I have never gotten Nigerian scam email before. I finally got one, and it is such a nice one. Not only do I have big bucks in Nigeria, but the FBI says it is 100% safe!
Note that the email from the FBI Director does indeed truncate on the word ‘to’, and that he uses the phrase “have to be rest assured”. Perhaps even more interesting is the amount of money - USD$11,000.000.00 - is this Eleven Million Dollars, or Eleven thousand dollars and some microscopic penny fractions. It will take me six years to get the money out of the ATM if we’re talking 11 mill.
I’m pleased to see that the federal government is eliminating unnecessary spending by allocating their FBI agents free Chinese Yahoo email accounts instead of wasteful internal infrastructure.
I got one one of these a few days ago. I, too, was “order to get back to” someone at somewhere. But I don’t follow orders from anyone cause ain’t no one gonna push me around. And nothing ain’t happened yet. Bunch a yellowbellies is what I think.
I know… puppy scammers are the ones that try to get you to buy nonexistant pets. (I had a lot of fun in the past with them by saying no, I didn’t want a dog, but did they by chance have any unicorns?)
Well, according to my correspondent, Ms. Angela Gordon, currently of Texas, USA, and formerly of Nigeria,
You really have to stop dealing with those people that are contacting you and telling you that your fund is with them because it is not with them. They are only taking advantage of you and they will dry you up until you have nothing.
Please, harken to Ms. Gordon’s advice. She is really the only one of all of these situations in the history of all history that is for REAL!! Sucker!
ETA: Oooo, I don’t know how I did that but it’s cool.
This type of scam has been around for over a hundred years. Originally, it was called the “Spanish Prisoner” because the conman would convince the victim that a prince/princess was being held for ransom in a Spanish prison, and would liberally reward anyone who would pay the bribes necessary to secure the prisoner’s freedom. The conman would simply invent new expenses for the victim to pay, forever keeping the prisoner’s freedom and the victim’s financial reward in the near future.
The Nigerian Scam takes its name from the country that produces a majority of these scam emails. (Duh!) The Nigerian government strangely works hard to threaten people who point this out, but do little to prosecute the Nigerians who make their living this way. There is no racism inherent in the term “Nigerian scam”.
A notable recent case is a series of SONY Youtube-type ads that end with “Don’t believe everything you hear on the Internet. If that were true, I’d be a Nigerian millionaire!” Nigerian government officials responded with a threat of a 1 million US dollar lawsuit if SONY didn’t remove the ads and sponsor a series of “isn’t Nigeria NICE!” ads with equal power and scope. Grrrrrr!
Nigerian scams are also known as “419” scams because 419 is the number/name of the Nigerian law being broken. These scams are also called “advance fee frauds” because the conman is hoping to get advance payments from the victim, while the victim expects an eventual huge financial reward.
Another useful term in the “industry” is the Nigerian word “Mugu”, which means “idiot” and is usually used to describe the victim.
Sites such as 419eater.com exist for “Nigerian baiting”, the weird new sport in which normal folks pose as victims in order to make these conmen waste as much time and resources as possible.
Frequently the goal is simply to string the conman along as long as possible, using increasingly funny excuses to prolong the game and increase the conman’s greed. Commonly these tactics include pun names like “Eric Shun” or obvious actors’/fictional names, and descriptions of the fictional victim’s wealth and willingness.
Very often the “baiter” concludes the game after obtaining a prize. The prize is often a photo of the scammer holding up an unlikely sign or object to prove his identity and sincerity.
In my favorite version of nigerian baiting, the baiter turns the game around, turning the scammer into a victim of a nigerian scam. These turnarounds work like this: The baiter responds to a Nigerian Scam email by saying “I have no time to consider your offer. However, my company is a charity that routinely gives US$30,000 scholarships/grants/endowments to artists/churches/sports groups in developing countries…”. The scammer becomes the victim, eventually paying their own $ to express-mail applications, artwork, and photographs to some fictional address in the hope of eventually receiving some vast financial endowment from the fictional charity.
(I dunno about the legality of scamming the scammers, though-- sounds legally dodgy.)
Be aware that another very common Nigerian scam is rather less easy to recognize. It works like this: You, the victim, pay for a perfectly legitimate “for sale” ad in a local newspaper or CraigsList. From the online version of that ad, the scammer gets your email address and pretends to have a great interest in buying whatever you’re selling. Using various excuses, they get you to pay shipping costs or check-clearing costs or some other fee prior to you receiving the money for your sale. In the most common version, the victim is asked to cash an overly large check and send the remainder (after the sales price has been deducted) immediately, before the victim discovers that the scammer’s big check’s not worth the paper it’s written on.
I’m so relieved. I lost my life savings to a Nigerian scammer, and it sounds like they want to help. Now I’ll just send them my bank info too and everything will be okay.
Ah, that aside. I probably receive emails like this in my junk every single frickin day. Before I managed to replenish my tiny library, those were my light reading. These people come up with some pretty involved and interesting sob stories. One man, on the verge of death from a terminal disease, had spent his life in the lap of luxury spending it on what he termed, vainities. He was willing to give me the remainder of his wealth if he could only have my bank account number.
I admit to shedding that one proverbial tear before hitting the empty junk mail button.
But, yes, the idea of their existence does irk me on my more irritable days.
