New Zealand victim is sure the payment will come

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Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:17 am

Last night there was an article on a current affairs program on NZ TV (Closeup) which featured an interview with a woman who had paid $NZ200,000 ($US140,000, UKP70,000) to 419 scammers.

She had sent about $NZ50,000 to the scammers before realising it was a scam, then has sent the rest of the money to "Bank of Nigeria fraud unit officials" who are trying to retrieve her money - there is just one more payment of $50,000 needed to finalise a court case. She is taking a larger mortgage out on her house to raise this money for the scammers.

The interviewer described 419 scams, told her this was a scam, but the lady believes that a Nigerian lawyer she met here in NZ is actually working with the bank officials on her behalf. She is sure that she will have her money retrieved, plus get her the $US2,000,000 share of the deceased's estate she was originally promised.

I've rung the TV program with details of 419 fraud, e-mailed them with details and scampatrol's website, and offered to investigate the bank officials to see if they have been involved in any other frauds.

However, it's probably too late now. And I don't know if the program will be interested in following up the fraud - they've had their 10 minutes of spotlight on this case so they'll probably move on to something else tomorrow night.

It just made me feel sick, like watching a train wreck happening and you couldn't stop it.

Sorry if there's been a post on this already, I searched but didn't find anything.

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:08 am

Saw that too.

I could not believe that even after being told a zillion times, this lady still could not see that she was being scammed.

All the justification I needed to be in here really.

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:09 am

I'm sorry I missed it, it's a pity but people find it hard to take when this thing they have believed in for so long is actually fake.

419Eater Admin Joined: 30 Sep 2003 Posts: 7469

Don't suppose there is an online stream of this is there?

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:49 am

shiver metimbers wrote:

Don't suppose there is an online stream of this is there?

Stand by Shiver - I will see what I can find............

Try this http://tvnz.co.nz/view/tvone_minisite_story_skin/1012482%3fformat=html

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:18 am

@jimmy - Thanks for that. Brings it all back into perspective doesn't it?

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:33 am

schmoebob wrote:

@jimmy - Thanks for that. Brings it all back into perspective doesn't it?

Yeah, unfortunately it does.

She is obviously hugely gullible (and therefore vulnerable), and just goes to show what constitutes a target in these guys' minds....... Mad

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:15 pm

Wow, that has left me speechless, the poor woman. i reallly didn`t think it could ever go that far.
Recently an 82 year old woman in my town had a Lotto scam snail mailed to her, it looked exactly like an email that was doing the rounds, the letter was in the usual busted up English so she couldn`t read it. i had just given Shivs book to a friend of mine who works with her son, so thankfully he was able to make sure she didn`t fall for it, i told him to bring the mail to the local paper so that they could print a warning, but nothing has been printed so far. i`ll be mailing that news clip to the Editor today,

will that clip be there til next Monday?

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:12 pm

The link to the video is supposed to be permanent, I've been told, so it should be there forever.

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:51 pm

It makes you wont to cry, That woman could be our grandma.

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Posts: 135

I've seen that situation more than once...makes me sick every time.

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:28 pm

An unbelievably sad situation.

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:42 pm

I just cant believe it.... Hook, line & sinker as they say. The worse thing is she admits she knew she was dealing with scammers from the start.

I'm guesssing she was lonely, and as we all know, they make great penpals.

Oh well, knowing Kiwi spirit, she will get many donations to keep her going.

Elite Baiter Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 1455

Kickstart wrote:

Oh well, knowing Kiwi spirit, she will get many donations to keep her going.

And if she does she will use them for the final final final payment.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:46 am

I just watched the video on this scam, I cant believe what she has
lost to these fraudsters, this is bad, I would be nice to get hold of
those mail's to do some baiting on them, this brings back a memory.
Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:47 am

Sadly I think Ginger is right. Sometimes you just can't save someone from themselves.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:08 am

It's a shame that these 'current affairs' programmes don't spend more time actually explaining the scams and how they work to viewers instead of focussing on the more 'sensational' aspects of these sad stories. I know it makes for 'better' TV (which is all they are interested in) but I really wish they would use these stories to educate people better on how to spot scams and not get conned in the first place.

An Australian TV crew (Channel 9) recently actually met with a couple of scammers who are bleeding an old pensioner dry with an inheritance scam. Not only did they go to the meeting without any kind of LEO backup, they didn't explain to the victim that he is being scammed (he still firmly believes there's a few million coming his way), and they gave only the most cursory explanation/information to viewers about how the scam works. The bulk of the item was film of two Nigerians running through the suburbs being chased by a reporter on the back of a ute.

Only yesterday our local ABC radio talkback show discussed lottery scams and interviewed various victims but didn't actually explain how the scams work. Discussion opened with "We all know about the various kinds of internet scams, etc etc". Well clearly a lot of people DON'T know about them or we wouldn't continue to hear stories of victims being taken for thousands of dollars.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:11 am

Yeah, I've e-mailed the program offering to be interviewed and tell how these scams work, but they've not come back. I guess they're only interested in the immediate story and not an ongoing effort to educate people about internet fraud.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:27 am

That was a real sad story. I think that the media should be educated about scams and scammers.
It was apparent that none of the people in the broacast had any idea of how the scams work.
It would be nice to get a hold of the mugus addies and do mass baiting.
We still have a lot of work to do with these scammers.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:58 am

I got the impression that the interviewers knew how the scams worked perfectly well. They didn't actually tell the viewers, though.

If they had the old lady would have lost a huge amount of sympathy, as the scam was so transparent. I got the feeling that when she admitted to knowing it was a scam she was not being entirely truthful. I think she said that so that she didn't look naive or ignorant. Sadly by going along with it after perhaps knowing she made herself look just plain masochistic.

I have enormous sympathy for someone who is just trying to help someone overcome a hardship, and gets ripped off (eg. the charity scams). If they suspect it is a scam, and still go along with it? I have a bit of a problem feeling too sorry for someone like that. What, if anything must have been going through her mind?

I realise I must seem very hard hearted, and often I am. She is a big girl and able to make decisions for herself (her sons don't seem to have been much help!) and if she walks into a lion's den with her eyes open then she can expect to get bitten.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:22 pm

I think she was just trying to salvage some pride as well. I mean, anyone who says, essentially, "Yes, I knew this person was a criminal, trying to scam me, right from the beginning, but I still decided to take it for a test drive and see how they would act, and I was willing to pay an outrageous amount to satisfy my curiosity on this point," would clearly be clinically insane if they actually meant it, unless they have more money than they know what to do with. Which, evidently, she doesn't. Or she wouldn't be mortgaging her house. There are far, far better ways to waste money, and they're far more fun.

It's the equivalent of saying, "Yes, your honor, I knew he was a cannibalistic serial killer, but I still accepted the invitation to dinner for two at his apartment, just to see how he would try to kill me."

I was rather peeved that they didn't put her in the same room with that fraud detective, too, but frankly, I don't have any great hopes that it would make a difference. At this point, I don't think a bloody choir of angels singing "The lawyer is a fake" in three part harmony would faze her.

Master Baiter Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Posts: 106

well some people have to learn the hard/harsh way. greed never pays

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:26 am

And another scam on the TV here in NZ.

Lad advertised a car on the net, agreed a price of $NZ8000 with a buyer in the UK, who sent him a cheque for 8000 Euro and asked that he send the extra by WU to a Nigerian shipping company to arrange shipment of the car to the UK. Of course the cheque bounced - eventually - and he's now out of pocket for over $NZ7000.

I couldn't believe that anyone would think that someone from the UK would want to buy a 2nd hand car from New Zealand and ship it half way around the world Rolling Eyes

A video can probably be found on tvnz.co.nz / subject "Fait Go"

The original TV program replied to my offer to talk about internet scams saying, "They thought they had covered how scams work in a number of passed programs, but they are thinking of doing a broader expose on internet fraud and will contact me if it goes ahead."

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:20 pm

They don't have it up yet... I'll check again in a couple of days.

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:58 am

Poor sad lady, seems to be suffering from the hostage situation as she said. Must admit the program doesn't really address the issues. Who has any links for national TV scambaiting documentaries, rather than poor saps who have been caught out?

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