Posted on 11/13/2008 10:02:36 PM PST by nickcarraway
Janella Spears doesn’t think she’s a sucker or an easy mark.
Besides her work as a registered nurse, Spears – no relation to the well-known pop star – also teaches CPR and is a reverend who has married many couples. She also communicates with lightning-fast sign language with her hearing-impaired husband.
So how did this otherwise lucid, intelligent woman end up sending nearly half a million dollars to a bunch of con artists running what has to be one of the best-known Internet scams in the world?
Spears fell victim to the "Nigerian scam," which is familiar to almost anyone who has ever had an e-mail account.
The e-mail pitch is familiar to most people by now: a long-lost relative or desperate government official in a war-torn country needs to shuffle some funds around, say $10 million or $20 million, and if you could just help them out for a bit, you get to keep 10 (or 20 or 30) percent for your trouble.
All you need to do is send X-amount of dollars to pay some fees and all that cash will suddenly land in your checking account, putting you on Easy Street. By the way, please send the funds though an untraceable wire service.
By this time, not many people will fall for such an outrageous pitch, and the scam is very well-known. But it persists, and for a reason: every now and then, it works.
Spears received just such an e-mail, promising her that she’d get $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative – identified in the e-mail as J.B. Spears – with a little money up front. "That's what got me to believe it," Spears said.
It turned out to be a lot of money up front, but it started with just $100.
The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help.
They sent official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and even from the United Nations. Her payment was "guaranteed."
Then the amount she would get jumped up to $26.6 million – if she would just send $8,300. Spears sent the money.
More promises and teases of multi-millions followed, with each one dependent on her sending yet more money. Most of the missives were rife with misspellings.
When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.
She wiped out her husband’s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.
For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.
Spears said she kept sending money because the scammers kept telling her that the next payment would be the last one, that the big money was inbound. Spears said she became obsessed with getting paid.
An undercover investigator who worked on the case said greed helped blind Spears to the reality of the situation, which he called the worst example of the scam he’s ever seen.
He also said he has seen people become obsessed with the scam before. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false promises will turn out to be real.
Now, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim.
She hopes her story will warn others to listen to reason and avoid going down the dark tunnel of obsession that ended up costing her so much.
Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold.
I cant help wondering how she was able to spend so much cash without her husband saying something about it.
LOL!
Where’s lowbridge when you need him?
There was another thread on here earlier this evening that the #1 spam generating company went offline today, reducing spam by about 2/3. Rejoice. At least for a day or two till another comes along.
If she’s not an easy mark, I’d like to see who is. I’ve got some beachfront property in Nebraska I’d like to sell.
I am surprised that once the husband found out about the first $100 he didn’t put the kabosh on the whole thing.
“Spears fell victim to the ‘Nigerian scam’,”
No, Spears fell victim to wanting to get SOME-THING for NO-THING.
This is how all con-schemes work.
As WC Fields said in the 1939 comedy “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man” ...
You can’t cheat an honest man!(or woman)
STE=Q
This scam can work both ways if you have an inventive mind and a sense of humor ie: “scam” the scammers
Behold. http://www.419eater.com/
Enough greed and you don't even have to be dumb
Obama Voter - Janella Spears
...in an added note, Hank Paulson asked the taxpayers to give $700,000,000,000 to CEOs of the nations worst-managed corporations, and they would share the trillions of dollars they have received in bonuses.
Having read this story, I think there might be a big relation.
She should just change her status to a bank holding company.
*obama raises hand*
She told him........... but he’s deaf you know.
They look different when they leave :(.
Considering that this is one of the best known scams going and she still let her greed get the better of her then I'm kind of puzzled as to what she expects to accomplish. She didn't heed the warnings, why should she expect others to heed them?
I want to see a DNA test to confirm that.
Would a fifth of a hand mean anything to that proposal?!
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