
Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me - JeremyMorgan
http://www.notla.com/archives/2010/07/nigerian-scammer-gets-a-laptop-from-me/comment-page-2/
======
patdennis
_"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that
look fake, the absence of a payment in their account, fake emails from
PayPal’s FBI department or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to
have their money taken from them."_

I could easily see my parents falling for this. I don't think they deserve to
have their money taken.

Although, to be fair, I doubt my parents could set up and use a Paypal
account. So they've got that going for them.

~~~
DanBC
God help us if the scammers ever find someone who can write correct English. I
know many people get caught by these scams, and I suspect that the numbers
would increase if the wording was improved a bit.

There's a metaphor about conversions and copy-writing and startups in there
somewhere.

~~~
chc
I've heard that for many scams it's actually the opposite: They intentionally
throw in huge warning flags so that the people who initially "bite" are less
likely to have second thoughts later on, and thus the scammer wastes less time
chasing false leads. They're basically prequalifying you as a good mark.
(There is a good lesson about marketing here too — theoretically "perfect"
copy or design may not be ideal for your market, so test and see what provides
the best ROI.)

~~~
sharkweek
here's a source that says something similar:
[http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/428151/why_nigerian_...](http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/428151/why_nigerian_scammers_say_they_re_from_nigeria/)

------
ben1040
Don't the scammers often use the victimized sellers as drop shippers?

Say, Alice lists a laptop on eBay or Craigslist. The scammer has also listed a
similar model for sale, and Bob has purchased it in what he believes to be a
legitimate transaction.

Scammer "buys" it from Alice, with either fraudulent funds from a stolen card
(that would get charged back eventually) or just delivering a forged paypal
mail. Or the famous "P-p-p-p-p-owerbook"[1] scam involved a fake escrow
service. The scammer has Alice ship the laptop to Bob.

Alice is out a laptop, Bob gets a laptop, scammer gets Bob's money.

[1]
[http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=101...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1016390)

~~~
JulianWasTaken
OOC, what is the legal remedy in such a situation for Alice and Bob? Is Alice
ultimately the one who loses out there presumably?

~~~
icebraining
If Alice can prove it's her laptop, Bob has to give it back.

~~~
kleiba
This might be dependent on the country in which the transaction takes place.
Under some circumstances, if Bob believes that the laptop is now his, it
actually _is_ his property in some legislations.

~~~
derfniw
Correct.

For instance in the Netherlands if you believe the person selling you the item
has the right to sell it to you // perform that transaction, its yours. (The
so called 'Vertrouwensbeginsel')

The only way for Alice to get her money back would be by going after the
scammer, because he did not do his part of his deal with her(paying).

~~~
derfniw
It should be noted that the belief should fall within reason.

So if something about the transaction is completely and obviously fishy, i.e.
'you should have known something was wrong'. Then its impossible to invoke the
'vertrouwensbeginsel'.

------
OoTheNigerian
Excuse me, before we get all excited, where did Rebecca say that she is from
Nigeria? Or are all internet scams now called 'Nigerian scams'?

The number of times Nigeria was used in that post, you would think the
Nigerian flag and Rebecca's Nigerian passport accompanied the emails.

~~~
theorique
REBECCA DID NOT SAY SHE WAS FROM NIGERIA.

HOWEVER, MY LATE FATHER GOD BLESS HIM AZIZ ABDOULAYE WAS FINANCE MINISTER OF
NIGERIA CRUELLY ASSASINATED BY THE CORRUPT OIL COMPANY AND HAS LEFT ME AND MY
WIDOW MOTHER $75 MILLION AMERICA US DOLLAR IN HIS FORTUNE IN LONDON BANK
ACCOUNT.

KNOWING YOU ARE AN HONEST BUSINESS MAN OF AMERICA AND GOT YOUR NAME FROM A
TRUSTED ASSOCIATE GOD BLESS HIM I WISH YOU TO BE MY AGENT BUSINESS IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. FOR THIS YOU SHALL HAVE FEE OF TEN PERCENT OF THE
MONEYS SECURED FOR ME BY MY LATE FATHER

...

~~~
dkersten
Hello good Sir,

I see that you know that I am an honest man of business and would kindly like
to offer my services in transferring the aforementioned funds on your behalf
for a mere ten percent. I have attached my passport and other details for your
convenience and look forward to your response.

Yours,

Shiv R Metimbers

------
sjtgraham
After seeing the stickers I was hoping the OP actually sent the computer with
an undercover style backdoor installed so he could remotely control the
computer, e.g. take shots with webcam, screenshots, install key logger, etc.
That would have been incredibly amusing.

~~~
dkokelley
This is what I was expecting as well. It would be an interesting study into
what happens when you 'fall' for one of these scams, although most likely this
laptop was sent to a legitimate buyer as part of a larger scam, detailed by
ben1040 here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4566587>

~~~
joering2
Im in! would someone please create a kickstarter project like that?

Goal: $400 for mediocre laptop and shipping cost to Nigeria.

$1: you get a photoshots in 5 sec intervals from the moment laptop comes
online.

$10: you get a life video-feed from the moment the laptop comes online.

~~~
dkokelley
I wouldn't bother with the kickstarter project. $400+shipping is relatively
cheap, and the exposure/blog material/research potential is worth that cost,
for the right person.

(There is of course, the risk that the recipients are wise enough to isolate
and wipe it before it has a chance to phone home.)

------
CrazedGeek
Very (probably unintentionally) similar to:
<http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/>

~~~
haberman
That was a great read, but the end is a tad scary! "Finally, and most
disturbingly, [the victim] Jeff was not heard from again."
<http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index04.html>

~~~
vm
I found that disturbing too, so I looked up Jeff. His twitter account is
active with recent tweets: <http://twitter.com/MyNameIsJeff>

Probably doing fine!

------
ChuckMcM
This can go badly of course, taunting crooks is never the safe policy no
matter how tempting it can be. The thing is, they are crooks, so they have
already decided that they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know
is how many they are willing to break.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they
> are willing to break_ //

Isn't this true of almost everyone in society - whether it's jaywalking, or
[minor] speeding, or not declaring income, or under-age drinking, or taking a
sick day, or 'borrowing' a ream of paper from the office, or ...

My point I guess is that scamming people online doesn't seem to be a gateway
to violent crime or anything like that??

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, I suppose you could argue that the extra risk is the knowledge they have
gathered as part of being a scammer. Knowledge being power and all that. A
jaywalker doesn't know your phone number, where you live, and where your wife
works.

Hopefully the scammer doesn't either, but hopefully this still conveys the
point.

Edit: There's a difference too; jaywalking et al do not implicitly harm other
people. I don't know all the legal intricacies, but theft (scams) is
different.

------
roryokane
More records of people baiting Nigerian scammers:
<http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm>. People on <http://www.419eater.com/>
lead these “4-1-9” scammers on wild goose chases deliberately to waste their
time, in the hopes of distracting them from attacking other people and also
just having fun.

~~~
danparsonson
Not to defend or in any way condone the actions of the scammers (which I
certainly don't), but I wonder how many of the counter-scammers do so out of
high-mindedness, and how many are just looking for a chance to humiliate a
relatively easy target - particularly after seeing some of the photos in the
'Trophy Room'.

I also wonder how many of those initiating the scams are actually the vicious,
heartless criminals that the site insists they are - for example, one of the
exchanges [1] results in the scammer sending about 9 hours of (ostensibly)
himself reading Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy on the promise of earning some
money for it. Career criminal, or having trouble finding work? Of course, some
are genuinely dangerous people but it seems to me that there is probably a
spectrum.

As I said, I'm not trying to defend those who seek to profit at the expense of
others, but the level of grandstanding present on that site leaves me thinking
that some of the counter-scammers themselves are doing exactly that.

[1] www.419eater.com/html/booked.htm

~~~
flyinRyan
Who cares why they do it? And who cares why the 419 scammers do it? The point
is, scamming makes the world a worse place and it's done because it makes
money. Anything that can be done to ensure that it never makes money makes it
more likely to go away. Yes, there's a chance people just looking for work are
the ones who's time is wasted. Bad luck, but they chose that job. Yes, it's
possible that the counter-scammers enjoy their hobby a bit to much. At least
they use their possible character flaws to better mankind, ever so slightly.

------
ipince
Hilarious. But it sucks that the author draws this conclusion:

"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that
look fake, [...], or _just Nigerians in general_ , then they deserve to have
their money taken from them."

I feel like we need a tumblr to post blatantly obvious scams like these. Maybe
that would help the common folk be better at identifying them.

~~~
pseudonym
Someone actually did a paper on why every one of these scams seems to come
from Nigeria[1]. If you're not at least suspicious when something like this
comes "from Nigeria" at this point, there's probably no helping you.

[1]<http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/167719/WhyFromNigeria.pdf>

~~~
trotsky
Thanks for linking that paper, fascinating, the thought had never occurred to
me.

------
gojomo
I was somewhat hoping that the writer sent a _real_ laptop, but deeply loaded
with spyware so he could learn more about the scam operations. (Of course,
such a tactic might just learn about a possibly-innocent later repurchaser.)

------
HyprMusic
I can't help but feel that whilst there is a chance that this is a Nigerian
scammer, he shouldn't instantly presume it is. He also directly warns to be
wary of Nigerians, without providing any reasoning that this IS a Nigerian.
Even if it was, it's not really very important to the story.

------
DanBC
While we're talking about scams, here's an interesting form which has cost
several people their jobs and lost a lot of money for some UK schools.

([http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-
sector/3400081/ba...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-
sector/3400081/bank-writes-off-debt-for-school-technology-lease-scam/))

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n2t2f>)

------
Sander_Marechal
If you like that, have a look at <http://www.419eater.com/> where there's a
large community of people doing all sorts of scammer pranks. Obligatory
warning: will decrease productivity for the rest of the day :-)

------
timrogers
"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of...Nigerians in general"

HN is a placed for reasoned argument, not stereotypes. Not <all> Nigerians are
scammers.

~~~
ngokevin
Well, it's a good thing no one said that then.

------
denzil_correa
It was a great read and a nice way to give it back. Btw, after the last few
chat messages I get a creaky feeling that Rebecca is a dude!

~~~
greenyoda
Yeah, "suck my divck" was a dead giveaway. Not something that a female is
likely to say.

------
adetayo
While I enjoyed your story, it's quite ignorant to ask people to be wary of
"Nigerians in general". NOT every Nigerian is a scammer so making such a
statement is unnecessary. There are many hard working Nigerians around the
world.

------
bunkat
This is one of the reasons that I built bidkat.com. With BidKat, scammers have
to go through the trouble of making a valid offer (which can't be done with a
screen scraper), verifying their offer, and then hoping that the seller
contacts them before they can even start these conversations.

If the seller does happen to contact them, the conversation ends quickly once
they aren't interested in paying since most sellers will have multiple offers
to fall back on. While it doesn't solve the problem, we find that it raises
the bar sufficiently to the point it currently isn't worth it for the scammers
to bother.

------
hiphophippo
Ahh.. It all makes sense now. After recently trying to sell my car on
craigslist I received at least 20 emails of the same nature: vague, never a
specific label of what they actually wanted to inquire of mine, and very
interestingly using ASAP. Almost every one used that term... hm. Anyways I
knew by the broken english and vague response it was a scam but never knew how
they intended on pulling it off. They would ask for a paypal account to send
funds too immediately without even seeing the car. I never did give them my
paypal account as I didn't intend on wasting my time of getting faulty
payments etc. But before I permanently deleted these contacts, I wanted to see
if I could actually talk to one. I gave them all my number (it was in the add
anyway) and told them before I can release my paypal info they have to call
me.

The responses were priceless! 7-10 of them were in the navy deployed at sea
and didn't have a phone (none of them knew each other surprisingly) a few were
government officials who worked in such high level jobs that they couldn't be
caught on the phone(but can buy cars on craigslist interestingly enough) and
the last one claimed to be deaf.(and get this didn't know how to text!) Moral:
Ask to speak with anyone who buys items off of you locally.

------
Rickasaurus
Nice job there. It is easy to forget though that we're all pretty tech savvy
here on hacker news. There's a ton of people out there that would see that
government logo and get all panicked and confused.

Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers
(he's a butcher) fell for a Nigerian scam. Thankfully he was only out a couple
of hundred bucks, but damn, we need a way to stop it.

~~~
acuozzo
> Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers
> (he's a butcher) fell for a Nigerian scam.

Please don't insult butchers. Not falling for a Nigerian scam has nothing to
do with "[being] good at computers". It requires nothing more than the level-
headed application of logic and reason.

~~~
sliverstorm
I think you're reading the quote wrong. It could just as easily have been
written thusly:

> Even a good high school friend of mine who never got very good at computers
> (he doesn't work with or in tech) fell for a Nigerian scam.

~~~
89a
Still don't think it has anything to do with working in tech, it's common
sense.

------
joncalhoun
I really wish someone would install some of the dye packs used to prevent
theft in stores/banks in shipping boxes and mail those to scammers. it would
be interesting to see if walking around with blue dye on their face would
decrease their desire to scam others.

bonus points for a cheap cell phone camera that uploads a pic after the
scanner is sprayed with the dye.

------
dkersten
Reminds me of the P-p-p-powerbook prank!

<http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/>

------
davidw
Incidentally, those laptops are pretty good: I got one years ago when Dell was
offering Ubuntu, and we still use it for my daughter. The battery is pretty
much toast, but otherwise (fingers crossed) it's still going strong.

------
Tichy
How different people treat the post privacy problem. So far (I hope) no
pictures of my son have made it into the internet. Not even Facebook -
although I suppose some web mail accounts are unavoidable.

Others post pictures of their kid playing pranks on gangsters on their blog.

------
conradfr
I remember when I was a CSR at PayPal for the French market I used to think
that there should have been some huge warehouses in Nigeria full of computers
and phones.

Years later it seems it's still working splendidly.

------
acuozzo
Interestingly, __all__ of the Nigerian scammer e-mails I receive are written
in British English.

~~~
astine
Nigeria is a former British Colony and the official language is English, so
that makes sense actually.

------
mariuolo
Fake laptop in exchange for a fake payment, sounds equitable.

------
thechut
This is super old...

~~~
its_so_on
you're thinking of po-po-po-powerbook.

------
rburhum
You just made my day

------
paulhauggis
"If people in the U.S. aren’t suspicious of free money, PayPal payments that
look fake, the absence of a payment in their account, fake emails from
PayPal’s FBI department or just Nigerians in general, then they deserve to
have their money taken from them."

Nigerian scammers are also just as dumb. A few years ago, I was easily able to
phish them out of their accounts and other valuable information.

I made it into a game to see how far I could go. After I got into their
accounts, I would change the password and shut their operation down (all
through lots of proxies and other sorts of protections).

Most had large lists of stolen credit cards and pictures of licenses and
passports.

Many of the people that actually freely gave away their info were lonely and
desperate.

------
89a
Trying to sell that ruined POS for $350 is the real punchline

