Nigerian Scams Revisited

Tales of scams seem to be a recurring theme around here. Way back in the early days of this blog, 2006, I had a post about a group of people that were going out of their way to scam the Nigerian Scammers [^]. At the time I said that I wasn’t sure how this would sit with the Golden Rule [^]; which is do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Sarah Lacy at TechCrunch has posted a story about the lives and motivations of the Nigerian scammers [^], and the environment that they live in. After reading that it seems that my initial reaction was the right one. This isn’t something that they do gratuitously or for kicks. These people are doing this to survive, to feed their families, and to try to get ahead.

The interesting thing is that despite legal and technical crackdowns the scams continue, but they’ve evolved: “It’s not the glamorous, quick-money world it used to be. Today being a scammer takes smarts and stamina.” Gone is the quick hit replaced by long cons around online dating.