From Africa to USA Can a lad change his outlook?

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Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:40 pm

Last night I read Phil Yerbot's and InternationalChrysis's bait Pee's 50 Shades of Twilight. For those who have not read it, pull up a chair, leave food and beverages behind and have a good laugh. (There are other baiters as well, I just forget their names off hand!)

Since it looks like Pete resides in Washington State and came from Nigeria, I wonder if his outlook on life in America has changed. That there is not an abundance of wealth for everyday people, that there are also poor people here and we actually work hard for our money they try to scam us out of.

Obviously he's still scamming, so he has no qualms about that. I just wonder if his outlook might have changed, that it's not as easy as he believed. That working graveyard at Walgreen's isn't so easy and money doesn't go along way here. (Especially minimum wage jobs (I don't know what a Walgreen's night clerk makes, I just assume min. to about $11.00 per hour?))

Is there hope for Pee Pee? Could he shed light to his fellow Nigerians that scamming us really isn't a nice thing to do? Or is it so ingrained in his mind that whatever his belief as to why scamming us is okay and we deserve it that he will never change?

I just have a bit of hope that perhaps one scammer would stop and tell his fellow Nigerians that it's not cool that we work hard for our money and it's not right to scam us. Am I foolish to have that hope?

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 10:49 pm

I don't think you are foolish for having such hope. But I certainly wouldn't bet on this guy changing. You would be relying on the fact that scammers are capable of sympathy when evidence suggests otherwise.

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:33 pm

The problem is that they can make an immense amount of money for a small investment in time and emails. My one chat lad, been talking maybe a little over a month, emails, and he's expecting $5K any day now. Plus it generates a lot of revenue and spending for their countries, so the governments have little reasons to stop allowing it to happen.
I'm an optimist too but I'm also a realist. Which is why I"m here Very Happy

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 12:43 am

No,not foolish. It is a fine and good hope. That is not going to happen.Lads the world over are masters at justifying their actions. Many (though not all) were raised in a culture that feels scamming is both justified and acceptable. Simply moving to the US is unlikely to change that outlook. Comparing life here to their home country may well actually re enforce their belief that they are doing nothing wrong.

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2003 Posts: 4747

You can always hope, and maybe a few scammers may change their ways, but don’t count on it. It greed, a level of greed that is out of whack, with normal society. I amazed that a large number of scammers “appear” to be very religious, and a strong sense of patriotism.

This is completely irrational, after all their actions defile both God and country. This could be part of the problem. You can’t expect reason, or logical thinking from a delusional person.

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:25 am

buried under 419 emails wrote:

You can always hope, and maybe a few scammers may change their ways, but don’t count on it. It greed, a level of greed that is out of whack, with normal society. I amazed that a large number of scammers “appear” to be very religious, and a strong sense of patriotism.

This is completely irrational, after all their actions defile both God and country. This could be part of the problem. You can’t expect reason, or logical thinking from a delusional person.

I don't believe they're delusional per se. I think they're just good either at compartmentalizing religion and scamming or using religion as a justification for doing it. I found an article on religion and crime. It deals with inmates, but I think it could apply to the lad mindset. The link's at the bottom, but I'll give a synopsis. Studies are showing that criminals are using religion to rationalize their crimes. One guy they talked to justified his crimes because he was stuck in the hood and had no choice. Another said it doesn't count if he commits a crime against a drug dealer or other criminal because he's just punishing them in God's name for doing wrong.

I can see that applying to a Nigerian-based scammer. Something like over sixty percent of Nigerians are so poor that they have trouble scraping together the money needed to buy the bare essentials. Over here, we all look like millionaires to them with our nice houses, cars and other material goods, even if we are just scraping by ourselves. Those lads who come from poor families probably have justified their actions by believing that it's ok to take money from the greedy Westerners since they have nothing and we seem to have it all. In their minds, God doesn't mind if they take from the greedy because they're poor and don't have any other choice. Obviously they don't see themselves as greedy.

Or maybe they're doing it because they blame the West for colonizing Africa and just causing all kinds of problems. Those in the Western countries deserve punishment for ruining things. Actually, that could probably tie into patriotism, if they can creatively rationalize they're getting revenge on Nigeria's enemies or something.

Or they could come up with any other reason they can twist into justification. That's what criminals do. They don't need to be delusional, mentally unstable, narcissistic or sociopathic. They just have to rationalize. I used to do criminal defense work before I financially able to move on to better cases. It sucked because I saw very sane people believe whatever was necessary to justify their bad actions. I would have hated to deal with the ones who really were delusional.

Article on religion and crime:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/03/08/faith_based_prison_programs_new_study_suggests_religion_m.ay_help_criminals.html

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