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Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me
- gojomo 14y agoI was somewhat hoping that the writer sent a real laptop, but deeply loaded with spyware so he could learn more about the scam operations. (Of course, such a tactic might just learn about a possibly-innocent later repurchaser.)
- Rickasaurus 14y agoNice job there. It is easy to forget though that we're all pretty tech savvy here on hacker news. There's a ton of people out there that would see that government logo and get all panicked and confused. Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers (he's a butcher) fell for a Nigerian scam. Thankfully he was only out a couple of hundred bucks, but damn, we need a way to stop it.
- acuozzo 14y ago> Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers (he's a butcher) fell for a Nigerian scam. Please don't insult butchers. Not falling for a Nigerian scam has nothing to do with "[being] good at computers". It requires nothing more than the level-headed application of logic and reason.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sliverstorm 14y agoI think you're reading the quote wrong. It could just as easily have been written thusly: > Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers (he doesn't work with or in tech) fell for a Nigerian scam.
- 89a 14y agoStill don't think it has anything to do with working in tech, it's common sense.
- CWuestefeld 14y agoBeing tech-savvy is only a small part of it. Anybody who knows how the US legal system works should understand that there's no way they'd be getting a letter from the FBI encouraging them on behalf of a buyer to ship a product. And anybody with an elementary school grasp of the English language has got to recognize that whoever wrote that letter is certainly not an FBI official, and probably not even a native English speaker.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThis 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.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago>they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they are willing to break // Isn't this true of almost everyone in society - whether it's jaywalking, or [minor] speeding, or not declaring income, or under-age drinking, or taking a sick day, or 'borrowing' a ream of paper from the office, or ... My point I guess is that scamming people online doesn't seem to be a gateway to violent crime or anything like that??
- sliverstorm 14y agoWell, I suppose you could argue that the extra risk is the knowledge they have gathered as part of being a scammer. Knowledge being power and all that. A jaywalker doesn't know your phone number, where you live, and where your wife works. Hopefully the scammer doesn't either, but hopefully this still conveys the point. Edit: There's a difference too; jaywalking et al do not implicitly harm other people. I don't know all the legal intricacies, but theft (scams) is different.
- tokenizer 14y agoYup. And besides, it's an easy buck from some chumps, not a 1000$/day job you can get by buying my book and following my internet unlock steps! Your Parent is insane to think that simply breaking rules means people have no ethics or morals themselves. Everyone is a dynamic person, and IMO someone who screws people within the confines of the law can be just as bad if not worse.
- lollerpops 14y agoYou listed a series of victimless crimes to prove that two crimes that do have victims are unrelated?
- 14y ago
- ipince 14y agoHilarious. But it sucks that the author draws this conclusion: "If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that look fake, [...], or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to have their money taken from them." I feel like we need a tumblr to post blatantly obvious scams like these. Maybe that would help the common folk be better at identifying them.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pseudonym 14y agoSomeone actually did a paper on why every one of these scams seems to come from Nigeria[1]. If you're not at least suspicious when something like this comes "from Nigeria" at this point, there's probably no helping you. [1]http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/WhyFromNigeria.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/WhyFromNigeria.pdf
- ben1040 14y agoDon't the scammers often use the victimized sellers as drop shippers? Say, Alice lists a laptop on eBay or Craigslist. The scammer has also listed a similar model for sale, and Bob has purchased it in what he believes to be a legitimate transaction. Scammer "buys" it from Alice, with either fraudulent funds from a stolen card (that would get charged back eventually) or just delivering a forged paypal mail. Or the famous "P-p-p-p-p-owerbook"[1] scam involved a fake escrow service. The scammer has Alice ship the laptop to Bob. Alice is out a laptop, Bob gets a laptop, scammer gets Bob's money. [1] http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1016390 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=101...
- JulianWasTaken 14y agoOOC, what is the legal remedy in such a situation for Alice and Bob? Is Alice ultimately the one who loses out there presumably?
- icebraining 14y agoIf Alice can prove it's her laptop, Bob has to give it back.
- kleiba 14y agoThis might be dependent on the country in which the transaction takes place. Under some circumstances, if Bob believes that the laptop is now his, it actually is his property in some legislations.
- derfniw 14y agoCorrect. For instance in the Netherlands if you believe the person selling you the item has the right to sell it to you // perform that transaction, its yours. (The so called 'Vertrouwensbeginsel') The only way for Alice to get her money back would be by going after the scammer, because he did not do his part of his deal with her(paying).
- roryokane 14y agoMore records of people baiting Nigerian scammers: http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm. People on http://www.419eater.com/ 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.
- jlgreco 14y agoThe one where the guy got the scammer carve a C64 out of a block of wood is my favorite. It turned out pretty good.
- grimboy 14y agoFor those wondering it's this: http://419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm http://419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm
- Axsuul 14y agoAnother good one was getting a scammer to hand write the entire first book of the Harry Potter series.
- danparsonson 14y agoNot to defend or in any way condone the actions of the scammers (which I certainly don't), but I wonder how many of the counter-scammers do so out of high-mindedness, and how many are just looking for a chance to humiliate a relatively easy target - particularly after seeing some of the photos in the 'Trophy Room'. I also wonder how many of those initiating the scams are actually the vicious, heartless criminals that the site insists they are - for example, one of the exchanges [1] results in the scammer sending about 9 hours of (ostensibly) himself reading Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy on the promise of earning some money for it. Career criminal, or having trouble finding work? Of course, some are genuinely dangerous people but it seems to me that there is probably a spectrum. As I said, I'm not trying to defend those who seek to profit at the expense of others, but the level of grandstanding present on that site leaves me thinking that some of the counter-scammers themselves are doing exactly that. [1] www.419eater.com/html/booked.htm
- davidw 14y agoIncidentally, those laptops are pretty good: I got one years ago when Dell was offering Ubuntu, and we still use it for my daughter. The battery is pretty much toast, but otherwise (fingers crossed) it's still going strong.
- CrazedGeek 14y agoVery (probably unintentionally) similar to: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/ http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
- wtvanhest 14y agoThat was my first thought as soon as I read a few sentences. It is almost identical.
- baddox 14y agoI was wondering if the author has never heard of the P-P-P-Powerbook, or purposefully avoided citing it as a reference (e.g. the idea to deliver a fake laptop and the customs fee).
- haberman 14y agoThat was a great read, but the end is a tad scary! "Finally, and most disturbingly, [the victim] Jeff was not heard from again." http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index04.html http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index04.html
- vm 14y agoI found that disturbing too, so I looked up Jeff. His twitter account is active with recent tweets: http://twitter.com/MyNameIsJeff http://twitter.com/MyNameIsJeff Probably doing fine!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- acuozzo 14y agoInterestingly, __all__ of the Nigerian scammer e-mails I receive are written in British English.
- astine 14y agoNigeria is a former British Colony and the official language is English, so that makes sense actually.
- DanBC 14y agoWhile we're talking about scams, here's an interesting form which has cost several people their jobs and lost a lot of money for some UK schools. (http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3400081/bank-writes-off-debt-for-school-technology-lease-scam/ http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3400081/ba...) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n2t2f http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n2t2f)
- denzil_correa 14y agoIt was a great read and a nice way to give it back. Btw, after the last few chat messages I get a creaky feeling that Rebecca is a dude!
- greenyoda 14y agoYeah, "suck my divck" was a dead giveaway. Not something that a female is likely to say.
- rburhum 14y agoYou just made my day
- sjtgraham 14y agoAfter seeing the stickers I was hoping the OP actually sent the computer with an undercover style backdoor installed so he could remotely control the computer, e.g. take shots with webcam, screenshots, install key logger, etc. That would have been incredibly amusing.
- dkokelley 14y agoThis is what I was expecting as well. It would be an interesting study into what happens when you 'fall' for one of these scams, although most likely this laptop was sent to a legitimate buyer as part of a larger scam, detailed by ben1040 here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4566587 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4566587
- joering2 14y agoIm in! would someone please create a kickstarter project like that? Goal: $400 for mediocre laptop and shipping cost to Nigeria. $1: you get a photoshots in 5 sec intervals from the moment laptop comes online. $10: you get a life video-feed from the moment the laptop comes online.
- dkokelley 14y agoI wouldn't bother with the kickstarter project. $400+shipping is relatively cheap, and the exposure/blog material/research potential is worth that cost, for the right person. (There is of course, the risk that the recipients are wise enough to isolate and wipe it before it has a chance to phone home.)
- borplk 14y agoThat's what I thought when I read the title.
- kahawe 14y agoI strongly doubt you would have gotten screenshots from the scammer but from another hapless victim who bought the laptop in a seemingly legit way. (fence) The very fact the scammer are already fine sending emails means they really don't need another laptop, they just want money. I can imagine in a lot of cases the laptop doesn't even get into the scammer's hands.
- patdennis 14y ago"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 use a Paypal account. So they've got that going for them.
- sliverstorm 14y agoAgreed on all counts. To many people, the internet and all are so new and unfamiliar, they have absolutely ZERO context to recognize fake-looking PayPal payments or emails from PayPal's FBI department. To them, they are still completely lost- you can't expect them to recognize a scam. As for being suspicious of free money, I think most people generally would be, but relax their misgivings when something appears to be legitimate- that is to say, any escapes they are aware of appear to be covered. The scammer, therefore, takes advantage of the victim's lack of knowledge of the escapes in an electronic age.
- enraged_camel 14y agoThe Internet has been around for fifteen years, and PayPal has been around for more than ten. I don't think either of them qualify as "new" anymore. Most people get scammed not because the technologies are new, but because they have been using those technologies irresponsibly, i.e. without educating themselves about their dangers first. They simply want to reap the benefits, and end up losing their money.
- DanBC 14y ago> The Internet has been around for fifteen years WWW has been around for 20 years. But it's only recently that people have always on cable modems and active content. > without educating themselves about their dangers first. HN is full of stories of well funded, international businesses, with considerable sums of cash at risk, who do stupid insecure things. If they can't get it right why should Joe Sixpack be expected to do any better? Email inboxes are full of hoaxes about supposed dangers - most of them are garbage. I'm interested to see what kind of help there is for people who want to learn how to protect themselves on the Internet. (http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Internet-Fraud.shtml http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Internet-Fraud.shtml) That site has comprehensive information. It's lousy. Look how much stuff people have to wade through.
- Sander_Marechal 14y agoIf you like that, have a look at http://www.419eater.com/ http://www.419eater.com/ where there's a large community of people doing all sorts of scammer pranks. Obligatory warning: will decrease productivity for the rest of the day :-)
- OoTheNigerian 14y agoExcuse 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.
- mlapida 14y agoThe shipping address?
- OoTheNigerian 14y agoWell, it was never mentioned. In addition, because there are a lot of scams that seem to originate from Nigeria (not all that say they're Nigerian are), the author wonders why people should not be suspicious of ALL Nigerians like they are of fake FBI notices. Interestingly, that paragraph is the most hilighted of this thread and no one thinks that type of blatant sterotyping and discrimination is odd. As a Nigerian, it makes me really sad and uncomfortable.
- yohui 14y agoThis suggests it was the address: "On the customs form, I put the value at $500 and the description said “cardboard art.” I’m not completely sure of this, but I think Nigerians have to pay a small percentage of the value to customs, so putting a high price on the customs form hopefully cost them a little money." That bit about the customs fee wouldn't make sense otherwise.
- ebun 14y agoThat still doesn't mean it was sent to Nigeria. It just confirms that, for whatever reason, the author assumed the recipient was in Nigeria. The recipient may have very well been in Nigeria but he offers no definitive evidence.
- unix-dude 14y agoI don't believe the author meant that people should be suspicious of "Nigerians" in general, but rather that they should be suspicious of Nigerians when in the context of an online monetary transaction. The sad truth is that a lot of scammers originate from Nigeria. Therefore, it makes sense to be extra cautious when engaging in financial transactions with someone who is in within Nigeria. I highly doubt the author was implying any sort of racist sentiment.
- HyprMusic 14y agoI 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- timrogers 14y ago"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of...Nigerians in general" HN is a placed for reasoned argument, not stereotypes. Not <all> Nigerians are scammers.
- LoseThosMan 14y agoI get emails from the FBI pretending to be scammers.
- dkersten 14y agoReminds me of the P-p-p-powerbook prank! http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/ http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
- bunkat 14y agoThis is one of the reasons that I built bidkat.com. With BidKat, scammers have to go through the trouble of making a valid offer (which can't be done with a screen scraper), verifying their offer, and then hoping that the seller contacts them before they can even start these conversations. 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.
- adetayo 14y agoWhile I enjoyed your story, it's quite ignorant to ask people to be wary of "Nigerians in general". NOT every Nigerian is a scammer so making such a statement is unnecessary. There are many hard working Nigerians around the world.
- paulhauggis 14y ago"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." Nigerian scammers are also just as dumb. A few years ago, I was easily able to phish them out of their accounts and other valuable information. I made it into a game to see how far I could go. After I got into their accounts, I would change the password and shut their operation down (all through lots of proxies and other sorts of protections). Most had large lists of stolen credit cards and pictures of licenses and passports. Many of the people that actually freely gave away their info were lonely and desperate.
- hiphophippo 14y agoAhh.. It all makes sense now. After recently trying to sell my car on craigslist I received at least 20 emails of the same nature: vague, never a specific label of what they actually wanted to inquire of mine, and very interestingly using ASAP. Almost every one used that term... hm. Anyways I knew by the broken english and vague response it was a scam but never knew how they intended on pulling it off. They would ask for a paypal account to send funds too immediately without even seeing the car. I never did give them my paypal account as I didn't intend on wasting my time of getting faulty payments etc. But before I permanently deleted these contacts, I wanted to see if I could actually talk to one. I gave them all my number (it was in the add anyway) and told them before I can release my paypal info they have to call me. The responses were priceless! 7-10 of them were in the navy deployed at sea and didn't have a phone (none of them knew each other surprisingly) a few were government officials who worked in such high level jobs that they couldn't be caught on the phone(but can buy cars on craigslist interestingly enough) and the last one claimed to be deaf.(and get this didn't know how to text!) Moral: Ask to speak with anyone who buys items off of you locally.
- thechut 14y agoThis is super old...
- its_so_on 14y agoyou're thinking of po-po-po-powerbook.
- itiztv 14y agoI'd poop, garnish with caramel and a lil chocolate or icing on top and gift wrap it nicely in a box or gift pack and if they choose to taste it out of curiosity ............. I WIN!
- Tichy 14y agoHow different people treat the post privacy problem. So far (I hope) no pictures of my son have made it into the internet. Not even Facebook - although I suppose some web mail accounts are unavoidable. Others post pictures of their kid playing pranks on gangsters on their blog.
- 89a 14y agoTrying to sell that ruined POS for $350 is the real punchline
- conradfr 14y agoI remember when I was a CSR at PayPal for the French market I used to think that there should have been some huge warehouses in Nigeria full of computers and phones. Years later it seems it's still working splendidly.
- joncalhoun 14y agoI really wish someone would install some of the dye packs used to prevent theft in stores/banks in shipping boxes and mail those to scammers. it would be interesting to see if walking around with blue dye on their face would decrease their desire to scam others. bonus points for a cheap cell phone camera that uploads a pic after the scanner is sprayed with the dye.
- mariuolo 14y agoFake laptop in exchange for a fake payment, sounds equitable.