Nigerian scam
By Nowshade Kabir ©Rusbiz.com
Dear members,
We decided to dedicate this issue of our Newsletter to some of the burgeoning
Internet scams that you are encountering lately in a massive scale, especially,
the Nigerian scam.
Almost everyday you probably get a number of various scam emails. Since the
quantity of such emails are increasing constantly and the con artists even register
with Rusbiz portal and use our internal messaging system for their malevolence
purposes, we have outlined here one of the most popular scams under the name
of Nigerian Scam and what this is all about.
If you have suggestions and ideas regarding similar internet scams and you
would like to share with other members, feel free to write us.
Enjoy the great spring out there!
Sincerely yours,
Nowshade Kabir
Nigerian Scam
Although this scam has its root from Nigeria dated a decade back, nowadays,
you receive similar scam letters from many African countries, notably, Nigeria,
Benin, Togo and even South Africa.
The subject lines of these emails are pretty similar. Something like: Business
relationship, Urgent Assistance needed, Soliciting for your assistance, A cry
for help etc. Most of the emails from this scam begin in the same way. Here
are two excerpts from most recent emails that we received:
"I am Engr Moses Ekpen a director in the budget and planning department
of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources (FMPNR), I had a
seven man Tenders Board Committee in charge of contract award and Payment approvals.
I came to know of you in my search for a reliable and reputable person to handle
a very confidential transaction, which involves the transfer of a huge sum of
money to a foreign account."
Or
"I am Mrs. Mariam Abacha, the widow of Gen. Sani Abacha, The Late Nigerian
Military Head of State. You were introduced to me through the Chamber of Commerce.
I am presently in distress and under House arrest while my son Mohammed is undergoing
trial in Lagos and Abuja. He is presently detained in prison custody. The government
has frozen all the family account and auctioned all our properties.
To save the family from total bankruptcy I have managed to ship to Europe and
Asia through a Shipping company, the sum of US20, 000,000.00 respectively kept
by my late husband."
The essence of these emails are also basically the same – the person although
does not know you, thanks to your business reputation, has decided to contact
you with a very confidential proposal to transfer a mind boggling amount of
money from his country to any foreign land.
There could be numerous stories but the bottom line is they require your help
to transfer the amount. For your service they will promise you something from
10 to 40% of the whole amount. There would be a telephone no or an email address
to contact the person.
You may wonder how they swindle people.
There are various ways that the crooks rip off their victims. Some of the most
commons ones of them are described below:
They will ask you to open a bank account under their name. On their second
step, they will ask you to deposit a sum of say US$ 10000 to that account, explaining
if the account does not have any decent amount, the officials those who are
responsible for transferring the promised millions of dollars would become suspicious
and won’t authorize the transaction. Once you deposited the asked sum, they
simply withdraw it and disappear. Usually they choose a bank where they might
have some connections. So you, after losing your money, do not get any help
from the bank either.
They will ask you to send some merchandize or gifts for the officials they
need to bribe in order to make the transactions of the assumed millions of dollars
smoothly. Naturally, you never hear from them once you sent the requested gifts
to their address.
We even heard stories like this one: A man was persuaded to come to Nigeria
to look after the transaction by himself. Over there he was kept hostage until
he shifted all his liquid assets to the thugs.
Looking at the increasing quantity of scam emails that we receive, this only
convinces that many fall for this seemingly simple trap. According to FBI these
swindlers have defrauded millions of dollars from gullible people.
There could be other variations of this scam, next time you read an email that
feels suspicious, just delete it! There are other ways of making money!
Some words of cautions! Although most of these scams originate from African
countries, please do not generalize and consider that all companies form these
countries are bad. As usual a few people are responsible for tarnishing the
reputation of a country.
