Why 'Nigerian Scammers' Say They're From Nigeria 209
angry tapir writes "'Nigerian scams' (also known as '419 scams' but more accurately called 'advance fee fraud') continue to clog up inboxes with tales of fantastic wealth for the recipient. The raises the question: Do people still fall for this rubbish? The emails often outline ridiculous scenarios but promise millions if a person offers to help get money out of a country. The reason for the ridiculous scenarios seems obvious in retrospect: According to research by Cormac Herley at Microsoft, scammers are looking for the most gullible people, and their crazy emails can help weed out people who are savvy enough to know better. Contrary to what people believe, the scams aren't 'free' for the scammers (PDF): sending an email might have close to zero cost attached, but the process of getting money out of someone can be quite complicated and incurs costs (for example, recruiting other parties to participate in the scam). So at the end of the day, the scammer wants to find people who will almost certainly fall for the scam and offer a good return."
Finding they right people (Score:5, Interesting)
They found my neighbours* - a couple whom my mother (a psychologist) took one look at and said "adult mental health" - and they thought they'd won £450,000 in the lottery. It's a funny story.
They knocked on my door and asked if they could use my computer to register with the bank as they couldn't register on their phone. The first red flag was that URL he typed in sounded incredibly long, but not reason enough to say anything. Anyhow, when he was done, they mentioned they were looking forward to getting a laptop & television like mine as they'd just come into some money, $450,000 to be precise.
I was too dumbstruck to say anything, so called a mate and started the conversation with "you're going to laugh, but it's not funny", he wasn't helpful so I called my mum as she's had plenty of experience dealing with people like this. My main concern was that they'd think I was making fun of them when I told them, or that they'd want to shoot the messenger - they'd already started spending the money mentally.
The next morning I knocked on their door and told them that my computer flagged that I'd visited a dodgy site - they one he went to - and that before they do anything they should talk to their bank, thus absolving me of not telling them the previous evening. And that was the end of it, so I though.
However, they told the police - fair enough. They also told the scammer - they'd got a call from him after entering their details - and told him they knew it was a scam and that they'd informed the police - fair enough.
Then, about a week later, I bumped into them and they showed me an email they'd received. it read:
I am the man sent to kill you. I have been watching your house for two days. I will be paid £1,200 for this job, but if you pay *me* half I will not kill you.
So they tell the police again, they also tell the council who then have to send out a risk assessment team to determine whether they have to be moved.
In short, there are always people that will fall for these scams, and they tend to be the lowest common denominator, or just greedy and unethical. However there's always a cost, even if you catch the scam before any money changes hands.
* These are the same people who asked if they could use some of my weed killer (enough for 400 sq m) and used it neat on their garden (20 sq m)
People still fall for it (Score:4, Interesting)
For whatever reason, people do fall for it. Big time.
Other than by pure greed, I don't know WHY people would really fall for it, especially if one gets many of those mails a day (easily a dozen or more a day for me - it's about half of the spam that makes it through greylisting). If you get just one such mail, then I can imagine: the first one I got, well over a decade ago, also made me wonder: is this legitimate, is this real, it certainly sounded quite real but the whole thing was just too unlikely to be trusted. Why trust a random strange contacting me by e-mail? At the time I had never heard about such scams.
But anyway, yes, people do fall for it. And there must be quite some people that fall for it. If not, it would die out quickly: that is pure economics. This are relative expensive scams to carry out, time and effort wise, and if they do not get any response on their mails (or no return on those responses) the activity would stop.
Den of Scum and Villainy (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting analysis, particularly the original paper. It's almost like a two-step optimization problem--very much a game theory topic.
I happened to marry into a family of Congolese immigrants. My in-laws have told me in no uncertain terms that Nigeria has a strong reputation among central & west African cultures for being, if you will, a den of scum and villainy. If there's a scam, theft, or petty crime that involves an African individual, one of the first thoughts is, 'they must be Nigerians.'
Of course, this strikes me as a strong stereotype. I've met several Nigerians at family events (I've even attended the wedding of a real, bonafide Nigerian prince, I kid you not), and they're pretty much normal people. Surprise! (That doesn't change the fact that the Nigerian restaurant down the street ripped me off last Sunday... On the other hand, I've never had spiced goat larynx before, so I guess I came away from the experience with something new.)
Re:Finding they right people (Score:4, Interesting)
or just greedy and unethical.
As I understand it, those Nigerian scams always tell a story where the large sum of money is obtained illegally and the recipient of the mail would know he would be participating in illegal activities. This helps to keep the scammed silent, because if they report it to the cops, they'd have to admit trying to help traffic illegal funds.
Re:NSS (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure I buy it. Those emails tend to be in the same Nigerian English I often hear Nigerians I know speak with. The reason for the ridiculous scenarios is that they want it to be blatantly obvious that you are agreeing to something illegal if you go to the police. When the Nigerian authorities see an email where you are knowingly agreeing to money laundering or theft from their government it gives them the excuse to simply file the whole thing as on thief ripping off another and then the whole thing becomes too low of a priority to be worth the trouble of investigating further. The reason they need this is that
paying the police off only works if the police a justifiable reason to not investigate in case someone higher up asks about it.
Re:please ignore (Score:5, Interesting)
Congratulations, you have one the "first post" prize.
s/one/won/;
Surely the spelling mistake was intentional... to "find people who will almost certainly fall for the scam". Because we all know lawyers in the real world would be able to spell such a simple word. :)
Re:Waste their time (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw a comical series on TV (in dutch!) that did just that. They answered the scams as if they were interested and tried to get as much response out of them a possible.
In the end they invited a contact person to a fake company HQ to finalize the whole thing. There they had a number of pranks for them (like a dwarf on a pony delivering a message) culminating in a fake police raid for aleged fraud of the company.
"You can go about your business. You're an honest business man!" the (fake) police officer assured our Nigerian scammer.
The contact person tried to defend his business partner but to no avail!
Easy To Make Them Go Away (Score:5, Interesting)
It worked for me, when I received one of these scam letters (this one ostensibly from the Netherlands) and I replied to them just to find out how far they would go. They wanted me to meet them in Amsterdam to seal the deal (which they claimed was worth millions).
I told them that rather than travel many thousand miles, I had a friend who lived a few miles away, just outside of Amsterdam, and she would meet them to talk about it.
I never heard another word out of those people.
All you have to do is pretend to be interested in their offer, then propose something other than THEIR plan, but which is perfectly reasonable. They will back down every time.
Re:please ignore (Score:5, Interesting)
I've learned to bait them to increase there time cost. If everyone wrote them back, they would be overloaded with non paying contacts. Set up a bait email account and always write them back using a ficticious persona.
One to send me my inheritance asked for my details including my photo.
I wrote back and asked about the format needed for the photo. Is a family portrait needed? Would a snap at the beach last summer be OK?
They took the time to read my reply and write a personalised reply requesting a passport photo.
I wrote back saying I didn't have a Passport Photo so I need to get one taken. String them out and waste their time. Google Scambaiting for more info.
Never fake and send government ID such as a passport or drivers license. It's illegal in many locations. Find excuses to delay forever till they give up.
Re:NSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:People still fall for it - I know of someone (Score:5, Interesting)