From our front-page news:
Online scams are nothing new, and by now I'm sure most people visiting this site are bored stiff of even hearing about them. One of the more rampant scams on the Internet for a while has been tied to the country of Nigeria, where there are apparently many ready to find a sucker on these and other shores to make a quick buck. In a recent case, it was revealed that people continue to fall for such ploys, some to the worst possible degree.
In the case of Janella Spears of Oregon, her naivety cost her an incredible $400,000. She originally was contacted by some Nigerian scammer who promised huge payoffs for small donations. Originally, the money she was asked to send didn't total much, but after the scammers realized how naive she was, they ended up stealing over $400K, which is hard to even comprehend.
This wasn't a quick transaction, either. The entire event took over two years to finish, and despite her family telling her that it was a scam, she continued until she was broke. It's easy to outright flame someone like this, but the important thing to gleam from it is that people actually still do fall for these scams. Hard to believe that the largest known Nigerian online scam to happen, happened now, even years after they've been known about.
When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course. She wiped out her husband’s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.
Source: KATU News
In the case of Janella Spears of Oregon, her naivety cost her an incredible $400,000. She originally was contacted by some Nigerian scammer who promised huge payoffs for small donations. Originally, the money she was asked to send didn't total much, but after the scammers realized how naive she was, they ended up stealing over $400K, which is hard to even comprehend.
This wasn't a quick transaction, either. The entire event took over two years to finish, and despite her family telling her that it was a scam, she continued until she was broke. It's easy to outright flame someone like this, but the important thing to gleam from it is that people actually still do fall for these scams. Hard to believe that the largest known Nigerian online scam to happen, happened now, even years after they've been known about.
When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course. She wiped out her husband’s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.
Source: KATU News
