StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

The Nigerian advance-fee fraud has been around for decades, but now seems to have reached epidemic proportions.  This week authorities in  Nigeria, the Netherlands, and Canada in conjunction with the US Postal Service made 77 arrests, seizing over $2.1 billion in fraudulent checks. 

Unless you’ve got an amazing spam filter, one or more of these spam mail schemes get through to you every once in a while.  While most people are smart enough to avoid falling for the “something for nothing” scheme, the amazing thing is that some people are stupid enough to fall for it.

The scam originated in Nigeria in the 1980s. Since then, however, this type of swindling has spread throughout the world—in fact, a large majority of the arrests made in this case were based out of the Netherlands (60 out of the 77 arrests), while only 16 were made in Nigeria…

… For those who have been living under a rock (or just have amazingly great spam filtering on their e-mail), the typical “Nigerian scam” starts with an unsolicited e-mail—or snail mail, back in the caveman days—containing some sort of monetary proposal. This could come in the form of an invoice, a plea for help, an offer to pay for goods or services, or any number of other variations. The scammer then offers to send the recipient a check that far exceeds the amount that is allegedly required to close the deal…

If you receive one of these spam mails, you can either simply delete it…or do as I do…report the email to the fraud@yourISP.com or better yet, use this FTC Consumer Complaint Form (good for violations of the Do Not Call List also), or better yet, use this one to contact the U.S. Secret Service: 

This type of scam spam (a 4-1-9), in which overseas, often Nigerian, con men typically offer you a share in millions of dollars worth of “over-invoiced contracts” (if only you will “temporarily” cover the cost of some “advance fees”) can be reported to the United States Secret Service (http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml) by faxing a copy of the 4-1-9 solicition to (202) 406-5031.  The Secret Service also has jurisdiction over online credit card fraud, among other scams.

“Most Americans don’t realize they are financially liable when they fall for these scams,” Susan Grant, vice president of the National Consumers League, said at a news conference to publicize the arrests and promote awareness of the frauds.

Here is an amazing quote: “Two-thirds of Americans said they received at least one potential scam contact per week, and 18 percent said they or a family member had fallen for one, in a survey conducted for an alliance of banks, consumer groups and the U.S. Postal Service.”  And Susan Grant, vice president of the National Consumers League complaints to her group about fake checks have risen 60 percent this year, and the average victim loses about $3,000 to $4,000.  This is not an Urban Legend.  What is it that someone said?  “There is a sucker born every minute.”  You know what someone else said?   “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

This post cross posted at Real Clear Politics.

419 scam, mail fraud, Nigerian scam, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Secret Service