Woman Gets Two Years for Aiding Nigerian Internet Check Scam

[Angelina77]

A friend of mine fell for this he was talking to a girl on a dating service a few months and she said she was stuck in Africa, she went there to buy Art!! Story below! what a scam but I'm glad they got her!



A Washington woman was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison and five years of supervised release for her role in an Internet counterfeit check scheme.

Edna Fiedler pleaded guilty in March to attempting to defraud U.S. citizens in a scheme known as a Nigerian check scam.

Fiedler helped her accomplices in Nigeria send fake checks to people who had agreed to cash the checks on behalf of the sender, keeping some of the proceeds and sending the rest back.

The Nigerians found people willing to cash the fake checks via e-mail. They would send their names as well as fake documents that looked like Wal-Mart money orders, Bank of America checks, U.S. Postal Service checks and American Express traveler's checks to Fiedler. They told her how to fill out the checks and where to send them.

The recipients most likely thought they were helping out someone who needed a person in the U.S. to cash a check for them, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. They were able to get the money by cashing the checks, and sent most of it to either Fiedler or her Nigerian accomplices. However, once the checks were discovered to be fake, the people who cashed them were responsible for the full amount.

All told, Fiedler sent out US$609,000 worth of phony checks and money orders. When U.S. Secret Service agents investigating the case searched Fiedler's house, they found additional fake checks worth more than $1.1 million that she was preparing to send out.

At a recent conference in Seattle, a representative from the U.S. Postal Service and Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna described ways they're working to shut down these kinds of scams, particularly because they often involve people who don't realize that they're taking part in illegal activities.

The U.S. Postal Service recently sent 15 postal investigators to Lagos, Nigeria, and during a three-month period there, they helped intercept counterfeit checks, lottery tickets and eBay overpayment schemes with a face value of $2.1 billion, Chris Siouris, a cyber investigator at the U.S. Postal Inspector, said at the recent conference. Siouris, McKenna and others are pushing for ways to better educate Internet users so that people don't unwittingly help out in these kinds of e-mail scams.

[Scott McD]

Fucking bitch !!

Still amaze me though the people that fall for this shit...

[After Shock Media]

Ok if people are not educated enough about this already, or they just now turned on the internet after being in a coma for the past 5 years. They do not need more protection unless it involves helmets and padding their house in nerf foam.

[SayWhut]

[Angelina77]

lol she just got caught! That's the main topic!! Yes it's been happening for years!

[scottybuzz]

Originally Posted by After Shock Media

Ok if people are not educated enough about this already, or they just now turned on the internet after being in a coma for the past 5 years. They do not need more protection unless it involves helmets and padding their house in nerf foam.

It's very easy for someone to say that who has used computers for a long time. Believe it or not, most surfers haven't. Hense it is a big problem. Most people I would hazard at a guess don't read the tech column news in their daily newspapers. And when they surf the net, they won't be looking at cases like these.

[commonsense]

Your friend really fell for this eh? Life is filled with scams like this ... if he's suckered by this then .. well ... he's just a sucker

[Violetta]

I am so glad they get those fuckers! bitch

[BradM]

I have no sympathy for the idiots who fall for this. It's completely absurd beyond words.

[pornguy]

Sould go after the guys in africa as well.

[MetaMan]

Your friend is an idiot and should also go to jail because peoples stupidity makes a market for this. lock up the scammers lock up the stupid people and the world would be A-MAZING!

[tranza]

stupid bitch!!!

[Cash]

She was dumb enough to trust scammers ... she deserves it.

[D Ghost]

damn that sucks!

[papill0n]

karma is a bitch, bitch

[Blazed]

Yup falling for this stuff is dumb i can see how noobs fall for phishing stuff though. Some are pretty convincing like a paypal one i got yesterday which google never picked up either, http://www.paypal.com-o.us with a load of numbers etc after most people would read it as paypal.com.