Leamington man loses $150,000 in Nigerian scam

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419Eater is my life Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 366

It is the old story. It is too good to be true, a 22 year old man borrows everything he can untill he and his family are essentially wiped out.

It is a text book 419 scam.

One of the CBC newstories had some of the email details. I will try to get copies of the emails and post them as an eater project. This scammer could use the attention.

Quote:

Rempel told CBC News the scheme started in 2007 (July 2007) , when he opened an email and thought he was set for life.

The email told the 22-year-old a distant relative had died in a bomb attack in London, England, and left behind $12.8 million.

He said the email was from someone claiming to be an attorney named Matthew Spencer, who said he represented the relative and was looking for someone to claim the fortune.

Spencer was a world away, but convinced Rempel they shared a faith in God, he said.

"He always said, 'God bless you,'" Rempel said.

"Every Sunday he was in church. All that stuff made me believe it, right?"

So when Rempel was told he needed to pay fees for documents, he did.

"At first it was a little bit, some fees about $2,500, and I thought that was it," he said.

"After that … it never stopped. They were like, 'Just this bit yet and then it's going to happen.'"

When he was told he needed to fly to England to meet some men personally and pay more fees, he did.

"I met them behind the motel, I handed them over $10,000 in cash," he said. "I was happy. I was like, 'Oh wow, this is real, because I met them and everything.'"

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/01/14/email-scam.html

One of the CBC article comments

Quote:

law of scams: Amount of money stolen from victim is directly proportional to their level of greed multiplied by the inverse of their I.Q.
-$ = Greed * (1/ IQ)

http://www.windsorstar.com/Leamington+loses+Nigerian+scam/1173799/story.html

http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=8c0d61fe-94c7-4036-ba55-95e9bc796441&p=2

p.

EDIT: Added content from CBC story

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:51 pm

Same story on The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/15/canadian_419_victim/

Some of the comments are worth reading...

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:22 pm

The people who make adverse comments about victims of 419 scams think they are smarter than they actually are.

Most of them could be hooked by one of the other 419 variations e.g. e-bay

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:27 pm

Dang you Pablo... I came in here to post this one and you beat me to the punch!

Good work my man. Very Happy

This should keep the lad-huggers quiet for a few minutes.

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:43 pm

GomerPyle wrote:

The people who make adverse comments about victims of 419 scams think they are smarter than they actually are.

Most of them could be hooked by one of the other 419 variations e.g. e-bay

she who must be obeyed is one .she thinks im stupid playing around in eater while she is haveing trouble with mail going missing and she is booking hotel rooms for her trip overseas but wont liston to me when i say be carefull they are who they say they are (dont talk to me about boats i know boats as they step in to the dingy and fall in to the water)

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:45 pm

Dr. Max Wieldruk wrote:

Same story on The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/15/canadian_419_victim/

Some of the comments are worth reading...

Two are mine. Trying to offset the unsympathetic ones.

Master Baiter Joined: 23 Sep 2008 Posts: 236

Mr TM: Good for you! I read through the comments on the page. I can't believe someone suggesting trying to scam the guy again in the few years!

Yes, people are gullible, and may be greedy, or are just trying to be helpful, but why can't people see that its the /scammers/ that should be blamed.

My mother-in-law is the same, she thinks that the people who fall for the scams deserve everything they get. I'm working on educating her, but its slow going.

And if any of those commenters get caught by one of the other scams, have they thought that no-one will have sympathy for them, saying that it was just their 'greed'?

Master Baiter Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 108

I remember when I first received 419 letter. I was still a student at a time. Immediately I started thinking - calculating the money in my mind, how much would I get. It was all okay if t wasn't for that warning in my head. Saying to me yeah right out of all people this particlar happens to find you with this generous business proposal. So I never responded to these kind of mails and deleted everytime they appeared.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 7103 Location: Yes

Moved here.

Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:54 pm

I think a lot of those unsympathetic comments are false bravado. People see somebody do something that in retrospect is stupid, and deep down inside they realize they might have done the same. But they don't want anybody to know that, so they are among the loudest when it comes to making fun of the victim.

Human nature is a fascinating study.

Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:57 pm

Titania, I tend to think that you're right.

My Dad's one of the "Oh, they're stupid and deserved what they got" types when it comes to scam victims. However, when he was younger, he passed on his fair share of chain letters, with cash included of course. So, he was scammed, albeit to a very small extent. I think that he lost fewer than one hundred dollars, all told, before he figured out that the chain letters aren't legitimate.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 33

You know what? I got scammed this week.

From a bee removal company. I had a hive full of killer bees in the wall of my house.

Okay, it wasn't me, but my business partner who got scammed, but I pay nonetheless. She's was in tears, crying because she felt like it was her fault that this happened; had she been smarter or more careful, they would not have taken advantage of her. God, I hate scammers because they make you feel bad about being a trusting, honest individual.

After I did some more research, I found out this is how that place operates, tell you one price, keep finding things wrong which cost more and more and use fear to really up the ante. They prey on elderly women.

Just really despicable people. I found another bee company to actually finish the job who gave us a discount simply because we had been scammed by their competitor first. Their fee for the entire job would have been half of what we paid them for the first visit alone.

The exterminator told me some real horror stories of old ladies losing $1,500 or more before calling him. He said most of his work was bailing people of of jobs with that company.

Oh, and that scam company? They are the ONLY bee removal experts who are licensed and bonded to do this work. And these asswipes just keep going and going because no one stops them.

Wonder why I spam bait? My father always said you had an obligation to fight injustice for all the people who come behind you. If you do not fight for justice for others, you have no expectation of justice for yourself.

We didn't get taken for much, probably $300 total by my estimate. It would have been $2,500, but my Spidey sense told me something wasn't quite right with what they were telling me and I did some checking.

I employed some of my scam baiting techniques learned here, like reading the fine print that says if you see bees within 48 hours, they will come back out. So of course, we had more of those darn bees, "I can see them buzzing around the window and if someone gets stung, I am sure they will sue you."

I figure I got more than $300 out of them in pounds of flesh, bit by bit. Between the angry telephone calls, repeat visits, arguments, etc. I got their hourly rate down to industry standards.

I have some ideas on how to make their lives a living hell, and have already started. They claimed the other company didn't do the work correctly, so I asked them to write it down for me, "so I can back to them and make them do it right."

What a load of horseshit. I called the other company and turned over the documents to them so they could go after them for libel.

If anyone has any ideas how to put the screws to this place, I'd love to hear them.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 17 Jan 2009 Posts: 4

That story is actually what brought me here, had never heard of this site before. I've got 4 very early baits going right now, all still on script. I'm workin at it though, I'm new at this Smile

Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 3:05 am

That is so harsh, all those people calling him a "fucktard" and what not. Poor guy just lost a boatload of money and people need to pile more abuse on him? So sad. Sad

Some people were even applauding the scammers. What a shame.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 12 Jan 2009 Posts: 55

I agree that the adverse comments are unfair..

I saw that article posted on Digg a day or two ago and everyone was saying that he deserved it, etc. (no one deserves it..)

That reminds me, my sister was selling some furniture on craigslist, and a fake check lad sent her a check for way over the asking price, without even seeing one picture of the furniture. That would be suspicious even if they sent a check for the actual price. If that wasn't a red flag enough, I do believe it came from Africa too.. This stuff happens to normal unwitting people.. Obviously we ripped up the check.

419Eater is my life Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 366

Canadian CTV current affairs program W5 ran a story yesterday on check scams. The focused on a single scam type- check scams and showed two cases one of scammers sending out letters and second job turned check scam by email

http://www.majumdar.org/crime/ctv-w5-show-on-nigerian-419-scammers-royal-bank-complicity-and-fake-checks/

One of the modality twists the job turned check scam even verified his references on the job application.

p.

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