419 Scammers Admit To 419 Scams In Order To Do More 419 Scamming

from the social-engineering? dept

Times must be getting tougher on the Nigerian 419 scammers. Every time I hear of someone being suckered by such a scam I wonder how they could possibly be fooled, as I seem to get between 20 to 30 of these emails every day - which has to make you a little suspicious. Besides, there have been so many news stories about the scam that I'm shocked anyone hasn't heard about it yet. Well, it appears that the scammers are trying to adjust to this new reality, and have even started sending out such emails with the subject line: "This letter can only define Nigeria Scam, a.k.a 419". The actual email tries to convince the recipient that while most 419 emails are scams, the reason they're so successful is that, in some cases, there really are Nigerian princesses sneaking money out of the country through random greedy westerners - and this email is one of the legitimate ones. What's scary about this is that it probably works on some people.
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  • identicon
    ben, 20 Jan 2004 @ 10:12am

    hah

    just after i read this, i got an email, from Barbara Ayesha wanting me to distribute the $18 million to charities for her that she couldn't trust her family with.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    eeyore, 20 Jan 2004 @ 12:13pm

    international flavor

    I got one from the Philippines yesterday, supposedly from the first wife of deposed president Estrada. Given how much money he is accused of squirreling away I'm really tempted...naah.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      aNonMooseCowherd, 20 Jan 2004 @ 7:12pm

      Re: international flavor

      Maybe the next one will claim to be trying to smuggle out Imelda Marcos's 6,000 pairs of shoes.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2004 @ 8:39pm

    No Subject Given

    A friend of mine had this to say to an associate of ours who, upon learning of the 419 scam, commented earnestly that he was glad to have learned this before he went ahead with the deal he had been working out with this nice person in Nigeria.

    "For further information consult scambusters.org, snopes.com, and your pituitary gland to reset your IS_SUCKER bit."

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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