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AThey are Getting Better at Scamming You!

 You think you know all about Nigerian and Ghanaian (and African) fraudsters and conmen don’t you?  (NOTE: Not all scams originate from the aforementioned regions. Some people in regions other than these now perpetrate scams as well. Some of the fraudsters in the aforementioned regions also have contacts in other regions which are considered safe and they are not necessarily Africans)

 Well, I do not think so

Here are some new developments:

1.       They have realized that people in the United States of America, Canada and Europe have caught on.

2.       They know that Western Union and Money Gram authorities in the above mentioned countries monitor cash transfers to Nigeria, Ghana and Africa and usually terminate suspicious transfers.

3.       They know that the authorities in these countries have the resources to track them and are more likely to arrest them and send them to jail (There will be no talk of bribing the police to let them go).

4.       They know a lot of exposés like this one have been posted online about how they operate. They know that websites exist that publish each scam method as soon as it is reported and they know the names of those websites. They also check out those websites (it is free, isn’t it).

5.       People in the above countries are generally more literate and less likely therefore to send money to a person they have never seen before – but we all know this is not entirely true. There are still a lot of greedy and stupid out there.

There is an African proverb that says, since the hawk has learned to fly without perching so too the hunter has learned to shoot without missing. What are our ubiquitous scammers up to now? I will tell you and this is first-hand information (believe it or not, I am so close to the action you will be shocked).

Here is what they do now:

1.       They now target non-English speaking countries notably the smaller countries of South and Central America, Asia and Middle East.

Reason 1:  Most of the posts and websites exposing their scams are in English which obviously the countries in the regions above are not conversant with. So this effectively rubbishes all efforts to check them, this one included (I will try to post this in as many languages as I can!).

Reason 2: The police in most of those countries are ill-equipped (no offence intended) and already have a torrid time coping with local crime. So who is going to go after a bunch of online criminals internationally?

Reason 3: People from these areas generally are less literate than their counterparts above (I am just repeating what the world agencies like the UN and the WHO say all the time and I mean no disrespect, I am sorry if I offend anyone) and might be more inclined to pay out money to these scammers.

Reason 4: This probably should have been Reason 1; the people in these regions are FRESH MEAT (no pun intended).

2.       They longer send you unsolicited mail asking you to do business with them. That form of scamming is so retro now. They now live on dating and matchmaking sites.

Reason 1: It is so obvious, isn’t it? Everyone knows about their old way of business, so how about a new business model?

Reason 2: On these dating sites they target women between the ages of 40 to 50 years. By their own admission, these women are easier to con because well… they are women (no prejudice intended). Women naturally are kinder and easily forgo whatever they have lost; besides these women at 40 have been through all kinds of heartbreak before and will take this one too in their stride. The most important thing though, is that they are desperate for a relationship of some sort especially marriage since they are lonely (which is why they are on the dating site in the first place).

Reason 3: The fraudsters believe this form of scamming is easier to carry out and does not require a lot of logistics (not my words). The old form of scamming had the scammers forging documents and certificates etc., which cost a lot of money to do. Now all they do is hook an unsuspecting female and spin all sorts of yarns in emails and there is a bit of calling just to keep the mark interested (although they make the victim do most of calling usually).

So we come up with ways to check them and they simply move on the next frontier. It kind of reminds one of start-up search engines trying to catch up to Google.

Do you have any Spanish-speaking cousins? How some Arabic-speaking ones? Chinese? Malay?  Portuguese?  You might like to warn them.