What Honest Nigerians Can Do to Stop Nigerian Spam?
from the questions-questions-questions dept
We've written about "Nigerian" 419 advance fee scams quite a bit around here -- sometimes pointing out how little has really been done to stop them. Now, a Nigerian Techdirt reader named Seun writes in to point out "A discussion by honest Nigerians about what they can do to reduce the incidence of scams coming from their country has been started on a large Nigerian Forum. Techdirt readers are invited to contribute to this discussion. 'We want to make the scams stop so we can be trusted again. We don't want to be left out of the Internet revolution taking place all over the world.' " Anyone have anything worthwhile to contribute? Personally, I'm in the middle of reading the book Drake's Fortune, which is about the equivalent of the 419 scam from nearly a century ago: people buying into the non-existent fortune from Sir Francis Drake's non-existent estate. It has all the elements of today's 419 scams -- and it went on for years and years, with some people never convinced they were actually conned (just like we hear about these days). It seems like there are always going to be these types of scams, and there are always more greedy and gullible suckers to fall for such scams.
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That's the false reverse implication again
You can find it everywhere: since all rapers are male, then all male are rapers, since all drug addicts have used soft drugs before switching to hard ones, then all users of soft drugs will become addicts, etc etc. ad nauseam.
We Italians have passed through this in the past (since all mafia people are Italians, then all Italians are in the mafia), and I am not quite sure how (and, actually, whether) we managed to cancel this idea. I am just noticing that there are 128 millions of Nigerians and, I don't know, 200, 300, maybe 1000 scammers in total. Make it even 5000 scammers, this makes one every 25000 Nigerians: not exactly an epidemic! :-)
Besides, my daily quote of 411 scams does not necessarily come from Nigeria: I have been offered quite recently to partake the fortunes of departed South American politicians, Russian tycoons, and a number of other odd nationalities. Also, at least once a week I win some incredible amount of money in Dutch lotteries I never knew I was participating. How lucky must I be?
Just one guy (Italian, male, and soft drug user, so not exactly trustable!)
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Arrest them
I read a blog once where some guy living in africa received one of these and played along pretending to set up the deal. he eventually arranged to meet him at an airport and took a photo of him and gave it to the authorities.
If there was a policing address we could forward all this crap to, where they would arrange sting operations on them, the motivation for perpetrating these scams would be drastically reduced.
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Some Suggestions Already Recieved
2) Scam baiting - I don't think this is very safe.
3) Promoting the honest Nigerian businesses and websites out there, to draw people's attention away from the badd guys.
4) Reporting known scammers to the authorities.
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419 positive
For a 419 scam to be successful, the scamee has to be greedy - but also crooked.
Myself, I think they get what they deserve, and find 419 scammers to be overall useful to society in helping to keep the rest of us honest.
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Greed it not required
The real lesson here is to really be able to trust the people you do business with.
That is lacking in todays world of large deals and quick action.
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Re: Some Suggestions Already Recieved
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Re: 419 positive
Get your head on straight. 419 scammers aren't nice, they're dangerous. Not all 419 scammers tell them they can get x amount of money. Some are just trying to take advantage of people's genuine kindness.
Try reading up on it and think again.
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