Comments on: Nigerian 419 Scams and Spam Emails Are Funny But They Make Me Paranoid

By: Konrad

Konrad — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:45:29 +0000

hello everyone,
living in the United Kingdom, I am just wondering how it is possible or if it is possible
for the guys who have been scammed by the nigerians to take out big sums of money from their bank accounts to return it to the scammers before the cheque is cleared,
anyone working in a bank on here who knows?
And why the banks dont set up better protection for their costumers if that really is possible?

ANY GUYS WORKING IN A BANK ON HERE?

By: Tad

Tad — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:51:08 +0000

Why would anyone fall for this ? Nothing in life is free

By: John

John — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:19:02 +0000

I love baiting 419 scammers and them writing reports about them. If you want, you can write a review on the individual at Review Page (link). Go to that website and click “Write People Review”. It’s one of the few websites where you can actually “Review People”.

By: Raymond

Raymond — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:17:27 +0000

Hi Mat,

Thanks for dropping by! Sorry if what I wrote seemed offensive. I’m just trying to protect my readers based on what I’ve been exposed to. I have no personal prejudices…it’s just purely economical and business related reasons that I advise against dealing with people from certain countries. I hope Bulgaria and Romania’s introduction into the EU will help encourage better system controls and further development of their legal systems.

Big corporations have ways to deal with corruption and illegal activities, but small time amateur business types like myself often get ripped off by unscrupulous online scammers. Oftentimes we have to generalize and take extra precautions, even if that means we have to be extra picky or over discerning.

For what it’s worth, Eastern Europe isn’t as bad as Africa or South East Asia on this matter….

By: MAT

MAT — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:01:40 +0000

Hi Ray,

Thanks for your nice website. Concerning this article, I just want to remind (tell) you that Romania and Bulgaria are now part of the european union and are not ‘third world countries’. Even though Bulgaria seems to face a lot of corruption problems they both have (and especially romania) a fairly good legal system. I understand you prefer to deal with people from your own country but please be careful of the sometimes too easy stereotypes. Please continue to give us nice info on this blog.

Mat

By: Raymond

Raymond — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:21:35 +0000

Well I’m just thankful we live in a country filled with lawyers and a developed legal system. Like it or not, it protects our personal and financial interests and helps resolve disputes.

I am still getting bombarded by 419 spam emails today. When will they stop and leave me be?

There used to be this online program called Blue Frog run by a company called Blue Security a few years ago that was successful at countering against spam emails for a while. It worked by redirecting spam mail back to its source via automatically generated electronic complaints. It worked too well and resulted in a massive spammer retaliatory attack that ultimately took the company’s website servers off line. I guess the spammers won because the Blue Frog program is now gone. I hope this new Black Frog version they are working on will get resurrected one day. We can only hope.

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:04:06 +0000

I hesitate to do business outside the states simply because I hope being in the same country helps a little bit with legal issues. I’d be even more hesitant to do business with people in countries with bad reps for solving legal problems.

By: AndyS

AndyS — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:30:19 +0000

Very information artcile. I did not realize Nigeria was an English speaking country and that’s why scams can orginiate from there (I knew it had a hopeless legal system). I have been getting these “money transfer” type letters as well and recently the scam letter which I wrote about recently

I wonder how succesful these scams are. I know there was a story on it a while back by Chris Hanson (dateline I think).

Andy.