I have read this post with interest.

a lot of posters have pointed to the Nigerian government and officials as the problem.  However, I must remind everyone, the government is simply made of people who grew up in the Nigerian society.  Therefore, there must be a pervasive problem in the Nigerian society that supports the notion that a) easy money is okay b) hard work is not valued and c) it is okay to lie and use and hurt people to get what you want.

Values must be taught at home for a firm foundation to be established so that when temptation comes in life (as it will to us all) we can resist it.  I recently became the target of a young man who is involved in the "romance scam"- when he originally asked me for $300, for his sick mother, I asked him what kind of child had his mother raised that he thought it was okay to ask me, a woman half way across the world for money?

I told him that this was not the talk of a real man - because a real man worked for what he had and did not depend on anyone else.  He was very offended, but tried to resume the scam by suggesting that he would send me a money order which I could cash for him and then wire him the funds.  Knowing what he was up to, and with the intention of reporting him to the authorities, I encouraged him to send the money order, and also obtained a Nigerian address which supposedly I would use to wire him the funds via Western Union.

After this, the next day, I sent him an email about the awesome mighty power of God.  I told him that the bible says the Love of Money is the root of ALL evil, and his actions was no exception.  It took him a while to admit what he was doing, but I was able to get him to do so on the telephone.  In that conversation he claimed that it was not easy to get a job in Nigeria, and as a westerner I had so much and he had so little - he also said he was not hurting anyone because after all it was the person's choice to send the money.  When I asked if he had sisters and suggested that if they came home, having had this done to him, he, himself, would be furious, he quickly became defensive and eventually the conversation ended.

Thus saying, there has to be a radical reprisal of the value system in Nigeria that is promoting this life style.  We in the states ( i am an American, with a West Indian background) had the same problem with the glorification of violence, gang-related activity and drug dealing.  The problem originates at home, in the family.  For instance, my son recently came home with a video game he claimed another student gave him.  Immediately I called the parent and asked if her child was missing a video game.  Apparently the child had given the game to him, but since children don't have money, it was not her right to do so.  We (my son and I) immediately returned the game to the parent.

Honesty, integrity, responsibility and all other values are to be taught at home.  If they are not, at first the family suffers, then the community, then the country, then the nation, then the world.

i love what is dicussed here.even if an ordinary nigerian cant stop scam,we can start by doing what is right from our own angles.looking and identifying profitable biz online.

How about posting at aa419.org (Artists Against 419) when you come across a website used in 419 scams (Fake Bank, Fake Law Firm, Fake Security Company, Fake Courier Company)? They maintain the largest database of fraud sites and will see to it that these sites are shut down quickly. They are really good at it.

That way, you help ridding the internet of scam sites used by Nigerian 419ers. The less there are, the easier it gets for honest Nigerian traders and businesses to gain the trust of the global internet b2b and b2c community.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200607270110.html

Kindly take a minute to read the excerpts of my interview with Thisday newspapers - Last week July the 27th.
We need to start somewhere and i think we at Webgallery Nigeria are on to something.
Our underlying objective is to SHOWCASE "Corporate Nigeria" to the world. The idea being to let the world see, what organised businesses we have, large and small alike, which exist in our Country.
Funny someone mentoned paypal, we have paypal as one of our modes of payment, but you would not believe the hassle we went through to get their service, as a matter of fact the have warned us that they will not accept any payments from Nigeria, What a shame!

We need to let the world know that we are not all "Scammers". That if given the opportunity, some of us will work to earn our keep.

Keep the word spreading , www.webgallerynigeria.com

Actually, I came across nairaland.com when I was searching for some information on Nitelnet.com (their domain seems to have stopped resolving for some reason) which I was researching for an acquaintance in an attempt to localize the origins of a 419 scam email sent out.

I live in the United States (and, yes, I apologize for our President's poor manners and bad behavior. He is a naughty boy and his eyes are too close together). The first computer I had that actually established a SLIP connection to the Internet did so in 1992. It was a NeXT Cube and I did so via a 9600 baud modem. Email was wonderful back then. When you got a message, it was from someone you knew, telling you something you wanted to know, or asking a question you knew the answer to. (I've emailed Steve Jobs and Mitch Kapor, and gotten answers!) When I got my first 419 email, I think I responded with something like, "Oh. Yeah. Right. And why are you emailing me from hotmail?"

Later, I found out that millions of dollars are stolen by criminals through this technique. Sadly, many come from Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Sierra Leone.

Before 419, when I thought of Nigeria, I thought of Chinua Achebe. Of the Ibo people.
Now I think about Maryam Abacha and "This will come as a surprise to you but I have eleven bazillion dollars (11,000,000,000,000,000) and I want five hundred bucks."

When Seun started this thread, he asked what honest Nigerians can do.

Shutting down email addresses is trivially easy to overcome.

Here's an idea: If you are (or know well) someone who runs an Internet cafe where you think 419 scammers operate, please communicate the block of IP addresses you have with folks here in the anti-419 community.

I record the IP addresses of all the 419 letters I get. I track them back as far as I can, and if I had an email to an admin of the block of IPs, I could send a message saying "12 minutes ago, someone sent out a 419 letter from 196.220.30.175! Is he still there?" Could (Would?) The EFCC help if you had the guy in custody?

If you have a block (even a tiny piece of a class-c) addresses, that information would be VERY helpful to those of us in the Anti-419 community.

I, for one, do NOT think ill of Nigerians.
I think ill of criminals.

Reply here, Or don't.

Take care, all.

How can you stop scam  in  Nigerian? since Nigerian re still bad, we just need to control our Economics.

I got this post from Digg and traced it back home, to Nairaland. The root-cause of fraud and scams is the http://politicalgovernance..com/2006_08_19_politicalgovernance_archive.html tragicomedian leadership that has ruled our darling country for 46 years running. A leadership devoid of inspiration, an expired but re-cycled leadership. A scamming leadership. A leadership that cannot unravel mystery murders from the time of DELE GIWA to BOLA IGE, to FUNSHO WILLIAMS, DARAMOLA till date. A leadership that murders potential at infancy- a Herodian leadership! You cannot successfully deal with Scams without dealing with Scammers first. The scams the world shouts about is only a responsive echo of our national scamming political leadership.

That is why an IBB that ruined democracy and development can come back boasting that only him can make Nigeria "whole" again. To deal with the scams, honest Nigerians must first deal with the monumental fraud of a leadership if we must move for ward.

I am a white, female member of nairaland, living in the US, who is dating an honest, Nigerian man based in Lagos. Since I have joined nairaland, I have been contacted on a daily basis, at least 2-3 times a day, by male nairaland members, who try to scam me, by either asking me to marry them or adopt them. It really is funny, but also too pitiful.

Also guys in the cafe's will actually look at my boyfriend's screen and steal my ID off it when he is in a cafe talking to me. Today he was in a cafe in the Festac area of Lagos, and 4 men tried to buzz me on yahoo messenger, during the 3 hours we were talking. Luckily, I know better than to add them to my messenger. Sorry for the language I am about to use, but one guys ID was actually "exotic_dick_for_you." My boyfriend and I had a good laugh over that one.

I took my picture, mail address and my messenger ID off nairaland over a month ago, but somehow they are still getting it off here. I know this, cuz they tell me so freely. So Seun, please help me by taking off any identifying factors left anywhere on nairaland about me. I will be forever thankful to you.

Seun is there some way we can easily report scammers that we know FOR SURE are nairaland members to you? They seem to have no problem telling me they got my ID on nairaland, so why should i have a problem reporting their ID's to you?

guys what can we do to stop scamming is not an issue of introducing credit card into the society or most of this proposed solutions.(1.) the solution is for nigerians to stop chasing easy money they should work and think of ideas that would improve our economy. people like seun need to be commended i dont think there is any chat room greater than nairaland right now. i am not trying to psyche him up but seun is doing a good job setting up this forum. that is an idea and he is ripping his benefit. (2.) we should stop using flimsy excuse like government, no electricity, Corruption and a host of other things. is there no corruption in America so whats the excuse.( abramoff, Ken lay, tom Delay jeff skilling and a host of othere) the average nigerian accuses the government and uses them as an excuse for all his problems.
(3.) everyone claims there is no job how about creating one. no one wants to venture into tailoring, mechanic work , or even doing transport business. they all want white collar jobs and contracts. that is not possible some people need to find their way. we need to start thinking like the bill gates , jerry yang and co. the only thing a nigerian knows how to do well is to complain and give suggestion to every problem in this life. an average nigerian has a solution to everything in this life and only them know what to do at atime. Question of the world's richest people how many of them are CEO's professor or and also lok at the list comapre the ratio of self made billionaires/ college drop out to the inherited/ college graduate http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/Rank_1.html
(4.) stop beefing each other and work our fingers to the bone. dont lets us hate peopel for the good works they have done lets commend them and let is spur us to do something better.

please nigerians be inspired and lets try and give our selves job rather than looking at the government for milk and honey jerry yang did it bill gate did it roman abramovich did it.

"Education is not a measure of your success it is your will power and determination to Achieve"

guys what can we do to stop scamming is not an issue of introducing credit card into the society or most of this proposed solutions.(1.) the solution is for nigerians to stop chasing easy money they should work and think of ideas that would improve our economy. people like seun need to be commended i don't think there is any chat room greater than nairaland right now. i am not trying to psyche him up but seun is doing a good job setting up this forum. that is an idea and he is ripping his benefit. (2.) we should stop using flimsy excuse like government, no electricity, Corruption and a host of other things. is there no corruption or Scam in America so whats the excuse.( abramoff, Ken lay, tom Delay jeff skilling and a host of others) the average nigerian accuses the government and uses them as an excuse for all his problems.
(3.) everyone claims there is no job how about creating one. no one wants to venture into tailoring, mechanic work , or even doing transport business. they all want white collar jobs and contracts. that is not possible some people need to find their way. we need to start thinking like the bill gates , jerry yang and co. the only thing a nigerian knows how to do well is to complain and give suggestion to every problem in this life. an average nigerian has a solution to everything in this life and only them know what to do at atime.they havent solved their but can solve other people's own("remove the plank in your eyes before removing the peck in your brothers eye'') [b]Question:[/b][size=8pt][/size] of the world's richest people how many of them are CEO's professor or and also look at the list comapre the ratio of self made billionaires/ college drop out to the inherited/ college graduate http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/Rank_1.html
(4.) stop beefing each other and work our fingers to the bone. don't lets us hate people for the good works they have done lets commend them and let is spur us to do something better.

please nigerians be inspired and lets try and give our selves job rather than looking at the government for milk and honey or proposing how to stop scam. jerry yang did it bill gate did it roman abramovich did it.

"Fearest thou a man dilliegnt in his work for he shall stand before kings and not before Mere men"

The bad name that Nigeria has succeeded to mark itself with took years to achieve, I am speaking this way because the truth is that the economy accepts it and has been working hard to gain this name.

If you are doing “good boy” in Nigeria, you will not really be able to stand your ground. Everyone in Nigeria is materialistic, and they believe that the end justifies the means… This attitude has been planted in the heads of Nigerians from when they are small.

In university, the girls expect you to have a car to drive them around, you should also have ready cash to spend if not you will loose her to someone who can maintain her…

When someone says in Nigeria “I Don Hammer”, everyone will gather round him and try to get close and, even get involved in what he is doing… It’s hard to find someone who would turn their head to the free money.

The solution is not easy, We need to create another equally lucrative business opportunity for people to be proud of… and that is really hard to do… we need total brain washing from the Chinese

We do have some honest Nigerians who are enjoying the fruit of their perseverance to the society, but not everyone was strong enough to endure.

I wish us the best

Hey Dude,

Can you explain yourself in simple English and less words?

Olusco, omo iya alara

Half of these emails do not come from Nigeria. Some are from Ghana e.t.c but because Nigeria is already taking the blame other country's are left alone.


If you are saying that the whole country is in on it, then you must be an illitrate.

It's like saying that All amreicans are like Peterson. That won't be right, right? You cannot generalize in that aspect and if you continue to use words like that it then means that your parents sent you to school for nothing.

The whole country is not in on it, I'm not in on it, My family back home is not in on it. We make honest living, ass hole.

@nigerainau, please speak for yourself.
I have overcome the strong tempation to use "cuss" words on you.

blank

Talk to the greedy white men to stop falling victims

Its great reading what every one thinks about this problem but I don’t see any answer in the very near future, Where there is Poor and Poverty and People out of work its going to be a huge job to turn it around.
There have been scams of some kind for years but the Internet has just made it a whole lot easier to do and not to forget quicker.
We should not just blame Nigerians, we also should put some of that blame on westerners for wanting to get rich quick, also we have to blame those who are silly enough to believe you just won lotto with out ever buying a ticket, how thick can some people be!!! I have read a lot and some are very well written but most are just so poorly written that you can see right thru it. If every one learnt not to send money to someone you have never heard of, that would be the end of most of this scam business.
“Joftech” I think would like to have all publicity of 419 stopped and this would lead to no one learning anything about the scams and this would be even worse. I might be wrong in what he said but that’s how I read it.
Then “Ijabuman” quoted that revenue from internet scams are thought to be Nigeria’s 3rd largest source of hard currency after Oil and Cocoa. I read something like this some time ago but I’m not sure if that is true, I also read that 75% of the National Income of Nigeria is stolen by the Government and other Officials, so just think how much that would help keep power and water running. I came across some more information that describes an Honesty rating, 10 being worst 1 being best. Australia is rated at 1.3 and Nigeria is rated at 8.7 now if you look at that as say 1.3 % of Australians are dishonest then look at 8.7% of Nigerians as being dishonest then it doesn’t look good. I have just one Nigerian Girl I am chatting to out 100 who I believe is Honest, these odds are not good. I have also learnt that our Australian Government wont help us out of Nigeria if we go there of our own free will.
I try to report every single Scam Like “Maxwelle” whether they come from Nigeria or not, but I’ve noticed most come from Nigeria then Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire.
I use an IP Address look up program and although they can’t pin point back to the sender its still good enough to do something. I don’t know if anything is done because I found specially on Yahoo Messenger that most of the Profiles from Nigeria are Guys using Pictures of Girls from a Model Agency and when I report them nothing is done as I have kept a list in my address’s called scammers and I just added another one yesterday. This is now the 100th person I have chatted to on Yahoo and I have found they are not telling the truth. Now “Montana” if you are using Yahoo to chat to your boyfriend that’s where these Yahoo boys are getting your details. I hope no one on Narialand is a Yahoo boy, I just don’t think they would waste there time in reading all this stuff.

I think I just made a mistake in the percentage equation if you look at as 10 being 100% then you have 13 % of Australians who are dishonest against 87% of Nigerians, I think this is how it should read, please correct me if I’m wrong!?

The real fact is dt most of d scams r nt commitd by Nigerians.

9ja4eva, yes you may be right but I can only go on what I receive, and 99% of it comes out of Nigeria, It’s just not the 419 but also the fake Profiles on Yahoo and hi5.
This is after I have looked up there IP address. I think if every TV and Radio Station in the Western World played Advertising about the scams then the Gullible Westerners would be educated and the game would be all but over.

LOL.

So u look up deir IP addys too?Well dts good oh cos i do it @ times too.Yeah the truth is anything scam is linked with 9jeria.We shld nt forget d Lebanese people back home too(Real Criminals).Its sad though that every scam is said to come from Nigeria.

419ers are like cancer in our society. We really don't need to cuddle them anymore, and give them a slap on the wrist each time we drag them to court.

We really need to drag them to the gallows and finish the SOBs off. That's the best deterrent for their despicable acts. The psychopats are
doing more damage to our nation than you can ever imagine. Our country is looked upon by other nations as terribly retarded because of
these selfish and disgusting criminals. I say punish them to the full extent of the law or better yet "hang them high" Period.

You don't need to rehabilitate these fools. We need to get them off our
streets and our of our national lives. Public execution sounds good to me.

What can we do to send message to Nigerian university students to stop sh****ng around the campus?
What can we do to send message to these people to use the toilet instead?

My point: the system is corrupt and the culture is dirty; till we correct those 2, nothing will be successfully accomplished in Nigeria.

Sorry folks, that is the honest truth

The most effective way to deal with internet scammers is the type of trickery practiced at websites such as 419eater.c[/b]om and [b]TheEbolaMonkeyMan.com.   Those websites are frequented by people who specialize in contacting scammers and then deceiving the fraudsters into thinking that they have hooked up with a "victim" who has more money than common sense.  Very often the fraudsters wind up being sent on "safaris", which is the term coined for pointless and expensive travels that are embarked upon as a result of bogus promises of a reward from the "victim", who is in fact NEVER going to pay the eager and greedy 419 criminal a solitary dime.

The practice of tricking 419 criminals is called "scam baiting", and it has spawned a whole subculture of internet vigilantes who derive great pleasure from wasting the time of scammers, and with increasing frequency,  setting up the criminals for police arrest in countries all over the globe.    Some may argue that simply wasting the time of a scammer is a losing battle, but when one considers that any time an online con man wastes on wild goose chases is time that would otherwise have been spent robbing innocent victims, the method to the "scam baiting" madness becomes more apparent.  Add to that the very real risk of arrest and jail and you have a very worthwhile retaliatory measure whose effectiveness cannot be underestimated.

The internet is almost too vast an area to be properly policed, even with the current IP tracing technology, so for now,  " scam baiting"  websites are by far the most effective means of fighting bad fraud with good deceit and hidden traps.

LOL.Thats sharp.

When I was in London I lead one of these 419ers on a wild goose chase. They never knew I was a Nigerian too. They even sent me a copy of their passport. When it got to an advanced stage I told them to send me 500 dollars by western union to prove they are real. I did not hear from them again, 4 months later they actually sent the money. I than let them know that I have beat them at their own game and that I was a Nigerian. I forwarded the copy of his passport to Scotland yard and gave his 500 dollars to Oxfam.

LOL


Dts smart.Dem no know who to dupe again.

Stopping crime in Nigeria, has to start from the top, I bet it with anybody, If the leaders stop all the scams they do, The Public will learn, Its very easy, But why go after the small scammers? when the big guys are there, stilll spending raw cash.

EFCC And OThers should Attack those in the top First. It would make their Job easier, Cos even some of the small scammers, e.g yahoo boys are now been employed by BIG MEN in the Govt _{(Inclusive the EFCC and OTher Security Agents.)} God Help Naija,

But as good Citizen lets be Honest in all our doing, But if Scam has to be really really stoped, It should start from the top.
THanks

I second

i third

Our culture has a lot to do with out mentality; and our mentality has too much to do with corruption in our society.

Who are the role models in Nigeria?
Who are the leaders?
Who is responsible for poverty in Nigeria?
Does it make any sense to spend so many years in School and can't get a decent job?

If we can clearly answer all these questions and find solutions to the answers; a good percentage of Scams problem in Nigeria will be rectified.

What can honest Nigerians do to stop Nigerian scams? Nothing. Sit back relax and watch people waste their money trying to get more money. The victims of 419 are greedy. If there weren't greedy people, there would be no 419 people out there.

The question should be, what can honest Nigerians do to make the Igbo states have 24hr. electricity, security, water. The Hausa and the Yoruba enjoy all this social services.

If you disagree, go figure.