GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - so the mother in law fucked up good and proper

arg · 03-18-2005, 12:35 PM

Indeed, check-cashing scams were listed on an AP (or was it CNN?) article this week about the "top 5 internet scams".

For those not in the know, "419 scams" are a nickname from section 419 of Nigeria's criminal law or something, as Nigerians have been famous for decades for scamming people with various mail, phone, and now internet cons. Nigerians even scammed companies like Enron and other American scammers out of many millions, they're good at what they do! This con may or may not have involved Nigerians, but the "419" name is used more generically these days.

Details like payment methods could vary, but the basics of it work like this: someone sends you a certified check, say for $11,000, you deposit it, and they instruct you to wire $10,000 to another party, and keep $1,000 for your "work." They can give all sorts of reasons for why that might seem plausible. The victim, having been told by all their friends that they're a fucking idiot about to fall for a 419 scam, is cautious, and calls their bank to confirm that the certified check has cleared, and the funds are really available, and the bank assures them it has. They wire the $10,000, spend the $1,000 on booze and laugh at their stupid paranoid friends. Then a couple days later the bank receives the check back from the originating bank with insufficient funds...they were saying that it cleared *their* bank, not the originating bank. So they deduct the $11,000 you desposited to your account, and the $10,000 you wired out is still wired out, so you're $10G in the hole. Or if it's your son-in-law's account, your son-in-law is $10G in the hole. And some Nigerian village somewhere is having a big pig roast with champagne as they chuckle at the greed and stupidity of Americans.

03-18-2005, 12:35 PM
arg Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 1,164	Indeed, check-cashing scams were listed on an AP (or was it CNN?) article this week about the "top 5 internet scams". For those not in the know, "419 scams" are a nickname from section 419 of Nigeria's criminal law or something, as Nigerians have been famous for decades for scamming people with various mail, phone, and now internet cons. Nigerians even scammed companies like Enron and other American scammers out of many millions, they're good at what they do! This con may or may not have involved Nigerians, but the "419" name is used more generically these days. Details like payment methods could vary, but the basics of it work like this: someone sends you a certified check, say for $11,000, you deposit it, and they instruct you to wire $10,000 to another party, and keep $1,000 for your "work." They can give all sorts of reasons for why that might seem plausible. The victim, having been told by all their friends that they're a fucking idiot about to fall for a 419 scam, is cautious, and calls their bank to confirm that the certified check has cleared, and the funds are really available, and the bank assures them it has. They wire the $10,000, spend the $1,000 on booze and laugh at their stupid paranoid friends. Then a couple days later the bank receives the check back from the originating bank with insufficient funds...they were saying that it cleared their bank, not the originating bank. So they deduct the $11,000 you desposited to your account, and the $10,000 you wired out is still wired out, so you're $10G in the hole. Or if it's your son-in-law's account, your son-in-law is $10G in the hole. And some Nigerian village somewhere is having a big pig roast with champagne as they chuckle at the greed and stupidity of Americans.