Lagos Nigeria Scams. Do people still fall victim to them?

Lagos Nigeria scams or Advance Fee Fraud aka 419 has received a lot of press worldwide. People should no longer fall victim to these scams. There are plenty of internet resources available to learn of the different types.

Why do people fall for these scams? First the obvious one is misplaced greed. Take an instance of the Lottery scam where you receive an email notification that you have won a lottery you never participated in. To have a chance of winning in most lotteries, you must first enter to play or buy a ticket. Did you buy a ticket for the lottery they said you won?

The emails are cleverly written to arouse emotions, which lead victims to believe they can make easy money. If you have always worked hard for your money then such nonsense won't bait you.

The lottery scam continues by asking victims to contact a claims agent, who then asks for payment of imaginary clearance or insurance fees often more than once. The fact is, you haven't won the lottery and your money won't be returned.

A scam targeted at men is the Romance or Beautiful woman in trouble scam. Guys if she's looking like that chances are she isn't short of rich suitors willing to help her out of her misery, so press delete. However, sometimes the scams can be of a sophisticated nature when there is an organised crime element involved. An example is the one were the victim was promised a commission in return for help in transferring a multi million dollar sum into their bank accounts.

These are quite risky because they often involve the victim traveling to Nigeria or a neighbouring country. Some of the organised crime element could involve government officials supplying documents and office space for meetings.

The EFCC or Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is the government agency set up to fight corruption including Lagos Nigeria scams artist also know as "yahoo,yahoo" boys. The agency has had some effect and the level of media coverage of 419, although sometimes one sided, may be providing a little deterrent to would be scammers. But ultimately guys, if it's too good to be true then usually it is.

419, E-mail scammers or whatever, do you think the people behind them are scum of the earth because you got burnt? Be kind to share your horror stories. How much money did they make off you? And why did you think you fell for the scam?

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Romance Scam 
I was contacted by someone named Roddy Ricardo on myspace. We began to chat back and forth, email each other and talk on the phone. After a few days of ...

i was a victim of 419 emails 
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I was on a dating site called migente.com, and met men that said they were U.S.A. citizens. When they contacted me I soon found out that they ...

I was a victim of 419 email  Not rated yet
I met a guy I think his name was Paul Wood. Said he was from Georgia and lives in Carmel. Took arguments to get out his address. Went to the house a ...

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