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Wait, There Really Are Mysterious Nigerian Fortunes Of 55 Million Dollars US?
from the pleased-if-you-would-be-helping-me dept
It's still surprising to us when we hear about anyone falling for a Nigerian 419 scam. The damn things are so common that you should immediately know to ignore them. So, what do you do when an actual story shows up about a mysterious Nigerian fortune of a man who died in a plane crash that's being fought over by his two wives? Slashdot points us to a story the BBC has published about the Nigerian government seizing $55 million of illegally gained assets, that only came to light after the guy who had it died in a plane crash and his second (previously unknown to the first) wife showed up to claim it. Honestly, the BBC piece reads like it was taken straight from a scam email, and even quotes the anonymous "our correspondent" who provides details on the deceased being "patriotic and selfless" (when he wasn't skimming money, apparently). We have to believe that the BBC did their fact checking on this one, but it sure does read like any of the 30 or so Nigerian scam emails sitting in my spam folder right now.
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Reader Comments (rss)
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Come on... you don't really still get those do you? I haven't gotten one of those for years. I thought all the Nigerians had moved on to selling V1agra and R0lex watches.
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Scam??
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Re:
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Fans of the Scam
http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/
as for this article... if it is indeed true your sure to see a few hopefuls try to reference the BBC article in their next lot of scams...
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I am not suprised
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Scam baiting... have some fun
Yes, thats a real link, it goes press sometime back, very funny stuff.
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ZeFrank
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Re: Fans of the Scam
Hopefully this doesn't give these scams legitimacy in the eyes of the easily fooled....
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nigerian fortunes
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What's next?
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Don't laugh
By the way, I'm a lonely Russian widow, 24, 5'9", 112 lbs. I'm looking for a generous, gentle man who is interested in exploring the possiblity of a relationship and perhaps even marriage. I just need enough money for a first-class ticket to America.
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Pity
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bbc spam
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Re: I am not suprised
As to the late pastor Akanni, I knew him personally and he always struck me as a very quiet and frugal person, which was why the discovery that he was worth N7 billion was astounding, but then again, considering what I know about top civil servants in Nigeria, it wasn't so surprising. Na just say nobody sabi say INEC get that kind of money.
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