victims of Nigerian-type email scams lost $9.3 billion in 2009

[u-Bob]

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com...am-emails.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...tml?m od=e2tw

So why do the scammers persist in blanketing the world with outlandish propositions, announcing that they are from the very country whose name has become synonymous with online fraud?

Cormac Herley, a computer scientist at Microsoft Research who specializes in security issues, provides a convincing answer in a paper presented at a conference in Berlin and recently published on his website. In it, he analyzes the con mathematically, using an approach called signal detection theory. His crucial insight is to look at the situation not from the victim's point of view but from that of the scammers. Their challenge is to hook only people who will get sucked in deeply enough to send a significant amount of money?the "true positives." They must minimize the effort they devote to "false positives" (targets who might seem like dupes but are suspicious and/or never pay up).

It costs the scammers virtually nothing to spam the world, but it costs them a lot (especially in terms of time) to conduct all the follow-ups necessary to reel a sucker all the way in...

A proposal offering a more realistic scenario might generate more replies, but most of them wouldn't pan out. The effort of sorting through them to find the real suckers would undermine the scheme's profitability. Instead, by screaming "This is another absurd instance of the familiar Nigerian scam," the fraudsters are filtering out what to them is spam?responses from suspicious people they don't want to deal with?and "letting through" only those most likely to play along. The fewer potential victims in the world, the more precisely the scammers must target them, and thus the more absurd and easy-to-spot the attacks should be.

[Rochard]

People will always fall for this shit.

[fris]

how does it actually work, when it says send $100 or something, do they get access to their account? or just lose the 100 bucks?

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by fris

how does it actually work, when it says send $100 or something, do they get access to their account? or just lose the 100 bucks?

There are many variants. The most common one is to promise millions and ask the victim to wire money to pay for transport/armored cars/security/bribes to get the money out of the country etc.

[Spunky]

Wow,truly amazing people can still fall for this shit

[ottopottomouse]

Originally Posted by fris

how does it actually work, when it says send $100 or something, do they get access to their account? or just lose the 100 bucks?

Lose the hundred and earn a place on the gullible list to be milked for more and more.

[PiracyPitbull]

People who fall for these scams probably would have lost that money one way or another.

[digitalfantasies]

also heard from somebody who was involved in that kind of shit, Nigerian and other African scammers use some kind of "black magic" in personal encounters... Whether you believe in that shit or not... it would partly explain why people (and most of the time smart/educated people) fall for those kinds of scams.

[CurrentlySober]

i cant afford to be Nigerian..

[Fat Panda]

its amazing how fucking stupid people are

[bloggerz]

Serious money there

[Vapid - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Originally Posted by PiracyPitbull

People who fall for these scams probably would have lost that money one way or another.

[DWB]

Originally Posted by SAC

its amazing how fucking stupid people are

Considering most of them also believe in a mysterious bearded white man in the sky who created the universe and hates gay people, it's not really that surprising they would eb dumb enough to fall for such scams.

[seeandsee]

jesus that is serious cash!

[Barry-xlovecam]

I wonder how much the penis pill emails earn?

There a sucker born every day they say ...

[L-Pink]

Originally Posted by Barry-xlovecam

I wonder how much the penis pill emails earn?

There a sucker born every day they say ...

Whoa whoa whoa ..... Penis pills don't work?

..

[Klen]

Well i believed when it went out for first time,but luckily i didn't had any money then so didnt lost anything.But it's all because of greed,all you need to say "you will receive xxx money"and the rest of text can be totally retarded yet victim will still blindly follow.I heard someone from my city lost 1 million on it.

[SpicyM]

If people are that stupid to believe in this, then they actually deserve to lose the money and never get it back. Idiots.

[Freaky_Akula]

I think Helen must be a Russian Nigerian or Nigerian Russian.

[Klen]

Originally Posted by SpicyM

If people are that stupid to believe in this, then they actually deserve to lose the money and never get it back. Idiots.

This is more "blindness" issue then intelligence.

[tony286]

Then people actually wonder ,how did people sign for mortgages they couldnt afford. lol

[NaughtyRob]

People are fucking morons.

[Yngwie]

I have no sympathy for people that fall for these scams. If you're going to be retarded enough to send some random stranger $ in hopes of getting millions back then you deserve to get fucked in the ass. There are way to many morons on this planet. Ever since I got the internet back in the early 90's I got thousands of these scam emails and never once did I fall for it. Even when I knew nothing about the internet (the 1st time I got it) I knew damn well that it was a scam.

[ajrocks]

Porn won't ever die as long as there are people that stupid in the world! Thank god for idiots!

[idolbucks]

9.3 billion.........

[ShoeBox]

I remember about ten years ago , one of my girlfriends at the time , typical white trash her mother recieved an email and was jumping around so happy that abdul jamalia has 10 million dollars for her, she then started saying I can't wait to have this money I'll give you 2 million to help your kids etc etc.. i sat by and didn't say anything i knew it was a scam , she continued to open a bank account and gave the people her info, what they do is keep taking money out and out then something get's lost in the mail so blah blah blah keeps going on and on sounds like something paul markham came up with.