Talk:Advance-fee fraud

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Contents

[edit] Early notes

This article has several repetitive sections, especially an unnecessarily repeated statement that the scams are not exclusive to Nigeria. The repetitiveness needs to be cleaned up. __________________________________________________ Added some notes about how the spams are actually sent, and included a reference to the Spanish Letter scam, of which the 419 is merely a (highly visible) variant. Also moved the FTC warning from the "How The Scam Operates" section, where it really didn't fit in, to the introduction (although I dont think it really fits there either.Twisto 21:45, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Spyware" is software used to collect personal information on a victims PC - "Spamware" is software used to send unsolicited bulk email. They don't want to spy on their own machines, they want to send spam from them.Twisto 11:07, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Is the bad check scam really an example of the Nigerian money transfer fraud? Populus 17:20, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the 419 fraud cases, except perhaps that most of the scammers are living in Nigeria. But the defining characteristic of 419 scams is that the victim is asked to help smuggle money out of a country, not the fact that the perpetrator lives in Nigeria. It's not even an "advanced fee fraud", because you aren't paying any money before you (theoretically) get more money back. -- Khym Chanur 04:58, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)
The bad check scam is definately an example of the Nigerian money transfer fraud, since it usually only works via wireing money to a country like Nigeria where the police either don't have the resources or dont care to figure out who actually recieved the money in that bank. It would be much harder to pull that type of thing here (meaning have the recieving bank being a US bank), as it would involve semi sophisticated identity theft as well.
The cheque/bankers draft scam is definitely carried out by the same groups as the 419s and lotto scams. I'll add some notes on the main MOs to the article, as this is an area I can claim some knowledge (from the investigative side, rather than the victim/perpetrator side, thankfully). I don't know whether (from a purely academic POV) the later scams belong in this article though - a pointer to a separate article might be appropriate, but as much of the content would be identical, it might be a little redundant. Twisto


[edit] Name change

I've modified the name of this article; "advance fee fraud" is the canonical name of this type of fraud. -- ChrisO 22:48, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tech-savvy?

Not to be anally politically correct, but isn't this a bit of a sweeping generalisation:

"The often very professional layout of web pages and so on used in the scams suggests that they do not lack technical sophistication at least at the upper levels of the gangs. Alternatively, the gangs may hire experts from tech-savvy (i.e. non-African) parts of the world."

Some of the best technical expertise in the world can be found in South Africa, as one mere example, to say nothing of Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria itself.......It just seems a little unfair! -- TheManWithNoName 17:42, 30 Nov 2005 (GMT)


[edit] Billions?

Are there any references to back the claim that billions of dollars are made annually in such scams? Seems high to me.

[edit] email for ftc.gov

I think the email is now: spam@uce.gov (not: uce@ftc.gov)

[edit] Weird advice

What's this section for? Is it an example of a spam email, or is it true and in the article as advice? I find the first point a little hard to believe.

* It is a Federal Crime for an United States citizen to participate in an non U.S. Lottery.  
* You cannot win a Lottery that you have not entered, especially through email!
* A Legitimate Lottery would never force you to pay Advanced-Fees prior to receiving your winnings.

-- Tarquin 11:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Although weird, I think it is appropriate. There is other sections in this article containing advice: "It is not recommended that you attempt to get your money back" etc. This perhaps is a departure from the wikipedia:NPOV rule, but unless there is some way of providing an OBVIOUS link to an external source for authoritative advice, I think an exception should be made in this case.

[edit] Spoiler alert

While I find the "Spoiler alert" funny, I think it has no place in this article; this isn't about a movie or a book. Any objections to me removing it? -- Yoghurt 14:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

perhaps as not to spoil the upcoming scam the readers are about to have perpetrated on them? 216.234.58.18 22:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent merge

419 guestbook spam was recently merged with this article. Now it's under the section "419 guestbook spamming." -- Stevey7788 22:59, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(This comment restored by me after being accidentally erased) DanielCristofani 21:16, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Humor

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Al_Bahah_Province&oldid=14579969 - these people can find you anywhere... but *shhh* like she says, keep it confidential gren 12:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Factual contradiction ... or inconsistency at least

Factual contradiction ... or inconsistency at least

From the article Advance fee fraud :

This type of scam, originally known as the "Spanish Prisoner Letter", has been carried out since at least the 16th century via ordinary postal mail.

From the article Spanish Prisoner :

The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence game dating back to at least the 17th century.

Ok so given the word "at least" the two statements are not actually contradictory. However, we may want to do a little more digging and decide which date should go in both articles.

I have posted this comment on both talk pages. Dalf | Talk 20:58, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have added more information on the Spanish Prisoner page. This page is correct as it is 1588 i.e. 16th Century.--NHSavage 08:53, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
There is a reference to a Spanish Civil War prisoner scam in The Times (I was looking up something else on the microfilm so don't have more details). Jackiespeel 16:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How much has been netted by scammers?

The article needs a dollar amount reference, imho. Apparently the article ref to billions lost has been deleted, and there is no mention I can see of an amount estimate. I recall reading a year or so ago at one point the scam income was in the top 3 re Nigerian GDP income figures.

Top 3 of GDP? This is not likely, and in any case, is impossible to verify. 91.106.223.96 (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Translations?

I recently had some 419 scammers impersonate addresses from my company, which does non-profit work in developing countries. I found out about it when we started getting responses back to the nonexistant addresses at our domain.

I sent back quick notes to everyone that got tricked into believing the 419 emails either were or might be legit (amazing to me how many folks were looking to proceed. wonder how many did..). I referred them to the Wikipedia articles in English, French and German for background.

I found myself wishing for one in Burmese/Myanmar. There's barely a Burmese Wikipedia, so I didn't even bother trying to post a request for one there, but it got me thinking.

It seems that as Wikipedia comes online in places that are "coming online" so to speak in the more general sense, there might be opportunity for the Wikipedia community to facilitate that transition.

Somehow prioritizing translation of (and perhaps promotion somehow though that could flirt perhaps closer to social activism than might be desirable by the community depending on how done, perhaps) of articles like this 419 article might be a good thing in that direction. There might already be suggested lists of articles to prioritize at the start of a wiki, but stuff like that. Maybe be able to tap the Wikipedians pocketbooks for little projects like hiring translators to translate some things to other Wikipedias? I know translators are always looking to pick up a few freelance bucks. Wonder if there's roome to seed development in that direction somehow.

Anyhoo, just musing here a bit.

-Pfwebadmin 21:55, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Victims, not only in rich countries

Internet advance fee fraudsters don't target exclusively "investors from richer countries". Victims from not so rich countries are constantly reported and some scammers specifically target people from Latin America, India, Central and South East Asia or Middle East, where general public is less aware of their tricks. Some email spiders have features that allow harvesting email addresses linked to specific locations (e.g. from url's containing ".com.in" and so on).

--Filius Rosadis 22:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Needs citations and specific numbers

This article unfortunately needs to be run through the style guideline Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms. "Some" travelers are held for ransom, "some" people meet fake government officials ... much of the supposed data on this scam needs to be verified. There's no need for us to exaggerate in order to caution the public. Tempshill 23:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I have followed some of the citations via the Web and have found only one source that actually gave a name and home town for one of these victims — an Englishman, he committed suicide through immolation after discovering that he had been the victim of a fraud. If anybody can discover any other victim, let's put in in the article. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 00:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is it 419?

This page needs some sort of an explanation as to why the number 419 is used to refer to these scams. --Cyde Weys votetalk 17:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It's called 419 because that is the number that is used in Nigeria's criminal code to describe this sort of crime and explains the penalty for it. The code states that they can only be charged if there is evidence against the individual, or if they're caught comitting it. In Nigeria, the penalty is 3-7 years for this sort of crime. I believe the article has a link to Nigeria's criminal code in it. PRueda29 / Ptalk29 / Pcontribs29 19:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I added a sentence based from what you said. —Quarl (talk) 2006-01-16 07:37Z

In Nigerian pidgin English (a commonly spoken, English-like language in Nigeria) "419" is also used as "cheating" in normal sentences. You can use it in sentences like "You no go 419 me-o" (don't cheat on me). "Dat man na bigbig 419" (that man can not be trusted).

419 is pronounced as "four-one-nine".

[edit] Proposed split

We need to split the check fraud and lottery fraud out of this article, as they aren't relevant. Stifle 01:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Both of those frauds are "advance fee" fraud - you are conned into paying an "advance fee" of some sort, expecting to get goods or money in return.
82.46.76.125 11:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


Both are also spread by the same scam organizations that do all the other advance fee frauds. Splitting it up will also give the ilusion that there are diffrent perpetrators behind an advance fee fraud and the lottery and check fraud which is not the case.

If this article was cleaned up and pruned there would be no need for a split. Removal of unsourced nonsense, the lenghty "example", and other things that have nothing to do with the subject of this article would go a long way. savidan(talk) (e@) 00:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The article hangs together pretty well as it is, and lumping all these scammers together, since they really are the same people using the same methods, makes sense to me. I don't think it's too long and could easily be cleaned up a bit (as I've begun) without rambling. Steve Rapaport 08:16, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Example scam letter

Should be moved to wikisource. savidan(talk) (e@) 00:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

We now have far too many example scam letters, and I guess Wikisource would be a better place for most of them. Plus, some of the letters have had spellings corrected by bots. which is not appropriate. Pontificake 23:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Very inaccurate article

1. Many statements in the article are here-say, cannot be verified and are in fact false. The second paragraph is false since there are many countries missing from that list especially the USA. Also, the allusion that it only occurs in areas "with large West African populations" is spurious. It is racially biased and unfair. I personally have been scamed by people who were not from West Africa.

2. The Link in the subtopic: "Invitation to visit the country" is slightly out of context, since the person was not smuggled into South Africa.

3. The "credit Card" subtopic should be revised since this is just plain old credit card fraud rearing it's ugly head.

4. The "Romance angle" subtopic is more relevant to the verifiable "russian bride" scam that is all over the internet and this should be clarified.

5. "Auction overpayment": Should this even be here at all? Simple bank fraud.

6. "Classified advert scams": How is this different from the bank fraud of Auction overpayment?

7. "Monetary Loss estimate": The link (i.e. #5) attached to the highly speculatory second paragraph does not justify the sentence. May I add from my experience that it is not as successful as the public thinks it is. it just looks that way because of the low cost of scamming and the dedication the scammers put in- a behaviour similar to the "gambler's addiction" -As described by gambler who rarely wins, but when he wins causes a lot of commotion and arouses a new dedicated army of believers that their jackpot is next.

8. The "physical harm or death" lends credence to fraudulent activity evident in the USA, and as stated, citations ae needed.

9. The "Terms" subtopic: Please can the relevance of this be explained?

I hear from a lot of folks who argue that advance fee fraud should be described without any reference to Nigeria or Africa, because specifying those locations is "racist".
But the fact is that the 419 letters really are the product of a fraud subculture based in Lagos, Nigeria.
Yes, of course there are all kinds of fraudsters and scammers in every country in the world. But it is the Lagosians (and some expatriates) who are flooding our inboxes with their dishonest and attention-demanding letters. I get thousands of scam letters per year directed to my personal inbox alone, directly from the scammers.
You'd think that the Miriam Abacha or Nigerian National Petroleum stories would have played out by now, but even today, roughly half the scam letters SAY they are from Nigeria. The format and the names and the stories and the methodology are so numbingly repetitive, and the world has been so saturated with them, that it's hard to imagine a separate set of scammers in, say, Indonesia or Wales deciding that it's worthwhile to imitate these peculiar messages down to the details.
The defenders of Nigeria's honor say that I'm ignoring all the other kinds of fraud in the world. But I'm not interested in fraud as such. I'm interested in spam. In this case, one specific group of fraudsters, from one specific city, is generating a stunning quantity of spam. Kestenbaum 01:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the problem here is that the article describes advance fee fraud as if it encompases 419 (which it does), but then goes ahead to say that it is done by west africans only in certain places. To answer you directly, (First paragraph:) Some Nigerians are actively involved in 419 scams and describing this cannot be racist! What is racist is trying to make it seem that ONLY Nigerians do all frauds listed there. Second paragraph: Have you ever been to Lagos or read a citable unbiased reference to this? What do you mean by subculture? I don't this is verifiable but prejudiced. Third paragraph: Perfectly true, but that is mainly email scams (they are almost exclusive in email scams) not the other types of Advanced fee fraud. Also, this alone is not enough to justify paragraph two or be completely prejudiced to the whole Nation concerning fraud. Paragraph four: As for the types of letters, I do agree on content and style but I can't agree with you concerning indonesians unless it is verifiable. Paragraph five: I am not a defender of Nigeria. In fact, I was defrauded by a Lagosian. I'm just against dishonesty, unfairness and exaggerations.
You say "they are almost exclusive in email scams" -- that is exactly what I'm saying. I don't especially care about "other" (non-email) kinds of advance fee fraud, or any other kind of fraud. I think people come to this Wikipedia article to find some explanation for the emails that are flooding their inboxes.
I haven't been to Lagos, but I have been studying these emails and reading analysis of them (including law enforcement, security, international sources) for years. My mention of Indonesia was intended as a joke. Kestenbaum 14:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Racism accusations are completely out of place here. In the modern world accusing someone of "racism" has become a fashion and a really cheap tool for discrediting. Saying that *Nigerians* perform these scams is not racism. Racism is not related to nationality but to ethnicity. Saying "Nigerian" is not singling out some ethnical group, it's singling out a nationality. You can say that it's unfair towards the country of Nigeria and its inhabitants, but that's different from racism, which is prejudice based on ethnicity/race and has nothing to do with nationality. Nowadays the "racism card" is a really cheap trick for getting points in a discussion. It's a childish gimmick, and we should be above that. Wopr 02:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The article is very accurate and very fair. At one point in time, I was told in a face-to-face meeting in Nigeria, with an Interpol Agent, that these types of scams were the third largest export in the country. And this was in 1994!! I have been to Nigeria, as I mention elsewhere, and I assure you that the scams are so prevalent that they can be found in almost every segment of society. At one point, I was targeted because of my actitivites to expose these scams that I actually had several Nigerian soldiers guarding me durng the day. Later, when I get back to the U.S., I started one of the first Nigerian scam websites and received emails everyday from people all over the world thanking me for my website and saving their lives and their money.

So, let's be clear, this article is indeed saving lives and money. And the scammers hate Wikipedia for doing it. You know when you've done something right because that's when scammers will try and delete an article or aim vandalism at it. Jtpaladin 18:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Government reporting

Warnings issued by United States government: The United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a consumer alert about the Nigerian scam. It says: "If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria — or any other country, for that matter — forward it to the FTC at spam@uce.gov." The United States Department of the Treasury advises: "You may also email the 419er documents, especially any banking data they may have given you, marked as described above, to Task Force Main in DC 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov; that is also acceptable."
I wonder if this ought to be removed unless there is evidence the FTC or Treasury department is actually doing anything with the reports. From what I've seen they haven't done anything useful with the reports since 5-10 years ago when they started asking for them. -Rolypolyman 19:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Check Scam is Advance Fee Fraud

The title of this article is advance fee fraud. According to the classifications used by most Internet crime investigators including the FBI and the antiphishing working group the check scam is an advance fee fraud even though it is not a 419 scam or nigerian letter.

The current article is too Internet centric in any case, an advance fee fraud is a very general category. The encyclopedia should not be biased towards the categories that the editors are most familiar with. There is even a non-Internet version of the fraud done as an in person confidence trick where a person on a beach 'finds' a wallet stuffed with money.

If the article is going to go into the Nigerian gangs it should also include details of the 'wish wash' scam that is usually played if the Mugu actually goes to Nigeria. This again is an advance fee fraud.

Finaly Phill Hallam-Baker has speculated that the current crop of nigerian letters are the result of the original gangs selling 'franchises' for the fraud to gullible people thinking they will make a fortune. In effect running the same advance fee fraud against their franchisees that the franchisees hope to play on others. --Gorgonzilla 14:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing unsourced statement

Another effect of the scam's proliferation is that ordinary Nigerians are having their access to the internet hindered. One reporter in Nigeria sent this in an email to his producers in late 2005: [citation needed] "Connecting a lap top in a cybercafe [in Nigeria] is a nightmare. Because of the 419 scam, cybercafe operators are reluctant to connect peoples lap tops. The few who do have to make some settings to your lap top and most often it would not work."

I've searched for various combinations of this quote and keywords, and nothing has come up to indicate it has been published elsewhere (online). If another source is available for this, please cite it. --Marysunshine 21:33, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would be helpful to this article if additional unsourced statements are NOT included. When information is added, kindly indicate where it came from. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 22:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propsed reorg

This article is a mess because it is writtend as if 419 fraud is synonymous wth advance fee fraud. In fact the nigerian letters are only one example of a very old scam. The FBI used thye term advance fee fraud before there was an internet. The article should be rewritten accordingly. It should also link to sites describing the wish-wash and other examples. -- Gorgonzilla 23:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The article is really about Nigerian money transfer fraud. Perhaps Advance fee fraud should redirect to confidence game (or one of the other articles like Spanish Prisoner), and this article be renamed Online advanced fee fraud or the like? But perhaps "Advance fee fraud" deserves a separate article spun off from this one... it's quite a mess. Well.. be bold :) —Pengo 23:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think splitting would be useful. Advance fee fraud is the superset. The nigerian letter is merely the best known current example, the cashiers check schemes are essentially the same game, as is the wish-wash in which the mark is given a suitcase full of money covered in a dye and told that the removal agent is costly to get hold of. It is the same people behind those scams. Meanwhile there are gangs all over the world doing the 419 scam. --Gorgonzilla 03:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
This article is VERY long ( althrough removing the example letters would help ) and Internet fraud is probably more important to the average person today than 17th century Spanish prisoners. A split might be warrented. FireWeed 19:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Counterfeit check image

Somone replaced the counterfeit check image with this one that has "FAKE" repeated across it. That doesn't make sense to me, because:

  • The original image is still there, and not linking to it is hardly a secure way of keeping it from scammers.
  • If the original were removed, we couldn't delete every copy that has been distributed even if we had the legal authority--which we don't because the image has already been distributed under the GFDL.
  • There's nothing stopping an unscrupulous person from getting a cashier's check and scanning it, so removing this one doesn't make scamming much harder.
  • The new image is much less readable, defeating the purpose of having one at all.
  • The original image already has some of the personal information blacked out.

Wmahan. 06:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I restored the original image again. If you really think it risks enabling scammers, I think the appropriate step would be to list commons:Image:Well's fargo counterfit cashier's check.jpg for deletion. Changing the image here won't make it unavailable. Wmahan. 01:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Locking your front door doesn't make it impossible for a burglar to get in, but we all still do it. Making things harder, even if only a little bit harder, for the scammers described in this article has to be the logical step. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Edit1uk (talk • contribs) 08:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Let's don't panic

I have been in Nigeria many times and have to say that even though I have seen myself 419 fraud and crime, my perception of Nigerians was generally positive. They are intelligent and creative people and most of them are very hard working and honest. I felt safer in Nigeria then i do in most US metropolitan areas. Vigilance is good but lets put it all in perspective, we are being ripped off in our home countries, by our home grown criminals, by far more often then by Nigerians.--Mike Sorensen 14:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 255 ip addresses per all of niger?

According to [1], Niger only has 255 IP addresses assigned to it. Makes one wonder if a majority of so-called Nigerian money scams do not, in fact, come from Niger. I mean, for some reason, I doubt that all such scams come from the same 255 IP addresses... TerraFrost 18:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Niger is not the same as Nigeria. The latter must have much more IP addresses assigned. However you're right about scam-spam coming from other countries, like the rest of West Africa (Ghana, Togo, Benin), South Africa and places like Amsterdam, London, Dubai, Madrid. --Filius Rosadis 18:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mary Winkler

Mary Winkler has not been found guilty of any crime yet (in relation to the shooting of her husband, connected with a 419 scam), as such the text has been changed to reflect that she has yet to stand trial in a court of law. Doctorbob 17:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scam-o-rama reference

This book was added to the list of books by Scamorama (talk • contribs). I have removed it as a possible violation of WP:COI:

  • "'Scam-o-rama' by Eve Edelson, published by the Disinformation Company. Ms Edelson is the curator of the 'Scamorama.com' web site. The emphasis there and in the book is on the amusing, as some folks retaliate against the scammers. Quite a lot of it is hilarious. ISBN 1932857389"

--A. B. (talk) 03:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this quote is far too short to be a copyright infringement, especially seeing as how it doesn't give away the most saleable parts of the book. ( Gerald Ford was able to sue a newspaper for copyright infringement for publishing a small excerpt of his book, because it was the part explaining why her pardoned Richard Nixon - the reason most people would buy the book. ) I don't see any reason this could be a problem, although it should be noted I'm not an attorney, just an interested individual. FireWeed 19:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
COI is a conflict of interest violation. Editors should not be adding links to articles about books they published Nil Einne (talk) 14:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish Prisoner Scam? Does anyone have a source for that?

I would be very curious to learn more about this 1588 "spanish prisoner letter." Just because it's a great story. --Crestodina 00:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


See my comment above. Jackiespeel 16:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Legislation section cut

Most of this material seems to be simply a cut and paste job of very long press releases which lacks any sort of cohesion. Normally, I would cut and paste things I cut to the talk page, but due to the length I am going to simply cut it and if anyone wants to retrieve it they can do so by going into the history tab.





[edit] Moved book link to correct section

Moved link to book "The Singing Scammers" into the "Books" section with the others, noticed someone had deleted it from External Links.

[edit] General Comments and "To Catch A Con Man"

1. The article is in serious need of a cleanup. All of those examples letters are our of place and excessive. Unless there is some serious objections on here, I am going to go ahead and delete all those example letters. If somebody feels they should be relocated somewhere else, they should do that, but if anybody really needs to see and advance fee fraud email, they can check their own email, maybe the junk folder, or any one of a billion anti-419 sites

I went ahead and deleted example letters...Butnotthehippo 07:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

2. This talk page needs to be archived, cleaned up, SOMETHING! I am not sure of proper WP or procedure on this, but this talk page seems a congolmeration of old information and information that doesn't even belong on a talk page in the first place.

3. I hope somebody will take more iniative to clean this article up. I know I am when I get a chance. If I came here and really wanted to know more about 419 I would be so confused.

I went ahead and did a lot of cleanup. It needs a lot more though. I would like to see if it could be made to be internally consistent. I know 419 is the primary type of advance feee fraud, but both terms are used interchangeably. Maybe all 419 references could be changed to advance fee fraud.Butnotthehippo 07:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

4. NBC did a special on Dateline NBC about AFF this week and it had a lot of useful information. I only TiVoed the first 6 minutes and missed it. If anybody saw it or knows of the information online, it would be a useful addition. The show was called "To Catch a Con Man". Butnotthehippo 06:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I found the link to To Catch a Con Man There is a transcript on there here if somebody wants to glean a lot of good (and Verifiable!!!) information they can go through it before I get a chance to...Butnotthehippo 06:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I added some info and made a seperate page for the new show (To Catch a Con Man)Butnotthehippo 07:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suspicious Signs in E-mail Messages

I was disappointed that the "Suspicous Signs in E-mail Messages" section was removed recently. I think that part was very useful information to let people be able to recognize fraudulent scams when they see them. So I think that should be included again. But it doesn't have to be at the top of the page where it used to be. I think it should be down at the bottom of the page. Marknagel 09:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

  • We have to follow an encyclopedic format, Marknagel. There are always sites that provide to give users actual tips - this is here just to describe the scamming phenomenon. If we have a government source, we could adapt their "tips" into an encyclopedic manner. WhisperToMe 16:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removed ref to Mary Winkler from "Murder" section

Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced in June. The sentence was therefore out of date and not strictly accurate according to the ruling.

[edit] Advice to victims

is this section necessary or fit for an encyclopedia? we don't have an advice section on the Rape page for victims, why should we here? i'm going to delete it.

You are correct. Here's an internal link to Wikipedia's policy page on "what Wikipedia is not": "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook". Flowanda | Talk 23:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed section

This section seems to be some kind of alert rather than encyclopaedic; it was put right at the top of the article. --84.65.21.21 11:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warnings issued by United States government

The United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a consumer alert about the Nigerian scam. It says:

"If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria — or any other country, for that matter — forward it to the FTC at spam@uce.gov."[1]

The United States Department of the Treasury maintains an email address to which the public may send 419 related documents when they have incurred no financial loss. These emails are archived to assist in future investigations.

If there is a financial loss, people are asked to file a Financial Loss complaint form online with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at http://www.ic3.gov. [2]


[edit] Ultrascan and other sources

I think that Ultrascan should not be cited or linked to. Their website does not contain any informations how their "research data" has been obtained. Research about a globalized crime like this one whould require a mass of inquiries. They present data that comes from so-called "experts" that are not being named or cited. No mailing address or physical address is listed on the site, the website lacks in general informations about what ultrascan actually is, etc. etc. Not a credible source, really. I'd also skip the links to 419eater, thescambaiter.com and 419legal.org. Originally 419legal was owned by the South African Police Services but in the current state it seems to be just a repository for scam emails and news reports that are being posted by bots. Many enquiries from visitors are not being answered and some of the forum ads lead to HYIP-scams. 419eater and thescambaiter are scambaiting websites and should be kept in that rticle. The same goes for the mentioned books. They are almost exclusively about scambaiting and have not much to do with this article.. 91.59.254.220 13:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Generalisations about Nigeria and Nigerians

There is immense value to be had from people who have visited Nigeria or live there. Nigeria is definitely a place where visitors must keep their eyes open. However things change very quickly and dated personal experience should not be presented as "canonical." Some of the statements made here - foreigners being killed in the airport - are somewhat generic, as cases where foreigners have been killed in US & UK airports and cities abound.

Things change a lot over time and experience from over 15 years ago is not likely to be as accurate as is presented (e.g. in 1994, South Africa was still in Apartheid, Zimbabwe was still a model state). The challenge for Nigerians is the 1% of the population that are criminal. With a population of over 140 million, that’s over 1.4 million “criminals” representing “Nigerians” all over the world. The impression that Nigeria is a country of scammers or that Nigerians are inherently dishonest is misleading, wrong and unfair.

This does not in anyway take away from the fact that advance fee fraud is a major problem and everyone must take precautions to limit its devastating effect. Ajisekanla (talk) 14:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Law Enforcement Advice for Victims

While this page provides a lot of information on Advance Fee Fraud, it barely mentions the recourse available to the victims. A section on the EFCC, filing a complaint, etc would be helpful here. Ajisekanla (talk) 16:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Apparently this page once had such advice, but it was deleted. See above on this page, "Advice for Victims." Here's an internal link to Wikipedia's policy page on "what Wikipedia is not": "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook". Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Attention!

Editors,

This page is for discussion of the content of the wikipedia entry 'advance fee fraud'.
It is *not* a page for:
general discussion of the topic, unconnected to the page
relating personal experiences (post a link instead)
posting up examples of advance fee fraud communications you might have received (post a link instead)
debates about Nigerian society

Unnecessary posting of all of the above is causing the talk page to be so long and difficult to read through that I am considering pruning some of the Talk - a drastic step. 91.106.223.96 (talk) 15:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


Step taken. If you want readers of the talk page to see the 419 letter you received last week, or hear what happened to you at the Sheraton in Lagos (you know who you are), then please post a link if you must. I took this action to try and return this talk page just vaguely to within talk page guidelines.
Centrepull (talk) 11:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What step was taken? --Thinboy00 @978, i.e. 22:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Message No. 419

Nerdcore artist MC Frontalot has a song, "Message No. 419" which focuses on the 419 scam. Is this noteable enough to include in the "Media references and resources" section? TransOceanic (talk) 03:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. Wikipedia is bigger on trivial information like this than substantial information it seems. I think if you include a reference to a news article talking about the song and its focus on the 419 scams it might be included in a popular culture section. --Blechnic (talk) 03:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

The examples in this article need limited and rewritten, so that a single example, rather than a list, illustrates a point. The way the examples are written they detract from the article as a whole. The tag on the article page calls it an examplefarm. I think this is an accurate description of how poorly done this is. I encourage editors to start eliminating and editing examples. --Blechnic (talk) 02:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)