I Was A Nigerian Email Scammer...
from the confession-time dept
There have been a bunch of articles on Techdirt recently about the Nigerian 419 email scam, designed to trick greedy people out of their money. A few months ago we had some detailed articles on how the scam works. Today, Wired has an interview with a former email scammer who explains how the con works. What he says pretty much agrees with the description from a few months ago. It's a fairly large operation, that is run like a business, with many different people playing different roles. This guy's job was just to write the letters. The scam, it seems, was part of his family's business. Most of the people involved don't see anything wrong with what they're doing, since they're scamming greedy people. The only major difference between the way he describes the plan, and the original article is that this group says the most important thing is convincing the victim to come to Nigeria. They help get them into the country illegally, and then will do anything they can to rob them blind.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
