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Advance fee fraud, often also known as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, Nigerian scam or 419 scam after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates, is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from investors living in rich countries in Europe, Australasia, or North America. Although these confidence tricks originated in Nigeria, they have since become a worldwide criminal activity that is conservatively estimated to net billions of dollars a year. They have been ongoing since at least 1989, and are carried out through the mail, fax and increasingly through e-mail spam. Originally, the schemers contacted mainly heads of companies and church officials, but private citizens are routinely targeted as well.
The 'investors' are contacted, typically with an offer of the type "a rich person in Nigeria needs to discreetly move money abroad, would it be possible to use your account?" The sums involved are usually in the millions of dollars, and the investor is promised a sizeable percentage. The proposed deal is often presented as a (harmless) white-collar crime, in order to dissuade participants to later contact the authorities. The operation is professionally organized in Nigeria, with offices, working fax numbers, and often contacts at government offices. The investor who attempts to research the background of the offer will usually find that all pieces fit perfectly together. If they then agree to the deal, the other side will first send several documents bearing official government stamps, seals etc., and then introduce delays, such as "in order to transmit the money, we need to bribe a bank official. Could you help us with a loan?" or "In order for you to be allowed to be a party to the transaction, you need to have holdings at a Nigerian bank of $100,000 or more" or similar. More delays and more additional costs are added, always keeping the promise of an imminent large transfer alive. Sometimes psychological pressure is added by claiming that the Nigerian side, in order to pay certain fees, had to sell all belongings and borrow money on their house. Sometimes, victims are invited to Nigeria and get to meet real or fake government officials, or are held for ransom. In some cases they are smuggled into the country without a visa and then threatened into giving up more money as the penalties for being in Nigeria without a visa are especially severe. The actual money transfer never happens.
A variant of the scam will appear to be sent by a barrister, representing the estate of some long-lost relative you never knew you had (your last name will be inserted into the email message) who perished along with his family in an auto or plane accident last April; the scammer will claim to have gone to a lot of trouble to find you in order to give you a share of the millions of dollars available if you'll just forward your bank account information to him.
In a newer version of the scam, the scammer offers to buy some expensive item (which the victim advertised on eBay, for example) by official, certified, bank or cashier's check. The check will "accidentally" have a higher value than the price of the item, so the scammer asks the victim to wire the extra money to some third party as soon as the check clears. The check typically clears after one or two days, but the fact that it is counterfeit is not detected until several days or weeks later, by which time the victim has sent the item and the "additional money" to the scammer and his representative. Most banks will hold the victim accountable for the value of the counterfeit check.
The United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a about the Nigerian scam. It says: "If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria - or any other country, for that matter - forward it to the FTC at uce@ftc.gov."
Some investors have hired private investigators in Nigeria or have personally travelled to Nigeria, without ever retrieving their money. One American was murdered in Nigeria while pursuing his lost money. Since 1995, the United States Secret Service has been involved in combatting these schemes.
In February 2003, a scam victim from the Czech Republic shot and killed an official at the Nigerian embassy.
Apparently, the scams, while usually performed by Nigerians, do not always originate in Nigeria. In 2004, 52 suspects were arrested in Amsterdam after an extensive raid. An Internet service provider had noticed the increased email traffic. However, out of these 52 none have been jailed or fined, due to lack of evidence. They were released in the week of 12th of July, 2004.
A number of internet groups have invented the hobby of scam baiting. The object is to pretend interest in a scammer's scheme, while convincing the scammer to waste time, perform ridiculous tasks, or otherwise entertain the baiter. 419eater.com is a website dedicated to scam baiting. These scams have the weak point of having to use a working email account. Forwarding such emails to the abuse@ address of the email account can get scams shut down quickly.
Here is an example of a typical email message which attempts to attract victims:
Another example of a Nigerian scam email can be seen on the , run by the United States Department of Energy.
Lottery spam involves fake notices of lottery wins. The winner will be usually asked to send sensitive information to a free email account. This is a form of advance fee fraud as money in advance is often required and is also similar to phishing.
Another method is after winning a bid on items on the online auction site eBay (especially laptops or other consumer electronics), to suggest to use an escrow service. However, the escrow service is fake and part of the scam. The victim will send the laptop or camera to the escrow service, never to hear from the scammer or escrow service again. The website of the escrow service will typically go offline after the victim has sent his goods.
In one amusing case the victim knew that the supposed buyer was a scammer and scammed the scammer. The whole exchange and pictures was extensively documented on the Something Awful forums. More details here:
| <center>This article is part of the Spamming series. |
| E-mail spam | Messaging spam | Newsgroup spam | Spamdexing Blog spam | Mobile phone spam |
| Make money fast | Advance fee fraud | Phishing |
| History of spamming |
| Stopping e-mail abuse | DNSBL |
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| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
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