
Why do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria? (2012) [pdf] - aleem
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf
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notahacker
This one's been linked to a few times before but it's not really compelling
enough to beat the alternate hypothesis: slavish copying from people who are
lazy, greedy and not particularly inventive, and also usually ultimately need
a reason for their mark to specify Nigeria as the destination country for
their money transfer.

Same goes for the Nigerian scammers who go off piste by pretending to be a
little old Scottish lady with an expensive item to sell via PayPal but ruin
their probably much higher hit rate by using their obviously Nigerian male
personal email address for correspondence and not writing English in the
manner of a little old Scottish lady. Being able to scam people by actually
acknowledging their Nigerian origin is as much down to lacking the ability to
pretend to be non-Nigerian as selecting for a more gullible audience (It's not
like sending initial carbon-copy responses asking for deposits/money-transfer
fees or bribes is especially time consuming, or like there isn't a huge number
of somewhat-less-naive people willing and able to send a competent scammer a
"deposit" for an imaginary good or service if they have access to accounts on
reputable online payment systems)

There's a danger in attributing to counter-intuitive interpetation of
statistics what can adequately be explained by ignorance and impotence.

~~~
zdkl
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)

~~~
sevenfive
Why do people love linking to this page in lieu of an actual argument?

~~~
bluetooth
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clich%C3%A9#Thought-
terminatin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clich%C3%A9#Thought-
terminating_clich.C3.A9)

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zw123456
When I was in college, there was this guy named Arman, that, at parties or
bars and etc. would simply walk up to girls and would, after perhaps a moment
of small talk, ask them straight away if they would like to sleep with him. I
thought that was crazy but his explanation was that although true, it did not
often work, but when it did, you had a sure thing. I think the Nigerian scam
is based on the same principle Arman was using.

~~~
booleandilemma
Failing fast applied to dating.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Yes if success is finding a girl who is willing to sleep with a stranger
immediately then this would probably be the fastest way to find one. Not so
good for finding a future companion/potential wife. So the suggestion is
Nigerian scammers are using the same technique to identify the most gullible
person as fast as possible? Putting even a small amount of extra effort is not
worth because if the target is not immediately gullible they may uncover the
rouse later anyway. May be, but I don't feel like wanting to give them that
much credit but they are the scammers so may be they're really doing this.

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the_duke
In one sentence:

Only people naive enough to fall for the Nigerian prince story are worth the
time investment for scammers.

~~~
mamon
So, the next time you read such an email and think "Only a total moron would
fall for that" bear in mind that the total morons are the target audience here
:) Unfortunately, the world seems to have an endless supply of them.

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zuminator
From the linked article: "The goal of the email is not so much to attract
viable users as to repel the non-viable ones, who greatly outnumber them."

My one useful insight in life is realizing that this is how street catcallers
work as well. By crudely whistling and making loud vulgar remarks, they
efficiently weed out all but the most self-disrespecting and compliant of
potential partners, with little effort.

It's also the reason why a certain species of scam email almost always has
typos. Absurdly incompetent spelling and grammar instantly weeds out the non-
idiots, leaving only the easy marks.

~~~
ygfvvhygvn
True, yet they also do it because they believe women like it. They can't see
the woman's perspective, and because they would love to be catcalled by a
woman they think the woman feels the same way about being catcalled.

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Lordarminius
I am a Nigerian.

Many assumptions and errors here.

Advance fee fraud scams originated in Lagos in the mid eighties with
_Lebanese_ immigrants who fled to Nigeria as a result of the civil war in
their country.(Obviously they did not use email )

In the nineties, young males entrepreneurial and unemployed, seized upon the
opportunities offered by globalization and entered the game. It was fairly
high level stuff, with the targets being mostly rich corporations, governments
and high networth individuals. A slew of iconic cult figures emerged due to
their successes - Ade Bendel, Eze Ego, and Fred Ajudua (the last's claim to
fame was successfully duping Ghadaffi of millions of dollars under the guise
of seeking support for a military coup in Nigeria to oust the sitting Head of
State Ibrahim Babangida).

The internet made things easier and 'democratized' the industry putting it
within reach of anyone with a laptop and cell phone.

To address the point raised by the title of the article.

Not all Nigerian scams originate from Nigeria. While advance fee fraud, love
scams and such are indeed a cottage industry in the country, many "Nigerian"
scams originate elsewhere: Ghana, Liberia, Cote D'Ivore, South Africa, Dubai,
USA, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, Spain, Russia and the UK -where scam artists of
Nigerian origin may or may not be involved. The steady barrage of Nigerian
e-mail scams alongside those originating elsewhere effectively blinds many
people to the possibility of being fleeced by a non Nigerian operator.

Second, internet scam artists from countries other than Nigeria are unwilling
to expose their nationalities and claim to be Nigerians when apprehended. This
is perhaps due to shame at being caught or perhaps the legal consequences are
graver in their countries of origin.

Third "Yahoo boys" (as they are known locally), exploit the ignorance of their
targets who most of the time believe that Nigeria is a land of unbelievable
wealth with gold mines and oil wells just sitting pretty and waiting to be
bought, or looted dollars ripe and ready to be wired. It is more difficult to
make a target believe that he/she will score a hundred million dollars from a
dodgy deal that originates from say, Togo or Liberia which are perceived as
less wealthy nations.

One more thing, the spelling errors in email scams are (to the best of my
knowledge) genuine , and not some sophisticated attempt to weed out less
gullible recipients.

"Nigerian" scammers tend to strike a raw nerve in the West -nobody
particularly likes the idea of pensioners being defrauded of their money; but
credit card fraud, sophisticated phising software written by Brazilian and
East European programmers and botnets from Russia make far more money for
their criminal operators than any Nigerian ever could using crude email
attacks.

In sum I am not sure this problem has a technological solution as Microsoft
believes. As long as there are lonely people looking for love or businesses
willing to take blind risks and the means of communication that link them to
fraudsters, the phenomenon will exist

(Apologies for the many edits. Typing from a cell phone)

~~~
niyikiza
Your comment makes a good point. This phenomenon needs to be analyzed in a
broader sense.

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edpichler
So, basically, it's to increase the "conversion rate"?

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wonderwonder
Makes a lot of sense, allows them to focus their truly limited resource (human
labor) on the pre qualified targets.

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lokimedes
Could the same technique be applied to elect a president?

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DavidFlint
Got a customer from Nigeria for programming twice. Both times got scammed
(customer did not pay).

There must be some truth to that stereotype.

~~~
sitepodmatt
On flip side programmers hired from Nigeria via upwork are pretty damn good
once committed, excellent grasp of English and timezone compatible with UK. I
say committed because despite initial warm reception on next job they dropped
off face of earth with no further communication.

~~~
jameskegel
I'm encouraged to think that maybe they're trying to fight the common
stereotype, which if true, I applaud wholeheartedly.

~~~
Nypro
Interestingly, the stereotype, has caused a large dent in the country's
reputation (Paypal won't allow Nigerians to recieve funds) and there's a
percievable reduction in the number of scammers from Nigeria. I believe many
scams that claim to be Nigerian now are only taking advantage of the
stereotype. This stereotype has also made getting jobs considerably harder for
sincere freelancers like me. And if I happen to find a client, I treat them
like gold; I always work beyond expectation in an attempt to prove I'm not a
stereotype. It's frustrating though.

