter imprint was so faint as to be unreadable. I doubt they were mailed from outside the USA, though the odd brown-paper envelopes were obviously supposed to suggest foreign origin.
I work for the Australian postal service. About four or so years ago, we were getting these things in the thousands. They were individually hand addressed, but the addresses had obviously been lifted from the telephone directory - all the suburb names were abbreviated. The stamps seemed to be very cheap forgeries - they were printed on the same sort of paper you get in junk mail supermarket catalogues.
Somehow, I suspect the Nigerian Post Office wasn’t getting a cent out of these, but we are bound under the rules of the Universal Postal Union to deliver them, and not throw them in the rubbish. Erm… yeah, whatever.
These days, I get them as emails.
By fortuitous coincidence, U.S.News and World Report has an article about this in this very week’s issue.
And a related snopes link.
It’s not? Odd, I’m able to make several types of payments by providing my account and routing numbers. That’s with my permission of course but that is easy to falsify.
I have a friend who’s a financial advisor. According to him, it’s not much trouble to set up an electronic withdrawal, knowing just the bank account #. It’s really a good idea to dispose of old bank statements, credit card slips, voided checks, etc, in a secure manner.