How many scams SUCCEED on a weekly basis?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 13 Dec 2009 Posts: 3

There's a whole bunch of good baiters here, it seems.
In all of Africa, there's probably a few hundred proficient scammers, right?

So how do we get any clue on how many folks actually have $$$ stolen by these criminals?
Reports would go to local police depts all over the world.
Are vast numbers of people still naive and stupid enough to fall for these scams?

Shocked

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:57 pm

No real way to get an accurate count of successful scams, since those who are scammed will not always report it, due to being embarrassed.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

Welcome Superwizard. Very Happy

I'm afraid you've vastly underestimated the number of scammers in Africa, not to mention other parts of the world.

There are some victims' accounts here: http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/index.php which is a tiny tiny fraction of the number of victims.

They're also not all greedy or naive. More apt would be ignorant to the scams and trusting. Wink

Also, some of the scams can be sophisticated.

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:25 pm

Hundreds of thousands at least. And probably far more victims than that.
It's not so much the traditional 419 scam, but all the lesser known ones that take many smaller amounts off victims that never appear in any statistics.
Craigslist scams to name but one.
Take the Cameroonian scam of selling imaginary pets. I was recently approached through Scamwarners by one victim who had lost $7000 to one of them.
Is that a typical example? I hope not, but I really have no idea.

Master Baiter Joined: 27 Jun 2009 Posts: 181

Only one needs to succeed for us to keep baiting like we are doing now Wink

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Dec 2009 Posts: 8

the answer always is : "too many" thats why 419eater was set up, to take these bastards down and cause as much fuss/hilarity as possible.

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 1:34 am

Head over to scamwarners.com, and count the number of new registrations in a week. Now do the same at romancescam.com. And the other scam-related sites. That's the tip of the iceberg - people who realised, got out, and had the balls to speak out.

Sadly, your 'few hundred' is woefully inaccurate, when you may have 40+ working from one cybercafe. Indeed, even if say one in every 10,000 people is a scammer, that's still 16,800 in Nigeria alone, and the problem is not just a Nigerian, or even African one - scammers come from all over the world, with lots of different guises of scams.

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 1:54 pm

Figures are very hard to come by, largely because of the resistance of victims to admit having being scammed.

Some estimates gathered from multiple sources from years past suggest ball-park figures:

* around 250,000 scammers (full- and part-time) in Lagos alone
* $500 million lost to scams each year
* average loss to a scam $5000.

So, each week, 2,000 scams are paying off.

Average take for a scammer would be $2,000 per year, although it is skewed towards a few people making serious money and most of the yahoo boys occasionally getting $100 or so.

As I say, these figures are mainly guesswork, pieced together from random bits of information we have gathered over the years, and should not be taken as a definitive guide, simply a ranging shot.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Jul 2009 Posts: 15

^^^^^ I wonder how much WU and MG make from charges and commision on $500 Million, Shocked

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

A lot of scams are for small amounts $100-$500 in fees Many if not most of these will never be reported and these are likely the most sucessful.

The most dangereous scams are variations on phishing scams where the victim is truely inocent

p.

Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:36 am

It is certainly distressing etc. to realise how much money Western Bunyan and money grab profit from victims of fraud. Apparently, they merely need to ensure appropriate ID is necessary in order to protect victims... Paddy

Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:20 am

If my memorie is right few years back i read something about 419 scams being the 2nd biggest income of Nigeria after oil.....so that can give you an idea of how big this problem is

Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:00 pm

^^^^^^^^^
That may also be a really good reason why the Nigerian government isn't in too much of a hurry to shut these lads down...

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Jul 2009 Posts: 15

^^^ I doubt the Nigerian goverment really gives two hoots about the Lads or their scams. Mad

:

If we are going to make a dent in the number of scams and victims it's going to have to be done from here, by that I mean Europe, the US, Australia etc. Either from educating people or by placing obstacles in the way of people trying to wire money to Nigeria. I'd like to think that Western O and Money G would help in educating people but I doubt they will given the profit available to them from 419. Mad

:

Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 1:15 am

MilkyWhite wrote:

I'd like to think that Western O and Money G would help in educating people but I doubt they will given the profit available to them from 419. Mad

:

***WESTERN UNION IS A SERVICE THAT SCAMMERS ABUSE.***

WU is a legitimate service that is abused by scammers. Other services that the scammers abuse include, but are not limited to; MoneyGram TDD/TTY services, the US/UK postal service et al, UPS, Fed Ex, DHL and every single free webmail provider past, present and future.

Western Union is a business, like all businesses, their goal is to make a profit, not to make decisions for their customers or get involved in every aspect of their customers personal affairs. They are aware that the scammers use their service and have even taken the initiative to provide warnings on their website. To my knowledge they are under no legal obligation to do so.

I have gone through the effort to provide some links and PDFs from Western Union's website that clearly addresses specific scams and specific types of scams and even what one should do if they suspect that they may be involved in a scam.

http://www.westernunion.com/info/fraudIndex.asp?country=global
http://www.westernunion.com/info/fraudProtectYourself.asp?country=global
http://www.westernunion.com/info/fraudProtectYourPassword.asp?country=global
http://www.westernunion.com/info/fraudScams.asp?country=global
http://www.westernunion.com/info/fraudTips.asp?country=global

http://members.419eater.com/~jose_cuervo/western_union/wu_pdf1.pdf
http://members.419eater.com/~jose_cuervo/western_union/wu_pdf2.pdf
http://members.419eater.com/~jose_cuervo/western_union/wu_pdf3.pdf

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 13 Dec 2009 Posts: 3

My own take on scammers and their victims is.........so long as there's a basically endless supply of stupid people willing to throw their money away, a sufficient number of scammers will materialize to take it from them.

This varies from identity theft crimes which don't require cooperation from a willing victim...

Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:08 pm

And back we are in the loop with "stupid victims"...come on...who´s next to blame WU? Rolling Eyes

(irony off. sigh on.)

Seriously, take one look at scamwarners. Just one. And you will all stop to blame the victims for crime.

Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 11:52 pm

Hello superwizard,

Please read this 'charity' scam recently discussed here and posted on ScamWarners, about a young man just out of high school who was robbed of $7,000. dollars....which he raised by his own initiative to be able to go to Africa to do volunteer work with children and teach English.

Quote:

Article is here:
http://www.wmur.com/news/21976946/detail.html

He wasn't stupid. He was trusting. Just trying to help others less fortunate and live the 'golden rule' that he was taught and grew up with.

As was said above, it's not so much the traditional 419 Scam, which most people are aware of... it's other scam's such as Craig's List, romance, etc. which have/are being developed and perfected 24 hours a day, every day, by scammers the world over.

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