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As someone who works for a Nigerian boss, I get very tired of this kind of racism. I see it frequently. I see people refuse to do business with us because of hi
by synnik 15y ago
As someone who works for a Nigerian boss, I get very tired of this kind of racism. I see it frequently. I see people refuse to do business with us because of his origin. I also see people try aggressively to scam us because of his origin, assuming we are naive.
But you cannot judge an entire country based on some highly visible scammers from there. Not all Nigerians are trying to scam you. And many Americans ARE trying to scam you. Many Nigerians have left their country, gotten educations, and become highly successful businessmen throughout the world.
This specific guy who runs this site? I have no idea. But I will judge him on his own merits, not his country of origin.
- Jun8 15y agoYou are absolutely right. Two points, though: (i) As you see from my comments, my judgments were based on the site, the Nigerian thing is an afterthought and (ii) unfortunately, people do have Bayesian prior probabilities, commonly referred to as prejudices. You cannot avoid them and they need to be addressed sometime. What I said was that if I were from Nigeria, I would be work more on my site to erase any spammish connotations. This is probably true of your boss, too.
- Permit 15y agoI thought everyone just assumed that the "Nigerian Prince" thing was a front and it was likely some Eastern European or American behind it all. I thought the "Nigerian" bit was just to add to the allure or something.
- cpeterso 15y agoI am surprised that scammers, Nigerian or otherwise, don't know better than to still reference Nigeria in their emails.
- gojomo 15y agoI also found it surprising that scammers devote so little effort to proper spelling/punctuation/grammar. But then it occured to me: maybe errors help filter out attentive respondents, who have a low chance of completing the whole scam funnel. Those people who don't notice the errors, or don't consider them a red flag, are better leads. In the context of a cliche'd Nigerian origin, sure, mentioning Nigeria puts anyone familiar with the 419 scam formula on guard. But anyone who does reply is likely a fresh, naive prospect. Ka-ching!
- lurker19 15y agoThis is perceptive. 419 is like any other advertising: if you think it is stupid, you are not in the target market, but someone else is. Who communicates in all caps? The elderly and the mentally ill. Target market.