A Business Model Involving Free File Sharing
Public Employees' Private Email Stays Private

Nigerian Scammers Following Up Spam With Telemarketing Calls

Scams

from the how-nice dept

Fri, Sep 12th 2003 10:57am — Mike Masnick
Sick of having Nigerian princesses offering you millions over email? They might start telemarketing you as well. Admittedly, there's only a single data point, but Silicon.com is reporting the story of one man who says he started receiving anxious phone calls from Nigerian 419 scammers trying to follow up on their emails. I imagine they won't pay much attention to the "Do Not Call" list in the US either. Anyway, it sounds to me like they're getting more desperate, if they're resorting to phone calls. I'd always wondered how they could possibly keep this scam going. I get at least five such emails a day, and at some point the scam really is going to have hit just about everyone. So, the fact that they're shifting to more direct contact (and which they can't do in quite the same bulk) suggests the old methods aren't working quite as well any more.
4 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Ed Halley, 12 Sep 2003 @ 11:49am

    No Subject Given

    If they're "following up" on their emails, then the guy responded to the first-tier with at least a valid phone number. Is there anyone who hasn't seen five of these per week or more?

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Bob Bechtel, 13 Sep 2003 @ 4:47am

    Scam within a scam

    Nah, what happened was that the Nigerians bought a "get rich quick" scheme from a shady character. The scheme describes how to get started and gives a sample letter and a 1-800 number (or the equivalent in Nigeria) to use for faxing. However, the 800 number switches over immediately to a multi-dollar per minute line making the shady character a bunch of money. Well, I can dream, can't I?

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    mailman, 15 Sep 2003 @ 12:13am

    Re: No Subject Given

    Only 5 a week? I get around 30 a day of these! (Very few of them Nigerian these days though)

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


A Business Model Involving Free File Sharing
Public Employees' Private Email Stays Private
Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

Friday

19:39 Important Announcement: Techdirt Is Migrating To A New Platform (0)
More arrow

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.