How can anyone be fooled by this scheme. The letters are badly written, unrealistic, use free web addresses (more than one), are about events (dictator's secret sons for example) that do not exist, etc.
So why do people think that this scam actually still works?!
Greed and hope - the two downfalls of the human psyche....
Regards, Far
god knows! but some well placed, reasonably intellegent,people have fallen for it (apparently)
tim
99.99% of people *don't* fall for it. If only one person in 10,000 is daft enough that'll do them, and you are bound to find at least one idiot in 10,000 people. How much does it cost to send 10,000 emails?
Because it does. It's supposed to be one of Nigerias greatest export industries. All they need are a few fools each year.
The police reckon that there's one person a day handing over a suitcase of cash to a fraudster at a railway station as a 'participation fee' so they can join a similar scheme.
That's the beauty of internet marketing; it only needs one successful hit.
I think perhaps the government should nationalise it, and create the stupid tax Mk II.
Daytona
But do you think that it could work in the First World. What I don't understand is why these 419ers:
a) Don't focus on other English speaking countries like India. b) Don't even bother to target the mails to specific individuals
Any ideas?
It does, that's where they get all their stupid victoms from.
I suspect Indian businessmen are just a tad too canny to fall for it. But they do focus on South Africa, Canada and the USA. All you need is a ready supply of the gullible and the greedy. If those people are also touched with just a little smattering of prejudice that says that all Nigerians are stupid, all Nigerians are corrupt, all Nigerians are just looking for a way to pass on corrupt money and will pay a premium price to do so, then all the better.
They don't need quality, just quantity. Their reasoning is that if 1 in
10,000 people is *that* stupid that they will fall for the scam then all they need to do is to send out about 100,000 mails a year to ensure a decent income.No one ever went bust by underestimating the IQ of the general public.
Nigeria is old hat - these days 419 scams involve South Africa, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, and sundry other places too.
My last one (really) was a Nigerian, in South Africa, who wanted to meet in Spain!
It does work in the 1st world. That's where they get their money from.
The probably do, to the extent that they think there is enough money in India to pump out of idiots.
Some of them do. The last one I had was to do with some dead person with loads of money called David Bryce. I was to help them get the money out on the basis that I could pretend to be a relative.
Apparently spammers typically get about 10 people out of a run of 50 million. 419s are probably less than that, but then they are much more lucrative than a packet of penis enlargement pills.
I dunno, they cost me a fortune so they must do all right. But I'm not complaining, other than having to carry it around in a harness due to the weight.
Does it actually fit where it's supposed to? Don't they complain about being over-stretched?
Fit where its supposed to? Sorry, dont understand.
:-)
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