# Ugh. I know a guy who fell for an internet scam. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 28, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575 "2013-02-28T00:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/41 "2013-03-05T01:06:50Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > And today [this](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/woman-believed-victim-of-online-scam-found-dead/4551050) was in the paper. It gets nasty when it looks like murder is involved. “Detective Senior Constable Robert Martin, from the Major Fraud Squad, says the circumstances surrounding Ms Jacobs death are suspicious.” No shit, Sherlock. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/42 "2013-03-05T01:25:31Z")
The mother of a friend of my wife has been taken in by one of the Nigerian scams. The worst part is that she won’t believe that it \*is \*a scam. She believes that the Nigerian guy is actually American, and that he loves her and will soon come for her, if she just sends him the money. So she keeps on sending more, and more, and more. What can you do, when the victim refuses to be undeceived? ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/43 "2013-03-06T22:09:37Z")
> [@MacSpon](#): > > What can you do, when the victim refuses to be undeceived? Yeah, seems “Love at first sight” has been replaced with “Love at first site”. Or “Love at first type”. Ok, I’ll stop there… ---
**Author:** ![Cymy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Cymy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cymy)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/44 "2013-03-11T23:35:59Z")
My 20-year-old son fell for this–a poorly written, grammatically awful page instructing him to pay $300. If he didn’t work for the family business and ask for his paycheck early as a result (thereby alerting us), he absolutely would have paid the “fine” to the scammers. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/45 "2013-03-12T02:02:52Z")
My sister works at a bank and unfortunately deals with this sort of thing quite often. It’s not easy to stop payment on these things mostly because, by the time most people try to stop it, it’s usually too late–by design. In fact, it seems really dumb of them not to actually have a way of unlocking the computer, so that that mark won’t be so suspicious. But I guess just telling them “It may be a couple days before your computer works again” is sufficient for these people. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/46 "2013-03-12T18:54:53Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > One of the reasons scams work is that the victims think they’re outsmarting the scammers. > \ > Five minutes later she was trying to talk the camera guy into investing, since she had another contact back in Nigeria and just needed another ten grand to get her crate full of cash delivered. That doesn’t sound like she’s thinking she can outsmart them, it sounds like her brain is defective in some way that makes her incapable of not trusting people. A few years ago, I read an article (which I can’t seem to find) about a preacher who had been sucked into a 419 scam. He had ultimately sent all of his money _and_ a lot of his church’s money to the scammers, there was an investigation, I believe, and he was convicted of embezzling the church funds, repeatedly trying to cash bad checks, etc. At the end of the article, after all that, there’s a quote from him, when asked if he would try to cash a check if they scammers sent him one again to make amends, and he said “maybe… I’d have to think about it.” It’s heartbreaking and frustrating that there are people who can be led astray so easily and are apparently incapable of learning from their mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575/47 "2013-03-12T20:19:03Z")
I worked for an"invention" company. It was legit enough to be legal in the U.S. But, it had many elements to it that just screamed SCAM. The company is doing very well though pulling in around 2-2.5 million dollars a month. Oh, and there’s very little overhead. What I saw was mostly middle-aged people who were bored and tired of working. I wouldn’t say they were stupid. I would say they were vulnerable and naive. Not very proud of my time there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugh-i-know-a-guy-who-fell-for-an-internet-scam/651575.md?page=2)