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I can't help but feel that whilst there is a chance that this is a Nigerian scammer, he shouldn't instantly presume it is. He also directly warns to be wary of Nigerians, without providing any reasoning that this IS a Nigerian. Even if it was, it's not really very important to the story.
More records of people baiting Nigerian scammers: http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm . People on http://www.419eater.com/ lead these “4-1-9” scammers on wild goose chases deliberately to waste their time, in the hopes of distracting them from attacking other people and also just having fun.
The one where the guy got the scammer carve a C64 out of a block of wood is my favorite. It turned out pretty good.
"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that look fake, the absence of a payment in their account, fake emails from PayPal’s FBI department or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to have their money taken from them." I could easily see my parents falling for this. I don't think they deserve to have their money taken. Although, to be fair, I doubt my parents could set up and us…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're extremely grumpy. Blaming the victim is not some brave, heroic concept. People can imagine what it looks like to be in physical danger, and instinct can help them avoid the situations to some degree. It's hard to imagine what it's like being in an unsafe situation on the internet.
>>Blaming the victim is not some brave, heroic concept. Blaming the victim is bad only if you believe that blame is a zero sum game. Unfortunately, it is not. If you walk down a dark alleyway in New York at night alone and get mugged, the mugger is guilty of mugging you, but you're also guilty of being a silly goose. You don't gain immunity to blame simply because you were the victim.
Very (probably unintentionally) similar to: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
Excuse me, before we get all excited, where did Rebecca say that she is from Nigeria? Or are all internet scams now called 'Nigerian scams'? The number of times Nigeria was used in that post, you would think the Nigerian flag and Rebecca's Nigerian passport accompanied the emails.
REBECCA DID NOT SAY SHE WAS FROM NIGERIA. HOWEVER, MY LATE FATHER GOD BLESS HIM AZIZ ABDOULAYE WAS FINANCE MINISTER OF NIGERIA CRUELLY ASSASINATED BY THE CORRUPT OIL COMPANY AND HAS LEFT ME AND MY WIDOW MOTHER $75 MILLION AMERICA US DOLLAR IN HIS FORTUNE IN LONDON BANK ACCOUNT. KNOWING YOU ARE AN HONEST BUSINESS MAN OF AMERICA AND GOT YOUR NAME FROM A TRUSTED ASSOCIATE GOD BLESS HIM I WISH YOU TO BE MY AGENT BUSINESS…
I see that you know that I am an honest man of business and would kindly like to offer my services in transferring the aforementioned funds on your behalf for a mere ten percent. I have attached my passport and other details for your convenience and look forward to your response.
Yours,
Shiv R Metimbers
If the seller does happen to contact them, the conversation ends quickly once they aren't interested in paying since most sellers will have multiple offers to fall back on. While it doesn't solve the problem, we find that it raises the bar sufficiently to the point it currently isn't worth it for the scammers to bother.
This can go badly of course, taunting crooks is never the safe policy no matter how tempting it can be. The thing is, they are crooks, so they have already decided that they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they are willing to break.
Actually, wasting the scammers' time (at a minimal cost to you) is actually one of the better ways to combat this scam. The entire scheme is based on the scammers avoiding baiting people who will catch on to the scheme (hence the obvious signs of scammage -- they're a reverse intelligence task), while snaring people who are likely to fall prey. http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/study--obvious-nigeri... This redu…