
I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me - CapitalistCartr
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37632259
======
michael_h
My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I
believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold.
Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping
by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level
stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no
longer be trusted. She can't live on her own, as she obviously doesn't
understand how fixed income works. It's a very strange situation to be in,
having a parent desperately trying to abandon you as an adult, basically dying
without being dead.

I don't know how these people justify it to themselves. They have taken 100%
of her money, plus a unknown amount of debt (I've found $100k in loans so
far). My mother-in-law is not 'going to be okay'. To be honest, once she
figures out that there isn't $3.5MM in the Bank of Israel, she's probably
going to look for the quick exit.

At the moment, I'm afraid I'm unable to muster the empathy necessary to
understand how you could even begin to help the scammer.

~~~
FungalRaincloud
Reading through your comments, I think there's really only two resolutions to
this situation. The first is that your mother in law will run out of funds,
and die penniless. From what you say, that seems to be where this is heading.
However, the only other resolution I can see is that she realizes on her own
what is happening. You can lead her to the water, but you can't make her drink
it. Realistically, I see that happening in only one of two ways. Option one is
that he admits to it being a scam, and cuts contact himself (or gets arrested
for it). I don't think that's likely. However, option two is, as others have
said, she could try to plan a surprise (or even a non-surprise) visit. If you
propose this, I would recommend you do so in a positive light - don't say
anything along the lines of "well, if he's real, he should want to meet,
right?". Rather, phrase it as the next logical step. It only makes sense that
two lovebirds should meet, after all, so she should accept it pretty readily,
if you propose it as what's the next best step for their relationship.

~~~
readme
Easier said than done, but option 3: he could go after the scammer.

~~~
FungalRaincloud
I mean, that's probably the best option for society, but it's going to
probably hurt his relationship with her.

------
UnfalseDesign
There seems to be a lot of commenters here saying Johnny is playing the long
con. Whereas I don’t entirely disagree, I think they are missing the point of
the story. The point is not just that Johnny’s life improved from below
average to average. The other point is that Maria’s life improved from average
to above average. At an age where many Americans are retiring and spending
their days trying to stay busy, Maria is traveling to Africa and working with
aspiring artists. Maria took what could have been a financially crippling
event and used it to launch herself into a new endeavor. She’s taking her
passion for art and helping others pursue a similar passion in a climate where
they may not normally have that luxury.

Regardless of whether Johnny is still conning her, Maria’s life is now better
because of it. She took a situation that would normally make a person critical
and suspect of others and decided to learn from it and become a better person.
My take away from this story is that bad things will happen to me. Some will
be my fault and some won’t. However, how I react to it will make all the
difference. Sometimes it is better to light a candle than to simply curse the
darkness.

~~~
easytiger
> Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide
> him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago
> and got a job in the American oil sector.

~~~
tedmiston
That's the point though, he went from scamming people on the phone for money
to having a college degree from a U.S. school and having a regular job with a
legitimate paycheck, and now he gets to live in the states too.

------
shasheene
> With her assistance, he left Nigeria shortly afterwards, to study in
> America.

> Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide
> him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago
> and got a job in the American oil sector.

Heh, maybe the 419 scam is continuing! The long con! :P

~~~
elcct
Reminds me of:

Go to a bank. Get a job there and work there for years and years learning the
place from the inside, and also learning how all of the processes and
procedures are done, earning everyone's trust and respect, and simultaneously
building up a 401k with matching while also going up the career ladder and
taking more and more positions with more responsibility and more pay until one
day you finally decide that it's over and walk out the door like nothing ever
happened!

~~~
m_mueller
This is almost like the plot of Inside Man!

~~~
OxO4
Or the Adventure Time episode "Scamps" [0].

[0]
[http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Scamps](http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Scamps)

------
cpfohl
Surprised this wasn't mentioned, but it's worth noting that traveling to
Nigeria to meet scammers rarely ends well for the traveler. It's not safe. It
sounds like she had a unique situation with an apparently repentant scammer,
but these people are criminals, and they've already demonstrated their lack of
respect for you.

~~~
robocat
Most people blow the risks of travel out of all proportion.

I have traveled to known "dangerous" countries and the locals are usually way
friendlier _because_ of that. Learn who to trust, make a friend, listen to the
locals. The same skills you need in your own country to avoid scams and danger
can be used overseas.

My experience is that most warnings (by people that haven't traveled to the
country in question) are pure rubbish generated by neurotic fear of the alien.
For example: Don't travel to the US because you will get shot.

If a Facebook billionaire can walk the streets of Nigeria, you can probably do
so too.

~~~
cpfohl
Sorry for the late reply: I'm definitely not afraid of travel. In afraid of
traveling to another country in order to meet someone who has just tried to
scam you.

------
healer
I'm a Nigerian, living in Lagos Nigeria.

Internet scams are a big problem both within and outside the country. Part of
the problem is that local law enforcement agents do not have the manpower and
technical know-how to tackle the problem.

I'm deeply sorry for those of you whose loved ones have lost money to these
scammers.

I'll be hanging around to answer any questions that may be of help.

------
joewee
Nigeria is #1 / #2 wealthiest country in Africa (GDP). It ranks amoung the
highest in terms of advanced degree graduates in Africa. But it has a
extremely low Human Development Index, there isn't much opportunity for the
educated. Nigerians outside of Nigeria will generally be better educated than
the local workforce but unable find work for various reasons. Common issue in
Europe, where many 419 scams actually operate from.

This is a case of smart people taking advantage of the less intelligent /
informed.

~~~
mikk14
Nigeria is not the wealthiest country in Africa, not even close. They have the
highest GDP just because they have twice the population of the second most
populous country in Africa. If you look at GDP per capita, they're barely
scraping the top 20 of Africa [1] which, as you can expect, is not very high.
It's growing, though.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_G...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

~~~
joewee
Nigeria has a higher per capita than India, which is considered the #7 economy
in the world.

What low per capita income tells me is that despite being a wealthy country
citizens don't have a lot of opportunity to earn wealth. Which is my point.

------
axonic
With a little humanity, it all worked out ok. Didn't see that coming, but
awesome. Now this guy can be an unemployed American graduate lol.

I worked with a talented Nigerian radiologic technologist who abruptly left
and went home to sell tires and car parts because he couldn't handle people
being so cruel all the time (West Texas). I hope this guy has a better go of
it than he did.

~~~
finid
_unemployed American graduate_?

but the article says:

 _Although they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide
him with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago
and got a job in the American oil sector._

~~~
axonic
Oil Sector... Being in south Texas, I believe I've made an incorrect
assumption that readers would understand the potential volatility of such
jobs, especially for a Nigerian immigrant.

To clarify, I've watched friends and colleagues gain and lose employment like
crazy and I've seen a lot of racism in the industry, among other things.

------
curiousdater
Online dating can be rough if your brand new and a tech luddite.

A friend of mine just went on a POF date. Before they met up he asked if she
was a prostitute because he ended up meeting a few of those who posed as
sincere dates.

One thing that ticks me off especially Match.com and I can't believe I fell
for it .. is that when your subscription expires they suddenly say this
average to above average looking chick(ones i aim for) is interested in you.
Their profiles are hard to distinguish if they are legit or not. Usually the
fake ones are hot have a few pics do not say much and they are looking for a
guy from 20 to 70. Also, the real fake ones ask you to send a message to their
gmail. OVerall not sure how the crap Match pulls is consider legal!

~~~
brianwawok
I think the legit dating sites go under, and the shady proper.

~~~
tiatia
Isn't this called a market for lemons?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons)

------
losteverything
I have had people come to the counter and ask to send money to Nigeria and
other places. I have to make sure everyone at that money desk knows about
fraud.

Never wire money to someone you don't know. Never. [0]

Have you won a prize? Once you deposit the moeny, will they send you more
money? Was it a tax refund? Is there a serious medical situation you are
helping with?

[0] [http://corporate.moneygram.com/compliance/fraud-
prevention/c...](http://corporate.moneygram.com/compliance/fraud-
prevention/common-consumer-scams)

All too often the people coming in to wire money know the fraud detection
questions.. and say our answers in advance.. "Yes, I met them," for example.
Plus, these are regular customers that buy and return other items.. they are
friends by work-customer-association.

They know the workers who refuse their transfer..

They know the system that requires suspected fraud and how we have to report
it..

They still don't know how to spell the persons name, so they take out their
rabbit eared email out of their purse next to their cane and read each letter
out loud..

"I think this is a scam," I say.

"Can I talk to a manager, please. Now"

"I am a manager. I will not proceed with this transaction. "

In the end if someone wants to send money to someone they don't know they will
find a way...

------
n72
My father's lost (from my estimates) about $350K from a christianmingle.com
scam. It's wrecked his life, both financially. He went from living in a very
nice apartment in a very nice part of Munich to living in a crappy place close
to the slums of Calais. I'm estranged from him, so I haven't been able to talk
him out of anything, but I doubt I could have anyway. My brother's snooped on
his email and IMs for the last few years. These guys are really, really good
at what they do.

I wonder at what point the services which let this happen become at least in
part responsible. I contacted christianmingle.com and never got any response.

~~~
n72
Also, to illustrate how hard it is to sway their minds, my brother
impersonated a lonely person on Christian mingle and got the scammer to start
working on him. He showed my father their correspondence and my father was
somehow able to explain it away.

------
ahmetkun
reminded me of a family guy episode where Carter Pewterschmidt gets scammed by
Nigerians and flies to Nigeria to get his money back and eventually decides to
donate the money as he sees the people there really need it, or something like
that.

~~~
V-2
"I wonder if it will change us. But, of course, it did change us."

------
flerchin
Sounds like the Long Con became the Longer Con.

~~~
emodendroket
I guess it's possible but "put me through college" seems like a pretty lousy
con.

~~~
morgante
Sounds like a great con to me. It's literally worth tens of thousands of
dollars.

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah, it's a lot of money to commit to up-front, but it's oddly specific, few
people are gonna agree to it, and they could easily just ask to cut the checks
directly to the school.

~~~
morgante
How is getting someone else to pay for your schooling _not_ a con?

~~~
emodendroket
Well, if someone says "please pay for my schooling," and you agree, and then
your money is actually used for schooling, I think it's a bit of a stretch of
the definition of "con" to call it one. Both parties are clear about what's
happening -- seems more like a gift than a swindle.

------
MichaelBurge
Some people trick the scammers into traveling places, or losing money. They've
managed to get them stranded for months in war-torn countries, to sell their
cars for airline tickets, and gotten them thrown in prison in foreign
countries for immigration violations.

I have some family who was tricked by a scammer doing "Microsoft support"
once, but we convinced her it was a scammer in time for the police to trace
the call. So now he's in prison.

~~~
digler999
I saw an article a while back about an older man, college professor I think,
who fell for some "girl" in south America. She tricked him to flying to Peru,
picking up a suitcase of dope, then flying it to Argentina where he was
arrested. Never met the "girl" and still believes she was for real.

~~~
selimthegrim
The man in question was Paul Frampton, a theoretical physicist at UNC and the
'girl' was ostensibly well-known model Denise Milani

------
whack
One thing I never quite understood. These "Nigerian prince" scams can
originate from any developing nation where the exchange rate makes for very
lucrative prospects. Ie, Chile, Egypt, Romania, Kazakhstan, China, India,
Thailand, etc etc. Why do a disproportionate number of these scams seem to
originate from Nigeria?

~~~
wodenokoto
According to wikipedia most don't originate from Nigeria, but claim to do so,
which to me only ads to the mystery.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-
fee_scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam)

~~~
chucksmash
There was an article from Microsoft[1] posted four months ago that talked
about this phenomenon.

The takeaway as I recall is that filtering out potential victims who have
heard of the scam as quickly as possible is the most profitable move.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11909111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11909111)

------
intrasight
Who here cannot say that no aspect of their own lives is not a "long con"? Not
I.

------
Kiro
That was great and unexpected.

------
rahelzer
Not a good idea. Its about 100x worse than tracking down your stolen iphone
using GPS to find the guy who stole it from you and demanding it bck. Do not
do this. Its not worth your life.

------
eng_monkey
> She became consumed with what she describes as "a profound need to make a
> difference to the people of Nigeria".

Delusions of grandeur? She should move to SV.

------
hiteshaasnani
Such online scammers were recently busted in India also

------
denysonique
Reminder that most advance-fee scams do not originate from Nigeria. Such
articles like this one stereotype Nigeria in a falsely negative manner.

 _> While Nigeria is most often the nation referred to in these scams, they
may originate in other nations as well. For example, in 2006, 61% of Internet
criminals were traced to locations in the United States, while 16% were traced
to the United Kingdom and 6% to locations in Nigeria.[15]_

~~~
coldtea
> _Such articles like this one stereotype Nigeria in a falsely negative
> manner._

Err, the author actually WENT to Nigeria to meet her actual Nigerian scammer
-- and others doing the same. What stereotype? She doesn't say that most
Nigerians or only Nigerians do such things -- but that's what happened to her.

~~~
wodenokoto
Just because this one did, doesn't mean most do.

~~~
icebraining
Who claimed they do?

------
tsylba
Somedays, A.I. could scam for us.

~~~
StavrosK
We can certainly do the opposite:
[https://spa.mnesty.com/](https://spa.mnesty.com/)

~~~
tsylba
I look forward to the day two bots try to outsmart each other in their own
private bubble.

~~~
StavrosK
I think this conversation is that:

[https://spa.mnesty.com/conversations/zvtbgexy/](https://spa.mnesty.com/conversations/zvtbgexy/)

------
OoTheNigerian
It's practically impossible for any positive tech stories to stay on the front
page of Hackenews. Be it our tech companies making or raising a lot of dough
and/or having impact.

HOWEVER, when it comes to stereotypes and cliche negative stories, we usually
have our day at number 1

I wonder why ;)

------
hirzel
This should be a movie. The screen play writes itself!

------
happy-go-lucky
Most of you, including the OP and the antagonist in the story, have gone far
from reality. It's all about cheat-or-get-cheated. Habitual exploitation!

------
donquichotte
"Johnny: "You talk in parable´s. I can´t wait to see you"" I would never write
back to somebody who uses the Idiot's Apostrophe.

~~~
qb45
It's Scamming 101 to use bad grammar and typos. Can you imagine what kind of
PITA would it be to scam a pedant like you? They don't want you to even think
about replying to them.

------
mrcactu5
does anyone actually fall for these?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Yes, constantly, and to the ensuing grief of their friends and family.

------
amelius
Reminds me of [1], where a scammer was scammed into sending a photo with a
fish on his head.

[1]
[http://www.419eater.com/html/tope.htm](http://www.419eater.com/html/tope.htm)

~~~
mattkevan
The 419eater forums are something else.

There's some incredible forum threads where members have perfected the art of
scamming the scammers to such a degree that they can get them to travel for
years at at time in the hope of a payoff, constructing such a pervasive
reality bubble that they never suspect they're being played.

Reading the forums, where the members are posting in real-time what they're
doing and the correspondence from and to the scammers is highly engrossing.

Prepare to lose a lot of time:
[https://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=66](https://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=66)

It's hard not to feel sorry for them, scammers they may be.

------
FussyZeus
Can anyone explain to me why these types of scams seem to always originate in
Nigeria? Is there something particularly lax about their penal code regarding
fraud or what?

~~~
yojex
Not sure why you're downvoted for an honest question. Take a look at this
research paper linked above by another commenter on why scammers say they're
from Nigeria:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf)

~~~
danso
I second this paper. It's an easy read, even with its math. And more
importantly, it's extremely intuitive: for me, it answered the question of if
Nigerian scammers are already successful with obviously fake emails, why don't
they just invest a little more effort into making the emails sound less
outrageously fake?

The general answer: If the scam emails were more sophisticated, they would
attract the attention of smarter, more connected folks. These folks would
still end up bailing out, but now the scammer is out the time they spent
furthering the scam.

But with a shitty, obviously scammy letter, you are only going to trick an
extremely few recipients, but you have a much greater chance that they will
actually send money.

The wrinkle that email adds to the scam is that only with email do we have a
medium in which a 1 out of 100,000 response rate can still be profitable.
Furthermore, there are no gatekeepers between email sender and recipient. You
couldn't easily pull a Nigerian scam by spamming Facebook users' walls,
because even the most gullible of those users are likely to have a friend who
will see and report the scam.

------
sickbeard
How does this help? It will just lure people into thinking scamming is a way
to lead you to america

~~~
criddell
Helping another person is hardly ever a bad idea.

Or in other words, don't hate the player, hate the game.

------
vlodiag
Basically if anyone you don't know in real life asks you money this is a huge
red flag. Like red flag of all red flags. People should condition themselves
that once they reach their pockets for money then something is wrong, stop
immediately and reevaluate. I understand that scammers sometimes are very good
and you don't need to paranoid towards people, but once real money is involved
your guard must go up!

~~~
SuperGent
That's easy to say, especially in hindsight, but when it's someone you've
messaged for 3 or more months, gets into trouble and then asks it's difficult
to be cool headed. You convince yourself that you DO know them, and it's above
board. Of course, like in this case, once it goes on long enough the penny
does drop, but by then it's too late.

~~~
robocat
Reality is that many in the world have a disposable income of say $1 per day,
so many people in first world countries are "obscenely" rich relatively.

I have been in situations where I have believed a few dollars will help a
child, will prevent a rape, or will prevent jail time for an innocent.

Is it better to be a good person, at the risk of being scammed? The same
happens with beggars - sometimes there is a genuine need.

I develop my shit filter by helping others, even at the risk of being taken
advantage of, because it is worth the wins, and I wouldn't want to be a person
that doesn't help genuine need when it only costs the equivalent of a few
beers (or more!).

------
Pica_soO
I wish we could get those texts, we could train NN on keeping the scammers
busy.

------
meira
BBC?

