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Scams

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Sep 12th 2003 10:57am





Nigerian Scammers Following Up Spam With Telemarketing Calls

from the how-nice dept

Sick of having Nigerian princesses offering you millions over email? They might start telemarketing you as well. Admittedly, there's only a single data point, but Silicon.com is reporting the story of one man who says he started receiving anxious phone calls from Nigerian 419 scammers trying to follow up on their emails. I imagine they won't pay much attention to the "Do Not Call" list in the US either. Anyway, it sounds to me like they're getting more desperate, if they're resorting to phone calls. I'd always wondered how they could possibly keep this scam going. I get at least five such emails a day, and at some point the scam really is going to have hit just about everyone. So, the fact that they're shifting to more direct contact (and which they can't do in quite the same bulk) suggests the old methods aren't working quite as well any more.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Ed Halley, Sep 12th, 2003 @ 11:49am

    If they're "following up" on their emails, then the guy responded to the first-tier with at least a valid phone number. Is there anyone who hasn't seen five of these per week or more?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Scam within a scam

    identicon
    Bob Bechtel, Sep 13th, 2003 @ 4:47am

    Nah, what happened was that the Nigerians bought a "get rich quick" scheme from a shady character. The scheme describes how to get started and gives a sample letter and a 1-800 number (or the equivalent in Nigeria) to use for faxing. However, the 800 number switches over immediately to a multi-dollar per minute line making the shady character a bunch of money. Well, I can dream, can't I?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: No Subject Given

    identicon
    mailman, Sep 15th, 2003 @ 12:13am

    Only 5 a week? I get around 30 a day of these! (Very few of them Nigerian these days though)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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