Nigerian scam bust: Woman Gets Two Years for Aiding Nigerian Internet

[superconnected]

Source: yahoo news

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.

Read more: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/147575

[DUlover2909]

1. good. I'm glad a spammer will go to jail.

[Bobbieo]

2. Because I openly use my e-mail address to get submissions for my blog,

I average about 10 t0 12 Nigerian scams per week which I immediately delete. I have tried to warn people about these fake deals in my column. Because of the sluggish economy, many people are in a financial bind and will grab at anything that looks like a money maker for them but I had no idea thet were that profitable for the Nigerians - like millions.

I'm afraid as the economy gets worse and it will, more innocent, desperate people are going to be sucked into these scams. This is not greed like the illegal partnerships where the pigeon is promised a share in millions, these so called employment scams are preying on financual hardship.

[Catch22Dem]

3. I can't comprehend being naive enough to fall for these scams

Or who think it's a good idea to buy their medications from a horribly worded e-mail solicitation where the name of the med is so distorted it's barely recognizable just so it can get past e-mail filters.

I don't care how bad the economy gets (not a great argument since people were falling for this stupid shit when the economy was BOOMING) but there is no such thing as a great money-making scheme if it arrives unsolicited in your inbox.

[Blue_Tires]

5. years ago, i know it was the seniors and those new to the internet

who were the low-hanging fruit for scammers (seniors especially)...and we forget there are more polished and elaborate online schemes out there than the now-famous rudimentary Nigerian e-mails....

[LTR]

4. Does her barrister do criminal work?

[hadrons]

6. I still get lots of their spam ... I usually request "a gesture of trust" on their part first ....

and that "gesture of trust" is a nude photo of themselves holding a sign that reads "Hi Mom!!!"

I never got one though I've hassled these con-artists so much at times for the pic I sometimes got a "Folk Off" reply back

[dipsydoodle]

16. There's anti 419 spammer called Derek Trotter..haha.

who got one them to make a sofa out of wood with Wallace and Gromit carved and seated it on it too. He also managed to get the guy to make wooden comnputer keyboards which needless to say were never quite right.......lol



http://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm

[derby378]

7. Brace yourself for the newest version of the Nigerian scam...

It'll read like it was written by a US Army soldier stationed in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Chances are it'll be worded poorly, so that's one sign you're dealing with a scam.

[Hawkeye-X]

8. Some of you might get a kick out of this...

http://www.419eater.com

Hawkeye-X

[RebelOne]

12. Another good site is this one

http://thescambaiter.com

[Blue_Tires]

13. LOL at that!

[dipsydoodle]

17. I dup'd yours by accident

so sorry. You may not be familiar with the name Derek Trotter which indicates the guy to be english in this thread :
http://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm
For the origin of Derek Trotter aka Delboy see here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Boy

[onager]

9. 400 year old scam and still making money!

Most of you probably know this, but maybe a few don't.

Today's hi-tech, internet-based "Nigerian" scam is nothing but a slight upgrade to the wheezy old "Spanish Prisoner" scam. That scam got its name in 1588, when the Spanish Armada came to grief while trying to invade England.

Quite a few wealthy and titled Spanish persons WERE taken prisoner and ransomed at that time. But con men all over Europe invented Spanish prisoners to fleece the gullible.

The Spanish Prisoner cons all had a few elements in common, which will sound eerily familiar to 4-1-9 connoiseurs: a letter, sometimes from a family lawyer or adviser, but more often written by the prisoner's gorgeous daughter/sister/mistress. She was conveniently available for marriage to the prisoner's rescuer. And a huge sum of money which could only be acquired in great secrecy. With the rescuer putting up some of his own money in good faith.

Sometimes the con artists rang a few interesting changes. If they were trying to fleece a Prince Of The Church, the treasure might include rare religious icons, like a piece of the True Cross or the foreskin of Baby Jesus. (Which wasn't exactly rare. At one point, no less than 47 churches in Europe all claimed to have the authentic Foreskin Of Christ in their reliquaries.)

A google on "Spanish prisoner" will provide hours of entertainment. And also point you to a dramatized version of the con, David Mamet's 1997 movie, helpfully entitled "The Spanish Prisoner."

[Kali]

10. Interesting!

Thanks for the info.

[ReadTomPaine]

11. Informative post.. thanks for the info! n/t

[NJCher]

14. that was really interesting

I had a female student in a research paper class last semester who was from Nigeria. She needed a topic and I suggested she investigate why Nigeria is the home of so many scams.

Long story short, according to her, is that it's a function of poor government--thieves at the top steal everything so what's left but to run a scam on anyone else a person can trap.

Same goes for some neighboring countries such as Ghana.

She was a terrific person, horrified to learn about what has happened to her country.

On another topic, here's something else that's interesting about Nigerian scammers. Some of them, the really sharp ones, get good enough to come to America and participate in foreclosure scams.

There was a huge, beautiful Tudor mansion in my neighborhood that went into foreclosure. My neighbor was interested in purchasing it so we did some research on it. I tracked down the owner who is in foreclosure. I did additional research on him and yeah, those were his origins--he started out as a Nigerian scammer.

This guy was really smart, too. I found material he wrote and I only found one or two errors. As an English/writing professor, I assure you, that rarely happens.

So moral of the story is that the ones that can spell come to America and do mortgage scams.



Cher

[CreekDog]

15. I *don't* think people who fall for this are naive, I think they are depraved

Please spare me talk about desperation with regards to this.

People are being offered millions in free money at random and it's not defensible that they can't figure out something is fishy. Even if the offer were real, the idea that you make millions for giving someone a bank number is not something an honest person could get involved in with good conscience.

People who take this want to get a lot of money for basically nothing and while I don't think they should lose any on this deal, I think the blame is partly for those who cooperate with these scams in the hope of quick and likely illegal profit.

:rant: :hide:

[dipsydoodle]

18. Not true

The scams don't all run like that. They sometimes offer to pay an excess for a seller to arrange shipping via a nominated 3rd party. Once goods have been dispatched they simply revoke the original payment. Quite aside from private individuals a lot of companies got caught out on that one.

[CreekDog]

19. that's quite different than the scam i described

i reiterate that in the scam i've described that the victims are doing something akin to buying a $10 brand new in car gps system at a flea market.

something you've described is a different animal. i'm not saying that in all scams the victims are culpable, but in the 319 scams like i described, far from being victims at the outset, they seek to get a big payoff for a totally unrealistic level of effort and apart from any contractual agreement or arrangement that warrants it.

yes, i DO expect people to say to themselves, "i'm not getting involved with that, the payoff is so big and what they are asking me to do is so small, that i'm either being scammed or the payee is up to something nefarious that i don't want to be involved with."

just like if a guy on the street offered me a big screen tv for $40. would i buy it? no, would you? you certainly shouldn't, in all likelihood it is stolen.

i do expect americans to think if there is any hope in avoiding being defrauded by these scams.

[Q3JR4]

20. Speaking of crazy scams...

(and not to hijack the thread but I couldn't resist)....

Check out the email located at http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=142113
a very interesting bit of email scamery....

Q3JR4.