[phr4ts]

Cast psychology aside and focus solely on the economic benefit.

$50 (18k NGN) is nothing to most Americans. However, 18k NGN is the current monthly national wage in Nigeria.

It costs little or nothing to blast Copy & paste emails to 1 million people using hacked / free SMTP servers.

Other factors to consider:

It requires so little skill that 14 year old kids do it.

Risk of getting cut is also super low. Police are on the look out for these scammers NOT to jail em but to collect their own share. They walk the scammers to the atm and take part or all of what they find there - usually, half.

Unemployment rate is 25.20% but this doesn't tell the full story.

Underemployment is another factor. As a result, many scammers are employed full time. The employment provides three benefits. 1. Free use of office computers and internet and most important electricity for scam. 2. A steady shock absorber income source for dry periods. 3. A camouflage to keep neighbors' tongues from wagging

I've rambled.

Scamming is so easy, has low risk, barrier to entry and high pay off.

One other point i failed to mentioned. If you live in SV, tech will rub on you. Same applies living in developing nations. Scam will rub on ya.

[GuB-42]

Nigerian scams are often Nigerian in name only. In the present case only some members of the team are from Nigeria.

There is a reason Nigeria is the country of choice and e-mails are so poorly written. First, it makes it obvious to those who know the trick, so that they don't call back and waste scammers time. Second, it gives a feeling of superiority to the mark.

[kazinator]

Also, Nigerian scams are a tradition from long before the Internet age. Using Nigeria is like "foo" and "bar" in programming examples. Sort of.

[demxzy]

18K NGN is the minimum monthly wage. As some said down below, a lot of this scam don't originate from Nigeria.

> One other point i failed to mentioned. If you live in SV, tech will rub on you. Same applies living in developing nations. Scam will rub on ya.

This is assuming scamming is a national pastime in developing countries. Its not in Nigeria (as a percentage of 190 million population) and I assume most developing countries.

[nkkollaw]

> Police are on the look out for these scammers NOT to jail em but to collect their own share. They walk the scammers to the atm and take part or all of what they find there - usually, half.

Have a source for this..?