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

[Mike Arman]

(Since the point of my original e-mail was mostly that the scammers had
mined the Audi list for e-mail addresses, please let us take further
discussion of this off list after this reply. - It is no longer Audi
related ;-)



>
>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.


Yes, they are - some of them have phone numbers, in which they urge you to
call or fax at once, and it is almost always country code 234, which is
Nigeria, but I have started to see Ghana and South Africa (where the police
are actively chasing and nailing these guys.)



>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


True, e-mail is a *very* insecure protocol, but unfortunately these guys
have connections in Europe and (to a much lesser extent) here.






. 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?).



Well in this case, I am speaking from personal, first hand experience. I
have BEEN to Lagos on exactly this type of scam (back in 1994, when it was
fairly new, and there was no e-mail - and someone else paid my air fare)
and I have seen the scam, the perpetrators, the con, AND THE MONEY with my
own eyes. $55,000,000 in US $100 bills in a steamer trunk - and all of it
counterfeit. I "toured" Lagos, and saw the desperate, hungry people, many
of them dressed in rags, and the well fed, well armed police and government
employees. Again, from my personal experience, Lagos makes the set from
Blade Runner look like the Garden of Eden.

I'm not in the habit of talking trash about other people, cultures or
countries - I do business all over the world, and have current clients in
40 or so countries, and some of them are very, very different than "we" are
- but that is fine, and I have no problems dealing with them or working
with them or making money with them. And when the deal is done, each of us
raises a cup or glass of our beverage of choice (mine is diet coke) and
toasts to each other's health, with all sincerity, and absolutely without
any regard whatsoever to race, religion or national origin.

The problem in Nigeria is this - the government has been so pervasively
corrupt for so long that scams seem to be the only way to make a living
there. In 20+ years of being involved in international business, I have
never seen an honest deal come out of Nigeria, and have never met anyone
who has. The people there are frantically trying to get enough to eat so
they can just live, and they are doing it the only way they know how, by
imitating the most sucessful members of their society, the government. We
do the same thing here, *we* are all Bill Gates wannabes, we'd love to have
his power and his money and his freedom, so we go into business and work
hard and hustle and try to make a buck. That's what they are doing, but
their role models are the people in government, and the Nigerian government
consistently places dead last in the UN annual survey of government
corruption.

And you're completely correct, no country is perfect ("I'll trade you two
Enrons and a World Com for one dictator and the broadcast rights to your
next war.")





 Bottom line is people from everywhere are
>looking for suckers from everywhere.


Amen, amen, amen!!!!


, most are easy to investigate and
>stop, if the ISP actually acts on the problem.

Yes, but there are a LOT of them, and they use lots of different ISPs -
most of the ISPs I complain to DO stop *that* account, but there are always
more to replace it. I get seven to ten of these "offers" a week, all pretty
much identical, and all from different e-mail addresses, most of them
throw-aways like hotmail or similar.

>
>-ameer

Best Regards,

Mike Arman