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I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

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Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#101

Post by danso »

yojex wrote: post #30
FussyZeus wrote: post #10

Can anyone explain to me why these types of scams seem to always originate in Nigeria? Is there something particularly lax about their penal code regarding fraud or what?

Not sure why you're downvoted for an honest question. Take a look at this research paper linked above by another commenter on why scammers say they're from Nigeria: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

I second this paper. It's an easy read, even with its math. And more importantly, it's extremely intuitive: for me, it answered the question of if Nigerian scammers are already successful with obviously fake emails, why don't they just invest a little more effort into making the emails sound less outrageously fake?

The general answer: If the scam emails were more sophisticated, they would attract the attention of smarter, more connected folks. These folks would still end up bailing out, but now the scammer is out the time they spent furthering the scam.

But with a shitty, obviously scammy letter, you are only going to trick an extremely few recipients, but you have a much greater chance that they will actually send money.

The wrinkle that email adds to the scam is that only with email do we have a medium in which a 1 out of 100,000 response rate can still be profitable. Furthermore, there are no gatekeepers between email sender and recipient. You couldn't easily pull a Nigerian scam by spamming Facebook users' walls, because even the most gullible of those users are likely to have a friend who will see and report the scam.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#102

Post by alimw »

logicallee wrote: post #88
michael_h wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they won't. We can take over her finances if she is declared mentally incompetent . She's not mentally incompetent - she understands everything, but she just disagrees with the crucial bit: that the dude doesn't love her and is scamming her. As the judge told us yesterday : we are walking a fine line, taking over another person's autonomy, but it's not illegal to fall in love and do colossally stupid things.

(read to the end, I am not making the analogy you think.) In the country where I was born, in my personal opinion (so this is not a neutral comment) startups are considered scams. Actually a few people elsewhere have expressed similar opinions. So, when you and an "online friend" get together and spend your own time and money, they consider it a scam. Like, if you are working with/for someone, they should be paying y…

I'm not sure about the start-up analogy here, but it seems a good idea to me to encourage your mother-in-law to pay a visit to her supposed romantic interest.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#103

Post by xname2 »

michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

In China, there are also lots of scams targeting on the elders, but it is also common that the bank clerks will call the police and the police will call the family to prevent this kind of transactions from happening.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#104

Post by nkrisc »

logicallee wrote: post #89
michael_h wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not senile, but certainly a mental breakdown. Which makes 'seeing a doctor' easier said than done. She's not a gentle lady being tricked out of her cash, she's tenaciously ejecting her money to a dude she thinks she's going to marry, while everyone around her is making her miserable. The whole situation is beyond surreal.

Can you talk more about when and how many times they've met in person?

I imagine she has almost certainly not met anyone in person, that's how these scams work.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#105

Post by tiatia »

zyrthofar wrote: post #70
michael_h wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they won't. We can take over her finances if she is declared mentally incompetent . She's not mentally incompetent - she understands everything, but she just disagrees with the crucial bit: that the dude doesn't love her and is scamming her. As the judge told us yesterday : we are walking a fine line, taking over another person's autonomy, but it's not illegal to fall in love and do colossally stupid things.

But wouldn't that mean that you and your SO would inherit these debts when she dies, and there's nothing you can do about this? That's truly awful :(.

You can't inherit debt. At least you can't be forced to accept it. (You can select to reject any inheritance, be it positive or negative)

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#106

Post by tiatia »

brianwawok wrote: post #19
curiousdater wrote: post #17

Online dating can be rough if your brand new and a tech luddite. A friend of mine just went on a POF date. Before they met up he asked if she was a prostitute because he ended up meeting a few of those who posed as sincere dates. One thing that ticks me off especially Match.com and I can't believe I fell for it .. is that when your subscription expires they suddenly say this average to above average looking chick(one…

I think the legit dating sites go under, and the shady proper.

Isn't this called a market for lemons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#107

Post by kba »

whiddershins wrote: post #79
michael_h wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first day he messaged her, we told her it was a scam to take window's money. Four months later, when we discovered she had been talking to him in the intervening months, we showed her a few websites that detail exactly how the romance scam works (matching her situation exactly ). Last weekend, when we found out all of her money was gone, we had the police and adult protective services come out and tell her point…

There's an interesting concept I read about, how members of doomsday cults tend to believe MORE strongly after the doomsday date passes and everything is shown to be false. It's something about cognitive dissonance. I wonder if there is a known way to convince someone who is in this state. Cult debunkers and such might have thoughts?

William Miller predicted Jesus' return in the year 1843. When that didn't happen, he adjusted his calculations to mean March 21, 1844. When that failed, it became October 22, 1844. He kept modifying his prediction whenever it failed. You'd think being constantly proven wrong would make people stop believing him.

That's how the Seventh-day Adventist Church was started. A church that today has more than 18 million members.

You can't reason people out of something they didn't reason themselves into.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#108

Post by tokai »

ryuker16 wrote: post #71
michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

I think shes gone senile. Go see a doctor.

That or a delusional disorder with a pinch of erotomania.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#109

Post by dahart »

UnfalseDesign wrote: post #56

There seems to be a lot of commenters here saying Johnny is playing the long con. Whereas I don’t entirely disagree, I think they are missing the point of the story. The point is not just that Johnny’s life improved from below average to average. The other point is that Maria’s life improved from average to above average. At an age where many Americans are retiring and spending their days trying to stay busy, Maria i…

Thanks for this. I don't understand the presumptuous armchair commentary concluding its a long con. That seems like the least likely explanation of what actually happened, and seems to miss the entire point of the article. Maria chose to meet and help Johnny and in effect willingly gave him a scholarship. Good for her, I aspire to be more charitable like that, and not be so pessimistic to suggest that someone's conscious willing charity and scholarship and financial aid amount to them being scammed.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#110

Post by kba »

voxic11 wrote: post #100
zyrthofar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wouldn't that mean that you and your SO would inherit these debts when she dies, and there's nothing you can do about this? That's truly awful :(.

In the United States and most countries I'm aware of debts cannot be inherited.

I think most places, debts can be inherited voluntarily, but you can't cherry pick.

If your dead aunt had a Mercedes 190SL, but also owes $200,000, you can either take both or nothing.

But yeah – they won't end up in debt themselves, unless they choose to.

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