14 year old Nigerian millionaire says we are a bit gullible

[wasteofspace]

Online scams create "Yahoo! millionaires"

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/29/8378124/?cnn=yes

In Lagos, where scamming is an art, the quickest path to wealth for the cyber-generation runs through a computer screen.

By Leonard Lawal

Akin is, like many things in cyberspace, an alias. In real life he's 14. He wears Adidas sneakers, a Rolex Submariner watch, and a kilo of gold around his neck.

Akin, who lives in Lagos, is one of a new generation of entrepreneurs that has emerged in this city of 15 million, Nigeria's largest. His mother makes $30 a month as a cleaner, his father about the same hustling at bus stations. But Akin has made it big working long days at Internet cafes and is now the main provider for his family and legions of relatives.

Akin buys things online - laptops, BlackBerries, cameras, flat-screen TVs - using stolen credit cards and aliases. He has the loot shipped via FedEx or DHL to safe houses in Europe, where it is received by friends, then shipped on to Lagos to be sold on the black market. (He figures Americans are too smart to sell a camera on eBay to a buyer with an address in Nigeria.)

Akin's main office is an Internet cafe in the Ikeja section of Lagos. He spends up to ten hours a day there, seven days a week, huddled over one of 50 computers, working his scams.

And he's not alone: The cafe is crowded most of the time with other teenagers, like Akin, working for a "chairman" who buys the computer time and hires them to extract e-mail addresses and credit card information from the thin air of cyberspace. Akin's chairman, who is computer illiterate, gets a 60 percent cut and reserves another 20 percent to pay off law enforcement officials who come around or teachers who complain when the boys cut school. That still puts plenty of cash in Akin's pocket.

A sign at the door of the cafe reads, WE DO NOT TOLERATE SCAMS IN THIS PLACE. DO NOT USE E-MAIL EXTRACTORS OR SEND MULTIPLE MAILS OR HACK CREDIT CARDS. YOU WILL BE HANDED OVER TO THE POLICE. NO 419 ACTIVITY IN THIS CAFE. The sign is a joke; 419 activity, which refers to the section of the Nigerian law dealing with obtaining things by trickery, is a national pastime. There are no coherent laws relating to e-scams, the police are mostly computer illiterate, and penalties for financial crimes are light.

No penalties for breaking the law
"The deterrent factor is not there at all," says Thomas Oli, a Lagos lawyer, citing the case of a former police inspector general who was convicted of stealing more than $100 million and got only six months in jail.

"What do you want me to do?" Akin asks in pidgin English, explaining why he turned to a life of Internet crime. "It is my God-given talent. Our politicians, they do their own; me, I'm doing my own. I feed my family - my sister, my mother, my popsie. Man must survive."

The scams perpetrated by Akin and his comrades are many and varied: moneygram interceptions, Western Union hijackings, check laundering, identity theft, and outright begging, with tall tales of dying relatives and large sums of money in search of safe haven. One popular online fraud often practiced by women (or boys pretending to be women) involves separating lonely men from their money.

Attempts to speak to government officials about Internet crime were futile. They all claimed ignorance of such scams; some laughed it off as Western propaganda.

But last November the Economic Fraud and Financial Crimes Commission won a high-profile case that had dragged on for years against Emmanuel Nwude, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years for bilking a Brazilian bank out of $242 million using an Internet scam involving phony bank drafts. The commission is also pursuing a case against 419 kingpin Fred Ajudua, a lawyer and businessman accused of using the Internet to steal $1 million from a victim in Germany.

Some officials, who asked not be identified, said young people are drawn to Internet crime as a way of getting back at a society that has no plans for them. Others see it as a form of reparation for the sins of the West.

Or as Akin puts it, "White people are too gullible. They are rich, and whatever I gyp them out of is small change to them."

[HAL]

On my clock.

[David]

Whoever is dumb enough to be taken in by one of those scams deserves to lose their money.

"A fool and his money are soon parted"
-- someone

[Joel]

Dave, these scams are getting harder and harder to notice.

For instance, Ebay is a scam haven atm. The scams are getting more and more complicated, and it isn't always as obvious as the Nigerian scam emails.

[David]

Joel I was only talking about the nigerian emails, but yeah I see your point that some of the scams can be quite sneaky sometimes. For example, one should be very wary about buying something like an ipod off ebay.

[TurkishPie]

Remember that old saying "You can't con an honest man".

[sherrife]

I've just gotta say I've bought a couple of things off ebay no problems at all. You can sort of tell the good sellers, as they have lots of stuff on offer and have made lots of transactions in the past.

Anyway in the scheme of things I think what these kids are doing is fine. Much more moral then say, not allowing cheap AIDS drugs or vaccines to the third world.

Robin hood sort of stuff is fine by me, it's all resistance against the overwhelming fuckup of a system that is allows similar people to live without basic amenities.

[Joel]

sherrife, apparently sometimes people make lots of little transactions, ie. 99c transactions to get a high transaction and satisfaction rate. Often these transactions are with friends etc.

Ebay is a haven for crooks, but that said, plenty of of bargains can be found.

[HAL]

Do not ask me any more questions please. Tell me more about your membership but he or she think it is a joke that they can charge for it.

[David]

some Ebay tips:
I think a good test is, try to contact the ebay seller during the auction, ask him a few questions, etc. You can probably tell a bit about him from how he responds.

Things to avoid (if you choose):
* Ipods etc. You're just asking to get ripped off.
* 'rare' CDs from well-known artists. In many cases they're just pirated discs. Still, that may be what you want, and in many cases these discs do contain songs you're unlikely to find elsewhere.
* signed memorabilia. While it may be the genuine thing, chances are against it. Anyway, I've got to ask, why get something autographed if you're not the one the celebrity signed it for?
* anything from Asia. I'm joking.

Also always make sure you know the postage and handling costs before bidding. My mum made the mistake recently of buying something, then after she had won it she asked for the P&H, which was some ridiculous amount like $20 american.