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I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me
- InYan 10y agoNext stop in Russia, tovarisch!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- meira 10y agoBBC?
- amelius 10y agoReminds me of [1], where a scammer was scammed into sending a photo with a fish on his head. [1] http://www.419eater.com/html/tope.htm http://www.419eater.com/html/tope.htm
- 4ad 10y agoThanks! This made my day.
- mattkevan 10y agoThe 419eater forums are something else. There's some incredible forum threads where members have perfected the art of scamming the scammers to such a degree that they can get them to travel for years at at time in the hope of a payoff, constructing such a pervasive reality bubble that they never suspect they're being played. Reading the forums, where the members are posting in real-time what they're doing and the correspondence from and to the scammers is highly engrossing. Prepare to lose a lot of time: https://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=66 https://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=66 It's hard not to feel sorry for them, scammers they may be.
- arm 10y agoHaha, if you thought that one was good, check out this¹ one where the scammer is scammed into sending a lot more than a photo (although he is scammed into doing that too)! ―――――― ¹ — http://www.419eater.com/html/joe_eboh.htm http://www.419eater.com/html/joe_eboh.htm
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- axonic 10y agoWith a little humanity, it all worked out ok. Didn't see that coming, but awesome. Now this guy can be an unemployed American graduate lol. I worked with a talented Nigerian radiologic technologist who abruptly left and went home to sell tires and car parts because he couldn't handle people being so cruel all the time (West Texas). I hope this guy has a better go of it than he did.
- finid 10y agounemployed American graduate? but the article says: Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago and got a job in the American oil sector.
- chakalakasp 10y agoCon men do tend to be practical. It'd have been much more shocking if he'd gotten a liberal arts degree.
- axonic 10y agoOil Sector... Being in south Texas, I believe I've made an incorrect assumption that readers would understand the potential volatility of such jobs, especially for a Nigerian immigrant. To clarify, I've watched friends and colleagues gain and lose employment like crazy and I've seen a lot of racism in the industry, among other things.
- martincmartin 10y agoI just wanted to thank you for your humble, insightful reply. Thanks for keeping HN civil! You're a real benefit to the community.
- flerchin 10y agoSounds like the Long Con became the Longer Con.
- mamadrood 10y agoWell, now I know how to reduce US students debts.
- gus_massa 10y agoI really hope you are wrong, but did the journalist check the following sentence or they take the report at face value? > Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago and got a job in the American oil sector.
- erikpukinskis 10y agoIt's an egregious journalistic fraud if they phrased it that way when what they really meant was "he claims he completed..." It would be a scandalous.
- emodendroket 10y agoI guess it's possible but "put me through college" seems like a pretty lousy con.
- morgante 10y agoSounds like a great con to me. It's literally worth tens of thousands of dollars.
- emodendroket 10y agoYeah, it's a lot of money to commit to up-front, but it's oddly specific, few people are gonna agree to it, and they could easily just ask to cut the checks directly to the school.
- tsylba 10y agoSomedays, A.I. could scam for us.
- FussyZeus 10y agoCan 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?
- yojex 10y agoNot 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/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
- danso 10y agoI 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.
- Kiro 10y agoThat was great and unexpected.
- denysonique 10y agoReminder that most advance-fee scams do not originate from Nigeria. Such articles like this one stereotype Nigeria in a falsely negative manner. >While Nigeria is most often the nation referred to in these scams, they may originate in other nations as well. For example, in 2006, 61% of Internet criminals were traced to locations in the United States, while 16% were traced to the United Kingdom and 6% to locations in Nigeria.[15]
- baakss 10y agoMicrosoft published a research paper on "Why Nigerian scammers say they're from Nigeria". Was that research paper a stereotype that painted Nigeria in a false and negative manner? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
- vezycash 10y agoThe paper is wrong. The reason they say they are from Nigeria is simple - "Follow the money." Those who don't have a means of collecting money from outside the country must mention Nigeria eventually. Those who've been in the game for a while, have the ability to collect money from any country the "victim" feels comfortable sending money to. Also, about the intentional grammatical error. It's not intentional. Many of them aren't educated. In fact, most learn to use the computer and internet on the job.
- saint_fiasco 10y agoThat research paper says that scammers themselves encourage the stereotype to reduce false positives. To take advantage of the dissuasive effect of saying you are from Nigeria, you don't necessarily have to actually be in Nigeria.
- coldtea 10y ago>Such articles like this one stereotype Nigeria in a falsely negative manner. Err, the author actually WENT to Nigeria to meet her actual Nigerian scammer -- and others doing the same. What stereotype? She doesn't say that most Nigerians or only Nigerians do such things -- but that's what happened to her.
- curiousdater 10y agoOnline 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(ones i aim for) is interested in you. Their profiles are hard to distinguish if they are legit or not. Usually the fake ones are hot have a few pics do not say much and they are looking for a guy from 20 to 70. Also, the real fake ones ask you to send a message to their gmail. OVerall not sure how the crap Match pulls is consider legal!
- brianwawok 10y agoI think the legit dating sites go under, and the shady proper.
- tiatia 10y agoIsn't this called a market for lemons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
- ryuker16 10y agoDude, nobody uses match or POF any more. Everbody uses the free ones and apps.
- vlodiag 10y agoBasically if anyone you don't know in real life asks you money this is a huge red flag. Like red flag of all red flags. People should condition themselves that once they reach their pockets for money then something is wrong, stop immediately and reevaluate. I understand that scammers sometimes are very good and you don't need to paranoid towards people, but once real money is involved your guard must go up!
- SuperGent 10y agoThat's easy to say, especially in hindsight, but when it's someone you've messaged for 3 or more months, gets into trouble and then asks it's difficult to be cool headed. You convince yourself that you DO know them, and it's above board. Of course, like in this case, once it goes on long enough the penny does drop, but by then it's too late.
- robocat 10y agoReality is that many in the world have a disposable income of say $1 per day, so many people in first world countries are "obscenely" rich relatively. I have been in situations where I have believed a few dollars will help a child, will prevent a rape, or will prevent jail time for an innocent. Is it better to be a good person, at the risk of being scammed? The same happens with beggars - sometimes there is a genuine need. I develop my shit filter by helping others, even at the risk of being taken advantage of, because it is worth the wins, and I wouldn't want to be a person that doesn't help genuine need when it only costs the equivalent of a few beers (or more!).
- shasheene 10y ago> With her assistance, he left Nigeria shortly afterwards, to study in America. > Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago and got a job in the American oil sector. Heh, maybe the 419 scam is continuing! The long con! :P
- elcct 10y agoReminds me of: Go to a bank. Get a job there and work there for years and years learning the place from the inside, and also learning how all of the processes and procedures are done, earning everyone's trust and respect, and simultaneously building up a 401k with matching while also going up the career ladder and taking more and more positions with more responsibility and more pay until one day you finally decide that it's over and walk out the door like nothing ever happened!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- m_mueller 10y agoThis is almost like the plot of Inside Man!
- hiteshaasnani 10y agoHaha True!
- OxO4 10y agoOr the Adventure Time episode "Scamps" [0]. [0] http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Scamps http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Scamps
- Eire_Banshee 10y agoMotherfucker, thats called a job!
- joewee 10y agoNigeria is #1 / #2 wealthiest country in Africa (GDP). It ranks amoung the highest in terms of advanced degree graduates in Africa. But it has a extremely low Human Development Index, there isn't much opportunity for the educated. Nigerians outside of Nigeria will generally be better educated than the local workforce but unable find work for various reasons. Common issue in Europe, where many 419 scams actually operate from. This is a case of smart people taking advantage of the less intelligent / informed.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoIntelligent people with time on their hands an on the border of desperation makes logical sense that petty crime or white-collar type fraud crimes would extremely appealing. High ROI.
- joewee 10y agoI think its the reason why there's a lot of cyber crime from eastern Europe.
- hilop 10y agoWhat's the Gini coefficient on that GDP?
- schoen 10y ago43.0, according to Wikipedia.
- mikk14 10y agoNigeria is not the wealthiest country in Africa, not even close. They have the highest GDP just because they have twice the population of the second most populous country in Africa. If you look at GDP per capita, they're barely scraping the top 20 of Africa [1] which, as you can expect, is not very high. It's growing, though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_G...
- ahmetkun 10y agoreminded me of a family guy episode where Carter Pewterschmidt gets scammed by Nigerians and flies to Nigeria to get his money back and eventually decides to donate the money as he sees the people there really need it, or something like that.
- V-2 10y ago"I wonder if it will change us. But, of course, it did change us."
- hiteshaasnani 10y agoSuch online scammers were recently busted in India also
- sickbeard 10y agoHow does this help? It will just lure people into thinking scamming is a way to lead you to america
- criddell 10y agoHelping another person is hardly ever a bad idea. Or in other words, don't hate the player, hate the game.
- VertexRed 10y agohttps://youtu.be/kJOuvEcarNs?t=38s https://youtu.be/kJOuvEcarNs?t=38s
- michael_h 10y agoMy 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 own, as she obviously doesn't understand how fixed income works. It's a very strange situation to be in, having a parent desperately trying to abandon you as an adult, basically dying without being dead. I don't know how these people justify it to themselves. They have taken 100% of her money, plus a unknown amount of debt (I've found $100k in loans so far). My mother-in-law is not 'going to be okay'. To be honest, once she figures out that there isn't $3.5MM in the Bank of Israel, she's probably going to look for the quick exit. At the moment, I'm afraid I'm unable to muster the empathy necessary to understand how you could even begin to help the scammer.
- whiddershins 10y agoI don't fully understand your situation, and it must be horrible and frustrating and painful, but there must be some way you can get through to her?
- easytiger 10y agoAny court will let you take power over her finances. This is a clear cut case. Just ask any bloody lawer
- michael_h 10y agoNo, 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.
- 10y ago
- MichaelBurge 10y agoSome people trick the scammers into traveling places, or losing money. They've managed to get them stranded for months in war-torn countries, to sell their cars for airline tickets, and gotten them thrown in prison in foreign countries for immigration violations. I have some family who was tricked by a scammer doing "Microsoft support" once, but we convinced her it was a scammer in time for the police to trace the call. So now he's in prison.
- digler999 10y agoI saw an article a while back about an older man, college professor I think, who fell for some "girl" in south America. She tricked him to flying to Peru, picking up a suitcase of dope, then flying it to Argentina where he was arrested. Never met the "girl" and still believes she was for real.
- selimthegrim 10y agoThe man in question was Paul Frampton, a theoretical physicist at UNC and the 'girl' was ostensibly well-known model Denise Milani
- mrcactu5 10y agodoes anyone actually fall for these?
- pavel_lishin 10y agoYes, constantly, and to the ensuing grief of their friends and family.
- UnfalseDesign 10y agoThere 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 is traveling to Africa and working with aspiring artists. Maria took what could have been a financially crippling event and used it to launch herself into a new endeavor. She’s taking her passion for art and helping others pursue a similar passion in a climate where they may not normally have that luxury. Regardless of whether Johnny is still conning her, Maria’s life is now better because of it. She took a situation that would normally make a person critical and suspect of others and decided to learn from it and become a better person. My take away from this story is that bad things will happen to me. Some will be my fault and some won’t. However, how I react to it will make all the difference. Sometimes it is better to light a candle than to simply curse the darkness.
- easytiger 10y ago> Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago and got a job in the American oil sector.
- tedmiston 10y agoThat's the point though, he went from scamming people on the phone for money to having a college degree from a U.S. school and having a regular job with a legitimate paycheck, and now he gets to live in the states too.
- jrochkind1 10y agoI don't think Maria _cares_ if Johnny is "playing the long con". That's what I like about it. (Hell, how many 'normal' friendships/romantic relationships are "playing the long con", if you want to put it that way, call me cynical, but people aren't entirely honest with each other and take advantage of each other all the time, with varying levels of self-knowledge. It's being human.). It does sound like her financial assistance to him is part of their relationship, just like that of, say, Donald Trump and Melania, or people who pay professional dominatrixes, or your aunt with the picture and bio of the 'african orphan' he's donating to every month.
- rahelzer 10y agoNot a good idea. Its about 100x worse than tracking down your stolen iphone using GPS to find the guy who stole it from you and demanding it bck. Do not do this. Its not worth your life.
- OoTheNigerian 10y agoIt's practically impossible for any positive tech stories to stay on the front page of Hackenews. Be it our tech companies making or raising a lot of dough and/or having impact. HOWEVER, when it comes to stereotypes and cliche negative stories, we usually have our day at number 1 I wonder why ;)
- whack 10y agoOne thing I never quite understood. These "Nigerian prince" scams can originate from any developing nation where the exchange rate makes for very lucrative prospects. Ie, Chile, Egypt, Romania, Kazakhstan, China, India, Thailand, etc etc. Why do a disproportionate number of these scams seem to originate from Nigeria?
- jrowley 10y agoOne simple explanation is that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Also Lagos is massive city and has good internet (better than more rural areas) so you have a lot of people without a lot money, but a lot of time and relatively cheap internet access.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ryuker16 10y agoSuccess rate.... Also other countries have different scams. I ran an import export and frequently pakistan scammers looking for an business visa would try to fake a business with you. They would waste hours of your time before dropping the act, annoucing they cant pay $ 10k and really just want to illegally work in your country. Way worse.....one guy did actually show up after conning another guy successfully. Turns out he was legit in business but wanted to inspect wares first before wiring a ton of cash. That was a shock when he showed up on my doorstep. Imagine the nigerian prince dude you told to get lost ringing your doorbell 6 months later!!!! Good ol alibaba chats...
- wodenokoto 10y agoAccording to wikipedia most don't originate from Nigeria, but claim to do so, which to me only ads to the mystery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam
- _nedR 10y agoPaper : https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-... Or Article : http://gizmodo.com/5919818/why-nigerian-scammers-say-theyre-from-nigeria http://gizmodo.com/5919818/why-nigerian-scammers-say-theyre-... Quite clever and counter-intuitive really.
- cpfohl 10y agoSurprised this wasn't mentioned, but it's worth noting that traveling to Nigeria to meet scammers rarely ends well for the traveler. It's not safe. It sounds like she had a unique situation with an apparently repentant scammer, but these people are criminals, and they've already demonstrated their lack of respect for you.
- tedmiston 10y agoThis was my general concern with the article too. Sure this story ended with some positive notes, but it feels like they're encouraging the same behavior for others. Tourist scams alone are so dangerous. Other people attempting this is even worse.
- robocat 10y agoMost people blow the risks of travel out of all proportion. I have traveled to known "dangerous" countries and the locals are usually way friendlier because of that. Learn who to trust, make a friend, listen to the locals. The same skills you need in your own country to avoid scams and danger can be used overseas. My experience is that most warnings (by people that haven't traveled to the country in question) are pure rubbish generated by neurotic fear of the alien. For example: Don't travel to the US because you will get shot. If a Facebook billionaire can walk the streets of Nigeria, you can probably do so too.
- cpfohl 10y agoSorry for the late reply: I'm definitely not afraid of travel. In afraid of traveling to another country in order to meet someone who has just tried to scam you.
- healer 10y agoI'm a Nigerian, living in Lagos Nigeria. Internet scams are a big problem both within and outside the country. Part of the problem is that local law enforcement agents do not have the manpower and technical know-how to tackle the problem. I'm deeply sorry for those of you whose loved ones have lost money to these scammers. I'll be hanging around to answer any questions that may be of help.
- happy-go-lucky 10y agoMost of you, including the OP and the antagonist in the story, have gone far from reality. It's all about cheat-or-get-cheated. Habitual exploitation!
- hirzel 10y agoThis should be a movie. The screen play writes itself!
- Pica_soO 10y agoI wish we could get those texts, we could train NN on keeping the scammers busy.
- intrasight 10y agoWho here cannot say that no aspect of their own lives is not a "long con"? Not I.
- n72 10y agoMy father's lost (from my estimates) about $350K from a christianmingle.com scam. It's wrecked his life, both financially. He went from living in a very nice apartment in a very nice part of Munich to living in a crappy place close to the slums of Calais. I'm estranged from him, so I haven't been able to talk him out of anything, but I doubt I could have anyway. My brother's snooped on his email and IMs for the last few years. These guys are really, really good at what they do. I wonder at what point the services which let this happen become at least in part responsible. I contacted christianmingle.com and never got any response.
- n72 10y agoAlso, to illustrate how hard it is to sway their minds, my brother impersonated a lonely person on Christian mingle and got the scammer to start working on him. He showed my father their correspondence and my father was somehow able to explain it away.
- donquichotte 10y ago"Johnny: "You talk in parable´s. I can´t wait to see you"" I would never write back to somebody who uses the Idiot's Apostrophe.
- qb45 10y agoIt's Scamming 101 to use bad grammar and typos. Can you imagine what kind of PITA would it be to scam a pedant like you? They don't want you to even think about replying to them.
- eng_monkey 10y ago> She became consumed with what she describes as "a profound need to make a difference to the people of Nigeria". Delusions of grandeur? She should move to SV.
- losteverything 10y agoI have had people come to the counter and ask to send money to Nigeria and other places. I have to make sure everyone at that money desk knows about fraud. Never wire money to someone you don't know. Never. [0] Have you won a prize? Once you deposit the moeny, will they send you more money? Was it a tax refund? Is there a serious medical situation you are helping with? [0] http://corporate.moneygram.com/compliance/fraud-prevention/common-consumer-scams http://corporate.moneygram.com/compliance/fraud-prevention/c... All too often the people coming in to wire money know the fraud detection questions.. and say our answers in advance.. "Yes, I met them," for example. Plus, these are regular customers that buy and return other items.. they are friends by work-customer-association. They know the workers who refuse their transfer.. They know the system that requires suspected fraud and how we have to report it.. They still don't know how to spell the persons name, so they take out their rabbit eared email out of their purse next to their cane and read each letter out loud.. "I think this is a scam," I say. "Can I talk to a manager, please. Now" "I am a manager. I will not proceed with this transaction. " In the end if someone wants to send money to someone they don't know they will find a way...