Nigeria, Nigerian Scams. The Scamming Scammers Who Scam Us. Nigerian Fraud, Fraudsters.

Scams, and the Scamming Scammers Who Scam Us

Fraud, the Nigerian Way...

We receive a lot of email. --Tons, if email had weight and mass. We've erected some fairly intimidating barriers in the hope that only the most determined will jump through all the hoops and send us a message. Is this anti-customer? No. It's called survival. If we threw open the doors to every website visitor who wanted to chat, we'd have to employ 2-4 additional people full time, three shifts, just to read and reply.

In addition, we have some reasonably effective security systems in place to deal with scammers and fraud artists who try to get at us. Some are visible, some are invisible to the user. You'd think the visible security measures would be enough to dissuade all but the really sophisticated scammers. Not so.

We've all received the email from the "personal aide to the deposed Nigerian leader" who is looking for someone to hang onto the secret millions the administration squirreled away just before the overthrow. This scammer wants to know if you'd like to deposit those millions into your account for safe keeping. They know they can trust you because they've researched you and know you're honest. There cannot possibly be one single human being on the planet who'd fall for this crap, right? Most spam filters keep it from even reaching you. Still we receive "kind offers" like this several times per month---sometimes several times per week. And we've received them for many years.

Every once in awhile some scammer -- a particularly stupid scammer -- will use our contact form to send us a proposal like this. Our form records their IP address and a bunch of other stuff as well. The sender is made aware that their IP address has been logged, but they've not been made aware of the other data we record.

For the past two or three years we've received a new type of scam-proposal out of Nigeria. We've had legitimate sales in Nigeria, so we had to look at this one to make sure it was fraudulent before dismissing it. This one pretends to be a legitimate customer wanting to buy a bunch of stuff. Let's face it---there's not a lot of call for fake newspapers, written in English, in Lagos, Nigeria. --Especially not $1500 worth of fake newspapers. So every time we receive an email from what we've come to call "the Nigerian Connection", we either delete it outright, or in some cases will play along, for the sake of entertainment.

Last month we were getting requests from Nigerian "customers" for 200 copies of our fake book, "Bill Clinton's: My Life". A few months before that someone wanted $800 worth of fake food cans shipped to a Nigerian address. This month it was "ELWIN ROHUNMU/ROMEL's" turn (the name "Elwin Romel" was probably taken from "Erwin Rommel", the German officer who operated in North Africa in the 1940's). Elwin Romel wanted some $1200 worth of fake shipping carton labels sent to a Nigerian address (19 Ajele Street, Campus Square, Lagos Island, Lagos, Nigeria, 23401). Mr./Ms. ROHUNMU/ROMEL wouldn't reply when asked what in heck he/she was going to do with all this stuff, but insisted we ship it via overnight UPS, at an additional cost of $306. "Oh and, by the way," this customer asked, "could you throw in 3 Nokia 6600 cellular phones? I'll tip you $100 if you do so. Thanks so very much." Mr./Ms. ROHUNMU/ROMEL emailed a valid credit card number. Too bad the card wasn't even in this scammer's name. Elwin insisted the order be shipped via UPS, at a cost of roughly $306 for shipping, as opposed to $43 for insured parcel post. --Seems Elwin was in a hurry.

Now wait a minute. There is not one single human being on this planet dumb enough to go for this, is there? Please tell us there's not. We turned the scam into the issuing bank in Toronto, and no doubt they'll follow up in whatever way is appropriate for them.

In the past this "Nigerian Connection" has used an ISP based in Europe who specializes in providing service to North Africa. We didn't bother to run the IP address on this one (80.88.128.12), nor did we notify Yahoo.com of the fraudulent activities being perpetrated using their servers through email address absstore2001@yahoo.com (the address was probably spoofed in any case). Nor did we call the police or notify the Nigerian authorities or take any other actions, because if we did do these things for every scammer we caught, we'd have to hire another person or two, just to file the reports.

The bottom line is that online fraud and scams are on the increase exponentially. While traffic to our website just about exactly doubles every year, scam and fraud attempts quadruple (or more) every year. Our personal theory is that the dumb element of society---those folks who commit and dedicate their lives to scams and scammery -- are the last ones to figure out technology. One could say that, pretty-much, those with two brain cells to rub together figured out how to use computers years ago. But the idiots, the crooks and scam-artists, are just now getting around to it. There's some Darwinian theory in there somewhere. We submit that online fraud will continue to increase disproportionately until computers become so simple and available and easy to use that every single Nigerian Chimpanzee, like ELWIN ROHUNMU/ROMEL, has procured one, has tried every scam in the book, and has eventually been forced to seek more lucrative employment.

In the meantime, the online retailer shouldn't be overly concerned about scammers, provided THEY have two brain-cells to rub together in the first place. Most con-artists are pretty obvious, employing crudely devised plots which would be obvious to all but our country's dimmest bulbs, like Paris Hilton or Jessica Simpson. As long as the scammers don't get any smarter than dear ELWIN here, the rest of us don't have a great deal to worry about.

Last email from Elwin:
thanks for your reply,
i understand you better but please ship via ups and not too worry about the cost and please do me this favour by going to any mobile phone store and get this phones for me and please ship with my order and i will conpesate you for your running around.these items are to be shipped to this address below and here is my credit card info.below as well. 3 peices of nokia 6600 mobile phone ship to
19 ajele street
campus square
lagos island
lagos nigeria
23401 CARD INFO.
CARD NUMBER......xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CARD HOLDER NAME......ELWIN ROHUNMU
CARD TYPE.......MASTER CARD
CARD EXPIRY DATE......02-2006

Please ship this items immediately and charge extra $100 for your running arround.
Hope to hear from you soon
best regad
elwin

You betcha, Elwin! Your order is ON THE WAY!
(And we've included a little surprise, just for you...)
Put on the tea-pot. You'll have company soon.

Here's a typical scam-attempt email out of Africa (with header). We receive half a dozen of these per day (these must be the dumbest people on Allah's Green Earth):

Received: from cmsmail10.cms.~~~.net [127.0.0.1] by cmsmail10.cms.~~~.net via mtad (C8.MAIN.3.13N) with ESMTP id 918iiDwLb0857M10; Sat, 04 Sep 2004 22:11:28 GMT Return-Path: <buthebula@sanook.com> Received: from devmail.mweb.co.th [203.107.131.216] by cmsmail10.cms.~~~.net via smtad (C8.MAIN.3.16A); Sat, 04 Sep 2004 22:11:27 GMT X-~~~NET-From: 203.107.131.216 IN buthebula@sanook.com devmail.mweb.co.th Received: (qmail 9764 invoked by uid 10101); 4 Sep 2004 22:11:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO localhost) (203.107.137.12) by 0 with SMTP; 4 Sep 2004 22:11:24 -0000 Received: from boston1w.proxyconn.net (boston1w.proxyconn.net [64.14.92.197]) by webmail.sanook.com (IMP) with HTTP for <buthebula@sanook.com>; Sun, 5 Sep 2004 05:11:13 0700 Message-ID: <1094335873.413a3d81126a4@webmail.sanook.com> Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 05:11:13 0700 From: Dr Khumalo Buthebula <buthebula@sanook.com> Add to Address Book Allow Sender Reply-to: buthebula1@movemail.com Subject: [Spam] PARTNERSHIP Allow Subject MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=TIS-620 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) 3.2.1 X-Originating-IP: 64.14.92.197 X-~~~NET-Spam: B X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQEZKbI=

This message was identified as Spam by Brightmail.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attn: Mr. President / C.e.o

I am Dr:Khumalo Buthebula, Director of Project, South Africa Ministry of Mining & Natural Resources. I am making this contact with you based on the committee's need for an individual/company who is willing to assist us with a solution to a money transfer. First and foremost apologized using this medium to reach you for a transaction/business of this magnitude, but this is due to Confidentiality and prompt access reposed on this medium.

In unfolding this proposal, I want to count on you, as a respected and honest person to handle this transaction with sincerity, trust and confidentiality. I have decided to seek a confidential co- operation with you in the execution of the deal described Here under for the benefit of all parties and hope you will keep it as a top secret because of the nature of this transaction. Within the Ministry of Mining and Natural resources where I work as Director of Project Implementation and with the co-operation of four other top officials, we have in our possession as overdue payment bills totaling Fourteen Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (US$14,500,000.) which we want to transfer abroad with the assistance and cooperation of a foreign company/individual to receive the said fund on our behalf or a reliable foreign non- company account to receive such funds.

These approved fund is now packaged and despatched through a security firm for onward delivery to its final destination in Europe. These fund are first deposited into a security vault before we arrange for its movement to Europe through diplomatic channel using decoy purporting that the funds belongs to an expatriate/company , as we are Government officialls ,we are not allowed to operate/own foreign bank account,Hence we need you to stand as the beneficiary and claim the funds on our behalf from the security firm. The business itself is 100%safe, on your part provided you treat it with utmost secrecy and confidentiality. Also your area of specialization is not a hindrance to the successful execution of this transaction. I have reposed my confidence in you and hope that you will not disappoint me. I have the authority of my partners involved to propose that should you be willing to assist us in the transaction, your share of the sum will be 20% of the$14.5 million, 70% for us a nd 5% for taxation and miscellaneous expenses and while balance 5% will go to charity organisation. The business itself is 100%safe, on your part provided you treat it with utmost secrecy and confidentiality. Also your area of specialization is not a hindrance to the successful execution of this transaction. I have reposed my confidence in you and hope that you will not disappoint me.

Endeavor to contact me immediately through my e-mail to confirm whether or not you are interested in this deal. If you are not, it will enable me scout for another foreign partners to carryout this deal. I want to assure you that my partners and myself are in a position to make the payment of this claim possible provided you can give us a very strong Assurance and guarantee that our share will be secured and please, remember to treat this matter very confidential, because we will not comprehend with any form of exposure as we are still in active Government Service. Once again, remember that time is of great essence in this transaction wait in anticipation of your fullest co-operation.

If you are interested Contact me on my Direct Confidential. Email Address: dr_khumalo@ilse.nl

Yours faithfully,

Dr :Khumalo Buthebula

N.B Please email your full name, home address and confidential Telephone number to enable me contact you for further clarifications URGENT PARTNERSHIP

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