Posted on 12/21/2003 5:12:15 PM PST by quidnunc
In the revolting world of spam, among the penis enlargements and worse, are the money laundering frauds so palpably absurd you might think only idiots would fall for them. An innocent Scottish chemist's shop is the latest to be caught up in these Nigerian frauds. Victims were promised they would inherit an oil company in return for an up-front fee. The fraudsters used the pharmacy's address, pretending it was a bank, and now dupes from Norway, New Zealand and the US have been turning up in Thurso to try and get their money back. How could anyone be so stupid? Easily.
With embarrassment, feeling a fool, I admit I was a victim of a Nigerian fraud. Looking back now, I can't think why I was so easily taken in but I did make a reasonable check. A hand-written letter arrived from a Nigerian 14-year-old called Sandra. It was nicely written on a religious school's headed paper, though not too perfect, telling me her sad story. Both her parents had died and she had to complete her last two years of school. Her results were good, and it would only cost £100 a year for the last two years to cover the cost. I wrote back and I also wrote to her headmaster, whose name appeared on the school letterhead, at a PO box. He wrote back in more adult handwriting to say Sandra was indeed a needy and promising student, and he enclosed her last term's report. It was an impressive document, each subject carefully filled in by a teacher with different writing, giving an excellent but not over-the-top report, with some subjects subtly lagging a bit behind. So I sent a cheque for £200 and received another of Sandra's letters, a bit too full of God's mercy and Jesus's blessings for my taste. I had an idea I might keep in touch with her to see what became of her. If I had any doubts, £200 was a modest sum for all the effort a fraudster took to create these letters.
But it wasn't about the £200. Not long afterwards my bank received a letter with a perfect copy of my signature, giving my bank account numbers, asking for £1,000 to be transferred at once to a bank in Osaka, Japan. Luckily, the bank thought to ring me up and query it. It turned out that a host of recent scams had asked for money to be transferred to Japan and the police had alerted all banks. It took me a little while to work out how they got my signature and my bank details, but then it clicked. Sure enough, when I reported it to the police, they laughed. They knew the Sandra letters very well and the real purpose was to sting the victim's bank account. It happened again last week when my bank got another request for a £1,000 transfer to Japan and I do feel a fool. Looking back at the letters now, I can see it all. For heaven's sake, she even said both her parents had died of the ebola flesh-eating virus.
-snip-
The line between honest and dishonest business is easily blurred. We point fingers at Nigeria, this richest and best-educated country in Africa that should be a mighty power had it not been so catastrophically misgoverned, with legendary corruption. Yet what kind of global honesty is promoted, what model of good capitalism and good government? The US is about to hold another election that will be largely bought and sold by business and oil interests. Think of the corruption that US and UK conservatives carelessly unleashed upon the former Soviet Union in the name of extreme free market ideology.
The image of capitalism now being spread about the world is cowboy stuff: little gleaned from America extols the virtue of regulation, restraint and control. We reap from the third world what we sow: if some Nigerians learned lessons in capitalism from global oil companies that helped corrupt and despoil that land, it is hardly surpising they absorbed some of the Texan oil values that now rule the White House. Alas, the querulous, navel-gazing and increasingly non-internationalist EU seems in no mood at present to offer a different and better face of capitalism to the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I may offer to sell that extremely useful bridge in Brooklyn; it will be worth a lot of money some day.
That segue was as smooth as my cat's tongue.
Notice how there is no mention of the Islamic influence on these Nigerian scam artists.
Is ebola a flesh-eating virus?
Yes, it causes your innards to liquify and leak out of your body orifaces.
Nitwitism masquerading as intelligence.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.