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I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam
- morgante 13y agoWell, at least he admits he's an idiot.
- herbig 13y ago"I’m superstitious, so one night I told myself, All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it. I’d never scored that low in my life, so when I landed at 11 points, I thought it was a sign and decided to buy a ticket." There's your problem right there. People like this are prone to other irrational thinking. I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deeply religious.
- OhHeyItsE 13y agowas going to say exactly this.
- Domenic_S 13y agoOne comment in and, bam, random religion bashing. Stay classy, HN.
- herbig 13y agoHow is religion as superstition religious bashing? I'm talking about correlations, not morality or religious truth. The stay classy thing is overused.
- objclxt 13y agoYou didn't say religious people were prone to superstition, you said they were prone to 'other irrational thinking'. I think there is a slight difference. You're also generalizing all religions, when in fact there are some religions which actively warn against superstition and miracles (Buddhism, for example). So I can see why someone might think your comment was ill-informed (and I say that as an atheist).
- Crito 13y agoTechnically he implicitly said that superstition is a form of irrational thinking (few could argue otherwise with a straight face). He further implied that being deeply religious can be another form of irrational thinking. What he did not actually say (though we can certainly infer) is that all religious thinking (or all deeply religious thinking) is necessarily irrational thinking. If we merely grant that much deeply religious thinking is irrational, then I see nothing inherently wrong with suggesting that people who engage in one form of irrational reasoning might be susceptible to other forms. Instead of commenting on religion, I will wager that people who claim to be superstitious tend to buy into horoscopes and homeopathy more often then the general population. That's not an offensive statement, is it? Yet what really is the difference between astrology and other things that we describe as religions?
- SimHacker 13y agoSo do you actually think that climate change denial and the rejection of evolution is not correlated with religious believe, or membership in the Republican party?
- saraid216 13y ago> I'm talking about correlations You realize that's what superstitions are made of, right? Fancy science words don't make you rational.
- herbig 13y agoIt is the express lack of correlation that makes up a superstition, so the opposite of what you're saying is true. I wasn't aware that "correlation" is a fancy science word, I guess it depends on your personal background.
- tashi 13y agoI would say that most superstitions are formed by noticing that two things in one's past experience were related in some way and assuming that the relationship will continue in the future. That's correlation. Of course, some people only notice data that fit their preconceived perspective, and some people have received superstitions based entirely on the words of others. I'm sure there are other exceptions too. But in my mind, the conceptual framework for understanding irrational thought is that we have these brains that are amazing pattern matching machines and we don't know how to turn them off. Once we've noticed a pattern, most of us assume it's a real correlation, and no matter how many exceptions to the pattern we see, we don't know how to stop believing.
- saraid216 13y ago> It is the express lack of correlation that makes up a superstition, so the opposite of what you're saying is true. Superstitions are generally formed when two things are correlated, but the causative variable fails to be correctly isolated, resulting in the mistaken impression that one event causes another despite being either independent or actually dependent on a third variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...
- pikachu_is_cool 13y ago> I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deeply religious.
- jonsleet 13y agoYes, perhaps. But it could have been incongruent if instead he had said "I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deeply skeptical."
- smsm42 13y agoBut I could say "I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also jumping to conclusions which please them without actually checking the facts or giving a good thought on the matter". Which is exactly what the author of that comment above did.
- d23 13y agoAs much as I hate the pedantry and nitpicky nature of the comments on this site, religion bashing is something I've never seen, and I don't think the connection is unwarranted (i.e. that people with magical thinking tend to think and act irrationally)
- rosser 13y agoreligion bashing is something I've never seen Then you've either not been paying close enough attention, or not reading the same discussion threads I have.
- livingparadox 13y agoI nearly choked on my water when I read his method for vetting it. Also, I take a slight offense at that last part...
- pekk 13y agoIf the first entails the second, that doesn't mean the second entails the first
- livingparadox 13y agoThis is true. However, the fact that he mentioned this when religion was irrelevant to the story seems to imply he feels that religious thinking leads to superstitious thinking.
- vacri 13y agoIt's pretty clear in the article that he was trying to convince himself despite his doubts. If he didn't get the low score in his game, he would have found something else to convince him it was right.
- livingparadox 13y agoI'm not sure what this has to do with my response...
- smsm42 13y agoYou 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.
- eurleif 13y agoMost religions frown on other religions, too.
- smsm42 13y agoI really can't understand why you chose to answer my comment with this. I pointed out pretty clearly that a practice of homebrewn divination, in which the hero of the article engaged, is not "religious" and actually is explicitly forbidden by many religions. In response to that, you offer me meaningless platitude not connected to anything on the topic. What are you trying to accomplish here?
- eurleif 13y agoMy point was that Christianity forbids practicing Hinduism just as much as it forbids practicing divination. Being forbidden by religions does not make something non-religious.
- smsm42 13y agoThat is true, I can imagine a religion which encourages divination and for such religion divination would be a religious practice, of course. However, if such religion exists it is nowhere common in Western world. So a claim that significant amount of religious people belong to such religion would still be wrong.
- eurleif 13y agoIf anyone ever makes that claim, be sure to tell them that.
- jscheel 13y agoThis was self-confirmation and had nothing to do with religion. Please take your hate to /r/atheism.
- ronaldx 13y agoThis strategy is not in itself necessarily irrational - and maybe the opposite. Being able to implement mixed strategies is actually a game theoretic requirement for rationality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_%28game_theory%29#Pure_and_mixed_strategies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_%28game_theory%29#Pur...
- arjie 13y agoIt's being down on his luck that did it. I read something a while ago that the reason why many poor people do stupid things (like spend large amounts on the lottery) is that they tend to have poor judgement in general. However, the poor judgement arises from the poverty. When you are highly stressed about money, you find it hard to think rationally, apparently.
- Crito 13y agoI am not convinced that adequately explains the correlation. The poor may gamble away an irrational amount of their money because they are too stressed to think rationally, but it may also be the case that the endorphin hit that gambling gives them offers them a sort of temporary escape. Gambling addiction looks, at least on the surface, to have a lot in common with addiction to substances. I agree with your general premise, hardship probably does drive people to attempt the irrational, but I think gambling isn't necessarily a great example of this since there is likely more going on there.
- prawn 13y agoThat reminds me. The other in-detail telling of falling for a Nigerian scam I've read was actually by the wife of a minister who continued to throw money at the scammers before shooting her husband dead after an argument about money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Winkler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Winkler
- losethos 13y agoThe world is perfectly just. You never get something for nothing. God says... you_think_you_could_do_better bank enough_said God Icarus straighten_up awesome fer_sure Okilydokily Boo hippy Ghost delightful nerd Catastrophic_Success caution no_you_cant kludge You_fix_it bye you're_no_fun nerd insane not Highs and lows balance. Joseph in the bible was wrongly imprisoned for 7 years for false rape. Then, he ruled Egypt. Yer fucked.
- flym4n 13y agoDarwin's theory proven right once again
- livingparadox 13y agoDo 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?
- flym4n 13y agoYes that was the point
- klodolph 13y agoWhat, his theory that biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment? Could you elaborate on how a guy getting scammed proves this right? Maybe you can demonstrate that people with Nigerian ancestry are less likely to fall for this kind of scam (since their ancestors lived in an environment with selective pressure to avoid the scams)?
- eaurouge 13y agoYou fly to Lagos with the willful intent to aid in the stealing of $1M from the Nigerian government and its people, but get beaten up instead. Your error, as you see it, is not that you were greedy and corrupt enough to steal other people's money. But that you were stupid enough to fall for the scam and have the tables turned on you. Interesting.
- mathattack 13y agoAre we sure this isn't fiction? I'm caught between, "People can't actually be this stupid" and "At least one person has to have been this stupid, otherwise they would have stopped long ago."
- the_watcher 13y agoFlying 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.
- mattm 13y agoThis 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.
- Rudism 13y agoI think they still want people to come on the hope that they can hold them for ransom and make even more money.
- doorhammer 13y agoI tend to think it's the right combination of down-on-your-luck, willful ignorance, naivete and social manipulation. I don't know that it's valuable to break it down to "stupid" or "not stupid". Either way, this is kind of those whose validity seems like a coin toss. Might be true, might not be. I wouldn't be shocked, either way. Obviously the reach of spam schemes like this is frighteningly broad; you're bound to hit people who have the magic circumstances, though this one seems particularly extreme. I suppose it's illustrative, though. I approach a lot of neat stories I read on the internet that way.
- jchung 13y agoIt's easy to bash the victim of a scam, but reading through this I couldn't help but feel bad for this guy. He was down on his luck and looking for a way out. He got hit up by the wrong folks at the wrong time, and taken advantage of. Let's remember to blame the thugs who beat and robbed him first and foremost.
- SimHacker 13y agoWhen you're irrational and superstitious, it's easy to believe you're down on your luck, when actually it's not luck. You're down on the consequences of your own actions. Luck has nothing to do with it.
- prawn 13y agoWait, he was perfectly willing to assist in screwing over taxpayers in a foreign country if it meant getting ahead personally...
- xivzgrev 13y agoI feel sad reading this. I'm happy that they left him alive though and with no permanent injuries (what if you were left paralyzed?). Also that he learned his lesson. As for the other commenters here, have you never done anything stupid in your life? Maybe not on this magnitude, but then all you're doing is trying to rank order yourself ahead of him on the gradient of stupidity. What value does that add?
- eaurouge 13y agoDo you think it would have been better if the Nigerian government intervened and tossed him in jail for a few years? How would you feel if the roles were reversed and it was a Nigerian coming to your country to defraud your government?
- columbo 13y agoI'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 I was sent into a conference room where a guy was giving a presentation on a new buy-in-application that was "guaranteed" to make money. Everything about the room made it uncomfortable to say no; there was one door with a guy standing in front of it smiling, they would hand out papers and not ask but pleasantly direct you to fill out your information. I knew it was a scam, when I got up to leave in the middle of the presentation the guys running the show called me out; shaking their head in dismay and making comments as I left. Sort of a shaming ritual for me on my way out. There were maybe thirty other people in the room, one guy left when I did but the rest stayed, out of that group I'm sure a few probably bought into it just because they were unemployed, down on their luck and willing to try anything.
- gojomo 13y agoWhat do you mean by "buy-in-application"? (I'm guessing something where you had to pay up-front for the rights to market or customize something that might never make you enough money to pay the up-front fees... but more details to confirm the outlines of the scam would be helpful.)
- columbo 13y agoThinking back to what I remember I _think_ it was like a content management system / pyramid scheme, similar to stuff like Avon. So you pay a monthly fee for this application then you need to find customers to use it, then you get a percentage back of the customers who are using it. This would explain why they were looking for technical people. So for $50 a month I'll give you drupal, then you sell it to clients, then I give you a percentage of each sale you make. There was something else about that that made it like a pyramid scheme though... like you had to get more people to sign up with them to try and sell it. I unfortunately don't remember all the details. Maybe I should have sat through the whole presentation! :)
- smsm42 13y agoEven given proof that I have no reason to doubt, I am still find hard to believe there's an educated and, judging from the writing, reasonably intellectually capable person that can genuinely believe there's a Nigerian official in Lagos that would reach out to random stranger to seek help with stealing a million dollars. And then he has a friend who, being told everything and asked for the plane ticket money, didn't say "dude, you know I'm your friend, but you need to lay off drugs for a while, they're really frying your brain" but actually enabled him in every way? And that happened not in those mythical good old times when nobody knew what spam is and everybody believed every email, but in 2003! Shows how much bigger and stranger the world is than one could have imagined.
- the_watcher 13y agoI 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.
- betterunix 13y ago"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.
- the_watcher 13y agoEase 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.
- meowface 13y agoCon men can be extremely convincing at times. Also note that the author said he was desperate for money, and had never received an email like that before. All of that combined with some slicktalking, and you can see how things like this are possible.
- DigitalSea 13y agoSadly 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 people were tricked, this guy just got it worse than most people probably did.
- conradfr 13y agoFeeling 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 PayPal years ago and had to tell French people every day that PayPal had nothing to do with this and that they will never get money nor their device back. I would feel bad for them sure, but in the meantime their desire to make too good money from some Nigerian was what prevented them to see the red flags. When something is too good to be true I always try to remind myself that Santa isn't real.
- smsm42 13y agoThe 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.
- ganeumann 13y agoI really want someone to tell the story about the one time they flew to Nigeria to help a governor get some money out of the country and it turned out to be legit. That would be far more interesting. My father used to get similar Nigerian scam correspondences back in the 70s/80s, in the postal mail.
- qohen 13y agoI really want someone to tell the story about the one time ...it turned out to be legit. In that vein: http://xkcd.com/570/ http://xkcd.com/570/ (and do hover for the alt-text)
- mattm 13y agoProbably as close as you will get http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=bVEFCfjadN8C&pg=PT144&lpg=PT144&ots=i1RjfcRxhk&focus=viewport&dq=Alan+sugar+what+you+see+is+what+you+get+Nigeria&output=html_text http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=bVEFCfjadN8C&pg=PT144&lpg...
- stfu 13y agoObligatory reference for anyone remotely interested in that subject: http://www.419eater.com/ http://www.419eater.com/ Just an amazing community of people who troll scammers for fun and entertainment. I once spend a whole night reading through their tales of the trade.
- javert 13y agoCalled it. If you are a major, chronic liar, your marriage isn't going to last.
- tn13 13y agoA lot of people point out that a person like him would be so foolish but it is precisely people like him who fall for TV ads, who click on Google as and facebook ads which eventually pays for all the free internet services we get such as Gmail.
- jscheel 13y agoNever hide anything from your spouse. Ever. Especially not financial troubles. Some openness and trust could have gone a long way here. Perhaps his wife could have helped him figure out their financial problems, maybe she would have even directed him away from the scammers.
- j_baker 13y agoIt's simply not possible (or even preferable) to have zero secrets from your spouse. I mean, I agree it's generally preferable to be open, but I think you're exaggerating. Do you tell your spouse everything about your life?
- jscheel 13y agoAbsolutely every single thing. There are NO secrets. When we married, we became one person. It's great, I promise :)
- jackmaney 13y agoNever has a truer subtitle been written.
- j_baker 13y agoI don’t recall the exact wording of the email, but the gist of it was that the governor of Lagos West constituency, Bola Tinubu, had hidden around $1 million in a secret bank account to avoid taxes. The money had been stolen from public funds, the email continued, and the Tinubu family couldn’t use it because they were being closely monitored by the government. What did this guy expect? I mean, it's one thing to fall for a scam like this under the pretense of helping a wronged/deposed Nigerian princess. But it's another to be told you're participating in a corrupt business deal and still go through with it. My concern is less about the intelligence of the author. Rather, I'm concerned about the morality. Sure, people do bad things when they're in need. I just have little sympathy for someone who knowingly decides to participate in organized crime and then gets taken advantage of. You've made a decision to take advantage of someone else, and then you're going to complain when you get taken advantage of?
- eplanit 13y ago"My concern is less about the intelligence of the author." <facetious> He was, after all, playing chess on his PC when the scam e-mail arrived. Chess implies intelligence, right? </facetious> I agree with you, except I think it's relevant to point out that is naivete in the extreme for anyone to be persuaded by a "Nigerian Prince" e-mail...even in 2003. Would he have been just as gullible had the scammers used postal mail?
- geekfactor 13y agoSeriously? Could you really even get $1,300 (or equivalent) in a single draw from an ATM in Lagos in 2002? Update: Found this article [1] stating that before 10/2012 the limit was 100,000 NGN, which at the end of 2002 traded at about 125 to the dollar [2]. That would put the withdrawal limit at about 800 dollars, but I'm not sure that's far off enough to call this article a fraud. [1] http://businessnews.com.ng/2012/10/10/banks-raise-atm-daily-withdrawal-limits/ http://businessnews.com.ng/2012/10/10/banks-raise-atm-daily-... [2] http://www.likeforex.com/misc/historical-rates.php?f=USD&t=NGN&y=2002&m=12&page= http://www.likeforex.com/misc/historical-rates.php?f=USD&t=N...
- auctiontheory 13y agoI read somewhere that the grammar/spelling mistakes in the original "query letter" are intentional, to filter out all reasonably smart and skeptical people, and thereby "qualify the leads." See how the author managed to justify the mistakes to himself, thereby self-identifying as an easy mark.
- grosbs 13y agoThe whole story seems to be fiction.
- zequel 13y agoHe lost me at "All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it.." Superstitious to the nth degree, I can't stand this deeply flawed thinking, ie gamblers' logic. It makes me want to vomit. E: And it doesn't matter what year, if you're going to let the outcome of a hearts game determine your actions, I have a oujia board to sell you. E2: After going back and reading it again, this reads too closely to fiction to be real IMO.
- viiralvx 13y agoAs a first generation Nigerian American, it is situations like these that encourage people to make jokes. But being more serious, I really am sort of appalled at how gullible some people are. Honestly, some of these scenarios are the most shady and preposterous situations, yet they still believe it to be true?
- grecy 13y agoA very naive and trusting friend of mine got hooked on a Nigerian scam once. After lots of back and forward, they sent an express UPS package full of $500 travelers checks in USD ($10k if I remember) to her apartment in NYC. They wanted her to deposit them in her account, and immediately transfer 10% to them, and she could keep the rest. We took them into the bank asking if they were real, after about an hour they finally told us no, and the only reason they had figured it out was because we asked, and their manager had just taken a course in detecting false travelers checks the month before. He said they were better than the fakes used on his course, and they passed all tests bar the very last and most time consuming one. Likely a regular bank would have credited her account $10k, she would have transferred the 10%, and many months later the bank would come back asking for everything back. It would have worked, if I had not been visiting when the package arrived.
- skloubkov 13y agoSomeone that was trying to do money laundering (knowing in advance that it was illegal) got taken advantage of by bigger conman. Don't see why anyone would feel sorry for this guy. Would you feel bad for a robber that got caught?
- Pyrodogg 13y agoMy dad almost got roped into at Craigslist scam only one or two years ago. He was selling a used car on Craigslist and had received interest from someone who was willing to buy it sight unseen but would also need it shipped as they weren't local (single biggest red flag on Craigslist). They were going to mail a check for the cost of the car and extra so that my dad could pay the delivery people that were to come pick the car up the following week. By this point he had already also given them his phone number and home address so they would know where to pick it up. They actually mail him the check for a couple grand which happened to belong to Mr. & Mrs. Smith of a neighboring small town. Mysterious buyer had indicated they were located no where near said town. Instead of cashing the check, he manages to save him self by giving the Smith's a call as their home phone was on the check. Turns our the Smiths had lost their checkbook. I haven't heard the story in a while, I can't remember if they were already working with the police on another fraud check or if they were just recently alerted to their problem. Mysterious buyer/car delivery guy was about to make off with a grand or so and a car. My dad gave everything he had on the buyer to the local police. I don't believe they were ever tracked down. Totally missed a good sting opportunity in my opinion.
- auctiontheory 13y agoHe didn't really get beaten up "Because of a Nigerian Email Scam." He got beaten up because he joined a bunch of criminals to aid and abet their criminal activity. In other words, I don't think the lesson is about the dangers of replying to emails - it's about the dangers of hooking up with gangsters when you're not a seasoned gangster yourself.
- blisterpeanuts 13y agoPlease, people. This article is a spoof, a scam-within-a-scam. I can't believe people actually swallow this story. Someone's having a good laugh right now. "All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it" -- please! I used to love baiting the 419ers; I would redirect their inquiries to a throwaway hotmail account where I would draw them out with silly questions and comments. Usually it would not last much beyond 3-4 emails, though; they seem pretty good at sniffing out a baiter. 419eater.com is excellent, and there are or were a couple of other good collections out there, some really funny exchanges. In one, this (supposedly) dumb American flew to some town in Thailand instead of Nigeria, and the Nigerian got so mad he cursed and told him to go to hell. So much for that scam! Sadly, I took down my scam baiting correspondence after I applied to a job with a Scottsdale networking company and their "security guy" did a google search that netted these exchanges. "You need to list these as relationships with foreign entities," he scolded. "Huh? It's just a joke, they might be in Florida for all I know." Nope. No sense of humor. They withdrew the job offer which was just as well; a very large bullet did I dodge that time! More recently Nigerians, or similar folk, have been posting fake ads on Craigslist. A couple of years ago when we were looking for an apartment, I came across an unbelievably good deal, a huge luxury condo in Newton, Mass., for like $700 a month. It sounded just too good to be true; I contacted them and asked if it was a typo. They said in slightly less good English than in the ad that, no, it's not a typo, and they're going on some sort of mission to Africa for two years (uh oh, here it comes!) and needed a good reliable person to rent their home. Sniffing a scam, I decided to test them by mentioning that we had a pet howler monkey, but not to worry, he's very quiet and well behaved (howler monkeys are in fact considered the loudest land animals) and they didn't bat an eye, so I continued embellishing: he does sometimes fly into fits of rage and throw things, but for the most part he's pretty well house trained. When can we move in? But they stopped writing back. People do get suckered, but usually it's because they are quite gullible, or lonely, or desperate, or some combination thereof. The character in the vice.com story had all of those qualities in abundance, making the story that much more believable, and he threw in quite a few details that seem factual enough, but overall things just didn't add up.
- phr4ts 13y agoThey say "You can't con an honest man," is it true?