Nigeria's third-largest industry is Scamming
 

Nigerian scam spams fill up nearly everybody's mailbox these days, and many people assume no one falls for the badly spelled come-ons. But experts estimate thousands of Americans pay $100 million to $300 million a year to the crooks. The number could be much higher because many victims are embarrassed or worried they broke a law.

There are few hard statistics because no one agency is in charge of battling the scammers, but Nigerian complaints to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center were up 66% last year.

Marks have lost more than money. The State Department tied 15 murders in three years to the scam. In December, a Cypriot was tortured and burned to death in South Africa, allegedly by Nigerian scammers.

Also known as "advance fee fraud" or "419 fraud" after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code, the scam began in the 1980s with handwritten letters, graduated to faxes and is now an E-mail scourge. It is estimated to be Nigeria's third-largest industry.

"For some reason, 419 is primarily a Nigerian thing, why we do not know, and nobody else does either, " said Pascale, who heads the 419 Coalition.

The fleecing has so sullied the image of legit Nigerian business, the government issues periodic warnings. Cops aren't the only ones trying to shut down the scammers. Calling themselves "scambaiters," online vigilantes string them along and try to get the con men to send THEM money.

On a Web site called 419eater.com, Mike (he keeps his last name off-the-record to protect himself) posted a clip of his cell-phone call with a scammer posing as a rich dead oilman's lawyer, whom he had convinced to send $718 as a goodwill gesture before a large fund transfer.

As Mike assures the Nigerian he is just arriving at the Western Union office to send his life savings, one hears a realistic squealing of tires, a giant crash and Mike moaning, "I don't want to die." There follows long minutes of sirens while on the other end, the scammer, $718 in the hole, just keeps uncertainly repeating, "Hello, hello, hello?" '

Hello? :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

LOL ive heard about this..

i cant believe people fall for that shit

I read that site alot 419eater.com. It is funny ass shit. They do a great job over there, and I have been reading it for almost a year and 1/2 now.

I tried scambaiting, but it takes so much damn time. Still funny to see though

who would have thought that. fucking assholes

I'm glad someone is taking the time to try and ripoff the scammers at their own game :)
WG

Not Nigerian but I wonder how many people have fallen for the scam where you get an email from "your bank" asking you to come to "their" website and fill out your user/pass to make sure your account is working properly.

I think I am going to put together a donation e-mail and send it to a bajillion people, and ask for 1 dollar.