If Africans are so successful with these scams

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Not quite a Newb Joined: 06 Feb 2014 Posts: 27

If Africans are so successful with these scams, and we all know they work because they do them, quite scary to think what a group of intelligent English speakers with more readily available information would be able to do.

What with the fact you would instantly dismiss people with names and replies like Mr Ben Dover etc, no time wasted at all, and requests for videos, pics etc, these people would be dismissed immediately.

Is it just a numbers game for these people though. Like do they have 1000 people working in one group, and from this 3 will get lucky and the other 997 fail, but this 3 gives a nice payout.

Not sure how they operate exactly, or are a lot of them individuals doing it.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:16 am

The scammers aren't exclusively from Africa. There are many in Asian countries, Russia, the UK, even the USA. They're everywhere. However, some countries have more lenient (or corrupt) law enforcement than others, making it easier/less risky for folks there to run scams and get away with it. But, it should also be noted that the percentage of scammers in Africa vs. the percentage of honest folks there is actually quite low.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:19 am

Hi tartan-paint and welcome to Eater.

Yes...it is a number's game. What scam is not? Their scripts are refined all the time.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 4:16 am

Here in the USA we do have "intelligent English speakers" who are some of the worlds best scammers. They're in the 3 branches of gov't and do quite well. We even elect them to do so. Wink

Never equate poor English and grammar with intelligence. It just means English isn't their first language. If I had to write something in Spanish, man would I fail and look like an idiot.

Welcome to Eater! It's always nice to see a fresh face amongst us. Hope you have fun and most of all, bait safe. Razz

Elite Baiter Joined: 10 Mar 2013 Posts: 1486

tartan-paint wrote:

If Africans are so successful with these scams, and we all know they work because they do them, quite scary to think what a group of intelligent English speakers with more readily available information would be able to do.

What with the fact you would instantly dismiss people with names and replies like Mr Ben Dover etc, no time wasted at all, and requests for videos, pics etc, these people would be dismissed immediately.

Is it just a numbers game for these people though. Like do they have 1000 people working in one group, and from this 3 will get lucky and the other 997 fail, but this 3 gives a nice payout.

Not sure how they operate exactly, or are a lot of them individuals doing it.

Those English speakers would propably have a better paying job than scamming. Or at least they wouldn't need to use internet for scamming.

And do note that lads don't even seek perfection in their english or in their scripts. They use whatever works. If the script is too good then they get wrong kind of people. People who aren't too gullible not to ask any questions or suspect things when it is time to pay up.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 5:48 am

"Africans" vs "A group of intelligent English speakers"? Confused

Master Baiter Joined: 27 Jan 2014 Posts: 112

"Lad" Africans is what I think was meant.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 6:38 am

I think a lot of folks are missing the point. There are scammers everywhere, in every language. The ones that look dense are writing in a language that isn't their own but there are plenty of very smart victims who share a common language with scammers... as evidenced all over the "general chat" section right now with posts about tragedies involving scam victims.

I'm gonna pop some popcorn & wait for SOOI & co. to arrive in this thread.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:01 am

From wikipedia

Quote:

According to Cormac Herley, a researcher for Microsoft, "By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible, the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select."

Send a scam email to 1000 people and 999 will probably ignore it - but it is that 1 person that the scammer is looking for.

It is also possible that many of the recipients of the emails are not native English speakers themselves and will not notice the poor language skills of someone claiming to be an English bank manager or lawyer.

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

There are probably forms of Advanced Fee Fraud being perpetrated in every country in the world. Why has it become synonymous with Nigeria? A few reasons can be given as to why it flourished there in ways it hasn't in the West:

1) Corrupt governments more interested in stuffing their own pockets with cash than creating employment. The government are willing to turn a blind eye to scammers as this gets them out of having to generate employment for them. Yes we have corrupt governments in The West too but most western countries have some form of welfare/social security system in place whereas most African countries don't. This obviously leads people to desperate acts (this of course doesn't excuse stealing off other people and ruining the lives of their victims in the process but it is a factor).

2) From the oil revenues generated Nigeria invested in their education system in the 70's but with the problem of unemployment after graduation many looked at the corrupt officials making a shed load of cash out of bribery & corrupt practices and decided to follow suit. Consequently these graduates made a business out of scamming. They turned scamming into a professional enterprise in Nigeria and then more people jumped on the bandwagon. As a 'professional body' they became more effective and successful than AFF scammers in other countries and they have indeed gone global with their brand of AFF. Nigerian scammers now operate out of a series of other countries - Benin, Malaysia, Netherlands, UK, USA, Canada, Thailand to name but a few.

3) Nigerian scammers (I don't mean Nigerians as a race, many of them detest the scammers who taint their country's reputation) have justified their crime to themselves as 'payback for slavery.' If a crime can be justified in a persons mind then they feel more comfortable doing it. As a result more people feel comfortable giving it a go.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 9:43 am

4X1X9 wrote:

have justified their crime to themselves as 'payback for slavery.'

A justification often used by passing lad huggers - but scammers are more than happy to scam poor Indian girls (as can be seen from bware419er's mass bait) or people from other developing countries that have never been involved in the slavery in Africa.

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

^^^^

Indeed it is merely used an excuse for them to justify their crime to themselves but we all know they will scam anyone. They even scam their own countrymen and women with visa scams playing on the desperation of a significant minority of Nigerians desperate to get out of the country by any means necessary.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 10:37 am

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 12:06 pm

B8er wrote:

It is also possible that many of the recipients of the emails are not native English speakers themselves and will not notice the poor language skills of someone claiming to be an English bank manager or lawyer.

I've answered a few posts on SW in French or Spanish; more often people who aren't native English speakers post in English, and we point out that the English of the scam letter was written by a West African. Once I answered an Italian in mangled Italian (one who grew up speaking French and hearing Spanish can mangle Italian and still be understood) and someone, trying to be helpful, ran my Italian through Google and got gibberish. There's also been a thread in English with Tagalog interspersed.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 1:03 pm

Not all 419 scams and scammers are unsophisticated. I've known them set up LLC's and this will happen more and more.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 2:16 pm

Know your enemy; these are educated, skilled criminals. The scams are elaborate and well staged. Losses to fraud can be enormous. Don't underestimate them.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 2:56 pm

Think Ben Bernake, think Bernie Madoff, think of the various huge scams that have been done, think of an extractive economic system that cannibalizes the future to meet the needs of today. Think that a lot of those needs are to pay of debts. Think of privatized gain and socialized loss, with speculation being subsidized by various governments and larger financial institutions.

The whole economy is a scam. Growth economics is over. What is left is the various fleecings available.

You want real thieves? 419ers are not the worst of it, but they are the easiest to work against. They are also the easiest to identify.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:33 pm

^+1 (Do we still do +1? Very Happy

)

IBTL

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 5:06 pm

tartan-paint wrote:

If Africans are so successful with these scams, and we all know they work because they do them, quite scary to think what a group of intelligent English speakers with more readily available information would be able to do.

You know what that group could do? They could waste their time and resources, drive them batty with money that never arrives, send them to ungodly places and have a ton of fun doing it.

Now if someone could just organize a forum around that group of people and get them to selflessly dedicate themselves to doing that, it would be a worthwhile place I would like to join.

Oh, wait...

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 8:14 pm

bwah ha ha good one bware Laughing

*although it should be noted, while the forum primarily uses the English language it is not the first language of everyone here, either Cool

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 10:10 pm

^^^I realize that, however, the members here are intelligent and appear to have language skills greater than the majority of lads.

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 10:54 pm

^Excepting Toomuchfun and Irish..I agree.

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 3:14 am

Am Confuse.

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 3:47 am

It's not so much language skills (a lad's English may be worse than my English, but it's better than my Yoruba) but that West African lads don't have much access to American or European English or media. In the parts of Europe and Brazil and the Caribbean where I've traveled, electricity is fairly reliable and Internet access is easy to find (I'm not sure about Portugal, since I was there before I was as tied to my email as I am now). In Nigeria, from what I've heard on the news, the power grid is largely nonfunctional. You can't expect them to learn what a gefilte fish is or what kinds of playing cards are mackerels if they hurry to answer victims' emails before the power randomly goes out.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 06 Feb 2014 Posts: 27

I never meant so much language skills when I was mentioning intelligence. In my opinion their language skills are great, I could never communicate using their own dialect.

I just don't get why they will even spend so much time in communication with someone when even a fool would know it's a piss take. I mean every scam-bait I have read after the first few emails I would know, but these people seem to not.

I doubt the actual genuine people they are getting the money from and scamming are communicating to them like a scam-baiter does. So am surprised they haven't adapted with time and realised this by now. Will that old lady they get who sends the money be asking them to do this, do that, send a picture, get a tattoo etc lol

I wonder the intelligence level of them.

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