Hello,

As a honest Nigerian webmaster and techie, global e-commerce remains a dream to me. Thanks to the negative exploits of the large number of advanced fee fraudsters (419ers) who are Nigerians. Phrases like "Nigerian scam" and "Nigerian e-mail" have become so common that the word "Nigerian" is synonymous with "scammer" on the Internet.

If you are based in Nigeria, you cannot easily earn money (with a merchant account) or spend it (with a legally owned credit card) online without the issue of "scam"coming up. Paypal, the most popular and conveninent payments processor, will simply c[b]lose your account and sieze your funds[/b] when they discover that you are a Nigerian. When you mention that you're a Nigerian on forums or chat rooms, the issue of 'Nigerian' scams will be raised. For each item you try to buy online, a scam alert is triggered.

One myth has been spreading online is that the 419 scam is our major foreign exchange earner. This of course is wrong, because 95% of our foreign exchange comes from crude oil (Nigeria is a member of the OPEC oil cartel). But it shows that the extent of the damage that has been done to our country's image is enormous! Thanks to reports about corruption in the police, they don't believe in the Government's sincere desire to create to enforce new laws against cybercrime.

As long as this distrustful attitude towards Nigerians remains, honest Nigerian entrepreneurs on the Internet will be at a great disadvantage. So they (we) need to do what they (we) can to stop these scams!

I am in the habit of reporting all scam e-mails I receive to the abuse@ email addresses, but I don't think that this will be enough. But what else can I do, as a honest Nigerian not in government, to stop Nigerian scams? Your suggestions are welcome.

Seun.
Site Admin

Maybe if more honest nigerians start showing up... image will change

I cant really think of anything concrete... but its just that Nigerians (AFAIK) arnt famous for anything else online. As more honest online businesses start showing up, their image will become like US/India... a mix of good and bad guys.

I guess the online business has to mature at home first. If online transactions (POS, ATM, e-commerce, e-payments etc) can be done at home satisfactorily without much 'wahala', then it will naturally flow to the outside world.

Hmmm. Let me elaborate on how I report scam e-mails I recieve.

Most scam emails come from one email address and direct you to reply to another email address. So what you do is send a report to the abuse@addresses of both of them including the headers of the email I recieve. For example, if I receive an email from President_Idi_Amin@yahoo.co.uk asking me to reply to Idi_Amin_dada@excite.com, I will forward the body of the email including the headers to abuse@yahoo.co.uk and abuse@excite.com. often, I will recieve a message back from Yahoo saying that the account has been investigated and action has been taken against the scammer. I find that satisfying!

Another idea is to report known scammers to the EFCC.

Many of us, especially those who run cyber-cafes, live in Festac area, or in a University, are aware of some people who deal in Internet scams and fraud by night and during the day they drive around in their expensive cars, showing off their ill-gotten wealth. Do you know that we can report them to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) via their website, and the EFCC would actually respond? Visit www.efccnigeria.org!

I think with these two steps a lot of progress will be made. Meanwhile, like schngrg has suggested, those of us who are honest should persevere, succeed, and draw attention away from the scammers.

We want to make the scams stop so we can be trusted again. We don't want to be left out of the Internet revolution taking place all over the world. So what other things can we do?

Yeah! the best thing we could do is to do good things as much as we can, and also help to make others think positive. show them a more better way of doing things. I asked some of them... they sometimes ask what other things can they do.? well i know lil they can do but i think they need money. organise talks, talk to them one on one(which i've been doing in so many cases). and give them alternatives.
Hope they change!

The truth is that most scammers do what they do for reasons best known to them. Some do it in order to help their family or reduce the burden on their parents by catering for themselves. I know so many guys who sponsor themselves and their sibblings in school through scamming.

You might say that it is not an excuse; yes, I agree. But then, looking at the economy of Nigeria today, where a BSc or even an MSc degree holder will have to sweat under the anger of the sun, looking for job, all to no avail. (Very few get lucky these days); I really won't blame people engaging in internet frauds. At least, it is better than going to innocent people's houses and killing them in cold blood just to get their money for them to survive (robbery).

For now, I really don't think there's anyway internet scams can be stopped in Nigeria because even the law enforcing agencies themselves are worse than scammers, INCLUDING THE EFCC.

Seun:

One myth has been spreading online is that the 419 scam is our major foreign exchange earner. This of course is wrong, because 95% of our foreign exchange comes from crude oil (Nigeria is a member of the OPEC oil cartel). But it shows that the extent of the damage that has been done to our country's image is enormous! Thanks to reports about corruption in the police, they don't believe in the Government's sincere desire to create to enforce new laws against cybercrime.

Its funny that you mentioned this but in today's Guardian (UK) there's a report and i quote "Revenues from internet scams are thought to be Nigeria's third-largest source of hard currency after oil and cocoa"

Considering how difficult it is to get reliable figures from Nigeria i don't know where they got this from. Besides i thought no one fell for Nigerian 419 scams anymore.

Seun:

If you are based in Nigeria, you cannot easily earn money (with a merchant account) or spend it (with a legally owned credit card) online without the issue of "scam"coming up. Paypal, the most popular and conveninent payments processor, will simply c[b]lose your account and sieze your funds[/b] when they discover that you are a Nigerian. When you mention that you're a Nigerian on forums or chat rooms, the issue of 'Nigerian' scams will be raised. For each item you try to buy online, a scam alert is triggered.

Paypal is extremely sensitive about the potential for fraud especially since they got burnt awhile ago in some money laundering scandal in the states. If you can get a reliable and trusted ally outside the country to handle payments for you through worldpay or an escrow service, that might be a better option for now.

goodguy:

The truth is that most scammers do what they do for reasons best known to them. Some do it in order to help their family or reduce the burden on their parents by catering for themselves. I know so many guys who sponsor themselves and their sibblings in school through scamming.

You might say that it is not an excuse; yes, I agree. But then, looking at the economy of Nigeria today, where a BSc or even an MSc degree holder will have to sweat under the anger of the sun, looking for job, all to no avail. (Very few get lucky these days); I really won't blame people engaging in internet frauds. At least, it is better than going to innocent people's houses and killing them in cold blood just to get their money for them to survive (robbery).

For now, I really don't think there's anyway internet scams can be stopped in Nigeria because even the law enforcing agencies themselves are worse than scammers, INCLUDING THE EFCC.

but don't you think that they could put that effort they put into internet scams into something more productive online or are you honestly telling me that there are no other things they can engage in online apart from fraud

There was also a feature in the guardian last week

To Nigerian cyber-criminals who trawl for victims, wealthy westerners are soft targets.
Robyn Dixon meets the scammers whose emails prey on the greedy and gullible...

click here for the rest
http://money.guardian.co.uk/scamsandfraud/story/0,,1637593,00.html

I'm glad you brought this up, Seun. Nigeria is now synonymous with scams. There is no excuse however for internet scam.....it has the same result as going into someone's house to steal with a gun.
These guys can make honest money from the many benefits of the internet .....people make money honestly from all corners of the earth...........it's greed that drives nigerian youths to doing this bad thing.
We can do something about this by reporting scammers.

I wonder....who still falls for these guys?

Most of the scammers cannot do what it takes to make money honestly from the Internet.

The major reason why we have all these online frauds is the iniability to have access to valid and genuine credit cards and online payment means.

If Nigerian banks can offer these services i know people that do resort to these scammers to get credit cards will go for the genuine ones.

@Seun am not sure if an individual can change the way Nigeria is been portrayed on the Internet. The only best way i know is if we can shutdown all these stupid sites that said they are fighting Nigerian scammers then i will know we are on the way up.

It's those sites that are giving Nigeria bad PR.

We must also be able to develop our own payment option in-house. That way Nigerians would have been used to the culture of making online payments.

You might say that it is not an excuse; yes, I agree. But then, looking at the economy of Nigeria today, where a BSc or even an MSc degree holder will have to sweat under the anger of the sun, looking for job, all to no avail. (Very few get lucky these days); I really won't blame people engaging in internet frauds. At least, it is better than going to innocent people's houses and killing them in cold blood just to get their money for them to survive (robbery).

Internet fraud is the same as robbing people in their homes.

@Joftech I really didn't get your argument there. How is the absence of credit card the cause for scam now? You're implying that the 419 guys aim for genuine business but we all know thats not so. They are greedy and thieves thats the simple fact. Iam particularly in annoyance these days seeing Nigerian 419 guys making fools of themselves and causing embarassment for all Nigerians The level they would stoop to to collect money. Disgusting!

@Seun unfortunately there is not much ordinary law abiding Nigerians can do to stop this scam embarassment. Let us hope that the attention it is presently getting will alert its possible victims and makes it worthless eventually. Its a shame though that that actor comedian choose to dignify 419 with a song encouraging it further.

@Joftech I really didn't get your argument there. How is the absence of credit card the cause for scam now? You're implying that the 419 guys aim for genuine business but we all know thats not so. They are greedy and thieves thats the simple fact. Iam particularly in annoyance these days seeing Nigerian 419 guys making fools of themselves and causing embarassment for all Nigerians The level they would stoop to to collect money. Disgusting!

I have seen people that want to pay for one thing or the other on the internet employing the services of these fraudsters to make the payment since they can't get genuine payment methods.

Am not saying 419er ever want to be legitimate.

joftech:

Internet fraud is the same as robbing people in their homes.

But they don't kill anyone in cold blood.

Apparently, I am the only honest Nigerian who cares about doing something to improve the Nation's image. I would have been better off not reading what all of you had to say on this thread. Shame on you, Nigeria!

Honestly Seun what can you do besides getting their emails shut down then they go and open another one.

Apparently, I am the only honest Nigerian who cares about doing something to improve the Nation's image. I would have been better off not reading what all of you had to say on this thread. Shame on you, Nigeria! Angry

You see Seun it's rather pathetic when people are not supporting you to do a noble course. You know what, i used to hate internet 419ers than you do. But when you tell them to stop it they will point finger to all these leaders that are making life miserable for the average Nigerian, when the IG of police in this country can manage to steal billions to his own account and those under him will stop at nothing to put logs of woods on the road to collect their mandatory 20, 50 Naira from innocent citizens.

Before anyone can effect any change we must make sure that people that are working are doing fine if this happens then those that are into fraudluent acts might start thinking about getting a legitimate job.

Nigeria does not have a worthy vision, hence the youth are so demoralized.

Joftech is right. One thing I noticed is that, so many of these scammers are not happy with what they are doing. A guy who receives packages almost every week told me this afternoon that he's seriously looking for a job and wants to quit scamming. But what do u really expect him to do in the absence of job? He'll definitely be encouraged to continue scamming since it's a more reliable source of income for him.

The scam scrouge is really terrible but there is a way out.

The government/EFCC should relaunch the campaign that CBN started years ago in USA and UK letting their 'greedy' citizens know that if an offer sounds too good to be true, then it is not true.

EFCC should also work the the foreign government to try the people scammed because majority of these people are criminally minded. Is it not a crime to work with 'Maryam Abacha' or some NNPC dude to get illegal money out? Once people know they would be criminally tried for being 'mugus' then the scrouge would go down. At least, if some Talibans offer the same enticement, would they fall for it?

EFCC should develop more covert operations around these troubled zones [Festac, Ikeja, Oregun, etc]. The kingpins should be quietly picked up. If they asked well, people know where they are. EFCC should infiltrate their gang. Those on the watch list should have their pictures pasted on posters as wanted dead or alive. Once they know they are wanted by everyone, won't they be scared?

EFCC should also develop real investigative skills especially technological ones to track fake site operators down. They should also develop rapports with bank and other companies who have discovered cloned sites such as www.accessbkplc-online.com, www.accessbankplc-online.com, www.etbplcng.net to fish out the bad guys behind them.

The battle can't be finished in one day but what matters is the determination to stamp these vermins out.

The King and Abrastisio
www.dejiolowe.com

Most of EFCC operatives have little or no technological knowledge about how these people defraud people on the Internet. Going around to harass people in cybercafes will never put an end to internet scams in Nigeria.

And by the way Nigeria has the smallest percentange of people that are involved in online crimes.

cyber crime as really come a long way and really it still remains in the bones of those who stared it and its growing on the skill of those in it. I live and work in surulere, you need to see the trendy style of scamers, any unfocused guy would not be able o wistand the pressure. Every day you hear of a guy who just "mugued" 8 million naira or another 11 million naira etc..  it think the battle should be from the good techie guys against the bad techie guys who show this illiterate scamers what to do.. i once got a request from an ibo guy who wanted me to develop an application that would change the regular SMTP port of a cafe to another, one other guy wanted a fax 2 email service.. i acted dumb on both times and can u believe this.. the both explained to me what i needed to do, site i should visit and even the applications i could us as stepstones gosh!! i was puzzled at their level of knowledge.. some times you even see little boy chatting on dating sites using female id's like "sexy_seun4luv2007" and then search a model site, pick a chick in bikini and use her pix as though it were the sexy seun girl 

i think seun is on the right course, probably i'ld follow sooth hoping it would reduce the crime in a couple of years/months from now..

let me start by saying i apreciate what u guys r doing electronicly for nigeria, giving us and redeeming the existing presence. Actually i'm also impressed that this forum also made the prestigious slashdot .http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/2226224

let me share a recent scam i got

DV LOTTERY.STATE.GOV
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
www.dvlottery.state.gov

Dear Winner,
It is my pleasure to congratulate you on your success in the AMERICAN
DV-2004-2006 VISA LOTTERY PROGRAM which was applied and processed by our agency.
You were selected as one of the lucky winners on our internet screening
machine,for the DV-2004-2006
USA national visa lottery program. Your visa lottery winner's identity is
ID-4200DV and your serial net visa passport with us is SNVPh700IU.In this
respect, you are directed to forward the following requirements:

l. Your present contact address (for correspondence)
2. Your recent passport photograph .
3 REGULAR MAIL.

You can also send your photo(s) by regular mail. The photo must be between 1 ½
by 1 ½ and 2 by 2 inches (37-50 mm) square, with the applicant's,spouse's, or
child's name printed on the back.Please mail the photos to:

Immigration Services:
PA/PL, Rm. 3206
U.S. Department of State
2301 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20720

Or preferably, you can scan them and send via email for faster
processing.Clearance/acceptance fees is ($989.67)

Details of requirements:
Your present contact address should be forwarded strictly to our receiving
correspondent Mr. James Stallon through his email address
:js_statedept@yahoo.com.We accept Western Union Money Transfer as the ONLY
payment method due to some reasons from our past experiences. (Credit card is
not acceptable, please.) Your WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER or other means of
money transfer payment information should be forwarded as directed on payment
procedures are to be forwarded to the consultant
at(cldepartment@yahoo.com).Your payment confirmation shall be sent to
you as soon as clarification is done on your payment.
Providing the above requirements will assure you of getting your Visa
Lottery Acknowledgement Card and Visa Lottery Security Code which we shall send
to your email address.
Important notice: Please make sure you report and forward your Visa Lottery
Code and Acknowledgement Card to the USA embassy in your individual country for
your Green Card and other necessary claims.
According to the United States of America's Code of Conduct and Constitution
Vol.176/866:Act 690SN guiding all immigration,and Green Card permit Agencies,
Non-Response,15 days after you receive this message to your winner's status
shall reveal "No interest" and we would in return, refer your lottery
code and acknowledgement card back to the USA Government/Immigration Service
Center.We shall be anticipating your reply soon.

CONGRATULATIONS ONCE MORE.

Mrs.Magdalene Collins,
Co-coordinator.

KELVIN POWELL
Executive Director.
Phone Number: +1 775-908-6812
Fax Number: +1 775-908-6813

Note: Your response/reply should be sent ONLY to the above stated Email network.This is for security reasons.



in the first instance i never even applied for the lottery!!

First i would like to thank seun for bringing this kind of idea. Its true Nigeria has a bad image. But lets take a look at the way the economy looks like now.

I think the government needs to do something about the level of unemployment in this country. They should try and see means of reducing the poverty and unemployment level to a minimum range.

Most spammers are graduate (B.sc) from universities. If one may ask is it a crime to go to school after which u start suffering simply cos there is no job. Its not that i am supporting these spammers but it is mainly their source of leaving. U see someone airtime reading up to 98hrs(commonly known as the bulk time). Did u ever ask urself what kind of information would that person be looking for?

As for those cybercafe owners they dont have a choice these spammers are the one bringing the money to them cos u can hardly find a spammer using less than 2hrs to browse. I mean 2hrs is the least air-time for a spammer .

so bad it has to be this way. Well not blame these spammers. what abt the greedy "magad" who seem not be satisfied with what they have.

I know what it feels like as i use to be a spammer . that was long time ago but i stopped simply because i lost interest in it after my seconday school exams.

what i think is going to solve the problem like what one of our members rightfully said is for the so called EFCC to organise a campaign with foreign bodies telling their residents about these spammers and they go about syphoning money from them with their dirty tricks. Moreover the government should do something reasonable about the economy of a thing. its not moving us forward but we are lacking behind.

Hi Seun! I have been an onlooker, (and fan) for a while, but this post finally got me to register! Do not be discouraged, cos u r on the right track. Martin Luther (the original), and Martin Luther King Jr, were both 'one man' but they managed to make all the difference. The major problem we have always had as Nigerians is the insidious 'since I cant beat them, I better join them mentality' which so far, has sank us deeper! If u cant beat them initially, keep at it, and ur determination will cause other to join you.

Now, for putting ur money, where ur mouth is- Have u tried finding an international partner- thru personal contact, or taking ur proposal to the bank where they might be able to develop solutions, giving the right incentives. When I used to live in Niger, I was working for this financial training company, that claimed offices in major cities around the world. Theses offices were in fact contacts of friends and family, and we did big international business! Our clients never guessed that we wre operating from an office in VI Otherwise we will never have been given the chance! There is ALWAYS a way! and not necessarily a criminal one! Enough said!

@folababa you could play along with them. Bait them. You will be surprise to know what a scammer will do if he think he'll get money from you.

demmy:

@folababa you could play along with them. Bait them. You will be surprise to know what a scammer will do if he think he'll get money from you.

i dont fink he should play along, rather i feel he should report the email and the address to the mail provider (yahoo)

I think we should also know that some of the worst online/offline scammers are not Nigerians. The pakistanis of UK are terrible examples so also are the guys from the former soviet bloc especially romania and hungary.

The visa lottery stuff could be from them.

We have not even gotten to the level of written trojan horses. The bible say men (not only naija guys) are evil minded

I have always maintained it Nigerians scammers are not that so sophistivated in the online scammming game.
Most of them have limited computer knowledge.

Some of the stupid people that sent all those stupid posts on Slashdot are really myopic in their perception about Nigeria. No wonder they get to scam them real hard.

We can come together to form a coalation of 419ers fighters.

But it will really be hard trying to convince a 419 to go straight when he will straightly tell you that a whole governor jumped bail in another country. So where is his role model?

Seun, thanks for bringing up this topic, I visited Nigeria last year and it seemed like everyone was involved in some form of scamming, no one cared about honesty, instead, making money by any means was their goal. Believe it or not, a large percent of Nigerians that live in U.S are into scam as well. Many things that happen in that country, I blame it on the government because people (no matter what country) will act evil under frustration and it’s the job of law enforcement to make sure such people are dealt with. I think Nigerian law enforcements should have an email address where people can report scams, they communicate with the scammers, pretending to be the victim that they originally sent the email to and figure out a way to put them to justice. The so called police are busy running the streets looking for bus drivers to collect money from. I own a business, providing technical solutions for small businesses and I accept credit card payments, many of my clients know that I am a Nigerian and they are also aware of the Nigerian scams, but I have earned their trust over the years. I have came across a couple of clients that felt reluctant about paying me through credit cards (may not be because I'm a Nigerian) as a matter of fact, my first client pulled out his card, and after a conversation concerning my nationality, he kept his card and paid me with cash, he is still my client until today and he now pays me with credit card. My point here is, no one should give up because of the bad image of our country, if enough of us hang in there, I think it will make a difference, it may be hard at first but people will learn to deal with you as a person and not based on other peoples criminal act. There is no doubt that as Nigerian business owners, we have to try twice as hard to make a good impression and earn peoples trust, but if success is your goal, you have to find a way to overcome the problem.

@jtkunle, i like your spirit man, thats the spirit that would drive this war and make us see it through to the end

@dejiolowe, man that email has a high possibility of coming from a nija scammer.. from my experience wit some of this guys (like i said i live and work in surulere[lagos]) they have a conventional style of adress eg, so_nairaland@yahoo.com or fm_reply@yahoo.com or like the js_statedept@yahoo.com posted above.. than their names are the regular british names we know like joe cole, kelvin powell, frank nollan etctetcc..\

may be we should make an antisite displaying nigerians digust abou how our fellow brothers are messing up and probably spam it to to this victims notifying them on the various scam types..

The bottomline is this, as long as the scams continue, Nigeria will be cut off from the internet 'mainstream'. The so called scam artist can continue to make money off the few gullible people around but eventually that will dry up completely. So what do they do next??

When people are hungry they will do anything to survive, the police and EFCC can raid cybercafes etc, all that will do is drive them underground. And if we think things are bad now, you wait till internet access becomes cheap enough for people to have access at home.

If we are going to redeem the image of Nigeria, we need to provide other alternatives to these people, I made a few suggestions here in this topic https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-3030.0.html#msg105262 and i'm sure a lot of people have other ideas.

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/2226224
a response from slashdot.org
we could just cut nigeria off from the internet entirely, my isp's mail server would apprectiate that. everybody knows there is no such thing as an "honest nigerian", the whole country is in on the scam. how else do you explain the extremely large number emails i get from nigerians?


To be honest putting this topic on slashdot.org just opens Nigerians up to further ridicule as i doubt you'll get any meaningful suggestions there. Its so typical of the Americans on that site to ridicule others rather than sorting out their own problems.

When i checked my email today most of the dodgy emails i got about Penile Enlargement, Free Viagra Pills, Online Porn Access, Free IPOD Nano, Viruses, Phishing sites were from American sites.

The hypocrisy is sickening, I may hate 419 scammers but i hate the greedy fools who think they are dealing with some 'ignorant African' they can steal money from, even more