Nigeria 419 email scams
From the
International Herald Tribune comes a message from Nigeria's Finance Minister, delivered at the Davos conferences:
bq. Fed up with e-mail scams purportedly from Nigeria, the country's government will soon announce new plans to trap and prosecute cybercriminals.
bq. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's finance minister, said she had led planning for a campaign against e-mail fraud that will enlist law enforcement officials and include a global advertising campaign to warn potential victims.
bq. "As Nigeria's minister of finance, I am extremely angry at these people who conduct fraud by e-mail," Ngozi said in an interview at the World Economic Forum. "We will no longer allow them ruin our country's reputation."
But she has more to say:
bq. For all her anger at those behind the scheme, however, Ngozi said she had little sympathy for the victims. "Those responding are driven by simple greed to join a criminal activity," Ngozi said. "Most of the letters offer access to money supposedly stolen from the Nigerian government."
bq. In addition to readily joining a criminal undertaking, Ngozi said anyone responding to the ads lacked common sense to an extent that astounds most Nigerians.
bq. "In Nigeria, we are always amazed that anyone could be so stupid as to respond to such an offer," Ngozi said. "People do not deserve to lose their money, but you do have to be extremely greedy and stupid to respond."
bq. In addition to the financial credibility of such transactions, bad grammar should be a quick tip-off to potential victims, she added. "These messages are written in such poor English with bad spelling," Ngozi said. "Don't they realize that Nigeria was a British colony and anyone with an education speaks perfect English?"
Wired magazine had an article a number of months ago saying that the 419 scams were actually funding the growth of internet cafés in Nigeria. For more 419 fun, there have been a
group of people running reverse scams -- scamming the scammers. The victims
are not the only greedy ones and
some of the emails going back and forth between the scammer and the pigeon are wonderful...
Posted by DaveH at January 24, 2004 9:54 PM