The Road to Ruin: Americans Beware of Nigerian 419 Scammers!
Dear honourable Sir,
My name is Alex Dubonse and I am the son of a diamond mining company in Angola. My father is most unfortunately recently deceased due to insurgence in my country and I am in need of a foreign partner to receive $18,000,000 (18 MILLION) held in his name..."
With the advent in recent years of email as the predominant form of communication worldwide, many have become familiar with the Nigerian 419 scams but they have been going on since the early 1980's by snail mail -- though they generally used counterfeit postage. Now scammers also lurk in chat rooms, dating sites and set up call centers to snare the gullible and naive.
How It Works
The variety of 419 scams is immense but they'll usually follow a certain formula where you will be contacted by a businessman needing a foreign partner for an immense bank transfer, or a large inheritance is waiting to be claimed and you're invited to step in as next of kin, or you will be informed that you have won first prize in a lottery that you never actually entered -- but you always knew your lucky number would come in some day, right?
So now you have this foreign benefactor offering you millions (the rewards are always suitably immense as to dazzle) and he has found you through "extensive research and investigations, knowing you to be an honourable and trustworthy person." How they worked all that out with only your email address to go by is a mystery but we all know that Providence works in mysterious ways ...
Before you can step forwards to claim your millions there are unfortunately the necessary evils of a mountain or paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles to be leaped -- but never mind, your millions are on their way, just hold tight and be patient. Your benefactor will thank you profusely and thank God that you have come to his aid. Then he will explain the next steps to be taken, all of which are designed to loosen the straps on your wallet.
Before you can access the millions of dollars sitting in limbo in some African bank account, it will be necessary to pay some transfer tax, lawyer's fees, or bribe to the bank manager -- but what's a few thousand bucks compared to the millions you're about to make?
After long phone conversations to make you feel important as a real business partner, you'll be talked into sending off an advance fee on some pretext -- but the story doesn't end there.
The Hook Is Sunk
The Nigerian scammers know well enough that once someone is hooked, they can be dragged right down to the bottom -- i.e. once you've paid once, you're now so emotionally identified with your pipe dream that any number of extra "fees" can be extracted from you as "complications" arise.
When looked at in this light, it seems incredible that anyone would fall for such a scam. Yet it's estimated that over $700 million was scammed from American businesses and individuals in 2005 and more than $3 billion worldwide. And the only costs the scammers run are the setting up of hundreds of thousands of ghost bank accounts and the use of a computer with an internet connection.
So if it's a scam why aren't the police doing anything about it?
Well, the first thing to note is that almost all of these scammers are from Nigeria and, while they operate from countries all around the world, including the USA, they tend to only target people living abroad.
The advance fees they ask for will typically be transferred to a third country and, when you consider that the scammers are often on the move themselves, the tangle of legal, financial and jurisdiction complications makes tracking them down a tricky task.
Add to the equation that the negotiations are chiefly carried out in cyberspace and that most victims are too embarrassed to report the crime, and it's understandable that the law enforcement authorities have been slow to shut down, let alone slow down, the 419 scams...
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006...
For "I Go Chop Your Dollar" Lyrics
http://www.lindqvist.com/i-go-chop-your-do...
My name is Alex Dubonse and I am the son of a diamond mining company in Angola. My father is most unfortunately recently deceased due to insurgence in my country and I am in need of a foreign partner to receive $18,000,000 (18 MILLION) held in his name..."
With the advent in recent years of email as the predominant form of communication worldwide, many have become familiar with the Nigerian 419 scams but they have been going on since the early 1980's by snail mail -- though they generally used counterfeit postage. Now scammers also lurk in chat rooms, dating sites and set up call centers to snare the gullible and naive.
How It Works
The variety of 419 scams is immense but they'll usually follow a certain formula where you will be contacted by a businessman needing a foreign partner for an immense bank transfer, or a large inheritance is waiting to be claimed and you're invited to step in as next of kin, or you will be informed that you have won first prize in a lottery that you never actually entered -- but you always knew your lucky number would come in some day, right?
So now you have this foreign benefactor offering you millions (the rewards are always suitably immense as to dazzle) and he has found you through "extensive research and investigations, knowing you to be an honourable and trustworthy person." How they worked all that out with only your email address to go by is a mystery but we all know that Providence works in mysterious ways ...
Before you can step forwards to claim your millions there are unfortunately the necessary evils of a mountain or paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles to be leaped -- but never mind, your millions are on their way, just hold tight and be patient. Your benefactor will thank you profusely and thank God that you have come to his aid. Then he will explain the next steps to be taken, all of which are designed to loosen the straps on your wallet.
Before you can access the millions of dollars sitting in limbo in some African bank account, it will be necessary to pay some transfer tax, lawyer's fees, or bribe to the bank manager -- but what's a few thousand bucks compared to the millions you're about to make?
After long phone conversations to make you feel important as a real business partner, you'll be talked into sending off an advance fee on some pretext -- but the story doesn't end there.
The Hook Is Sunk
The Nigerian scammers know well enough that once someone is hooked, they can be dragged right down to the bottom -- i.e. once you've paid once, you're now so emotionally identified with your pipe dream that any number of extra "fees" can be extracted from you as "complications" arise.
When looked at in this light, it seems incredible that anyone would fall for such a scam. Yet it's estimated that over $700 million was scammed from American businesses and individuals in 2005 and more than $3 billion worldwide. And the only costs the scammers run are the setting up of hundreds of thousands of ghost bank accounts and the use of a computer with an internet connection.
So if it's a scam why aren't the police doing anything about it?
Well, the first thing to note is that almost all of these scammers are from Nigeria and, while they operate from countries all around the world, including the USA, they tend to only target people living abroad.
The advance fees they ask for will typically be transferred to a third country and, when you consider that the scammers are often on the move themselves, the tangle of legal, financial and jurisdiction complications makes tracking them down a tricky task.
Add to the equation that the negotiations are chiefly carried out in cyberspace and that most victims are too embarrassed to report the crime, and it's understandable that the law enforcement authorities have been slow to shut down, let alone slow down, the 419 scams...
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006...
For "I Go Chop Your Dollar" Lyrics
http://www.lindqvist.com/i-go-chop-your-do...
I agree with you Sister Irma. Its one of the many creative scams that have duped many greedy Americans who want to get rich quick. We have to take special care when interacting with people even on social networking sites and in chat rooms because these dubious people leark in these places for unsuspecting naive folk.