Nigerian email scam: The music video

i think americans shold start a "Visas to America for Cheap" scam that we target to the nigerians.
We'd suck up thier dollars and even things out. You can be sure theyd rather be here than in Nigeria.

"But it is certainly interesting that an artist was able to have a hit song with such a message."

Why is that? Is it any more interesting that our own country has music videos that glorify everything from drugs to murder and rape? A bunch of hypocrites are we.

It's been said that knowledge of a portion of any matter is worse than no knowledge at all.

You are right; there is such a video. What you don't know is that that video is the satirical soundtrack of a movie which exposes the scams/scammers, attempts to warn people to beware of them and in which the scam artists get their due punishment.

I have rec'd many of the same types of spam emails from overseas too. From Nigeria, UK, Spain. Most of the emails were asking that I accept a position of bookkeeper or assistant to handle their overseas finances that come into the US from the shipment of their products. They wanted the funds put into my bank account and some much sent to them and a certain percentage would be mine. Of course all this being sent to them had to be broken down to their currency and so forth. Biggest scam possible. My husband is in law enforcement and he stated that it was a money-laundring sceme.

I used to receive emals from the Nigerians too. This started in the Summer of 2006 when I started reading emails from a SGT. Joey Jones that was stationed in Iraq. This so called SGT. clamed that he has apart of my old Army unit and him and other soldiers found about 8 million dollars of Sadam's money, stached it, went home for a few years and was on trial for it. They let him and the others soldiers go. Years went by, then they were deployed back to Iraq were they dug up the money were they hid it and now they wanted to send it to me! But the catch was that i needed to pay a so called "Diplomatic Shipper" 4000 pounds(7,500.00 dollars) by Western Union to England, so he cound get it past customs. These Nigerians are pretty good right, WRONG. This soldier didn't send nothing except an email to the FBI. Don't mess with the U.S. ! Just a few months ago I watched them get busted in a report on NBC Dateline. Now, my question is what is happening with that money? Are the victims of this scam getting there money back?

Nahhh.... these scams dated way back to the 70s and it's not only targetting at Americans. I remember my dad in Hong Kong used to get these letters (nicely typed on fancy "onion paper") from some Nigerian princes or generals who claimed they got millions of dollars and willing to split with whoever helping them to transfer these money out of the country, blah blah blah.... then similar letters in the form of faxes appeared in the 80s and now they are sent by emails. These scams go everywhere in the world.

If people used a bit of common sense they would not be taken by scammers. No one in today’s world is willing to give you something for nothing, including the majority of your friends and relatives, so why would a distant unknown be any different? After generations of knowing these scams exist, common sense alone should tell you not to respond to them. Delete the email instead of reading it; discard the letter instead of replying to it.

In the U.S. it is illegal to buy lottery tickets from another state or country, including Canada, and have them mailed to you. The laws have been on the books since the 1800’s and U.S. only had 13 states.

If someone sends you a check that you never dealt with, destroy it. If you’re dumb enough to cash it, the scammer will use the information the bank imprints on it from your account to start withdrawing money from your account. Besides the check bouncing, you will have to reimburse the bank for the amount of money they gave you. In this world, there is no Santa clause, so don’t fall for the gimmicks.

If you have elderly relatives that may be prone to falling for these gimmicks, see if they will agree to let you manage their bills. Talk to bank officials about ways to protect them such as setting limits on how much can be withdrawn from their accounts before red flagging the withdrawal.

I have received so many of these scam letters it is
unreal. I tell them to get a real job, and then
copy the entire e-mail and send it to the FBI to
have them look them over. As internet users we must all be aware that crime is everywhere even on
the net. But let's try to stop what we are able
too. Their is also a British Lottery scam running around now too. So everyone be on the watch.
Sylvia, Georgia

I recieved a "WINNERS NOTIFACATION" from "The free lotto company" informing me that I had won, 1,000,000.oo pounds. This email is very well written and had me wondering if maybe I had really won. I recieved it from, The free lotto company, UK head office. Suite 23-30, Lion towers. Central London, England. jeannabrown@poczta.onet.eu. Mr. James Othello. Chief financial Director. According to the email the sponsors are the Microsoft Corporation, the intel Group, Toshibe, Dell computers, Mackintosh, and a conglomeration of other internet IT companies. It looks like Microsoft and these other companys would put a stop to these people, They have the money and power where people like us don't.I would track them down and put a stop to them, if I had the money.

About the U.S. visa scam, there is one that rips off people in developing countries. A fraudulent Houston company advertises in newspapers in Ghana and other countries offering visas and ready jobs in the US for a fee. Thousands send money to the non-residential company address and then hear nothing from the company.

I also got e-mail looking for a representative to cash thier checks they said the job was for a bookkeeper and thier customers would send either postal money orders or american express gift checks and I was to cash the checks and keep 10% of the check and ten send the rest to them...they were all counterfiet! thank god I didn't take the money from the bank other wise i would have been in deep trouble! the american express gift checks looked very real, and with those a person can getthe cash right away but thank god i was a little leery and told them my bank wanted to keep them fo 7 to 14 days! if I hadn't kept the 4000.00 in there i would have had to pay the bank back and would have been in more trouble than i alreay was! they want to charge me for a forged instament.....SO DON'T BE STUPID LIKE I WAS CAUSE EVEN THE POSTAL MONEY ORDERS ARE COUNTERFIET TOO I TOOK THOSE TO THE POST OFFICE AND GAVE THE E-MAIL ADDRESS THAT WAS CONTACTING ME, JUST BE AWARE YOUR THE ONE WHO WILL BE IN TROUBLE NO MATTER HOW HONEST YOU, ARE THEY WILL STILL CHARGE YOU! IT'S ALL COUNTERFIET

i think americans shold start a "Visas to America for Cheap" scam that we target to the nigerians.
We'd suck up thier dollars and even things out. You can be sure theyd rather be here than in Nigeria by Julie Smith

USA has been doing that for many years. Thousands of people in Nigeria pay more than US$100.00 per person to apply for a visa; many for legitimate reasons. They stand in line for starting at 3.00AM in the morning for 3 days before they reach a low level Consular officer. Often times the "interview" lasts no more than 2 minutes and the application is "denied". More than 90% are denied and told to reapply and guess what, pay USA again. So Julie, you see they beat you to that. So that "scam" has been going for years...Mickey

Your article is misleading and betrays either your complete ignorance, lack of depth or both. To begin with, the song is not an ode to the 419 scam. It is a satire, which you are too dumb to appreciate. The song by Nkem Owoh does a wonderful public service by educating all, hopefully, that includes people like you. By the way, how is this song any worse than hundreds of songs and movies made yearly in the USA that glorify drugs, crime, violence, murder etc that become huge hits and take in hundreds of millions of dollars. If you can't think, let me do that for you; You remember the Godfather trilogy; what was that about? Scarface with Al Pacino, the Quentin Tarrantino movie, etc. If I may ask, when you recieve a letter asking you to participate in stealing millions of dollars from another country and you willingly agree and infact send thousands of dollars to facilitate the crime; how do you become a "victim" when you get swindled by your accomplice in this illicit deal. Bob Marley was right. We must watch out for hypocrites and parasites. Liberate your mind so you can think and see clearly. Nigeria is a great country with some of the brightest minds in the world. Look and you will see...............Ernest Madu

I don't believe this/Jenny