"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that look fake, the absence of a payment in their account, fake emails from PayPal’s FBI department or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to have their money taken from them."
I could easily see my parents falling for this. I don't think they deserve to have their money taken.
Although, to be fair, I doubt my parents could set up and use a Paypal account. So they've got that going for them.
+1. Plenty of people in the US have a subpar grasp of English (and yet are not retarded). For example, my dad was not born in the US, but has a Masters in Electrical Engineering and used to work on power grid systems. He's a smart guy. However, it took him a good amount of time to recognize phishing e-mails, some of it requiring my guidance. For example, it's not easy to identify Misused Capitalizations, or to pick up on missed article in email, or to recognizing verbs not agreed with time.
Furthermore, it is completely plausible to an inexperienced person that PayPal might enlist FBI to enforce shipment of paid-for goods. It takes some experience in this country to realize that 1) this sort of matter is not referred to FBI unless it's super grave, 2) and not referred to any enforcement entity so fast (less than 30 days), 3) and not referred to any separate enforcement entity without at least several resolution attempts from the original business.
In fact, IMO, it's quite arrogant, on the part of the OP to say this. Unfortunately, this is a typical attitude in the geekdom: if something that's obvious to us isn't obvious to you, you're stupid.
I used to work as a bank teller while in school. About once or twice a month someone would come in with checks from these types of scams. The spectrum of who was falling for it was a lot wider than I would have ever imagined.
We were trained pretty extensively on stopping these checks from being deposited, but it sure broke my heart being the bearer of bad news so often.
I remember one guy who didn't believe me that it was a scam, asked that I at least try to clear the check (we'd put it on hold for about a week). Lo and behold, he came back in a week later to tell me it turned out to be fake.
God help us if the scammers ever find someone who can write correct English. I know many people get caught by these scams, and I suspect that the numbers would increase if the wording was improved a bit.
There's a metaphor about conversions and copy-writing and startups in there somewhere.
Agreed on all counts. To many people, the internet and all are so new and unfamiliar, they have absolutely ZERO context to recognize fake-looking PayPal payments or emails from PayPal's FBI department. To them, they are still completely lost- you can't expect them to recognize a scam.
As for being suspicious of free money, I think most people generally would be, but relax their misgivings when something appears to be legitimate- that is to say, any escapes they are aware of appear to be covered. The scammer, therefore, takes advantage of the victim's lack of knowledge of the escapes in an electronic age.
Saw a new type of phishing email the other day - a fake order confirmation page from Amazon saying someone in Florida had ordered a widescreen TV on our account.
Obviously, first reaction of a non-techy user would be to click on the Amazon link in the email and enter their account details to check their order history.
And that's how they get your Amazon account details. I think this works because the "OMG my account has been hacked!!!" panic overrides you're natural caution about phishing emails.
I concur. My parents were recently duped by botspam sent from an estranged aunt's hacked aol account. The message was one sentence, two words of which were CLICK HERE. My mother spent a whole day researching the reality content farm it linked to, thinking something was happening to some family real-estate.
Maybe there needs to be some sort of Internet-wide PSA about this kind of thing?
I hate this sentiment so much. No one "deserves to have their money taken from them". Victim blaming 101. One of the reasons we have to waste so much effort fighting this kind of crap is this moronic idea that if you get scammed you deserve it.
My nephew got stung in a Paypal + eBay scam a few years ago. Long story short, they lured him in with a few bonafide transactions, then took big by "selling" a fake antique on eBay but making it look like he was the seller.
To further add to this: there are quite a few gangs here in euroland who are successfully scamming older citizens with nothing but randomly calling them up, pretending to be a grandchild in trouble and in desperate need of some money and then that "grandkid" sends over a friend to collect the money. They are taking literally thousands from the elderly that way, you keep reading about it in the papers.
So I can see how these emails seem totally real and threatening to the average computer-illiterate who sells something for the first time ever. Remember, good scams are about that initial shock, that initial mental blow you deal on your victim to completely catch them off-guard and disable their logical thinking. Flashing a shiny batch or pretending it is an "emergency" is a very good angle.
Don't the scammers often use the victimized sellers as drop shippers?
Say, Alice lists a laptop on eBay or Craigslist. The scammer has also listed a similar model for sale, and Bob has purchased it in what he believes to be a legitimate transaction.
Scammer "buys" it from Alice, with either fraudulent funds from a stolen card (that would get charged back eventually) or just delivering a forged paypal mail. Or the famous "P-p-p-p-p-owerbook"[1] scam involved a fake escrow service. The scammer has Alice ship the laptop to Bob.
Alice is out a laptop, Bob gets a laptop, scammer gets Bob's money.
HOWEVER, MY LATE FATHER GOD BLESS HIM AZIZ ABDOULAYE WAS FINANCE MINISTER OF NIGERIA CRUELLY ASSASINATED BY THE CORRUPT OIL COMPANY AND HAS LEFT ME AND MY WIDOW MOTHER $75 MILLION AMERICA US DOLLAR IN HIS FORTUNE IN LONDON BANK ACCOUNT.
KNOWING YOU ARE AN HONEST BUSINESS MAN OF AMERICA AND GOT YOUR NAME FROM A TRUSTED ASSOCIATE GOD BLESS HIM I WISH YOU TO BE MY AGENT BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. FOR THIS YOU SHALL HAVE FEE OF TEN PERCENT OF THE MONEYS SECURED FOR ME BY MY LATE FATHER
One of the most common early internet scams was about money from a deposed Nigerian prince, and a fairly large percentage of these scammers are in Nigeria (as well as the US, UK, Netherlands, and Spain.) The name "Nigerian scam" became a generic term to refer to this type of scam, particularly in pop culture.
I agree, it's wrong for the poster to call it a "Nigerian scam". It doesn't fit the definition of a 419 scam, and it just seems unnecessary as well as likely to encourage people in racism and stereotyping.
After seeing the stickers I was hoping the OP actually sent the computer with an undercover style backdoor installed so he could remotely control the computer, e.g. take shots with webcam, screenshots, install key logger, etc. That would have been incredibly amusing.
I was wondering if the author has never heard of the P-P-P-Powerbook, or purposefully avoided citing it as a reference (e.g. the idea to deliver a fake laptop and the customs fee).
This can go badly of course, taunting crooks is never the safe policy no matter how tempting it can be. The thing is, they are crooks, so they have already decided that they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they are willing to break.
Actually, wasting the scammers' time (at a minimal cost to you) is actually one of the better ways to combat this scam.
The entire scheme is based on the scammers avoiding baiting people who will catch on to the scheme (hence the obvious signs of scammage -- they're a reverse intelligence task), while snaring people who are likely to fall prey.
This reduces their time cost, which is fairly high, as each mark must be navigated through the scam.
The ideal solution would be to create an AI which is sufficiently good to imitate a stupid, scammable individual, tarbaiting the scammers into wasting their time.
>they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they are willing to break //
Isn't this true of almost everyone in society - whether it's jaywalking, or [minor] speeding, or not declaring income, or under-age drinking, or taking a sick day, or 'borrowing' a ream of paper from the office, or ...
My point I guess is that scamming people online doesn't seem to be a gateway to violent crime or anything like that??
More records of people baiting Nigerian scammers: http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm. People on http://www.419eater.com/ lead these “4-1-9” scammers on wild goose chases deliberately to waste their time, in the hopes of distracting them from attacking other people and also just having fun.
Not to defend or in any way condone the actions of the scammers (which I certainly don't), but I wonder how many of the counter-scammers do so out of high-mindedness, and how many are just looking for a chance to humiliate a relatively easy target - particularly after seeing some of the photos in the 'Trophy Room'.
I also wonder how many of those initiating the scams are actually the vicious, heartless criminals that the site insists they are - for example, one of the exchanges [1] results in the scammer sending about 9 hours of (ostensibly) himself reading Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy on the promise of earning some money for it. Career criminal, or having trouble finding work? Of course, some are genuinely dangerous people but it seems to me that there is probably a spectrum.
As I said, I'm not trying to defend those who seek to profit at the expense of others, but the level of grandstanding present on that site leaves me thinking that some of the counter-scammers themselves are doing exactly that.
Hilarious. But it sucks that the author draws this conclusion:
"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that look fake, [...], or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to have their money taken from them."
I feel like we need a tumblr to post blatantly obvious scams like these. Maybe that would help the common folk be better at identifying them.
Someone actually did a paper on why every one of these scams seems to come from Nigeria[1]. If you're not at least suspicious when something like this comes "from Nigeria" at this point, there's probably no helping you.
I was somewhat hoping that the writer sent a real laptop, but deeply loaded with spyware so he could learn more about the scam operations. (Of course, such a tactic might just learn about a possibly-innocent later repurchaser.)
I can't help but feel that whilst there is a chance that this is a Nigerian scammer, he shouldn't instantly presume it is. He also directly warns to be wary of Nigerians, without providing any reasoning that this IS a Nigerian. Even if it was, it's not really very important to the story.
If you like that, have a look at http://www.419eater.com/ where there's a large community of people doing all sorts of scammer pranks. Obligatory warning: will decrease productivity for the rest of the day :-)
While I enjoyed your story, it's quite ignorant to ask people to be wary of "Nigerians in general". NOT every Nigerian is a scammer so making such a statement is unnecessary. There are many hard working Nigerians around the world.
This is one of the reasons that I built bidkat.com. With BidKat, scammers have to go through the trouble of making a valid offer (which can't be done with a screen scraper), verifying their offer, and then hoping that the seller contacts them before they can even start these conversations.
If the seller does happen to contact them, the conversation ends quickly once they aren't interested in paying since most sellers will have multiple offers to fall back on. While it doesn't solve the problem, we find that it raises the bar sufficiently to the point it currently isn't worth it for the scammers to bother.
Ahh.. It all makes sense now. After recently trying to sell my car on craigslist I received at least 20 emails of the same nature: vague, never a specific label of what they actually wanted to inquire of mine, and very interestingly using ASAP. Almost every one used that term... hm.
Anyways I knew by the broken english and vague response it was a scam but never knew how they intended on pulling it off.
They would ask for a paypal account to send funds too immediately without even seeing the car. I never did give them my paypal account as I didn't intend on wasting my time of getting faulty payments etc.
But before I permanently deleted these contacts, I wanted to see if I could actually talk to one. I gave them all my number (it was in the add anyway) and told them before I can release my paypal info they have to call me.
The responses were priceless! 7-10 of them were in the navy deployed at sea and didn't have a phone (none of them knew each other surprisingly) a few were government officials who worked in such high level jobs that they couldn't be caught on the phone(but can buy cars on craigslist interestingly enough) and the last one claimed to be deaf.(and get this didn't know how to text!)
Moral: Ask to speak with anyone who buys items off of you locally.
Nice job there. It is easy to forget though that we're all pretty tech savvy here on hacker news. There's a ton of people out there that would see that government logo and get all panicked and confused.
Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers (he's a butcher) fell for a Nigerian scam. Thankfully he was only out a couple of hundred bucks, but damn, we need a way to stop it.
I really wish someone would install some of the dye packs used to prevent theft in stores/banks in shipping boxes and mail those to scammers. it would be interesting to see if walking around with blue dye on their face would decrease their desire to scam others.
bonus points for a cheap cell phone camera that uploads a pic after the scanner is sprayed with the dye.
[+] [-] patdennis|13 years ago|reply
I could easily see my parents falling for this. I don't think they deserve to have their money taken.
Although, to be fair, I doubt my parents could set up and use a Paypal account. So they've got that going for them.
[+] [-] astral303|13 years ago|reply
Furthermore, it is completely plausible to an inexperienced person that PayPal might enlist FBI to enforce shipment of paid-for goods. It takes some experience in this country to realize that 1) this sort of matter is not referred to FBI unless it's super grave, 2) and not referred to any enforcement entity so fast (less than 30 days), 3) and not referred to any separate enforcement entity without at least several resolution attempts from the original business.
In fact, IMO, it's quite arrogant, on the part of the OP to say this. Unfortunately, this is a typical attitude in the geekdom: if something that's obvious to us isn't obvious to you, you're stupid.
[+] [-] sharkweek|13 years ago|reply
We were trained pretty extensively on stopping these checks from being deposited, but it sure broke my heart being the bearer of bad news so often.
I remember one guy who didn't believe me that it was a scam, asked that I at least try to clear the check (we'd put it on hold for about a week). Lo and behold, he came back in a week later to tell me it turned out to be fake.
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
There's a metaphor about conversions and copy-writing and startups in there somewhere.
[+] [-] jamesmcn|13 years ago|reply
Sometime in the mid '90s, not long after my dad got email, I decided to warn him about Nigerian scams.
Instead, he ended up telling me about how these these kind of scams started popping out of the first fax machine he turned on, back in the early '80s.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
As for being suspicious of free money, I think most people generally would be, but relax their misgivings when something appears to be legitimate- that is to say, any escapes they are aware of appear to be covered. The scammer, therefore, takes advantage of the victim's lack of knowledge of the escapes in an electronic age.
[+] [-] gadders|13 years ago|reply
Obviously, first reaction of a non-techy user would be to click on the Amazon link in the email and enter their account details to check their order history.
And that's how they get your Amazon account details. I think this works because the "OMG my account has been hacked!!!" panic overrides you're natural caution about phishing emails.
[+] [-] tammer|13 years ago|reply
Maybe there needs to be some sort of Internet-wide PSA about this kind of thing?
[+] [-] flyinRyan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drumdance|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kelliot|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kahawe|13 years ago|reply
So I can see how these emails seem totally real and threatening to the average computer-illiterate who sells something for the first time ever. Remember, good scams are about that initial shock, that initial mental blow you deal on your victim to completely catch them off-guard and disable their logical thinking. Flashing a shiny batch or pretending it is an "emergency" is a very good angle.
[+] [-] ben1040|13 years ago|reply
Say, Alice lists a laptop on eBay or Craigslist. The scammer has also listed a similar model for sale, and Bob has purchased it in what he believes to be a legitimate transaction.
Scammer "buys" it from Alice, with either fraudulent funds from a stolen card (that would get charged back eventually) or just delivering a forged paypal mail. Or the famous "P-p-p-p-p-owerbook"[1] scam involved a fake escrow service. The scammer has Alice ship the laptop to Bob.
Alice is out a laptop, Bob gets a laptop, scammer gets Bob's money.
[1] http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=101...
[+] [-] JulianWasTaken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|13 years ago|reply
The number of times Nigeria was used in that post, you would think the Nigerian flag and Rebecca's Nigerian passport accompanied the emails.
[+] [-] theorique|13 years ago|reply
HOWEVER, MY LATE FATHER GOD BLESS HIM AZIZ ABDOULAYE WAS FINANCE MINISTER OF NIGERIA CRUELLY ASSASINATED BY THE CORRUPT OIL COMPANY AND HAS LEFT ME AND MY WIDOW MOTHER $75 MILLION AMERICA US DOLLAR IN HIS FORTUNE IN LONDON BANK ACCOUNT.
KNOWING YOU ARE AN HONEST BUSINESS MAN OF AMERICA AND GOT YOUR NAME FROM A TRUSTED ASSOCIATE GOD BLESS HIM I WISH YOU TO BE MY AGENT BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. FOR THIS YOU SHALL HAVE FEE OF TEN PERCENT OF THE MONEYS SECURED FOR ME BY MY LATE FATHER
...
[+] [-] lotharbot|13 years ago|reply
One of the most common early internet scams was about money from a deposed Nigerian prince, and a fairly large percentage of these scammers are in Nigeria (as well as the US, UK, Netherlands, and Spain.) The name "Nigerian scam" became a generic term to refer to this type of scam, particularly in pop culture.
[+] [-] anonymouz|13 years ago|reply
I wasn't sure if this was just my impression, or if the blog author has some rather strong feelings against Nigerians, but his follow up comment ( http://www.notla.com/archives/2010/07/nigerian-scammer-gets-... ) leaves little doubt.
[+] [-] lizzard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlapida|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjtgraham|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CrazedGeek|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wtvanhest|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haberman|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|13 years ago|reply
The entire scheme is based on the scammers avoiding baiting people who will catch on to the scheme (hence the obvious signs of scammage -- they're a reverse intelligence task), while snaring people who are likely to fall prey.
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/study--obvious-nigeri...
This reduces their time cost, which is fairly high, as each mark must be navigated through the scam.
The ideal solution would be to create an AI which is sufficiently good to imitate a stupid, scammable individual, tarbaiting the scammers into wasting their time.
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|13 years ago|reply
Isn't this true of almost everyone in society - whether it's jaywalking, or [minor] speeding, or not declaring income, or under-age drinking, or taking a sick day, or 'borrowing' a ream of paper from the office, or ...
My point I guess is that scamming people online doesn't seem to be a gateway to violent crime or anything like that??
[+] [-] njharman|13 years ago|reply
Everything could go badly, it's waste of life to worry about the insignificant / unlikely things.
[+] [-] outworlder|13 years ago|reply
Overall though, I think the danger is pretty low, assuming you do not reveal your identity at any point.
[+] [-] roryokane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danparsonson|13 years ago|reply
I also wonder how many of those initiating the scams are actually the vicious, heartless criminals that the site insists they are - for example, one of the exchanges [1] results in the scammer sending about 9 hours of (ostensibly) himself reading Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy on the promise of earning some money for it. Career criminal, or having trouble finding work? Of course, some are genuinely dangerous people but it seems to me that there is probably a spectrum.
As I said, I'm not trying to defend those who seek to profit at the expense of others, but the level of grandstanding present on that site leaves me thinking that some of the counter-scammers themselves are doing exactly that.
[1] www.419eater.com/html/booked.htm
[+] [-] jlgreco|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Axsuul|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ipince|13 years ago|reply
"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that look fake, [...], or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to have their money taken from them."
I feel like we need a tumblr to post blatantly obvious scams like these. Maybe that would help the common folk be better at identifying them.
[+] [-] pseudonym|13 years ago|reply
[1]http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/WhyFromNigeria.pdf
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gojomo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HyprMusic|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
(http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3400081/ba...)
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n2t2f)
[+] [-] Sander_Marechal|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timrogers|13 years ago|reply
HN is a placed for reasoned argument, not stereotypes. Not <all> Nigerians are scammers.
[+] [-] denzil_correa|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adetayo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bunkat|13 years ago|reply
If the seller does happen to contact them, the conversation ends quickly once they aren't interested in paying since most sellers will have multiple offers to fall back on. While it doesn't solve the problem, we find that it raises the bar sufficiently to the point it currently isn't worth it for the scammers to bother.
[+] [-] hiphophippo|13 years ago|reply
The responses were priceless! 7-10 of them were in the navy deployed at sea and didn't have a phone (none of them knew each other surprisingly) a few were government officials who worked in such high level jobs that they couldn't be caught on the phone(but can buy cars on craigslist interestingly enough) and the last one claimed to be deaf.(and get this didn't know how to text!) Moral: Ask to speak with anyone who buys items off of you locally.
[+] [-] Rickasaurus|13 years ago|reply
Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers (he's a butcher) fell for a Nigerian scam. Thankfully he was only out a couple of hundred bucks, but damn, we need a way to stop it.
[+] [-] joncalhoun|13 years ago|reply
bonus points for a cheap cell phone camera that uploads a pic after the scanner is sprayed with the dye.
[+] [-] dkersten|13 years ago|reply
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/