Nigerian scams: still fooling

From the desk of Dr. Luke Appleby - Dear Connector blog reader...

I am Dr. Luke Appleby, an auditor with Fairfax Development Bank (FDB). There was a blog opened in this website in 1998 and since 2000 nobody has operated on this account again.

After going through some old blogs in the records, I discovered a sum of US$5.50, and if I do not get this money out urgently, these funds will go down the drain, into the hands of either the editor, or journalists of this newsroom or the funds may eventually be discovered by John Key's government as a dormant fund in the forthcoming audit by the Nation's auditors...

Yep, it's my spin on the see-one-see-them-all email scam. Once you understand them, you can pick them a mile away. I thought this medium of con-artistry was all but dead but it seems new customers are popping up all the time, even in Aotearoa.

I was absolutely shocked to read this article as it highlighted to me that the common Nigerian email scam is still alive and well, and people are still falling for them.

This poor soul believed the scammer so much, she took company money (hundreds of thousands) and sent it overseas, to someone she had never met, for something which was too good to be true.

Now, she has been convicted of theft, and will probably struggle to pay back the immense sum during her lifetime.

No business survives without some element of success. Scams are successful because out of thousands of attempts and spam emails, if just one gullible person replies and can be convinced, it all pays off.

When I first started out on the internet at age 10 or so, I remember the first time I encountered one of these scams.

In the typical, formulaic style, a distant relative of mine had died in a plane crash, and his estate was left unclaimed. A lawyer wrote to me in an email asking for help to release the funds, lest they be declared null and void in a matter of weeks.

I replied, saying I would be happy to help with what I could in order to free the funds.

Naive? Yes. Ten years old? Yes.

Sure enough, the response came quickly - I was to deposit a "small sum" (from memory I think he pitched US$1000) in to an overseas bank account.

Now, I didn't have any money. The most I had at any one time was probably $10 and that was slowly funnelled into 50c lolly mixtures.

I informed my new friend that I didn't have any money, as I was just a kid.

They never replied. This was my first lesson in internet scams, but the education continues as the problem evolves.

As time went by, I grew increasingly perceptive to online fraud. I researched the different forms and my radar was always active. To this day, I have never been duped online. I hope to keep it that way.

I think the key lesson we can learn here is that people need to educate themselves on these sorts of things. I would even go so far as to say it should be their employer's responsibility to educate them, provided their job involves internet access.

Also, as a parent, it's important to point out the dangerous parts of the web as well as the warm, fluffy side. Education is key.

Just a note - I realise that not all scams originate in Nigeria; it's just a convenient blanket term.

Have you ever been tricked or deceived online? Know anyone who has? Don't be embarrassed, sharing your story could help others learn what to avoid. In what other ways can we combat this problem?

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