I got two spam messages today that I just have to share. (example 1 and example 2) They are such blatant examples of the Nigerian 419 scams that I laughed out loud.
Sadly the answer is “yes”, these scams do still work. The FBI continues to report hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to these frauds each year. Some are this blatant but some are quite a bit more subtle. Variant scams target non-profits. One recent wave alleged that the charity was the beneficiary in an unnamed donor’s will. A surprising number of charities let blind hope get in the way of common sense. Wikipedia has an extensive list of the variants.
So what can you do about it? Some people retaliate. There are whole organizations dedicated to wasting the scammers’ time. They respond with equally false stories about how they are “excited to be notified about the windfall” but because of a religious tenet, need a picture of you (the scammer) “in white robes balancing a loaf of bread on your head while holding a fish under each arm” before they can send the money. Here is one group that collects and publishes the ‘trophy’ pictures of scammed scammers.
While it’s emotionally satisfying to think about retaliation, I strongly recommend that you just delete them. I also encourage you to think about friends and family who might not be as aware of these scams as you are. Do you have a dependent elder who is more trusting than he/she should be? Do you have a friend or co-worker who is a great person but a bit gullible? Send them copies of these scams so they learn what to look for. Help them to set up the spam filters and other computer protections. These scams are amazingly profitiable. They will continue as long as we continue to fall for them.
Some background: The broader name for this kind of scam is the “advance-fee fraud”. Following the collapse of Nigerian economy in the 1980s, a large portion of the educated and computer-savvy population were unable to find gainful employment and turned their skills to crime in order to feed their families. The preponderance of such scam emails coming from Nigeria’s 419 area code led to the current name even though the same scam has also been found originating from England, Spain, Ireland, USA, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, etc. An older version of this scam was carried out by regular mail in the early 1900s under the Spanish Prisoner name.
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