Wait... They're still doing the 'Nigerian scam'?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I thought the so-called ‘Nigerian scams’ went away a couple of years ago, due to their being so well-known that they’re a source of humour. But I got one in my spam folder today.

This one is from UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION and they’re offering me an ATM card with $14.5 million. All it will cost is $95 for ‘the delivery and Approval Payment certificate from IMF.’ Then there’s the required information:

  1. Your Full Name…
  2. Address Where You Want the Courier Company to Send Your ATM Card
  3. Your Age…
  4. Occupation…
  5. cell/Telephone Numbers…
  6. Country…

I’m very tempted to forward this email to one of my burner emails, and then provide that information. Only ‘my name’ would be the Sheriff’s name, my address would be the Sheriff’s station, etc. Or maybe tell him my name is Christopher Wray, and use the FBI address and phone number. I mean, if this mook is still phishing, me may fall for it. :stuck_out_tongue:

(I probably won’t. Pre-caffeine fantasy, and all. But it amuses me that people are still trying this scam.)

2

The classics never go out of style.

3

Barnum summarized things pretty well.

4

One of my friends actually got one in the post last week. They’re going retro now, apparently!

5

You forward it to an internet bot that engages the scammer.

6

Ha! Do those exist?

7

Heh. Found one.

8

I still get a lot of these, including the Nigerian Meta-Scam - where the initial contact claims to be a fraud investigator whose job it is to protect me from those nasty Nigerian scammers - here’s an example:

9

What’s the daily limit on that ATM card? :wink:

10

There’s a variation of it that I get in the school’s email about once a month. If I’m really bored, I’ll string the guy along for a while.

The gist is always that he has 3-4 kids, wants to pay for Taekwondo lessons, uniforms, etc. up front. The kids will be delivered by a car service. I’m supposed to add on a surcharge, then forward that surcharge amount to the car service.

11

The victims of these scams are often people with dementia or other forms of diminished mental capacity. It doesn’t matter how well-known the scam is if there are enough potential victims who don’t have the ability to recognize obvious fraud.

The mother of one of my friends fell victim to scammers several years ago. She was a woman who once ran a successful business. Unfortunately she developed dementia, and it progressed to the point where she was an easy mark. By the time my friend discovered what was going on, his mom had lost $150,000. He was never able to get her to understand that she was being bilked, and he had to get conservatorship in order to protect her (a rather painful process). He reported it to the police, and his mom thought when the cops paid a visit that she was in some sort of legal trouble (again, he couldn’t get her to understand that she was the victim, not the perpetrator).

That’s why these sociopathic bastards keep using the Nigerian scam. It works.

12

If anything, he underestimated.

13

I found out recently that some Nigerian and other African scammers use Skype to reel in their victims, and use white people as accomplices because people will be more likely to fall for it, especially if the person has an American accent. A well-known American reporter stationed in Africa posted on Twitter a while back that one of these scammers offered him US$10,000 a MONTH to do this. :eek:

He declined.

14

And he just had to front the $500 for guild fees first, right?

15

I’ve recently gotten spams from some people claiming I have unpaid parking tickets. Please send $54 immediately or a warrant will be issued. I also get ones about fictitious tax refunds.

16

Yep. I get these at least once a month still. Looks like I last got one on 1/21/18. (Just searched for the word “million,” as they all seem to have a phrase that reads something like “ten million dollars” is it. This one says:

Square peg, square hole, voguish, what???

So this email (which I haven’t read until now) apparently says I did some sort of job for them for which I have an outstanding invoice of “$10,500,00.00 million dollars.” So that’s like ten and a half trillion bucks, right?

It’s getting a little more interesting as I read on:

Wait. What happened to me now? Ghastly, indeed.

And then I have another one a week before that involving a will and somehow me ending up with “USD$10,000,000.00 (TEN MILLION DOLLARS ONLY)” from the First Inland Bank of Nigeria plc.

Sounds legit.

17

Well, he should have. They have USD$57,000,000 DOLLARS. They can pay more, dammit.

18

You shouldn’t have posted this publicly. Under the constructive receipt rules, you should have paid tax on this amount in the year you could first have collected it. You probably owe the IRS billions in interest and penalties. Expect to hear from Agent Bob Jones from the IRS Special Victims Unit soon. I would go and load up on iTunes gift cards before he calls. You might be able to make an offer in compromise if you have the serial numbers ready to read to Agent Smith.

19

There’s no evidence that P. T. Barnum ever said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

20

I would have said I didn’t get any of these, but it looks like the spam filter is doing its job well.

The most recent one in the spam filter is only three days old. It’s ‘from’ Benin rather than Nigeria, and there’s some new wrinkles I don’t remember from years back, but same basic idea.