Why do they pretend they're Chinese?

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Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

I've never understood this. I get an email using all Chinese names - business, person etc and saying he's in Hong Kong.

Why do they do this? I sometimes reply with a Chinese paragraph I've saved. They either reply in English, ignoring what I sent, or never write back at all since of course they have no idea what it means.

I can understand them saying they're in Europe or the US, but why China? Confused

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:04 pm

I can think of a few reasons. First off, quite a lot of proxies resolve to Hong Kong.

I also believe that if they're targeting people in the west (I know lads don't care where their victims are from), they'd might think they have a bigger chance pretending to be from a place far away, than from the west. Alternately, it might be an attempt at targeting people living in Asia.

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

I'm unsure as to whether scammers are this smart but maybe it is to do with China currently being about the only, if not the only, place in the world where the economy is growing at a significant rate. Maybe they think that this will attract people looking to make a fast buck? Just a thought, I have no evidence to prove this is the case.

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:34 pm

What I'd like to know is why a scammer who's clearly in West Africa would use an email address ending in ".jp" or ".tw" or ".cn".

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

^^ I know. These emails are usually Yahoo.cn or like Sung Lee's, .vn. I doubt the mugus know anything of world economics and most of them seem to think everyone in the world lives in the US.

What I found really funny is how "Sung Lee"'s language changed to something totally mugu-ish when I questioned his sincerity, honesty and background.

Quote:

U B REALLY DEAD GOAT NOR B UR FULT NA PERSON WHEN GIVE U DISKTOP USE

U B MUGU MAN GO LEARN HW TO READ AND WRITE

PIG DEAD GOAT NA U B.

GO DEY WASH CAR 4 CAR WASH DEM GO PAY U WELL.IDIOT

Doesn't sound very Chinese to me! Laughing

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:28 am

There's quite a large number of expat West Africans in Hong Kong (usually hanging out on street corners on Nathan Road in Kowloon IMHO); of course the majority are honest, hard working decent people but regrettably there's a few lads in there too. It would make sense for these guys to pretend to be chinese if they have phones with HK dialling codes and .hk or .cn email domains.

It could also be the lads have contacts in HK who have access to bank accounts so it would make sense for them to pretend the whole business was in HK.

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:51 pm

Haven't seen Wan Qin for a while, is he still around?

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

I had no idea about West Africans in Hong Kong. Makes a bit more sense now. Tks sunshine.

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:40 pm

Another possible reason is that China has been getting very involved in Nigeria and the whole ECOWAS region for some years.

Chinese companies moving in and buying up oil and mineral resources for its growing needs. They see west Africa as an as yet untapped resource and major future market. Cheap labour and a no questions asked attitude if a few workers get smoked in the process of making money goes a long way too. Plus they speak the same language when it comes to kickbacks and backhanders.

The BBC made a few progs about it earlier in the year.

Nigerians and Ghanians were complaining bitterly about Chinese coming over and taking their jobs or starting up in competition. Though Nigerians are catching on with Chinese language schools opening up.

The programs might still be available on the BBC iPlayer.

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:20 pm

I no longer have a link to it, but I once posted on here a lad in Nigeria, pretending to be Mr Wu of a bank in Hong Kong, Japan, and doing a mock Chinese accent.

As potential comedy gold, any lad pretending to be Chinese should be made to ring you and have his call recorded.

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:31 pm

sunshine wrote:

It could also be the lads have contacts in HK who have access to bank accounts so it would make sense for them to pretend the whole business was in HK.

My current lad gave me 2 HK HSBC accounts linked to 2 HK Ltd companies.

Is it that they have exhausted their welcome with African/European banks and been forced to look further a field.

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:19 pm

Roycropper wrote:

I once posted on here a lad in Nigeria, pretending to be Mr Wu of a bank in Hong Kong, Japan, and doing a mock Chinese accent.

I remember him. Laughing

He pipped the amazing crying lad, and the lad pretending to be a ladette to the number one spot of all time funnest phone calls. Very Happy

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 3:28 pm

If I remember correctly, free yahoo accounts may not be used with Thunderbird or Outlook. My personal yahoo account connects to Singapore so I may integrate it with these programs. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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