takes a new twist.
An american soldier and his superiors from Iraq have uncovered $5 million they want to share with me. Geeze talk about bad taste. What tipped me off? I have never ever heard of an American called Flans. Yep - Flans.
He wants to share it with me too!!
Megwen
What a nice guy.....
-Irene
------------- "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."
- Mae West
Guess we will be splitting it 3 ways! Barbara in SC "Megwen Woodham"
You know, I'm just amazed that this goes on. For one thing, do you think there are people really stupid enough to still fall for these gimicks?
Is there really is somebody who thinks "ooooo, this Nigerian fellow believes he's sent a message to a friend, but I got it instead. I think I'll cheat him and take a huge amount of that money and he'll never know that it wasn't his friend. Hehehehe."
If so, I suspect that knuckledragging Neanderthal (and by this I mean absolutely no disrespect to any Neanderthals or their living descendants) of a person deserves to get cheated six ways from Sunday.
But otherwise, maybe there's money to be made writing a new scriptbook for Nigerian money changing scams.... just a thought. LOL
Sunny
Happens on eBay all the time. The scammers know exactly who to target..mostly newbies selling/buying high-priced items Playstations, Laptops, etc.
They win the auction and send an email requesting the laptop be sent to their daughter in Nigeria. They'll pay via PayPal. Newbie seller sends it off. Then it turns out it's a stolen credit card or hijacked account and PayPal (who ALWAYS sides with the buyers) reverses the charge.
Or, the other common scam, is to offer to send a bank transfer or bank check for more than the winning price, if the seller would oh-so- kindly send the difference via Western Union to the grandson/nephew/ex- sister-in-law/whatever in Nigeria.
They also have figured out how to scam the other way. They hijack an ebay account, a newbie/naive buyer wins the PS2 or laptop and send the money via Western Union because he/she doesn't know any better. And then is shocked, SHOCKED, when the laptop doesn't show up and they are unable to contact the seller. Or the item in the eBay escrow warehouse (no such thing), and as soon as payment is rec'd via WU, eBay will release it for shipment.
And people come to the discussion boards in a panic EVERYDAY because they got a chargeback from PayPal or the check bounced or Playstation never showed up even though they very prompty sent a Western Union payment.
There is a website somewhere that has the correspondence between scammers and knowledgeable people they're trying to scam attempting to scam them back. It's hysterical!! Well, only if you've never been scammed, I guess.
If people don't want to do their homework before they start buying or selling in a new unfamiliar venue.....
-Michele
"Sunny" wrote
Apparently a lot of the people who fall for them are not stupid, but greedy. Lawyers and businessmen are among the biggest losers. I do have some sympathy for the battlers who have just joined the world of the internet and are truly too ignorant to know that when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever, though, for those supposedly intelligent lawyers and businessmen who keep sending off multiple thousands of dollars in the hope of getting even richer. More fool them...
Under)
The "New Yorker" ran a piece last year on an educated, wealthy and pious guy who was completely suckered in by that kind of scam. Worse, because these scams typically involve their "marks" in the transfer of dirty money, he was not only in the hole for thousands of dollars but also convicted (i think) for wire fraud. Til the day he was sentenced, he was still getting emails from the scammers. The Nigerian scam seems to have its roots in the fabled "Drake Scams" that began to appear about the time of the Civil War and continued intermittently until one notable case in England during the Depression.
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