E-mail Scam to Launder Money Lures Many

Portland Oregonian ^ | 10/28/2002 | John Snell

[ex-Texan]

Nigerian crooks now turning to email scams .....Beware!

[arthurus]

I have received several different versions of "419" and generally find them entertaining.

[A Navy Vet]

I've gotten this scam at least once a month for two years now. Sometimes the name changes, but it's usually a doctor. Sure, here's my credit card, send me the check.

[goldstategop]

There are variants of this "419" e-mail scam from South Africa and the Congo. Quite simply, there is NO easy way for any one to legitimately get rich quick. If such a method existed, every one would be doing it already. In this day and age, the gullibility of some people is simply amazing. Now there are times in life when we do get scammed because someone doesn't (I've had it happen to me and taken action) uphold their end of a legitimate contract but this isn't one of the situations where you can't claim its not a swindle. Again the age old advice rings true: caveat emptor!

[VRWC_minion]

Nearly everyone dismisses the 419 proposal as a sham

The rest vote for rats.

[freeper12]

A fool and his/her money are soon parted...have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone THAT stupid...

[Ditto]

Good grief. I was getting about two letters a week at work 10 years ago with this same scam -- all out of Nigeria. I used to pass them around the office for laughs. They were so pathetic they were funny. You would have to be dumb as a rock to fall for it. I guess that's the law of big numbers --- send out enough letters and eventually you'll find some Forest Gump.

[BlackbirdSST]

Yep, I get variation's of this more often than I care to mention, but geez ANV, it sure does take a bunch of folk for the big ride! Blackbird.

[goldstategop]

Yeah and why would you want to help someone break the laws of their country to become rich? If you stop to think about it, its the one thing about these offers that make the least sense. Then again a love of money has been at the root of a man's (and a woman's) downfall time and again.

[dead]

"The travel agent said, 'You guys are idiots. You could lose all the town's money and get killed.' "

If I was the travel agent, I would have charged them $15,000 for “fraud detection and intervention.”

The idiots would have paid it.

[martin_fierro]

There is NO WAY I will ever believe that these Nigerian e-mails are scams.

In fact, I am today a multimillionaire thanks to my good friend Dr. Innocent Bawbaw Wakatumbe (Esq.).

How did I do it, you ask? For $5 I'll tell you.

<|:)~

[TheLion]

Goes to show you...greed and stupidity don't mix.

[onehipdad]

Of course it's no wonder now why this state swings the democrat way so often: Greedy, gullible and easily outwitted. And don't think the De Fazio's and the Kulongoski's don't know it!!!

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

"It costs to be stupid. The stupider you are, the more it costs. "
~ Sherrill Brown

[MHGinTN]

My 84 years old mother received three official looking pieces of mail from 'sweepstakes style' scammers, two from Vegas posted 10/24/02 and 10/25/02 and one from Kansas City, MO dated 10/27/02. Each instructed her that she had won a large sum of money but had to send $10 or $5 to register, and sign her legal signature, then she would receive the 'winnings'. I'm trying to figure out to whom I enquire for redress against such scams?

[Hank Rearden]

"I lost my retirement," said Jane, referring to the Public Employees Retirement System account she emptied. In her mid-40s and years from retirement, she could only access her PERS account by quitting her government job.

She now works in private industry for one-third her former salary.

There are millions of idiots like this stupid woman sucking up tax dollars every single day. The only upside to this scam is if this moron (now finally off the taxpayer teat) wasn't replaced.

And we have another datapoint: Real people, with real companies, doing real work, calculated that this twit was really only worth one-third of her former pay. And they say there's no room to cut government costs . . . . . . .

[martin_fierro]

That definitely sounds like a job for the U.S. Postmaster/postal inspector.

[goodnesswins]

Salem-area woman lost nearly everything in an international e-mail scam: her well-paying state job, her retirement savings and 17 years of hard-earned house payments. All to scrape together more than $70,000 she would give to African strangers who promised to make her wickedly rich. "I lost my retirement," said Jane, referring to the Public Employees Retirement System account she emptied. In her mid-40s and years from retirement, she could only access her PERS account by quitting her government job.

She now works in private industry for one-third her former salary.......POOR BABY.

[RobRoy]

Two of my favorite quotes;

"You can't cheat an honest man."

"It is immoral to let a fool keep his money."

[cmsgop]

Salem Area Woman.........