nigerian money transfer scams...

[joko]

now, i know they are all fakes and scams and hilariously stupid...

but just curious...is there ever any reason why one might be genuine?
could there ever be a need to transfer millions to a stranger in another country for safety etc - or just something along those lines?

i just wonder whatever gave them the idea that this was even remotely feasible?

ive never read one that sounds even slightly believable, but did they start off as genuine requests and then got hijacked or something?

is there a grain of reality to the general idea?

the whole thing sounds ludicrous, but it must have began somewhere mustn't it...?

any thoughts?

(i dont need to be told its a scam...i know that...i just want to know where the idea came from)

cheers

[Mick-Talbot]

Nigeria?

[bigfoot3000]

I often thought the same thing joko, Maybe the scammers just sit around thinking of idea after idea till a viable one comes up, or maybe they could be watching tv, reading a magazine etc..and then suddenly jump up and have that Eureka moment.

[sometimesit]

I can't find much but this link has some background

info.http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nige
rianscam.asp


'The origins of this scam are widely debated with some suggesting it started in Nigeria during the 1970s, while others suggest its origins go back hundreds of years to other confidence scams such as the Spanish prisoner scam.'


So to sum up the scam is a variation on scams that could go back hundreds of years.
What I think makes the thing seem really silly is the internet and the large scale of the operation now.

[joko]

i wonder if more people would be taken in if they were written in perfect english - without all the nonsense excessive praise and apparent impatient rudeness, and came from say australia or the US...? and were for not such massive amounts...?

[joggerjayne]

It would be a bummer if you really were Nigerian ...

... and you had a large sum of money that you needed to get out of the country ...

... and you were willing to pay ... etc etc etc

[bigfoot3000]

Joko check this out, especially the one called "Adaku"

Great site about scammers!

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

[joko]

haha i saw that site ages ago but lost the name, thanks for reminding me ...ive been looking at the scambuster419.co.uk site too, its pretty funny as well, check it out

[dr b]

And yet, sometimes it works:

http://www.katu.com/news/34292654.html

[bigfoot3000]

Dr b that's sad, I know someone personally that had this scam tried on them using their mothers apparent death who this person had lost contact with and was now living on the other side of the planet and they tried to say the mother had left a large amount and the lawyer was trying to get in contact to share the inheritance etc... How the hell do they get these details? Oh well just got to be paraniod and vigilant!

[Barmaid]

Another great site is 419eater.com. Some absolutely hilarious baits on there.

I don't know how it started, but I do know that even some very clever people can be tricked. When i was working for a major charity (who shall remain nameless), I received a letter from a Nigerian Barrister with a copy Will informing us we had been left millions. Anything over £500k hit my desk immediately as the manager. I took one look at the will and decided it was a forgery and promptly sent it to the authorities (the witnesses kind of gave it away "Prince Charles" and "Michael Mouse" although I suspect this in fact had been passed to them by a baiter who "de-educate" the scammers). However I had one helluva job persuading the Director of Fundraising that we had NOT inherited a massive whack and we about to be asked for an advance fee. Unfortunately a less well known charity fell exactly for that scam and lost a considerable amount of money.

I suspect it has grown because they can get away with it. A member of my bf's family is currently being targeted by a "love lad" - although that is now being dealt with I do know that she has sent him cash which she will never see again.

[andy-hughes]

The scam works purely on the law of averages.

If you ask one hundred people to give you a pound, and ninety-nine of the refuse, and one agrees, then you may consider that to be acceptable odds.

If you extrapolate the logic of that concept and increase the 'ask' to an indeterminate amount (i.e. how ever much you can screw out of a stranger's bank account) and up the ask to hundreds of millions of people - and remember you only need one to make it workwhile - then the chances of finding someone who will play along are more than good enough to make it worth a punt.

The sad thing is, individuals who would never consider themselves naiive or stupid in any way have been taken in by just such scams as these, and remember, you only need one - any more is a big fat bonus.

It is a brilliant idea, relying on the inherent goodness of a large part of the world's population overcoming their natural suspision of something being too good to be true.

BTW, my good friend Mr Kodogo is suffering from a cash transer empasse at the moment, so do mail me for some details, and I'll cut you in.