Why Nigerian Scammers Say They’re From Nigeria

[HardOCP News]

Why do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria? I have no idea but these Microsoft researchers say they do. The link is to a 14 page .pdf.

Since gullibility is unobservable, the best strategy is to get those who possess this quality to self-identify. An email with tales of fabulous amounts of money and West African corruption will strike all but the most gullible as bizarre. It will be recognized and ignored by anyone who has been using the Internet long enough to have seen it several times. It will be figured out by anyone savvy enough to use a search engine and follow up on the auto-complete suggestions [of search engines]. It won't be pursued by anyone who consults sensible family or fiends, or who reads any of the advice banks and money transfer agencies make available. Those who remain are the scammers ideal targets. They represent a tiny subset of the overall population.

 

[madmat]

I always consult sensible fiends on money matters.

 

[DejaWiz]

It's been going on forever. Just out of college in the middle of '97, I started working for a Mom n' Pop computer rental and sales company. The owner brought me a letter he had received in the mail and asked me to open it and read it. I did so, and the letter was hand-written on very crumpled/wrinkled paper in blue ink from someone in Nigeria claiming they were seeking passage to the US and asking for $500 to cover expenses. In return, they were going to bring a fortune of USD$15,000,000 and give 60% of it to him. This being the first time I had ever heard about or even seen anything like it, I finished reading it and looked at my boss with a bit of skepticism. He confirmed my suspicions by saying it was a total scan and as soon as you provide your name, pertitnent contact info, and bank/payment info, they clean out every penny in your bank account.

Fast forward 15 years, and these scammers have long since turned to using the web to spam inboxes with essentially the same song and dance.

 

[quiktake]

Wow. Check out the statistical analysis they used. (Pretty impressive to me at least.) Basically they calculate that the scammers have a 1:10,000-100,000 chance of finding a victim. Anyone not likely to be a victim uses the "Nigeria" tag line to deselect themselves, simplifying things for the scammers.

 

[quiktake]

By the way when I lived in Cameroon, Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, every Cameroonian I spoke with said never to trust Nigerians and that they were very "aggressive". This was said even though most of my village was from Nigeria originally, so they knew what they were talking about. I hate generalizations, but some seem to be true.

 

[DoubleTap]

I am endlessly fascinated not so much by the Nigerian emails, but the other ones that try to get you to

"download this security attachment for purpose of grate security measure and confirm you account"

I have a whitelist on my email account and I can view spam in a sandbox with safety and the psychology of all these different phishing attempts is interesting - most of the time it's pretty obvious what they're after, but sometimes it's really hard to see what they expect to gain (Yahoo Group Join messages)

 

[Ashbringer]

Wow. Check out the statistical analysis they used. (Pretty impressive to me at least.) Basically they calculate that the scammers have a 1:10,000-100,000 chance of finding a victim. Anyone not likely to be a victim uses the "Nigeria" tag line to deselect themselves, simplifying things for the scammers.

Guess we know the stupid to not as stupid ratio of people.

 

[J So]

I know two people who gave money to Nigerians, both more than once.

Both people are convinced to this day they were actually helping them.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

I always consult sensible fiends on money matters.

In my case, family are the fiends.

 

[McFry]

I know two people who gave money to Nigerians, both more than once.

Both people are convinced to this day they were actually helping them.

Oh they helped them all right, the question is whether or not your gullible acquaintances thought they were going to get something in return, like some gross lavish sum of money.

 

[J So]

Oh they helped them all right, the question is whether or not your gullible acquaintances thought they were going to get something in return, like some gross lavish sum of money.

That I don't know.

One was a former co-worker. He said gave money to help a Princess but didn't get into too many details after we started making fun of him.

The second was my Father-in-law's friend. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed by far and he told me he did it because the woman said she needed the money. He said the people at his bank BEGGED him not to send the wire transfer and even the manager got involved, but he felt this person really needed the money more than he did.

 

[beowulf7]

Guess we know the stupid to not as stupid ratio of people.

LOL, George Carlin, RIP.

 

[Ashbringer]

That I don't know.

One was a former co-worker. He said gave money to help a Princess but didn't get into too many details after we started making fun of him.

The second was my Father-in-law's friend. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed by far and he told me he did it because the woman said she needed the money. He said the people at his bank BEGGED him not to send the wire transfer and even the manager got involved, but he felt this person really needed the money more than he did.

I think your "friends" are confused between the difference of "need" and "want". If a Nigerian can communicate to you through the computer, then chances are it's want.

#1 Where did the get the computer to fire off an email?
#2 What about the internet connection?
#3 For that matter, where did they get the electricity?

I'm imagining a person sitting in front of a 386DX computer with Nigerian Online for an internet connection, with another person on a exercise bike peddling to generate power for the computer. Then and only then would I agree that person needs some money, and even then why give it to them?

People are extremely oblivious. There are still lots of people here that are starving all the time, but nobody cares. Yet when you sit in front of your TV watching how only a few pennies a day could save some African child's life, then you care. Companies know, that's why they pay millions to make those commercials. Funny enough hardly any of that money goes to anyone that actually needs it.

 

[DoubleTap]

Guess we know the stupid to not as stupid ratio of people.

I wonder if the "stupid people" also includes people who confuse the median and the mean?

I actually suspect that the majority of people are of below average intelligence:

Take the IQ of 10 people:


80
90
100
100
100
100
100
100
120
140

-------
1030 / 10 = 103

In this example, 80% of people are of below average intelligence.

That is mean.

80% are at median or above...

 

[Ducman69]

On a related note, I just realized I was mispronouncing Niger/Nigeria all this time.

 

[Heliocentrical]

I wonder if anyone has ever scammed a nigerian back...you know, something like "Id love to help but I need $50 to take a taxi to the western union, please help."

 

[Serpent]

I wonder if the "stupid people" also includes people who confuse the median and the mean?

I actually suspect that the majority of people are of below average intelligence:

Take the IQ of 10 people:


80
90
100
100
100
100
100
100
120
140

-------
1030 / 10 = 103

In this example, 80% of people are of below average intelligence.

That is mean.

80% are at median or above...

It can be inclusive, so the statement is still true. Just because half of them are stupider than that, doesn't mean some more aren't. If you are talking about the opposite, then that's a different matter. Which can happen, not saying it can't.

 

[Monkey34]

I wonder if anyone has ever scammed a nigerian back...you know, something like "Id love to help but I need $50 to take a taxi to the western union, please help."

Plenty.

www.419eater.com and www.419baiter.com to start. The best one I read was getting a pair of them to get tattoos of a bull's head with "I give BJ's" under it. The baiter convinced them the BJ was supposed to be a deity or something if I remember right.

Some good stories there.

 

[Ebernanut]

^You beat me to it. A word of warning though, don't check out those sites unless you have plenty of time to kill.

 

[Dmitri]

By the way when I lived in Cameroon, Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, every Cameroonian I spoke with said never to trust Nigerians and that they were very "aggressive". This was said even though most of my village was from Nigeria originally, so they knew what they were talking about. I hate generalizations, but some seem to be true.

I prefer to think of Nigerians as just being super confident people. In South Africa we get a lot of Nigerians migrating here for work. They're positive and hard working. And at the same time kind of scary and imposing. Maybe because the guys are all 6 foot and built like tanks and not afraid to chew the scenery. They always make an impression.

 

[Steampunk]

I'd pretend to be Kate Middleton and say I need help withdrawing funds from Prince Williams's baby mama hush money account.

 

[STR]

I wonder if the "stupid people" also includes people who confuse the median and the mean?

I actually suspect that the majority of people are of below average intelligence:

Take the IQ of 10 people:


80
90
100
100
100
100
100
100
120
140

-------
1030 / 10 = 103

In this example, 80% of people are of below average intelligence.

That is mean.

80% are at median or above...

IQ's are based on a normal curve centered on 100. For every person with a readin of 140, there's another with 60. Thus, mean, median and mode are the same:100.

 

[DoubleTap]

IQ's are based on a normal curve centered on 100. For every person with a readin of 140, there's another with 60. Thus, mean, median and mode are the same:100.

I'll agree, for the sake of argument, with your first sentence (although there are several IQ systems and they change them over time)

However there is no way to conclusively prove that for every 140 IQ, there is a corresponding 60 IQ. Further, IQ seems to rise over time but beyond that, IQ distribution is very regional and some cities will have a higher "average" IQ than others.

My example was hypothetical but I posted it to illustrate the sloppy thinking behind these kinds of memes.

The other one is "remember that half of all Doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class".

Stupid because we don't know that everyone who graduates medical school goes on to become a doctor - some could choose other professions. We don't know that everyone in the bottom half of those classes graduated, we also don't know how wide the spread is between the GPA of those that do become doctors and finally, I'm not convinced that competence can be perfectly correlated with academic performance.