I have gotten a lot of 419 spam lately… that is jargon for what is called advanced fee fraud and most of us have seen it in one form or another. The most infamous example is the email spam coming from a purported son of a deposed Nigerian warlord who needs your help in transfering a huge sum of cash, and in return you’ll get around 20 to 30 million of it. The article of Nigerian law that this type of fraud falls under is article 419, hence the knickname “419 Spam” or “419 Scamming”. It should be pointed out that this type of scam can be from anywhere, not just Nigeria.
The whole idea behind this fraud is to use your own greed to blind you… they’ll get you convinced that in some legit fashion you are the inexplicably lucky person to be randomly emailed regarding their multi-million dollar venture. However, they need to ask you for a few hundred (or even thousands) in legal fees and transaction fees to set this plan into motion. After you wire them money via Western Union you never hear from them again. Adios, sucker! [yes, I'm aware 'adios' is not a Nigerian word]
Here’s a few examples I received just in the past two weeks:
I have a substantial capital i honourably intend to invest in your country into a very lucrative business venture of which you are to advise and execute the said venture over there for the mutual benefits of both of us. Your able co-operation is to become my business partner in your country and create ideas on how money will be invested,properly managed and the type of investment after the money is transferred to your custody with your help and assistance.
We therefore seek your kind assistance to incorporate you to our already laid out plan for the perfection of this business to include you as one of the creditors to enable us keep part of the excess funds for ourselves.we will ensure that the Chancery Division recognises you as one of the debenture holder of the company holding the value of Security Shares we shall attach to your name and make approval for payment in your favour.
Before my husband Death I inherited a total sum of (9million United state dollars) from my late Husband when he was in his Sick bed, This money which is concealed in a metallic trunk box is deposited with a security and finance company in Cote d’ ivoire under a secret arrangement as a family treasure. This means that the security company does not know the content of this box that was shipped from the Philippine to Cote d’ ivoire under a diplomatic coverage.
We are pleased to inform you of the result of 20th June,2006 of the Bonoloto Internacional promotions program held on 16th June,2006. Your name attach to ticket number :ESPL/89877676 with serial number: EBCL/2345609,Batch number: ESLP/4834/06. Reference number:ESCP/8578347/06 and drew lucky numbers 3-5-9-17-22-32,which consequently won in the 1st category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of €1,000.000,00(One Million Euros Only)Which has been insured in a Security Company.
Ok… now here’s the fun. I stumbled across this site, 419Eater.com, that actually plays along with the scammers and posts detailed accounts of the email exchanges and the crazy things these scammer scum will do to steal money from you. It’s hilarious. What this site does is called scambaiting. From wikipedia:
Scam baiting is the practice of pretending interest in a fraudulent scheme in order to manipulate a scammer. The purpose of scam baiting might be to waste the scammers’ time, embarrass them, cause them to reveal information which can be passed on to legal authorities in the hope that they will be prosecuted, get them to spend money, or simply to amuse the baiter.
I read a couple stories on 419Eater.com and was laughing so hard I started to cry. One of the scammers was asked to provide a picture of his struggling church as “proof” that this church that needed the money really existed… so the scammer sends a picture of the Vatican!?! 
That’s terrific. Then he sends a picture of the vatican with a “sign” drawn in that had the name of his church… and the sign looked so fake that it could only have been done with MS Paint.
Web designer and developer. Loud discerner. Software engineer and 
08 09 06
Hey Steve: Funny that 419 stuff. I oft wonder how anyone could fall for that stuff. But sometimes, those scammers are smarter than that. That scam eater site is funny! I think I once ran across a blog of similar theme. The guy had corresponded with these Nigerian scammers for months and it was interesting to see how everything unfolded. In the end, the elegant English turned into broken angry speak. hehehehehe I used to work for a call center via MCI and it was for deaf people and their TTY’s or computers to communicate and we relayed their typed script to hearing people. Anyway, Nigerian scammers found it to be a free way to scam American businesses using stolen credit cards. So they would pretend to be a deaf person from Nigeria who was part of a charity or something, then try to order 200 bottles of vitamins. The one that took the cake was when these guys tried to order ten baby grand pianos!
Scammers are evil people. I give a damn whether or not the crime seems clean because it is just paper fraud, but it is wrong nonetheless. What ever happen to honesty and hard work? It seems like so many people are caught up in “getting over” when they need to focus on getting through and contributing to society. Damn these jerks! Sorry for rambling Steve, but this gets my blood boiling!!!
Have a nice day:)
Yeah, I don’t know what it is about Nigeria that tends 419 scammers to be from there. When I see some of the crazy things that the scambaiters can get the scammers to do I start cracking up… they’ll do almost anything to cheat people out of money. I especially like the pictures they send of themselves in precarious positions.