Nigerian scams are hyper-efficient idiot finders A Microsoft researcher, Cormac Herley, has penned a paper titled “Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?” (PDF), and concludes the whoppers the scam includes are actually a very efficient way of finding likely targets. Herley's analysis suggests the scam works because it quickly passes BS-detection thresholds in …
My employer did something similar recently. We all received a gratuitous spam-looking email asking us to click on a dodgy-looking external link and enter our login credentials.
Those that did click (mainly those down the manager end of the office) found themselves at a web page telling them they shouldn't have done that. Rather alarmingly several of them couldn't understand why.
Not really accurate. Yes, if you respond to Apple advertising you are likely to get fleeced of all your money by a gang of international criminals. However, unlike with Nigerian scams you do at least get the iProduct you paid for, and Apple are patent trolls rather than thieves and fraudsters (YMMV).
And you're bound to find some idiots. I don't think there is anything sophisticated about Nigerian scams. They're just applying a tried and tested scam over and over again because they know that if you sample enough people you will find someone dumb enough to fall for it. Meanwhile other scammers are selling penis enlargers, fake rolexes, pump and dump stocks and all the rest on a similar principle.
I liked how you commented on Microsoft's typo "anyone who consults sensible family or fiends [that's Microsoft's typo]" ... was this one also Microsofts ... "Sammers end up with a list of hot prospects who have self-selected".
People in stone houses shouldn't throw glasses.
I do not think there is any clever reasoning about the bullshit the scammers send. They just repeat the scheme that worked in the first place (calling to someone's greed) and they were telling that they were in Nigeria because they actually were there and in the first editions of the scam the victims were asked to get all their money and without telling anybody come to Nigeria. Now with Internet banking it is not necessary but the working scheme persists.
I think at one point we were tolod that the scam typically was operated from Amsterdam. By Nigerians.
One angle to the scam is where you are persuaded to travel to Nigeria in person with bribe money, whereupon you are kidnapped, probably.
I've always wondered what would happen if everyone replied to the spam. If for example one of those purportedly from your bank asking you to give your details so they could update their records, what if you gave a false name and account number etc. The spammers would have so much junk details to go through they'd have to give up. Or even just reply with a nice little letter that didnt include any information, they'd spend so much time looking through trying to find relevant information, spamming wouldn't be worth the effort.
If just 1% of all the billions of spam emails sent were replied to in this way the spammers would have so much junk that spamming wouldn't be worth the effort.
While this is an appealing idea, Nigerian scam emails are almost unique in that they actually ask for a reply. If everybody got in the habit answering those it would actually mess them up. But your typical penis pill pusher wouldn't notice a thing as they probably use throw-away counts, fake return addresses, or similar techniques.
I'm surprised by this statement from the report, and in the article:
"Herley's analysis suggests the scam works because it quickly passes BS-detection thresholds in most readers, but those stupid enough to fall for the scam self-select by responding."
Really? I realize that it'll be difficult to look at this objectively, as my "internal logic" (for want of a much better way to put it) always sets off alarm bells when I see one of these messages in my inbox. I really don't understand, other than through greed, why anyone with average intelligence would start thinking that there is going to be any good outcome from responding to these messages, even before they've searched the web. Isn't it an almost-universal understanding that almost any "Something for Nothing" scheme will either have tricky conditions attached or not pay out in the end?
I've seen an elderly person (whose mind was failing) fall for a similar scheme. She was convinced that her grandson had really been calling her to get money since he'd been "imprisoned" against his will and without any recourse. In that case, I can understand why the con was successful. I got there just in time, I think, to prevent a lot more fallout. I don't know what else had happened, but the passwords for her online services somehow changed to unknown values around that same time.
As to whether or not a "stupid person" deserves to be taken by this particular type of fraud, well, I suppose that can be debated all day. It's a given that this fraud will continue to happen, as society demands all types to keep itself in balance.
Hmm...hope I didn't get here too late. I see that part of the discussion had turned to trolling for users of Apple computer equipment.
none of you commentards seems to ever have visited a nigerian internet cafe.
I did.
It just goes like Bingo. Every 10 minutes one these 300 guys jumps up screaming and is saved,at least financially,for the rest of his life. big applause all around.
so,if one of these non educated guys down there put their and their children´s future on a scam like this and win, they deserve it as much as this mzungu(white guy) deserves to be f*ckd over.
Forwarding this mails to Interpol is stupid as well, espeacially when one resides in Uganda.
The reply from Interpol is: please refer to your local police station.
so let the Nigerians or who ever claims to be one, go on with their scam and f*ck over as many stupid Mzungus as they can. Greedy c*nts f*cked over for being greedy. Sweet
We're genetically programmed for greed - it is a basic component in competition and is a motivating factor in our success in the world. We are all greedy - in the Gordon Gekko sense of greed being "good", identifying and accumulating the things we need in as large a quantity as possible. "Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. "
However, scammers will lie, manipulate and cheat their way to accumulation at the expense of others. Centuries of genetic learning has conditioned us to eject cheaters from the pack because they decrease the success of the community as a whole.
For this reason it is important to distinguish between the "greed" that causes a person to innocently try to get a positive return from transaction versus the "greed" that motivates scammers to cheat and steal what does not belong to them. The victim is typically asked to bend the rules for a mutually beneficial outcome that most people would not recognise as being socially subversive. So from this point of view, the victims do not deserve the downfall they get while the scammers should be strung up by their jangely bits!
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