Dear Nigerian scammer

Yes, it is true. I’ve been scammed. Sort of.
The other day I listed for online sale some computer equipment I had laying around, and this was bound to attract scammers. I don’t know why, but it happens, and it turns out almost always these guys are from Nigeria. It could be that laws there are not very strict with these matters, or that it is a traditional way to make ends meet in a tough situation. But it’s no wonder most eBay auctions specifically forbid Nigerian bids.

As I was saying, I received several fishy offers. Note that I’m posting the scammer’s private information on purpose :)

For example:

[...]
Received: from [196.3.183.73] by web59915.mail.ac4.yahoo.com via HTTP;
[...]
From: kerry jones <kerr_jone@yahoo.com>
[...]
Hello,
  am kerry by name am now in united kindom for a
purpose.....am sending this item to a friend in lagos nigeria....i will
like to let you know that am paying you through pay pal....i will want
you to send me the total cost include the shipping cost to
lagos-nigeria..you can also call me on this phone number now
+447024017578..please get back to me asap.

It’s astonishing how many guys fall for it. I guess the phone is a VoIP UK number, but hey, guess what?

This friendly guy that is “now in united kindom for a purpose” is writing from Lagos, Nigeria! GeoIP sure is a nice thing. Which by the way is supported in Cherokee, in case you’re wondering how to use that on a web server. Pretty handy.

Normally I don’t even take the time to answer these guys. Sometimes I even send them a fast response with a local reference, and they stop bothering:

Oh, really?
And how is it there by Leeki Lagoon today? The forecast seems cloudy.

Here is another guy with the same story:

Received: from [41.219.235.64] by web59706.mail.ac4.yahoo.com via HTTP;
Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:37:09 PDT
From: Michal Benyak <michal.benyak@yahoo.com>
I am in the Uk now and you are shipping to the manager of my store far away
west africa (Nigeria),so get back to me with your paypal id asap so that the
payment can be made.

He even got annoyed when I told him I wasn’t shipping to Nigeria. LOL!

Why? but am going to pay for the shipping.Get back to me with your paypal id
asap so that the payment can be made immediately

ASAP, is that clear? ;-)

As I said, I tend to pay little attention to these guys, but the other day I stumbled uppon one so persistent that I couldn’t resist. I was so amused that I thought it would be fun to mess with the guy. I’ve been having a nice laugh lately thanks to his mails. You can check the whole list of emails sent back and forth (with most headers) on my next post, just in case you want to investigate. I’m only deleting my info, not his. In short, I got to mess with him for weeks with false tracking numbers, and refused to deal with the crew of his fake bank  because they had offended me. Then I got to laugh a little more by “being paid the whole insurance” by the courier company for not delivering the item. And now I think I’m going to make up a false assistant to mess yet a little more. I’ll have to think about it.

Stay tuned for my story with “Dowing Morris” <dowingm80@gmail>, the scammer wannabe that was supposedly writing from Canada. Read Canada as in Kachia (Nigeria), of course.