
The First 'Nigerian Prince' Scam - dsr12
http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-first-nigerian-prince-scam/
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OoTheNigerian
It's quite easy to use Nigeria in a con story these days without it being
questioned.

So she wants us to believe 14 year old in 1910 (early 20th century she said)
claiming to be a Nigerian Prince from Nigeria BUT posting the letter from
within the US went undetected?

First of all Nigeria did not exist until 1914 and I wonder how this 14 year
old "negro" (as they were called then) discovered this country and had the
intelligence go execute this.

This anecdote is obviously a figment of the writers imagination and such fable
does not deserve to be on the front page.

There are enough challenges with the damage fraudsters using Nigeria's image
are causing Nigerian citizenry we do not need to give audience those that
parade fables as fact.

~~~
julianz
According to this account (which appears to include case numbers), these cases
happened in 1949 and were indeed from Nigeria, not from within the US.

[http://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2015/07/28/history-re...](http://text-
message.blogs.archives.gov/2015/07/28/history-repeating-itself-mail-fraud/)

~~~
OoTheNigerian
Good find.

It's quite a similar story with the submitted article but many of the facts of
the matter do not match up with her early 20th century tale.

~~~
macintux
I think you're stretching.

She describes the newspapers filled with ads in the early 20th century, but
not explicitly the scam, which nonetheless happened in the first half of the
20th century.

Is there enough actually wrong to gripe about it? I see virtually no
differences between the two links.

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petethomas
Arguably, rampant cynicism regarding a 14-year-old's attempt to make us all
"feel like worthy people" says more about us than the kid. [0]

[0] [http://myfunnymemes.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/Nigerian-...](http://myfunnymemes.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/Nigerian-Prince-Doesnt-Understand-Why-People-Dont-
Want-Free-Money-Tranfered-To-Their-Bank-Accounts-In-Comic-By-See-Mike-
Draw.jpg)

------
ec109685
The logic that house wives who said yes the first time in the survey were more
likely to say yes the second time being attributed to "foot in the door",
seems specious. Instead, folks who are more gullible (or helpful), tend to
remain so in other encounters. Without knowing the percentage of folks who
agreed to the first survey and those that did not, it's hard to make
conclusions that the survey was the cause of folks being helpful in the
second.

