It's hard to believe but apparently people are still falling for the Nigerian email scam. Reuters has a story saying it is costing millions to UK residents and I'm guessing the same is true in the US. Since you are no doubt reading this on a computer and are therefore hooked up to the internet and probably have an email account somewhere, chances are you have been offered the chance to get risk via an URGENT MESSAGE.
The recipient is told they will earn a commission in exchange for aiding the sender in transferring funds.The catch is that the victim has to send their bank details or even cash to help "pay-off corrupt officials". The result is that the criminal often strips the victim's bank account.
"The frauds are often mischievously inventive and run on an industrial scale," the report said.
Among the variations, victims have been offered the chance to benefit from a share of Saddam Hussein's family savings and even money "looted" from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Reuters)
A report from Chatham House suggests racism is partially to blame:
"The fraudsters play on the enduring myth of African infantilism and simple-mindedness: a European who believes in this might find it unremarkable that a Nigerian holding tens of millions of dollars would be clueless about what to do with it. In such circumstances, what could be more natural than to turn to the clever white person for help?"
I'm not sure whether to believe this or not. If true, then I don't feel so bad for the victims. But I'm guessing this is a not the main issue. It's not even greed. It's a desperate search to get out from under that is becoming a part of everyday life for so many. State run lotteries are only marginally better since it is a sure thing people will lose, on average. Usually they are people who can least afford it, which is why they play to begin with.
And sometimes justice is served, speaking poetically. I remember a story in the Boston Globe a couple of years ago (couldn't find it on a search, alas) about a Chinese post-doc at Dana Farber Cancer Center who convinced his researcher colleagues at the height of the SARS outbreak that he knew a company in China that was about to announce a SARS vaccine. The development was a secret until financing could be arranged. They gave him money so they could cash in, too. There was no such company. He had scammed his co-workers out of $600,000. And what did he do with the money?
He sent it to the Nigerians so he oculd make even more.
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I once read a long serial about a man who was trapped by these guys. Basically, he was strung along, continually asked for smallish (though not small) amounts to prove his bona fides, or to help get funds released, or to bribe officials. His name was passed to other scammers, and he gave some money to them, too. When he despaired of getting the money he was promised a scammer persuaded himn to "invest" more to recover the amount he spent. In all this he was relatively lucky. One way these stories end is that the victim is persuaded to fly overseas to meet the scammers - who hold a gun to his head and force him to withdraw all his money and give it to them.
He didn't sound especially greedy, except to the extent we can all fall for the promise of a great deal. He mostly sounded naive and excessively trusting. He was motivated at least partially by compassion aroused by the sad stories he was initially told.
I recall hearing about an Englishman that goes around scamming the Nigerians for fun...and a little cash. It was quite funny, and at least one Nigerian was photographed holding a sign that read in English, "I am a thief", if I remember the story correctly. Robin Hood anyone?
The scammers are getting scammed too. A couple years ago someone thought it would be fun to 'play' with a Nigerian scammer, and managed to reverse-scam money out of him (not a lot, but it was unusual enough to make the papers.)
Now there is a whole community of reverse-scammers who scam these scammers for 'trophies' - usually silly photographs, but sometimes they manage to get some interesting artwork too.
J-dog - I think that the Englishman you're thinking of runs the reverse-scammer site I've linked.
Falling for scams like this can be an early sign of dementia. My mother-in-law, who in her prime would *never* have been taken in, lost a lot of money to "Canadians" arranging lottery opportunities for her.
Nigerian spam is now a comedy routine.
http://tinyurl.com/t6ead
LM Wanderer
So, given the scientific community on this site, and the above mentioned publicity of these scams, not to mention the reverse-scamming, couldn't we conclude that anyone duped by these guys at this time is clearly demonstrating Darwinian evolution? I mean jeez...
See http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/njy/212013545.html
best of craigslist : Engineer Robson
And the problem may still escalate... Check this short story published in Nature's "Futures" last year. :-)
It's a mistake to assume that everyone has access to the same sources of information that you do. Also, if you want to talk about evolution, the techniques used by scammers evolves to take advantage of new resources and environments. You and I might not be fooled by an official piece of spam, but our parents don't have our level of sophistication for this stuff. This is a generational thing, not one related to either intelligence or genetics.
You might have occasion to regret your attitude some day, when you've just given your saved biocredits to help an AI incorporate George Soros' mind into a clone brain so that he can access a secret slush fund...
The very first email I ever recieved, that wasn't some internal office thing, was from a Nigerian scammer. This was way back in the Spring of 2000. I'd never heard of Nigerian scammers, not back then. Nor had anyone I knew.
Yes, I deleted it immediately.
Well, duh.
Here is Harry, spoofter, calling one of these Nigerian bozos.
Had an interesting chat with a Nigerian email spammer this afternoon. Sounds like a good deal. he writes.
British Humor, live.
Scroll down 1/4 of the way till you see either a picture of a telephone or a blank black screen, date, Fri Oct 13. the clip is from You tube.
http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_chasemeladies_archive.html
I had the misfortune to overhear one end of conversation with a man who had been scammed and desperately was trying to get his money back. What was horrible about the experience was that the scammed person probably knew he was scammed but stayed on the phone repeating his claims while on the other end they apparently kept giving him assurances and thought because he was still on the line maybe they could get more money out of him. Both sides united in a perverse optimism/naivety.
This is one problem without a socially feasible mitigation that I can see. Because the only way I can see to really undermine this, substantively and across the board, is to teach people to "think security" from a very early age indeed, and teach them to do so reflexively.
That implies analytical thinking, creative or "outside the box" thinking, and a rejection of the concept of blind trust.
You start teaching that in preschool, systematically, which is what my "modest proposal" would require, and you're going to undermine the foundation of nearly every organized religion anywhere in the world, and every myth of state.
Because most of our high level social structuring is built upon the uncritical acceptance, early on, of lies. Just about everywhere in the world.
If you think that America doesn't have a state myth that is as false as the contention that black is white, you haven't listened carefully to people talking about a whole range of topics. For a particularly grating example, the American Revolution and why the revolutionaries won it.
Better be careful, Randy. :) You're on the invisible edge of becoming an Enemy of the State when you talk about von Steuben, you know. :) They'll probably pick you up the week after they do me.
Teachers who attempt anything like this while the kids are still small are liable to have a very short professional future. My mother did this when the kids were considerably older, mid- to late teens, from a position of overwhelming political strength. There was literally no way she could overtly be sacked, without her making a sort of mistake she both understood, and wasn't about to make.
But eventually her dedicated enemies in the District administration found a way.
"think security" ?
Why not "think honesty" ?
Bribery and bank-fraud, and conspiracy to the same, are not only immoral, they are illegal.
Well, Greg, not to knock your basic idea. But in order to pass that bar with any real reliability, you have to get most of the society's role models to "behave honesty".
Until you can do that, getting most youngsters to "think honesty" is going to founder on the reefs of "monkey see, monkey do".
A number of years ago, we had a friend who had a financial position with city governmentt. He was taken in by one of these scams--and used city money, thinking he was investing and would make more for the town. Instead, when he learned the truth, he confessed, lost his job, the court case, his family, and then took his life. It was a very sad lesson.
Which story reinforces my basic point.
People will be a lot better motivated to do the honest thing when they understand how, and why, it can also save their asses.
In a world absolutely full up with public dishonesty, beginning the teaching of honesty with high level abstractions is about a effective as beginning the teaching of mathematics with high level abstractions.
And I think that most here present remember the sorry fate of the "New Math" curriculums of four decades ago.