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Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

research.microsoft.com

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Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#51

Post by usemailgun »

S4M wrote: post #38

One thing I have been wanting to do for a long time about Nigerian like scams, but never got around doing it, was the following: 1. create some bait email accounts from gmail, yahoo, and so on, and expose them somewhere on internet so they get harvested by scammers. 2. write a dumb program that is able to do some primitive parsing of the emails from the scammers, and reply to them. For example, let's say the email fr…

If you're having problems with code to send and receive email then check out http://www.mailgun.com

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#52

Post by cgio »

logicchains wrote: post #50
cgio wrote: post #43

I am writing an article about the "art" of business writing, where I use this analysis to refute the usual consulting wisdom of making everything simple to grasp, even if that means taking things out of context. My argument is that sophisticated meaningful writing on difficult concepts acts as filter to identify the readers (and potential business relationships) that will be more willing to pursue visionary projects…

Interestingly, I've seen the same argument applied as a refutation to the traditional argument that dating site profiles should be kept short and simple. Perhaps it's applicable to writing in general.

Definitely it applies to all kinds of writing, where a feedback loop is desirable, in order to establish a communication channel. In this class, the only thing specific to business writing, is that you try to establish a communication channel with a view to building a business relationship. Nevertheless, I believe there are types of writing where feedback is not desirable. When I write poetry for example, I would rather not hear from anyone who has read something I wrote.

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#53

Post by bosky101 »

To get a sense of how big a problem this is - americans reportedly had to recover 2 Billion USD* as a result of nigerian scams in 2013 alone, followed by China at $1750M, UK at $1210M and India at $870M.

What % of that was recovered is unknown.

Any team recovering even a small percentage of this makes it a fine acquisition target for the biggest banks in the world for a solution that works.

time saved in prevention of fraud; is time saved for banks not handling fraud, angry customers or hiring lawyers or training staff.

Expect one team applying to YC, trying to tackle this problem.

[*] See page 33 of http://www.ultrascan-agi.com/public_html/html/pdf_files/Pre-...

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#54

Post by userbinator »

sehrope wrote: post #2

Including typos in the spam messages falls in this same category. If seeing typos in an "official communication" triggers your alarm bells then you probably would not fall for whatever scamola it's a part of. It'd be in their interests to get you to drop off early.

This reminds me of a lot of malware like fake AVs and ransomware - very poor spelling and grammar throughout (E.g. "You Computer Is Infected!!!" comes up often.) Although in that case, it might actually be the extent of their English skills since most of this tends to come from non-native-English countries like the far East.

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#55

Post by marvy »

S4M wrote: post #46
eukaryotia wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complexity/frequency ratio (As in, complexity of the bot over frequency of spam) seems a little low to spend time writing something like this. A manual solution would probably be better.

Not really, the goal is to have lots of emails responding to the scammers, so they don't know who to pay attention to, so that's hard to have a manual process for that (and there's already 419eaters).

So basically, spam the spammers? :)

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#56

Post by eru »

aaron695 wrote: post #49
kinkora wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember what the website is exactly and I am currently at work now so I won't be able to google it up but there was a person that use to do this except that he didn't use a bot but "bait" the scammers himself. It is utterly hilarious. What he does is he replies to a "scam email" and most of the scammers will do anything once they see an actual human being replying to their spam email. He obviously leads them…

I use to think it was funny messing with people from poor countries who participated in activities that wasted our time for little $ benefit to themselves but not so much any more. Humiliating other humans beings for enjoyment isn't a great trait to encourage. These sites are also, whether that say they 'aren't' or not, are racist on some level. I'm sure there are some real a@#holes participating and running these sc…

> I'm sure there are some real a@#holes participating and running these scams but often the people on the ground are just human beings who have no other way to earn money.

So the bot is probably a better idea than targeted humiliation. Making crime quietly unprofitable is a good thing.

(You can help with Nigerian development, eg by giving to Doctors without Borders or other approaches.)

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#57

Post by zhte415 »

kinkora wrote: post #39
S4M wrote: post #38

One thing I have been wanting to do for a long time about Nigerian like scams, but never got around doing it, was the following: 1. create some bait email accounts from gmail, yahoo, and so on, and expose them somewhere on internet so they get harvested by scammers. 2. write a dumb program that is able to do some primitive parsing of the emails from the scammers, and reply to them. For example, let's say the email fr…

I can't remember what the website is exactly and I am currently at work now so I won't be able to google it up but there was a person that use to do this except that he didn't use a bot but "bait" the scammers himself. It is utterly hilarious. What he does is he replies to a "scam email" and most of the scammers will do anything once they see an actual human being replying to their spam email. He obviously leads them…

The Register have a fair few number of 419er stories: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=419+site%3Awww.theregister.co.uk

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#58

Post by spain »

estel wrote: post #31
Ygg2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? These messages are sent en masse, and they aren't really hard to write up.

That's referring to the time that the scammer needs if the recipient falls for their bait and initiates contact. You only want the truly gullible to send that first email, or it would be a waste of time for the scammer to talk to all the people who wouldn't wire transfer their money a few days/weeks later.

After reading your reply the whole paper made sense to me, thank you.

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#59

Post by digitalengineer »

eru wrote: post #56
aaron695 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use to think it was funny messing with people from poor countries who participated in activities that wasted our time for little $ benefit to themselves but not so much any more. Humiliating other humans beings for enjoyment isn't a great trait to encourage. These sites are also, whether that say they 'aren't' or not, are racist on some level. I'm sure there are some real a@#holes participating and running these sc…

> I'm sure there are some real a@#holes participating and running these scams but often the people on the ground are just human beings who have no other way to earn money. So the bot is probably a better idea than targeted humiliation. Making crime quietly unprofitable is a good thing. (You can help with Nigerian development, eg by giving to Doctors without Borders or other approaches.)

Wait, what? No thoer way to earn money? These are common thieves looking for victims to rob them out of as much money as they can. People with skill, a PC, access to the internet and good social skills.

Re: Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They Are from Nigeria? (2012)

#60

Post by seizethecheese »

S4M wrote: post #38

One thing I have been wanting to do for a long time about Nigerian like scams, but never got around doing it, was the following: 1. create some bait email accounts from gmail, yahoo, and so on, and expose them somewhere on internet so they get harvested by scammers. 2. write a dumb program that is able to do some primitive parsing of the emails from the scammers, and reply to them. For example, let's say the email fr…

Sounds like a good use-case for mechanical turk.
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