Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 142 posts

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#121

Post by smsm42 »

SimHacker wrote: post #84
smsm42 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know there's a difference between being religious and asking Hearts game to tell you if you should participate in the 419 scam? Most religions actually frown very hard of those kind of things. For Avraamic religions, there's a direct prohibition of such practices in Leviticus 19:26.

Most religions frown on bottomless greed and exploiting and persecuting the poor instead of helping them, but look at how Rush Limbaugh, leader of the Republican Party, hates the Pope for spreading the word of Jesus.

I doubt Limbaugh hates the Pope for spreading the word of Jesus. I'd imagine rather Limbaugh thinks that what the Pope said is not the word of Jesus, but the word of this particular Pope, and since Limbaugh is not, as far as I know, a Catholic, he is not obliged to equate the two. I think Limbaugh, as any person, is allowed to disagree with the Pope, especially in political matters, and why you describe such disagreement as "hate" is a mystery for me.

As for the questions of greed, the Catholic church is not one of the poorest establishments on Earth, and has various episodes in its history which do not look very good to modern eye. However, such is the nature of men - it is natural to expect people to deviate from high morals and sometimes be greedy even if their religion rejects greed, and sometimes be hateful even if their religion opposes hate. That, however, does not make greed or hate religious institutions, and does not make them property of a particular religion.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#122

Post by smsm42 »

conradfr wrote: post #51
DigitalSea wrote: post #20

Sadly people are going to rip into this guy for telling his story, I feel bad for him. I know there are many of us who know what it's like to be down and out, desperate and willing to do anything to get back to the top (especially if you have a spouse and kids). You have to remember 10 years ago not many people knew about these types of scams, while they probably don't work as well nowadays, once upon a time many peo…

Feeling bad to an extend. After all, he knowingly wanted to participate in illegal money laundering. I don't think this kind of activity ends well for ordinary Joe. Greed and easy money are powerful motivators though. There was (is ?) this Nigeria scam where Nigerians would buy electronic stuff from eBay at above market prices and sending fake PayPal emails to make the seller send his object. I worked as a CSR at Pay…

The fake paypal thing is rather inventive. I could totally imagine being fooled by such thing if I were busy and not paying attention properly to the details. Especially if the email said something like "the transaction would appear on the website in 1-2 businiess days". If the price diff is not too large it won't raise any red flags - ok, so some dude wants to pay $10 more, nothing special.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#123

Post by [deleted] »

tedunangst wrote: post #101
wyclif wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, this was a decade ago. What were you doing then? 419 scams weren't nearly as widely-known at the time. I'm not suggesting you would have been duped, but lots of normals had no idea about these criminials. For instance, spam filtering wasn't a common part of life for most consumers with a PC.

Even in 2003 I didn't think it was a good idea to conspire with unknown parties to commit bank fraud.

[deleted]

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#125

Post by DanBC »

yaliceme wrote: post #95
columbo wrote: post #16

I'm glad the guy decided to tell his story. Most people are ashamed to admit that they fell victim to a hustler. They don't want to be seen as stupid, or get ridiculed by others. About the same time (ten years ago) I went in for a job interview that turned out to be a hustle. They promised they were looking for programmers (really generic, like they didn't know what they were asking for). When I showed up at the door…

Couldn't agree more. My mom almost got taken in by a classic Craigslist scam, which did a lot to make me appreciate how easy it can be for even smart people to fall prey (she's an IT professional, has an advanced degree, and is quite smart in general). Basically, she'd listed some furniture for sale. A guy contacted her with praise for the item and said he was a purchaser for a regional furniture reseller -- he finds…

> I told her it takes a few days for the check to fail.

In the UK a cheque is never safe. The money could have been in your account for months, but if the bank discovers the cheque was forged they'll claw back the money.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#126

Post by flym4n »

livingparadox wrote: post #9
flym4n wrote: post #4

Darwin's theory proven right once again

Do explain how this prove's Darwin's theory... Or perhaps you meant that Darwinian theory would conclude that this man is likely to purge himself from the genetic pool?

Yes that was the point

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#127

Post by Rudism »

mattm wrote: post #44
the_watcher wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying to Nigeria to do this is the most extreme I have ever heard of. I do know one or two people who have been duped by the Nigerian scam emails, but just into sending money.

This was back in 2003. Probably the scammers eventually realized that there's no need to have the person come to Nigeria to give cash when they could just wire it.

I think they still want people to come on the hope that they can hold them for ransom and make even more money.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#128

Post by mikeash »

smsm42 wrote: post #119
mikeash wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"38% of Americans say that they have done something because God told them to" http://today.yougov.com/news/2013/10/25/god-told-me/ Prayer is absolutely "telepathic communication to God" in at least one direction. Prayer is something you can do in complete silence, and God is still supposed to be able to hear you. In any other context we would call that "telepathy". The other direction is not quite as clear, but clear…

>>> Prayer is absolutely "telepathic communication to God" in at least one direction Which one would that be? If the prayer were God reading your mind, you didn't need to pray - God is omniscient, so He already knows what you're praying about. Moreover, He already knew what you would be praying about before you started. Why they are praying then, you ask? Try to answer this question (honestly, not jumping to the conv…

I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what you're objecting to now. Let me lay out my claims in a simple fashion:

1. Most if not all Abrahamic religions hold that you can effectively pray in silence and without doing anything besides thinking your prayer.

2. Prayer is communicating with God and communicating by pure thought is telepathy.

3. God is expected to reply in some way, and you're encouraged to look for and interpret the reply.

Can you elaborate exactly which one(s) you have trouble with, and why?

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#129

Post by the_watcher »

betterunix wrote: post #107
the_watcher wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can believe a corrupt official would reach out to a random person for help, just not that they would have any intention of honoring the bargain. I'd be worried about being killed as a loose end more than anything.

"I can believe a corrupt official would reach out to a random person for help" Why is that? I would have thought that a corrupt official would be reaching out to his cronies, friends, cousins, etc. when he needed help with a scam.

Ease of denying it. Ease of eliminating them. There are stories from my friends in South America of cocaine being slipped into bags before travelling through security, hoping innocent random tourists will be caught and they can push large quantities through in the aftermath. Also, I would assume cronies would be involved in finding and setting up a random person.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#130

Post by Crito »

tedunangst wrote: post #110
mikeash wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so "magic" is acceptable as long as it's "magic we endorse". Looking at it from the outside, there's no serious difference.

Sure. But now you know how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.

It doesn't make it any more ridiculous, that is the point. It only makes it into a form of magic that is not endorsed by mainstream christians, but it isn't actually any weirder.
Post reply on HN