Nigerians reportedly made $9.3 billion on e-scams in 2009

probe

While one might be skeptical about the accuracy of the detail behind how Ultrascan put a $9.3 bn price tag on this issue - there is no smoke without fire.... 155 million Nigerians, many of whom can speak English, sort of, using the internet to milk the naive and greedy.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/01/victims-lost-93-billion-to-419-scammers-in-2009.ars

http://www.ultrascan-agi.com/public_html/html/pdf_files/419_Advance_Fee_Fraud_Statistics_2009.pdf

mehmeh12

How exactly do advance fee phishing scams actually make the scammers money?

In order to get conned you'd have to be incredibly stupid to fall for such obvious scams :pac: I mean as far as social engineering goes this is by far the most simplistic of cons.

Even so wouldn't basic anti phishing measures (google safer browsing built into firefox, web of trust or the open dns phishtank filter as examples) stop users from being fooled?

probe

mehmeh12 wrote: »

How exactly do advance fee phishing scams actually make the scammers money?

In order to get conned you'd have to be incredibly stupid to fall for such obvious scams :pac: I mean as far as social engineering goes this is by far the most simplistic of cons.

Even so wouldn't basic anti phishing measures (google safer browsing built into firefox, web of trust or the open dns phishtank filter as examples) stop users from being fooled?

While one has received the odd Nigerian scam email, it gets deleted within a nanosecond...

I suppose if they get a sucker to email them back, they build up a relationship of sorts (eg "my daddy and mommy have $10 million in the bank, and they have been kidnapped by corrupt whatevers and I need $50,000 to get them released. I live in a villa outside Lagos and we have 15 domestic staff, and I have no money to pay them. The swimming pools in the garden and in the basement are going all slimy green because I have no money to pay the pool maintenance company. The neighbours are complaining about the smell. If you send me the $50k, I guarantee you $1 million or $5 million for your grateful help in releasing him. Daddy will pay you when he gets out. He told me so on the phone yesterday. They will rape my mommy if I can't come up with the money by Wednesday" Bla Bla Bla.

They will get around any anti-spam software, and the web is unlikely to be involved.

The main issue is that email is so cheap and all it takes is one sucker in 10 or 100 thousand and bingo.

Browsing security systems probably have little to do with preventing these scams. They probably only work in n% of fraud attempt cases anyway.