Nigerian fax e-mail scam, Audi content!!!

[Ameer Antar]

I have gotten this one too, long ago. I really don't think you can really
believe any of it, including that these guys are actually from Nigeria.
E-mail is such a insecure protocol that anyone can claim to be who ever
they want w/o any effort. I also get emails from xxx at china.com or something
.ru  . Sure there are some people in these countries that maybe doing this,
but I can guarantee that 50% of these bogus emails also come from within
the US and W Europe. I don't think the trash talk about Nigeria is
necessary, especially since it's so easy to lie about anything in an email
(, and what country is perfect?). Bottom line is people from everywhere are
looking for suckers from everywhere. The one good thing about emails is
that it's usually hard to fake the IP address of the sender. There are
utilities that can convert this address to a hostname, which may show the
country it's from, and there are other tools which can tell you what
company owns this connection so you can complain to them at there "abuse"
address. But hardcore hackers can even fake the IP address to spam you and
everyone, but this is pretty rare... I'd say only a small portion of
SPAMer's are using these hacking tools, most are easy to investigate and
stop, if the ISP actually acts on the problem.

-ameer


At 12:12 PM 11/7/2002, you wrote:

>Anyway, these scams are total nonsense, and always revolve around some huge
>amount of money which has accidentally and somehow not quite legally fallen
>into these guy's hands, and they need YOUR help in getting it out of
>Nigeria, the garden paradise of the world. (Tell ya what, I've been to
>Lagos, and the best thing that could happen to it is a major asteroid
>strike - only thing is, the place is so utterly and totally ****ed up, no
>one would notice! Or care.)
>
>Once they have your greed antenna vibrating properly ("Make $15,000,000 for
>nothing more than a few letters or faxes!"), the deal is just about done,
>all this money will land in your lap tomorrow AM . . . except we have a
>minor hitch - seems some minor functionary wants to be bribed, nothing
>fancy, just send him a Seiko watch for $100 or so and the money will be on
>the way. And it goes on and on and on from there, sometimes for years!.
>Losses have run into the MILLIONS of dollars - greed and gullibility are
>obviously as rampant in the "developed" world as well as the parts that are
>less (?) fortunate.
>
>
>This seems to be the national industry of Nigeria, with minor branches in
>Ghana and lately South Africa, and the government of Nigeria isn't really
>interested in stamping it out - it is a major source of foreign exchange!
>So be warned - EVERYTHING from Nigeria is suspect in front, be VERY careful
>because these guys can supply ANY document you can imagine, and they are
>all forged. I've seen "Ships Master" licences - lets you drive the Exxon
>Valdez onto the rocks, you are now a qualified supertanker captain - just
>$500, and you don't even have to take a test. I've also seen some US
>currency that absolutely didn't originate on any printing press in the USA.
>
>
>Be careful out there - there are some strange things going on on this
>planet, not all of them friendly.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Mike Arman
>
>--__--__--