Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 146
Scam-baiting and other Nigerian controversies
N
ow, I’ve had my share
of email inquiries
from Nigerian princes who need my help collecting their fortunes and promise
to share those fortunes with
me if I do help. But I had no
idea how pervasive and insidious scams originating from
that part of the world had become — until last week, when
I came across what, apparently, was a Santa Clarita Valley
apartment-rental scam run out
of Lagos, Nigeria.
Seriously.
Searching on Craigslist, I
came across a beautiful Valencia apartment that the photos showed was really far too
nice for the rental price asked.
So, naturally, I figured I’d better hurry and scoop up the
deal.
Inquiring for more details
via email, I got a very fast reply with the address of the
place. And I also learned the
owners (“former residents of
Valencia”) were now in Nigeria and had the keys to their
now-vacant apartment with
them.
I figured I’d be rushing a
check off to them soon to get
those keys sent to me — you
know, ’cause I’m a trusting
soul. And drooling with anticipation, I Google Mapped the
address so I could go look at
my soon-to-be home up close
and for real.
Well, the map showed the
address was in the middle of
a park.
Hmmm.
At that point, I politely
emailed the “owners” about
my trifling concerns — and
I am still awaiting their reply
a week later. Maybe they’re
just busy.
But I’ve got that check
ready to go. Not.
Did they not assume I
would at least want to look at
the place before I sent them
money?
Apparently, via the Internet, scams originating out of
Nigeria are reaching into ev-
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
ery facet of our everyday
lives. They just aren’t always
very well-presented.
Whether these scammers
are short on education, unskilled in the nuances of
American culture or high on
Whoonga, it seems they really don’t put too much effort
into it.
What’s next? Nigerian
men in lederhosen and pigtails lurking outside Vons to
sell me knockoff Gurl Scout
Cookies?
Maybe there will be badly printed coupon books with
the title “Lagos Daily Deals,”
offering bargains such as “Get
$2,500 off your next meeel at
Demmy’s.”
People, if you’re going to
try to scam me, at least give
me a nice ride for my money.
And here’s the most important thing: Don’t mention Nigeria!
Duh.
Boys, that’s a red flag. Even
if circumstances require the
money you scam from me to
eventually be sent to Lagos,
at least keep that small detail
out of the mix until you’ve got
me panting. Or maybe, I don’t
know, set up a drop box in the
nearby country of Togo. That
has a cute name. But when
you say you’re from Nigeria, I
get a little uneasy.
And gentlemen, you are going to have to get better at
these scams — for your own
sake.
It seems there is a growing cadre of scam-baiters out
there who spend all their free
time online impersonating innocents — and so misleading,
misinforming and misdirecting pesky scammers. They
give them false and defective
personal data and keep leading the scammer on to greater and greater efforts as he assumes he is closing in on his
prey.
At the very least, these baiters waste hours of the scammers’ time, which would otherwise be spent luring real
victims.
And even more dramatic, I
read that they have sent scammers on long and expensive
wild-goose chases to pick up
money that never arrives.
The dream-goal, as you can
imagine, is to scam money
out of a scammer — though
such instances are only Internet legend, as far as I know.
Other than that the most obvious scam-baiting successes
come when the baiters receive
death threats from the scammers. Then the baiters know
they’ve truly gotten under the
scammers’ skins.
Good, wholesome fun,
right? And a noble endeavor
to boot.
But there’s yet another
plus. Through this scam-baiting, we are not only putting
the squeeze on scammers —
but the guys doing the baiting are kept busy as well. And
since they are probably the
type who would create computer viruses if their hands
were idle, the world is a better
place, twice-over.
Think of all this as a sort
of organic pest abatement for
the World Wide Web. And all
you have to do is remember
the old adage: “If something
seems too good to be true,
don’t send a check to Nigeria”
— or anywhere else, for that
matter.
Walker offers his condolences to the good people of Nigeria for the bad
rap they’ve gotten resulting
from the illicit activities of a
few scammers. And his opinions probably don’t represent
those of The Signal. But, then,
The Signal didn’t have its
heart set on that apartment.
