Nigerian 419 scam town
p2pnet.net News :- According to Nigeria’s VanGuard, Festac Town is a, “one-time model estate in the country and built in preparation for the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977”.
Not any more.
Today, it’s likely to turn up as the return location on a Nigerian 419 scam-spam because it’s an, “entire community of scammers overnights on the Internet,” says the Associated Press. “By day they flaunt their smart clothes and cars and hang around the Internet cafes, trading stories about successful cons and near misses, and hatching new plots.
“Festac Town is where communication specialists operating underground sell foreign telephone lines over which a scammer can purport to be calling from any city in the world. Here lurk master forgers and purveyors of such software as “e-mail extractors,” which can harvest e-mail addresses by the million. Now, however, a 3-year-old crackdown is yielding results, Nigerian authorities say.”
Email fraud and other associated crimes continue as growth industries in Nigeria, notwithstanding claims that local organizations such as an anti-fraud committee, set up as far back as December, 2003, exist to counter them.
“In the con that Internet users are probably most familiar with, the e-mailer poses as a corrupt official looking for help in smuggling a fortune to a foreign bank account,” says AP. “E-mail or fax recipients are told that if they provide their banking and personal details and deposit certain sums of money, they’ll get a cut of the loot.”
And, it adds, there’s the lottery con.
Kele B.couldn’t find work. Thenm says AP, “he discovered the Web.
“Now he spends his mornings in Internet cafes on secondhand computers with aged screens, waiting ‘to see if my trap caught something,’ he says. Elekwa, a chubby-faced 28-year-old who also keeps his surname to himself, shows up in Festac Town driving a Lexus and telling how he was jobless for two years despite having a diploma in computer science.
“His break came four years ago when the chief of a fraud gang saw him solve what seemed like “a complex computer problem” at a business center in the southeastern city of Umuahia and lured him to Lagos. He won’t talk about his scams, only about their fruits: ‘Now I have three cars, I have two houses and I’m not looking for a job anymore’.”
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Associated Press – Internet Scammers Keep Working in Nigeria, August 7, 2005
notwithstanding – Nigeria to fight ‘419′ scams, p2pnet, December 1, 2003
August 8th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
This is one case where complaining will cause the scammer spammer great deal of trouble. Most of the scammers use Hotmail or Yahoo addresses which they advertise in the spams for replies. Complaining to the abuse department at these free providers usually gets these addresses shut down very quickly. Once the email address is shut down, the entire spam run is rendered completely usesless.
The object is to complain as quickly as possible so that the spam run does not net any idiots’ money. Unfortunately, I have been list washed from the scammers idiot list, so I have not received any 419 spams in quite some time.
August 9th, 2005 at 3:56 am
Pls. Pls . Pls ………………..NIGERIANS Lets built a good name 4 this nation. It might be sour today but joy will come soonest.
I LOVE u ALL.
August 19th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
my sister cried “oh my god you need to check out this article I just read”
After reading it I believe that I was on my way to being taken for everything.
Newly divorced and still devasteated .lonli and needing a little love I answered am e-mail who promptly began to tell me everything I needed to hear
Your beautiful ,I could fall for you with all your sensativity,your a real woman.
We talked for weeks then he informed me he was loosing his cable and our chats would end.i was devastated.He asked me if i could send the money for now he would give it back.I got out my card and began to send it western unionBut for somereason my card would not go thru.Not for lack of money! i tried again It was the same DECLINED.
When I told him he seemed abit miffed.then suggested I mail it then and he gave me his home address.
I started to think and told myself this didnt sound right so I didnt do it.
He asked me to ask my family for money and pay for his flight here so we could be together ,He said he was an accountant by trade but since he was originally born in texas he was a US citizen and could not work there .But when he came here he would make good money and we could buy a house.
Im so thankful my sister warned me or I may have ended up loosing all that I have left to survive.
SINCERELY BARBARA S. TAYLOR
208-704-3047
August 19th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
my sister cried “oh my god you need to check out this article I just read”
After reading it I believe that I was on my way to being taken for everything.
Newly divorced and still devasteated .lonli and needing a little love I answered am e-mail who promptly began to tell me everything I needed to hear
Your beautiful ,I could fall for you with all your sensativity,your a real woman.
We talked for weeks then he informed me he was loosing his cable and our chats would end.i was devastated.He asked me if i could send the money for now he would give it back.I got out my card and began to send it western unionBut for somereason my card would not go thru.Not for lack of money! i tried again It was the same DECLINED.
When I told him he seemed abit miffed.then suggested I mail it then and he gave me his home address.
I started to think and told myself this didnt sound right so I didnt do it.
He asked me to ask my family for money and pay for his flight here so we could be together ,He said he was an accountant by trade but since he was originally born in texas he was a US citizen and could not work there .But when he came here he would make good money and we could buy a house.
Im so thankful my sister warned me or I may have ended up loosing all that I have left to survive.
SINCERELY BARBARA S. TAYLOR
208-704-3047
August 25th, 2005 at 7:34 am
Perhaps you’d be interested in my new book Tuesdays with Mantu, My Adventures with a Nigerian Con Artist. It’s what happens when a smart ass advertising writer turns the tables on those Nigerian 419ers.
The book has been featured on KABC Talkradio and is currently excerpted in last month’s issue of FAST COMPANY magazine.
There’s more at http://www.tuesdayswithmantu.com
September 6th, 2005 at 8:26 am
My brother i pity for our country,because today thier is noting you can do with a Nigerian passport,just because of few group of Nigerian. But i dont blame them that much, i blame our heartless government that cares only for themselfs,if a graduate with first class cant get a job,talk more of school drop out, what do u expect them to do to survive.
You have to come to london and see what people in power are doing with tax payers money. MY BROTHER BLAME THE GOVT, FOR WHAT IS HAPPENING.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:15 am
I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT ALL THE DIRTY ROTTEN, DISHONEST SCAMS FROM NIGERIA, LONDON, SPAIN, HONG KONG, CHINA, HAWAII!!! MOST OF THEM FROM THE U.K. & NIGERIA! ALL THE A.HOLES MUST BE CAUGHT & PAY FOR THEIR CRIME!!! IN MY OPINION, THEY CAN ALL TAKE A DIRT NAP!!! US INNOCENT USA CITIZENS ARE SICK & TIRED OF BEING TARGETED FOR THEIR BS!!!