Is this what passes for a Nigerian scam these days?
You've all gotten these emails:
My new policy for these emails is to always reply. It wastes the scammer's resources, and while they're busy working me, they may miss the opportunity to steal from a real sucker. My holy grail is to actually scam them back. Here's one possible hook: "As an IBM employee, I get 80% discounts on IBM laptops. We're not supposed to turn around and sell them, but I will, to raise the money. Unfortunately I'm strapped for cash [insert reason] and right now can't even afford the $400 to buy them in the first place. Could you wire it to me. I promise to turn in around within a week." I know you think it'll never work, but we'll see.
The most recent scam email I received was so pathetic, I had a hard time pretending to be that big of a sucker. He is not even really trying. Here is what is supposed to be a copy of the guy's passport:
The worst Photoshop job! Evar! The scammer didn't even bother starting with a photo of a real passport, he just tried to draw it from scratch in the Windows Paint tool. The dots on the lower right go right off the passport, and are apparently floating in space. The signature and thumbprint are artlessly slapped in, Windows Paint isn't sophisticated enough to allow the blue background show through. The whole thing has discrete color transitions that you don't get from a photograph. And the man's photo is just so over-the-top. Notice how white and American and rich and trustworthy he looks! Pathetic! I give it zero out of ten. But nine out of ten for hilarity.
Gone are the days when these scammers would actually send you documents that looked like real (although obviously foreign) documents. All the romance has gone out of the Nigerian scamming business.
"Dear Sir/Madam [blah blah blah] my money totalling US$28,750,000. is inThe idea being to keep sending you official looking documents for a while, and finally tell you the money is held up, and he needs to bribe an official, and can you send $2000 to help move the process along? It appears to prey on greed, so that puts it above scams that prey on the weak or stupid. But in reality it does prey on the weak. People who need a way out of poverty or debt, and are willing to believe anything that offers it.
Europe and hopefully, it would be paid into an offshore account. Can
you help me? Are you trustworthy?"
My new policy for these emails is to always reply. It wastes the scammer's resources, and while they're busy working me, they may miss the opportunity to steal from a real sucker. My holy grail is to actually scam them back. Here's one possible hook: "As an IBM employee, I get 80% discounts on IBM laptops. We're not supposed to turn around and sell them, but I will, to raise the money. Unfortunately I'm strapped for cash [insert reason] and right now can't even afford the $400 to buy them in the first place. Could you wire it to me. I promise to turn in around within a week." I know you think it'll never work, but we'll see.
The most recent scam email I received was so pathetic, I had a hard time pretending to be that big of a sucker. He is not even really trying. Here is what is supposed to be a copy of the guy's passport:
The worst Photoshop job! Evar! The scammer didn't even bother starting with a photo of a real passport, he just tried to draw it from scratch in the Windows Paint tool. The dots on the lower right go right off the passport, and are apparently floating in space. The signature and thumbprint are artlessly slapped in, Windows Paint isn't sophisticated enough to allow the blue background show through. The whole thing has discrete color transitions that you don't get from a photograph. And the man's photo is just so over-the-top. Notice how white and American and rich and trustworthy he looks! Pathetic! I give it zero out of ten. But nine out of ten for hilarity.
Gone are the days when these scammers would actually send you documents that looked like real (although obviously foreign) documents. All the romance has gone out of the Nigerian scamming business.
posted by Jeff at 4/13/2006 12:52:00 PM
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