Another thread got me thinking about this notorious scam, and I have a question:
How much money does a typical Nigerian 419 scam artist make in a year?
Just curious.
Last try - bump.
I don’t think anyone knows, they probably don’t report their income for U.S. Federal Tax purposes.
The usual scam (I’m not sure what you mean by 419, but I’m thinking of the bit about paying you millions for your bank account number) in fact, does not produce a lot of money from each sucker. The set-up is that when they have you interested, there’s a minor hiccup with the wire transfer, they need a $10 or $20 cash payment to make the set-up work. Then they need an extra $50 or $100 to bribe someone, or whatever. In short, the scam grabs the mark by parading millions of dollars in front of his/her eyes, but usually the scammer is very happy with $100 take.
I’ll bet they used to be more successful when they were sending out hardcopy letters, pre-internet, which had some vague credibility. Nowadays, when everyone gets so much spam anyhow, I can’t believe they get much interest. OTOH, it costs them less to send out a million emails than to send out a dozen letters with postage.
$100 is actually quite small in comparison. Most payments start in the single digit thousands and move on in to the double digit thousands.
If you go to www.scamorama.com and look at the headings on the right of the page, the titles that are in green are of true life stories of people who have been duped by these scam artists.
Would you say that is the average amount, or the average amount reported?
I think some people are going to say “aww, i got scammed out of $100!” and let it pass on their own ignorance.
However, if someone gets scammed out of a few thousand, they’re most certainly going to take it to the media/police/fbi.
So, which is it? Is that the standard amount, or the extreme high?
Now that I think about it, there are probably different 419 scammers running around.
There are probably solo guys who grab $100 here or $300 there, take the money, and run.
Then there are more sophisticated scammers who work in groups and try to get the big score. They have a guy on the inside in some governmental office, etc.
Still hard to imagine how much money they pull down, though.
I keep hearing that the 429 scam is one of the top 5 sources of foreign income in Nigeria, so either:
-It isn’t true
-There are a hell of a lot of scammers scraping a living
-There are a moderate number of scammers doing rather well
-The businesses ranked 6 and below are not very lucrative.
Well I’m currently stringing along a 419 scammer, and in order to collect the $30 million that is waiting for me, I need to pay a tax of 9,500 Euros, just to give an example.
Beastal, you shouldn’t string this guy along – they have been known to kill people.
–Cliffy
Do you have a cite for this, Cliffy? And of course “they” are a diverse unconnected number of disparate groups and individuals.
Snopes quotes a 1997 article indicating losses of $100 million in 15 months in the US(!)
I’ve read (no cite) that the killing of a scamee has only happened when the victim has actually gone to Nigeria to “finalize” the deal.
They’re too busy scamming others to travel to find you and hurt you.
Well, I truly know someone who got taken for well over Can$100,000 and still believes he is going to be rich some day. They have been playing him since about 1990 (it was mail, not the internet) and it stopped only when his wife took over all finances. The only thing I can say in explanation is that he has MS and I have been reliably informed that it can affect cognitive function.
On the other hand, I get at least a dozen offers a day and surely they must realize that no one could take it seriously at that level of activity. One in your lifetime, you might think, well maybe. But hundreds every year? I sometimes think everyone in Nigeria has my email address. Fortunately, my spam filter is pretty effective on this.
Slight hijack,
I recently received a fax at work (a large chain drugstore) from someone in Nigeria who wanted to buy the store’s entire inventory of Centrum and Centrum Silver multivitamins. The person claimed that he could only be contacted via e-mail and that he was willing to provide his credit card number if that would make things easier on us, but only if we replied via e-mail. Obviously this was a scam (our company has dealt with these solicitations before), but it made me think that the 419 scam artists are evolving and pursuing different avenues to “hook” people. The fax that was sent to us looked very legit, just like a request from a customer.
Why??? What would they do with your entire inventory of vitamins, and if given a credit card in advance (which you could run through your machine and even wait for the money to get deposited into the stores bank account, not do it? (I suppose you don’t want to get mixed up in a scam, so you can ignore the last question, but why would someone want that?)
Request “express” or “overnight” shipping.
Use stolen credit card
Resell free merchandise.
Charges get reversed when CC owner finds fraudulent charge
Store gets zip.