Washington Post Says Economy Is Bad... No, Good... No, Bad For Nigerian 419 Scammers

from the good-or-bad? dept

There's a fascinating article in the Washington Post about the impact of the worldwide financial crisis on Nigerian 419 scammers. However, I have to admit, that I'm a bit confused about the article, which seems to state two totally contradictory things. First, that it's more difficult to be a Nigerian scammer these days since Americans don't have as much money -- but then at the same time, that Americans are falling for the scam more easily these days since they're desperate for money. I don't see how both can be true. Two quotes from the article:

"We are working harder. The financial crisis is not making it easy for them over there," said Banjo, 24, speaking about Americans, whose trust he has won and whose money he has fleeced, via his Dell laptop. "They don't have money. And the money they don't have, we want."

And then, just two paragraphs later:

U.S. authorities say Americans -- the easiest prey, according to Nigerian scammers -- lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year to cybercrimes, including a scheme known as the Nigerian 419 fraud, named for a section of the Nigerian criminal code. Now financially squeezed, Americans succumb even more easily to offers of riches, experts say.

And then, just a bit later, the scammers again complain that times are harder, and profits are down 40%.

So... um... which is it? Has it become more difficult or easier than ever? Isn't that the sort of thing that a newspaper reporter would be expected to search out and let us know? Not the Washington Post, apparently. It just tells us both are true and lets everyone else figure it out!

While, personally, I still can't figure out how anyone is still fooled by such scams after so many years of them being talked and written about, the article does suggest that the scammers themselves are easily scammed. This, of course, will come as no surprise at all to the group of folks who have fun scambaiting 419 scammers, but the article notes that scammers who are having a tough time are quickly throwing down lots of cash on magic potions, powders and artifacts to help them perform better as scammers:

Banjo said, he has traveled six hours to the forest, where a magician sells scam-boosters. A $300 powder supposedly helps scammers "speak with authority" when demanding payment. A powder, rubbed on the face, reportedly makes victims viewing the scammer through webcams powerless to say no.

"No matter what, they will pay," said Olumide, a college student, adding that he is boosting his romance scams by wearing a magical, live tortoise hanging from a cord around his neck.

So, scam baiters, it seems like perhaps you should be selling such things right back to the scammers.

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DEAR CITIBANK: I WOULD LIKE REQUEST TO YOU HELP IN SECURING 27 MILLION DOLLARS US

from the writes-itself dept

As the US government looks to take over a bigger chunk of Citibank, you might wonder what the bank has been doing with its money lately. Apparently, part of it was going to a slightly more ambitious than usual Nigerian 419 scam. The scammer and some colleagues tricked Citibank into believing they represented the National Bank of Ethiopia, that country's central bank -- and convinced Citibank to then transfer $27 million to accounts they controlled. It doesn't sound like the scam actually worked in the end -- as questions arose, and the receiving banks transferred the money back eventually. Also, the supposed mastermind behind the scam has now been arrested. But, apparently, 419 scammers have figured out that, given how well various banks have managed their money over the last few years, they're just as good as targets, compared to clueless spam recipients.

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Lawyer Sues Citibank For Not Stopping Him From Losing Money In Nigerian Scam

from the blame-goes-around dept

A lawyer in Houston is suing Citibank after he got scammed in a variation on the classic Nigerian email scam. There are a few interesting tidbits here that are worth discussing. First, the details: the lawyer, who does collections work, was contacted via email by a company that claimed to be a Japanese company that was trying to collect money from four clients in the US -- offering a contingency fee to the lawyer for help in getting the customers to pay up. Soon after that, the "Japanese company" claimed that one client had agreed to pay some of what it owed -- and it sent the law firm a check for $367,500. Citibank said the check cleared, and the law firm wired $182,500 to the company. Of course, it later turned out that the check was fraudulent, and the law firm was out the $182,500.

This is a variation on a popular version of the Nigerian email scam. The way it usually works is that the scammer buys something that's for sale... and then sends a check that's for significantly more than the purchase price using some sort of excuse. Once the check "clears," the seller is asked to wire back the excess money. This version is interesting in that it's slightly more sophisticated -- carefully going after law firms that do collections. Rather than being a totally "out of the blue" situation, they worked hard to make it seem like business as usual until the scam is done. Sneaky.

While it's easy to mock the lawyer for getting tricked, the basic version of the scam and this more sophisticated version both rely on a very unclear part concerning check processing. Most people assume that once a check "clears" it's confirmed as valid. That's not true. Banks clear the check before it's actually validated, and the scammers exploit both the time between these two events and the fact that most people assume (or are told) that once a check clears, the money is definitely theirs. There are a few ways to solve this that banks could take. They could not clear the check until it's absolutely declared valid. Or, they could make it much clearer that, while the money is available, the check has not been validated and the money could be pulled. Since most banks do neither, the guy's lawsuit against Citibank is at least somewhat understandable -- though, it's unlikely a court will agree with him.

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Facebook's Lack Of Hacking Resolution System For Nigerian Scammers

from the seems-like-a-problem dept

In the past week, you may have seen various news stories about Nigerian scammers hacking into Facebook, and then sending their "friends" messages, saying they're stranded in London without money. It is, of course, just the latest improvement on the venerable old Nigerian 419 scam, this time upgraded to use hacked/phished Facebook accounts to trick trusting friends into coughing up their money. However, one of the biggest issues is raised by Yehuda Berlinger, who points out that for those who are hacked, Facebook doesn't seem to have any reasonable way to contact them and fix the problem. Considering how much of your "identity" might be tied up in your social networking profile, you would think that a company like Facebook would have a ready made system in place to handle such "emergency" situations.

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Are 419 Victims Guilty Of Fraud If They Recruit Others?

from the legal-questions dept

One of our readers, Stack, sent in a link to this story about an Australian couple arrested for their participation in recruiting others into a Nigerian 419 scam. Stack suggested in his submission that it was a case of a 419 victim who, having "learned" the scam then turned around and started scamming others. But, from the description I'm not so sure that's the case. Instead, it sounds like the couple was really convinced that the scam was real, and merely convinced others to join in the scam, as well, in order to collect the "necessary" money to free the (non-existent) millions in Nigeria (or whereever this particular scammer claimed the money was).

This raises some interesting questions. If my read is correct, then the couple in question certainly didn't profit from the scam at all, and didn't even know they were being scammed. As we've seen in the past, victims of 419 scams are often so convinced by the scam that even when the whole thing is explained to them, they still believe the scammers are willing to give them money -- something that's been found to be true in historical scams like the infamous Drake's Fortune.

However, if that's the case, the couple in question didn't know it was a scam, and wasn't directly profiting from getting others involved (though, they ignorantly thought they were). So... are they victims or are they scammers? Or both?

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Latest Nigerian Email Scam: Renters Checks

from the sneaky,-sneaky,-sneaky dept

It's been quite fascinating, over the years, to see how the various "Nigerian" scammers have adapted and evolved their strategies. While variations on the originals exist, over time we keep seeing new scams show up. They started, obviously, with the traditional 419 "advance fee" scam, asking you to help them get more money out of Nigeria. Then, they morphed by paying attention to current events and making the scams more closely related to events happening in the news. Then there was the scam where they would buy something on eBay, but send a forged check that was much, much higher than the purchase price, asking you to send back the difference. Of course, the victim would only find out later that the check was a fake and that he had been cheated out of all the money sent (as well as the value of the sold item). Then, they started combining phishing and advance fee scams, to make you think your friends needed money wired urgently to Nigeria. Oh, and who can forget when they started a scam that didn't prey on the victims' greed, but their love of cute puppies? Awwwwww...

The latest is that they're placing ads for apartments to rent in high rent districts, and then asking prospective tenants to do a money transfer to a friend or relative to prove you have the money available. That seems legit -- and since it's to a friend or a relative, the prospective tenant knows that the money is safe. Except, once they've forwarded on a scanned copy of the transfer payment receipt, the scammers go to the bank pretending to be the recipient and withdraw the money. It's a bit more complicated, but again, it's a scam where the victim is easily tricked because there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what's happening.

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Nigerian Official Blames The Victims Of Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Scams

from the blame-the-victim dept

It still amazes us that people still fall for so-called Nigerian advance-fee 419 scam emails. I'd actually noticed that I'd stopped getting such emails offering me millions for helping smuggle gold out of the country, but in the last week there's been a new bunch of them -- and apparently people still fall for them. According to a Nigerian diplomat in Australia, he's just as amazed, and thus thinks the victims are equally to blame and deserve jailtime. He claims that the government "frowns" on these scams, and spends plenty of time trying to track down the scammers -- but we've been reporting on Nigerian gov't claims for years and years and they never seem to get very far in stopping the scammers. But, still, he claims that the victims are equally at fault.

While it's true that most of these scams prey on people's greed (they're basically roping people into "stealing" money), it's a bit extreme to claim they should be thrown in jail for being conned. If you read a book like Drake's Fortune, which describes a similar scam nearly a century ago that was incredibly effective, you realize how easily people are fooled into these things. And we've even seen cases where victims still believe the scammers after they've lost everything and the whole scam has been explained to them. That's how thoroughly convincing these scams can be.

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Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Scammers Move To... LinkedIn?

from the suckers,-suckers-everywhere dept

It still seems difficult to believe that anyone falls for those "Nigerian" advance fee 419 scams, but time and time again we read about smart people who should know better who fall for them. And reports come in about just how much money these scams make. And, the really amazing thing, is that many of the victims are so convinced by the scam that even after it's all revealed, and they've lost all their money, they still believe the scammer's story. However, times are getting harder to convince people about these scams over unsolicited email, so apparently they're starting to move onto social networks, including business social networks like LinkedIn. Perhaps I just use LinkedIn in a very different manner than most people, but I find it hard to believe that if some random unknown person suddenly "connected" to you on LinkedIn and offered you a cut of a multi-million dollar stash, you wouldn't be suspicious.

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Latest 419 Scam: Asking Your Friends For A Loan

from the HOPE-TO-READ-FROM-YOU… dept

It's been interesting to see how the so-called Nigerian 419 scams have evolved over time as people have become more familiar with them. In the past, it's often been difficult to feel too sorry for victims, as they were taken in by their own greed at the possibility of sharing in a large amount of illicitly gained loot. However, it appears the recent variations play less on greed and much more on charitable emotions. Last month, we wrote about Nigerian scammers exploiting the idea of cute puppies needing a home, and now comes a report that the latest trick is to combine phishing with a 419 scam to try to get your friends to wire money to Nigeria, thinking it's to help you. It starts with a typical phishing scam, in an attempt to get your webmail password. Then, once the scammers have access to your webmail, they send an urgent email to all of your contacts, saying that you are in Nigeria, and you lost your wallet and are in serious trouble, and are requesting a quick loan wired to Nigeria. Of course, the emails seem to be sent out to just about everyone, meaning that many people will realize it's not true. At least in the example above, it's written in typically bad 419-scam "English," making it obviously fake. However, it's likely that this will continue to evolve and get better as well -- again, preying on people's best interests rather than their greed.

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