Sun 16 May 2010
eBait
Posted by anaglyph under Idiots, In The News, Internet Winnings!, Stupidity, Words
[10] Comments
‘Single mum fleeced of $8700 through Nigerian eBay scam.’
So screams the headline in this story from The Melbourne Age this morning, the exclamation mark surely struck off only minutes before it went to press.
When I started reading the article I had sympathy for the ‘single mum’ in question – apparently she’d been attempting to sell a PlayStation on eBay when she fell for a scam involving ‘paying for the shipping costs’ of the Nigerian buyer. Well, sure, to you and me even the very word ‘Nigerian’, when associated with the internet and monetary transactions, starts ringing alarm bells, but hey, not everyone out there in intertubes land is a savvy geek, right?
Those Nigerian bastards picking on our dinkum single mums! Why, I oughta…!
However, reading on, and picking out the threads of actual story from the sob story, I found my sympathy waning somewhat as the details emerged. It turns out that our poor single mum did in fact become suspicious of the transaction at some stage and contacted Consumer Protection, who told her in no uncertain terms to stop dealing with the fraudsters. She made her first major mistake at that point by completely disregarding the Consumer Protection advice and sending the Nigerians a copy of the email containing it.
Upon forwarding this email to the scammers, she then received fake emails back from them featuring WA ScamNet and WA government logos, which advised her to co-operate with Nigerian authorities.
The hoax escalated when the woman received a phony eBay email saying the case had been reported to Nigerian Police who then emailed her to say that the fraudster had been arrested.
Later, the fake police email told her that the courts and president of Nigeria had awarded her compensation amounting to $US250,000 ($278,000).
Aha. Now even the dimmest of us is stuffing cotton balls in his ears to drown out the clanging sound. It doesn’t take much to predict the next step. In order for our poor battling mum to get this $US250,000 she was asked to send the ‘Nigerian Government’ a ‘bank transfer fee’ of $US7000 so that the money could be ‘released’ to her.
I don’t know about you, but I just can’t see myself sending off a cool $7k to someone in Nigeria who I don’t know – someone whom I’ve never even heard of – on a promise, even if they do have a nice Nigerian Government letterhead. ((The matter of the SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLAR bank fee notwithstanding. It’s no wonder the Nigerians need money if their banks are screwing them that bad!)) But that’s exactly what Ms Single Mum went ahead and did. I think it’s reasonable to assume that she didn’t just have a spare $7k lying around the house, so she plainly went to some effort to round up the money. WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?! Well, I guess that was actually a rhetorical question – what she was thinking was ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I’m gonna be RICH on Nigerian money!!!’ ((Even though I don’t want to seem to be endorsing these Nigerian scamsters, you really have to admire how they’re evolving. Now that they realise that everyone is onto their scam they’re turning the scam itself into a scam. ‘The Nigerian government is SO distressed at all the problems caused by these terrible terrible scammers that we really want to give you money to compensate you!’))
Apparently, once the situation became plain she told Consumer Protection staff she felt ‘violated’ by the scam, but I suggest that what she really felt violated by was the realization that her own greed had gotten her into deep shit. People! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – if something on the internet (or anywhere) seems too good to be true, it probably is!
The real flub here, though, must fall in the laps of the press (again). What is it with the ‘victim’ story here? Who the fuck cares if the woman in question is a ‘single mum’ and what does it have to do with anything AT ALL? I guess a headline that says ‘Gullible & Greedy Aussie Woman Keeps Nigerian Scammers in Clover’ doesn’t tug the heartstrings quite as poignantly. The lesson for us all is surely not simply caveat emptor but is also writ clear in the wisdom of the great Lao-Tzu:
There is no greater calamity than lavish desire.
There is no greater curse than discontentment.
And there is no greater disaster than greed.
No wonder she’s single, with brains like that even the most lumpen sperm donor would have hit the ejector seat.
The King
And now we know why The TCA Friend Spotter Guide™ nevr turnd up a Nigerian cop.
King Willy: The term ‘single mum’ is one of those stupid pieces of journalistic nonsense that we’ll really miss when the old media finally karks it. Not. It means absolutely nothing at all – she could be a single mum and still be Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife. It’s nothing more than emotionally coloured ‘news-speak’ intended to inspire sympathy.
Sir Joey: Hmm. It’s been a while since we’ve had a tip from The TCA Friend Spotter Guideâ„¢. Might be time for a new one…
But was she also a “little Aussie battler”? because that one really gets my sympathy very time
Yeah, I dont realy trust Th OFaL Friend Spottr Guide™ a whole heckuva lot.
Wise.
I tell people at work all the time who ask me if this stuff is real:
Take out the internet part, imagine is someone walked up to your door and proposed one of these scams. Most people would slam the door on them
For once, Malach, your words are true.
And believe me when I say to you:
If you showed up at my place
I’d slam the door in your face
Right before promptly saying, “FUCK YOU!”
EVERY scam is based on the victim’s greed. I still feel sympathy for the victims, because I, too, want to be greedy sometimes. And I do dumb stuff sometimes. And I know it would hurt to lose $7k.
“Scammers don’t scam the honest”. That’s how they live with themselves, how they can take pride in their work and not feel guilty.
I really LOVE the sound of this particular scam though. It took a fair bit of setup, and was a lovely way to turn around a mark they’d otherwise have lost.
I’m not sure I agree that every scam is based on the victim’s greed. Sometimes it’s trading on their goodwill, sometimes just on their ignorance – that’s why I fight the good fight in the circumstance of the Shoo!Tag racket. I think that the people who buy ShooTags just don’t understand enough about what they’re plonking their money down for, and they sincerely want to protect their animals without dosing them up on chemical pest control. They’re all good intentions really. And everyone does dumb stuff – I sure do, and I have been hoodwinked like most people. But not through greed, or willingness to commit an act that I think is morally wrong.
I felt sympathy for the woman in the beginning because I totally understand how someone on eBay could con her out of shipping fees – ‘I’m a poor Nigerian and these things cost SO much in my country, etc etc.’ Fair enough – tricked by people who don’t mind trading on the good will of others. That makes them despicable bastards. But somewhere along the line this woman thought she was going to make a killing – enough to put her $7k on the line. I just can’t believe that anyone would do that. Not only that, why didn’t she ask Consumer Protection at THAT stage? I bet I know why – because the ‘Nigerian Government’ representative said: ‘Don’t say anything about this to your government or officials because they’ll want to tax it!’ or something along those lines. She then crossed the line from being an innocent victim (as the newspaper made her out to be) to being an accomplice in a criminal act. It’s not so much that I worry about her – she’s definitely learned her lesson, and I’m sorry it cost her so much – but that the newspaper is skirting around the true message here: indulge your greed and dishonesty at your peril.
As for this kind of scam – I’m seeing a lot of it. I read a number of these Nigerian letters (I get about 5-10 per week, I estimate) and they’re getting mighty clever now. The simple bottom line, though, is as I say – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. No-one wants to give you large amounts of money without there being some strings attached. Life just doesn’t work like that. The banks will do it, but they want your house. The Nigerians will promise to do it, but they want their ‘transfer fees’, and the Devil will do it, but he wants your soul.* Other than that, it happens only to a very small number of people with a lucky lottery ticket.
[*This is a metaphor]