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SI - Site Forums : SI Spammer Hall of Fame -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (1455)	11/5/2001 11:24:08 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Respond to of 4105

The Old Nigerian Scam is back in action Just about everybody has received one by now and you are probably wondering what this is. The letter always starts something like this: "Before going into details of my proposal to you, I must first solicit you to treat with the utmost confidentiality, as this is required for its success." The letter explains that some very large amount of money has been over-invoiced by the Government of Nigeria and that this money remains unspent. Therefore, you (who have been highly recommended) are asked to agree to have this money deposited in your bank account and then you are to pay 55% of that money to (as yet unnamed) beneficiaries in their private bank accounts in Switzerland. There are many variations on this. Not all are from Nigeria. Some claim to come from the sons of the recently assassinated leader of the Republic of Congo or from relatives of other high governmental officials. These letters are just the latest variation on a scheme which has been going on for a long time. It is known as "The Old Nigerian Scam". I received my first letter like this in 1992 when I was in Japan. At that time, I was involved in developing puzzles for commercial sale. I had several puzzles which were variations on Rubik's Cube. I received a letter from a puzzle inventor in Shanghai, China. He had invented a puzzle which was essentially an inside-out version of Rubik's Cube. In his introductory letter, he said that he had obtained a promise from Nigeria to put up $18 million to fund the development of this puzzle. He included a copy of the letter from Nigeria. I decided to send a letter to his funding source. Two weeks later, I received a letter from Nigeria. It said that the Government of Nigeria had allocated $18 million to build a petrochemical pipeline in Nigeria. All I had to do is send my bank account number and company letterhead and I would be sent the $18 million and then I was to deposit 55% in the bank account in Switzerland and keep the other 45% for myself. I responded to this letter and afterwards I received telephone calls from Lagos, Nigeria almost every night for the next month. I also received a few DHL packages. I received corporate documents showing that my company had been incorporated in Lagos, Nigeria. The documents seemed authentic. It was not the same person always calling. Apparently, my number had gotten around and different groups were offering me better deals in competition with each other. I realized almost immediately that this was just a scam. However, the mystery was: What was the scam? The people who were calling me from Nigeria were obviously running huge telephone bills, or else they had obtained unauthorized access to the telephone system. Also, DHL packages from Nigeria are not cheap. I had not given them a dime plus I had checked with my bank to make sure that they could not withdraw any of my money. Finally, I realized what the scam must be. They kept asking me to come to Nigeria. When I asked why, they said that they did not want to give $18 million to a person they had never met. I called the US Embassy in Tokyo and they sent me a release which the State Department had put out about it. I actually read it over the telephone to the Nigerians who kept calling me and asked for their comments. The basic plan was that once I reached Nigeria, I would be taken to the office of a general. He would be a real general or at least he would look like one. I would be told that the general would need to be paid a small bribe of a few thousand dollars. After I had paid the few thousand dollars, I would return to my hotel room where I would wait expecting to receive the $18 million at any moment. After the money failed to arrive, I would be told that there was yet another general who also needed to be paid a few thousand dollars. This process would continue until I was out of money. If I tried to complain to the authorities, I could be arrested for offering a bribe. I might wind up staying in Nigeria for longer than I had planned. When I got back to America in mid-1992, I found an article in the business section of the New York Times entitled "The Nigerian Scam". The scam is that after you agree, they tell you to fly to Nigeria to meet the person who will give you the $18 million. One British firm paid over one hundred thousand dollars in supposed bribes before realizing that they had been taken. There was a US State Department release about this. It said that in some cases the unwitting bribe-giver when he refused to pay more had been arrested for attempting to bribe a government official. Then, he had to pay more money to get out of jail. The Nigerians have obviously updated with the new technology available and are now sending millions of these letters out by bulk e-mail over the Internet. Sam Sloan samsloan.com Here are a few samples of letters I have received just in the past few weeks. Once you get used to receiving these letters, they actually become quite funny to read: (etc...) ishipress.com