The way of the scammer

Scammers are everywhere, looking for easy victims, easy money. It is believed that cyber scams cost the world Sterling Pounds 70 billion a year. But the advance-fee fraud, run by Nigerian scammers is the mother of all scams. Although the origination of advance fee scams run back to 16th century where the victim gave money to bribe Spanish prison guards to secure the release of a highly placed, who knows of a treasure and is willing to share it, now it is merely in the hands of the Nigerian fraudsters. The scam is called '419'.

It is the section of the Nigerian penal code relating to obtaining property by deception. Few years ago the scammers used hard copy letters and faxes. But now it comes in the form of an email, SMS or even through a website.

This scam usually begins with a letter or email personally addressed to the victim but actually sent to many, making an offer that would result in a large payoff for the victim. The subject line of the email or the fax says it comes from the Chambers of Barrister/Lawyer so and so acting for the wealthy person or 'Your Help is Needed'. The usual story is that there a large sum of money left in a bank account unclaimed, left after completing a government contract, for example, the wife or son of a deposed African leader who has amassed a stolen fortune, or a bank employee who knows of a terminally ill wealthy person with no relatives or a wealthy foreigner who deposited money in the bank just before dying in a plane crash with no last will or next of kin or similar stories.

Wealthy investors

It indicates that the writer cannot have access to that wealth, but a person from overseas can. Therefore, he needs your assistance to claim the wealth letting you have a share of it. The money could be in the form of gold bullion, gold dust, money in a bank account, blood diamonds. The sums involved are usually in the millions of dollars, and the investor is promised a large share, typically ten to forty percent, in return for assisting the fraudster to retrieve the money.

Although the vast majority of recipients do not respond to these emails, a very small percentage do, enough to make the fraud worthwhile as many millions of messages can be sent. Sums of money which are substantial, but very much smaller than the promised profits, are said to be required in advance for bribes, fees, etc. - this is the money being stolen from the victim, who thinks he or she is investing to make a huge profit.

Many operations are professionally organized in Nigeria, with offices, working fax numbers, and often contacts at government offices.

The victim who attempts to research the background of the offer often finds that all pieces fit together. Scammers can often lure wealthy investors, investment groups, or other business entities into scams resulting in multi-million dollar losses.

However, many scammers are part of less organized gangs or are operating independently; such scammers have reduced access to the above connections and thus have little success with wealthier investors or business entities attempting to research them, but are still convincing to middle-class individuals and small businesses, and can filch hundreds of thousands of dollars from such victims.

If the victim agrees to the deal, the other side often sends one or more false documents bearing official government stamps, and seals.

419 scammers often mention false addresses and use photographs taken from the Internet or from magazines to falsely represent themselves.

Often a photograph used by a scammer is not of any person involved in the scheme. Multiple 'people' involved in schemes are fictitious in many cases one person controls many fictitious personas used in scams.

A scammer introduces a delay or monetary hurdle that prevents the deal from occurring as planned, such as "To transmit the money, we need to bribe a bank official. Could you help us with a loan?" or "For you to be a party to the transaction, you must have holdings at a Nigerian bank of $100,000 or more" or similar. More delays and more additional costs are added, always keeping the promise of an imminent large transfer alive, convincing the victim.

Transfer service

Many fraudsters are professional ones. They have offices, working telephone and fax numbers, sometime linked to the government officers.

The victims who try to investigate the request find nothing to be suspicious. Every piece falls in to the correct position. The scammers ask you to provide them with bank details to transfer the funds when the recovery of the wealth is reached.

They often request that payments be made using a transfer service like Western Union and Moneygram .

The reason given by the scammer usually relates to the speed at which the payment can be received and processed, allowing quick release of the supposed payoff.

The real reason is that wire transfers and similar methods of payment are irreversible, untraceable and, because identification beyond knowledge of the details of the transaction is often not required, completely anonymous.

Telephone numbers used by scammers tend to come from mobile phones. They buy cheap phones and SIM cards which are not required to register. If they feel that they are followed the phone is discarded immediately.

The real fact in all advance-fee fraud operations is that the promised money transfer never happens because the money or gold does not exist.

The perpetrators rely on the fact that, by the time the victim realizes this, the victim may have sent thousands of dollars of their own money, and sometimes thousands or millions more that has been borrowed or stolen, to the scammer via an untraceable means such as wire transfer. In extreme cases the victim may not realize that he or she has been defrauded.

A version of the scam is for the thief to claim to have contacts to facilitate legitimate business loans; the victim here is not persuaded that he is doing anything illegal.

So if you receive one of those faxes, emails or an SMS think twice before you go any further.