Fun with Crooks

Back around 1992, I received a very strange letter in my P.O. Box. It was typewritten and from Nigeria and made mention of a great deal of money that could be sent my way if I were to assist in some bizarre scheme. I vaguely remember the amount being about 10 million dollars. I don't recall any more, but I thought it was one of the oddest and most unbelievable letters I had ever received. So, I saved it, but never replied. Years later, I worked for an ecommerce company, whose number 1 rule was to never trust any orders from Nigeria. I didn't make the connection right away, but within a few days of working there, I saw that we did indeed receive a lot of online orders from Nigeria for our most expensive products. Every one of these orders was bogus, my boss assured me. And he was right.

It seems that a lot of others have noticed this aggressive scamming going on by folks in Nigeria, and have even taken to writing back and "scamming the scammers". Some very amusing exchanges have gone on with a lot of laughs being had at the expense of the those trying to swindle their savvy "victims".

One of my favorite stories comes from the website 419eater.com.

The Incredible Shrinking Artwork is the story of a guy who tricks this con-man into sending him statues to compete for a lucrative contest and then convinces him that the entries were damaged en route.

Sweet Chili Sauce is another site promoting a book called Dances with Thieves that relates many stories of messing with con men. Some are laugh-out-loud funny!

Finally, there was a great spoof done about a fake Nigerian Email Symposium a few years ago that is a riot!