Scam busters turn the tables on those running the Nigerian scam
Filed under: Banks, Fraud, Recession, Recession Diaries
Beloved One,I have the Courage to Crave Indulgence for this most opportune business venture...
Look familiar? A day doesn't go by day that I don't receive an e-mail from people with names like Dr. Fortunate Goodpence or Mrs. Pius Motubo soliciting my aid in recovering millions from banks in Nigeria, if only I just sent a little money to get started. Which means I greet each morning with the same thought: who still falls for this crap?
Modern advance-fee scams, commonly called 419 scams after the number of the Nigerian Criminal Code, have been around for over twenty-five years, but exploded with the growth of the internet. So you'd think we'd all be wise to them, yet the latest statistics available show that worldwide losses to these kind of scams topped $4.3 billion in 2007 - and those were just the ones reported. Because, let's face it, losing money due to greed and a sense of colonial superiority to Africans is super embarrassing.
Certainly the elderly are targets and anyone who uses the Internet so infrequently they still give addresses using "www." Plus people who can't get dates. Oh yeah, and Citibank, which - oops - gave away $27 million. (If there were still any question whether Citibank execs deserve bonuses, I think that pretty much answered it.)
So I guess we should be glad that Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recently announced it was cracking down with "Project Eagle Claw," beginning with shutting down 800 scam sites and making 18 arrests.
But I have about as much faith in the Nigerian government as I do in Citibank -- in other words, none. Instead, I'm betting on the efforts of the "scam baiters," a group of internet vigilantes seeking to take down Internet scammers simply by wasting their time and resources. How do they do it? For starters, they actually respond to all those ridiculous letters, acting as if they're really interested. "Whilst you are doing this," their website proclaims, "you will be helping to keep the scammers away from real potential victims and screwing around with the minds of deserving thieves."
Like the scammers, scam baiters string along their prey, often taking advantage of their idiosyncratic knowledge of English (419 letters demonstrate a rare talent for understating the obvious: "I have a disease known as CANCER..." / "It is unfortunate that my daughter died in a bomb attack in London, United Kingdom..." / "Do not feel sorry for me, as I believe that everyone will die someday..."). So the scam baiters know they can request that the crooks send photo verification holding up signs with messages of supposed American idioms, like:
I belong in Sing-Sing.
I need a Cialis urgently.
ID-1OT
Fleece the Children Charities
I am oiled up and kinky
Or else they'll just make them do stupid things, claiming it's a sign of trust, like juggling pineapples or pouring milk over their heads. Says one baiter in a very entertaining interview: "My initial reason for baiting was to give myself an outlet for the practical jokes that I am 'too old' to play on my dog/little sister/friends/neighbor's cat. But after I joined 419eater, I realized that we actually do make an impact on the entire scamming business by running interference and wasting these scammer's time."
So while new scams constantly crop up to replace old ones, we can rest assured that there are pranksters out there to foil them.
And that, my friends, is The Upside.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-24-2009 @ 10:33AM
Kate said...
I just have to give that a try...sounds like tons of fun.
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11-24-2009 @ 11:07AM
Ron said...
These people are nobody to mess with. After some people were taken for thousands of dollars they thought that they'd go there personally to collect and were never heard from again. Most are not small-time scammers. The people at 419 Eater seem to know what they're doing. Not only are they using the e-mails but also snail mail. My wife got one letter and thought that she actually had some money coming. It took me hours to convince her that it was indeed a scam after posting what she got on 419 Eater. My wife is one of those always looking for an easy buck unfortunately.
Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and it's a wonder that they are really doing something. It's a good place to avoid.
It's not just Nigeria either as they can come from any country including the US. I replied to one to take my name off his list as I knew what he was up to.
Beware of fake e-mail from AOL as real AOL e-mails have the blue border on them. I got one that at the bottom wanted me to upgrade to AOL 4.0!
11-24-2009 @ 11:03AM
John said...
Not having time to engage the scammers in a lot of back and forth, instead, for the past several years, I have sent the following reply:
OH, SO SORRY, YOU'VE LOST THIS ROUND OF "SCREW THE STUPID AMERICAN" BUT WE HAVE THIS LOVELY PARTING GIFT FOR YOU TO ENJOY FOR YEARS TO COME, YOUR OWN PORTRAIT!
Then I insert a cartoon of a man's head emerging from the anus of a horse, titled with the 'name' of the sender.
Once I received a very incensed reply to my "rude" response. Laughed a lot at that one!
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11-24-2009 @ 12:49PM
Lois said...
What can we do to stop these guys? I get emails daily from these people and I just add them to my spam folder, but is there anything we can do to "get" these guys?
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11-24-2009 @ 1:24PM
Dawn said...
It frustrated me to get the same spam filling up my email.
Dear Friend in Christ and For the Name of God help me.....
I have cancer and I can get the help I need in London.
Finally, I answered. Dear Friend, I now have your IP address
and have reported you and this letter to the Fraudulent Crimes division. Thank you.
My husband got upset and was afraid they would track me down....not to worry, I started doing this to each email and it has cut it down to more than half the junk. I guess it worked. If not whatever did, I thank you!
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11-24-2009 @ 8:44PM
L J said...
They no longer bother me. One of my tactics was that I created a persona of an elderly widow of a dentist. No children and very wealthy. I sent emails asking how much money they needed and as soon as I got an answer I would take their figure and explain that it wasn't enough, what if the officials they had to bribe wanted more or what if they lost the money. I would offer more and more every few hours then I would go through forgetful spells and question them as if they were my dead husband. I would ask him/them what I should do and then I would ask him what to do with the millions his mother had put in the freezer in the garage or in the boatshed.
The other tactic was to Thank them for the offer but explain that I really could not accept any more money. I had won the state lottery at home twice in the last year and I had won 17 foreign lotteries this summer alone add to that the 9 windfalls I had raked in from helping people in situations like theirs. I just had too much money and not being used to having so much was really afraid of getting any more. Any thing could happen with so much.
While that was going on I was getting fifty to a hundred "offers" a day from them. I kept it up close to a year and suddenly all offers just quit coming.
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11-24-2009 @ 2:33PM
Ted said...
I received e mails everyday from scammers.But I have a pre-written e mail which I send them and I never hear from the same one's again. It says in part: "Thank you for contacting me regarding my inheritance for $5,000,000. On my behalf, please donate the money to the [poor people in Rwanda and Somalia". Have a nice day.
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11-24-2009 @ 4:02PM
Donna Strickler said...
I love that one! I usually say F you.
11-24-2009 @ 2:27PM
duey35 said...
I have tried to reply but always get the mailer damian back not deliverable
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11-24-2009 @ 7:01PM
K said...
I recently helped a man who was a neighbor of an elderly woman get convicted of 3 felony counts for perpetrating this scam. He now has 18months to pay back $10000!! or go directly to jail.
1 down thousands to go!
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11-24-2009 @ 6:52PM
Dave said...
Thanks to all of you who take the time to mess with these idiots. You do a service to all of us. I have never dared respond to any of these stupid emails, but always wanted to. I take my anger out on the unsolicited snail mail credit card offers. I like to put all of my trash in their postage paid envelopes and send it back to the sender. I hope that they appreciate it as much as I do the dozens of envelopes full of trash that they send me every week.
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11-24-2009 @ 7:10PM
K said...
Well this guy made it easy and made me mad...he picked on a woman that lived across the street from him and she happened to be a friend of ours. We got wind of all the crap he had printed from the internet and shown her with the "official seals" etc and it was for the "Church" etc.She is a very Christian woman I tracked all the checks, called Western Union and then called the Sheriff...3 years later he finally went to trial and we were there to hear the judge say restitution every month without fail at a set amount and if you do not pay you will be in jail so fast your head will spin.
With all these scams if we continue ignoring them and not putting road blocks in the way they will just mushroom, it takes a village folks the police cannot do everything if you hear of something funky going down Call the Sheriff, Police, Law Enforcement just do it. These creeps if they would take the effort that they put into scamming people and put it into something good maybe we would have a better world.
Just get involved people and make a difference.
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11-28-2009 @ 2:06PM
spring said...
Good for you K, I agree with every word. We need to do something to stop these people. These people are not anyone to play with or have fun with, they are annoying and I don't want to be bothered with them. It doesn't seem like to me that aol block is working because I sure use it. I also have these types of problem on Craig's List so when I sell something I tell the buyer meet me at the police station for transations and I never hear from them again :).
11-24-2009 @ 10:10PM
GREGG said...
DELETE......DELETE......DELETE.......EVEN FROM THE UK !!
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11-25-2009 @ 11:19AM
Jim Sanderson said...
My reply or a variation:
Dear Dr Martin Ho,
Your very munificent, lavish offer to share is autcor pretiosa facit of kindness for my benefaction. My colleague, Mr Ty Ger, at my employer, The Western Branch of the Bank of River Mississippi, is invidia est caeca.
My attorney, The Honorable J B Scofflaw esq ask you to forward your picture and at your office desk and your bank information to arrange easy transfer of package funds. My attorney has said to ask you for the good faith sum of $500US, to draw up the legal agreement between you and myself in the spirit of cooperation. We will send you 50 % USD minus transfer expenses upon final settlement of a DHL Courier package.
J.B. Scofflaws assistant can assist you with the details. Address your inquiry to Helen Wait.
Please direct the inquirys to Helen Wait for the details with Bank Wire transfer Numbers of your bank. Our personal FDIC Bank, The 3rd Bank of The World will be prepared to handle the transfer of your porton, 50 % or $500,000USD
Please direct the information about travel to NY and Hotel accommodations to Helen Wait. She can tell you were to go to forward all information.
This Package can be sent thru a DHL Courier to D.J. Cashier.or can go to Helen Wait.
We will look for your scanable pictures and your good faith deposit of $500
Regards,
J.B.S. esq
cc: JDS FDIC Bank
Reply
11-28-2009 @ 10:50AM
Karen said...
The article did not mention anything about receiving a plain letter representing the FBI and others making actual death threats, etc. Mine do not ask for any money nor info. So does anyone know what type of threat this would rank in as far as internet scams or would this even be considered an internet scam? I know the FBI doesn't send such stuff, however, it is alarming to read a letter like that with nothing being requested.
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11-28-2009 @ 11:15AM
Karen said...
And here is another one in case the law enforcement personnel are monitoring this blog......I receive constant phone calls from The Fraternity of Police wanting a donation. After repeatedly asking them to remove my name from their list and being nice about it they call at least once a week. One day recently I received a phone call and just sat there allowing the so called gentleman to talk about the fraternity and because I sat there in silence and did not say anything afterward while hanging up the phone said, "Bitch!". I phoned my local police who did nothing and they are representing law enforcement? They are so short handed that they can't respond to stuff like this due to lack of funds.
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11-28-2009 @ 11:27AM
Karen said...
Correction to Blog #16............... I meant to say that the gentleman representing 'The Fraternity of Police Foundation' called me a "Bitch" while hanging up the phone. I did phone the local police and was asked if they wanted an officer to respond to take a report. So is the report actually a report against law enforcement or the Foundation that is representing law enforcement?
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11-28-2009 @ 11:36AM
Margie said...
I did reply to some of them with rediculous replies. You can string them along and then cut it off quickly. They get nervous at that, but more kept coming. I finally got so sick of them, I dropped two of my email addresses on aol. I seem to be OK for now, I run a business and don't have time to play any more. These 419 Nigerian scammers are sick people praying on the people who can least afford to lose money. I found most people always look for ways to help others. These scammers are not ones to help.
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11-28-2009 @ 1:03PM
bghazi said...
Beware of a man named David Dowson from the UK. He is a scammer he tried to take us to the cleaners. He pretends to be with a large banking firm that is holding money from one of your dead relitaves. I told him I hope he ROTS in Hell. I knew not to send him money but others might . WARNING !!!
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