The Nigerian Scam Comes From Africa

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The many scam websites on the Internet try to scam people by sending phishing emails. The scam victim receives a message that appears to be from a bank or credit union that tells them there is a problem with their account. Some people, thinking that the email came from an actual bank, will click on the link and be taken to a website that looks like a real bank website. In reality, however, it is one of many web sites that are everywhere on the Internet scamming people. The scam victim will then enter their account numbers thinking that they are accessing their account. Once the numbers are entered, the scammer who sent the phishing email can use these numbers to get money from the victim’s credit card and bank.

Phishing is just one of the top scams found on the Internet. Another top scam is the Africa scam also known as the Nigerian scam letter. The Nigerian scam letter is a variation of the check scam.

Many of the scam letters are similar to the phishing emails in that the scammer tries to create a sense of urgency to get the victim to act without thinking. Another tactic that is used in the Africa scams is to get the email recipient to have pity on the fake individual telling the story. The check scam is part of the Africa scams where the scammer promises to send 10% to 30% of the proceeds of some hidden account but the victim has to send some money in order to get the funds released. Another version is where the scammer sends the check, which is fake, to the victim who cashes the check and sends the money back to the scammer. When the bank realizes the check is fake, it takes the money out of the victim’s account. In this way, the scammer gets most if not all the money for the fake check.

The check scam appears to not only come from Africa but from other countries as well. Sometimes, the person sending the email also claims to be from Europe, especially the UK. The UK appears to be the primary source of scams from Europe and London, England appears to be the primary source in the UK. Other European countries include Spain, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands and others.

Some of the countries in Asia that scammers claim to originate from are China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. In the Middle East, the countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates appear to be sources. North and South America also have countries that scammers hail from such as Brazil, Paraguay and Peru. Some even claim to be in New York City of the United States of America.

Mostly, however, the people in the email with their sad stories seem to come from the following African countries: Nigeria, Cote D’Ivore or Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and South Africa. The majority seems to come from Nigeria. In Nigeria, the scam letter is known as 419 fraud.

The Africa scam has more variations than the phishing email scam. The themes used in the scam letters can be any of the following: the sick or dying person who has cancer and wants to help orphans and motherless children by having the email recipient set up a charity; the scam victim has won the lottery from the UK, Microsoft or Yahoo; a secret bank account has been discovered by an employee of the Central Bank of Nigeria where the owner of the account is deceased and in return for helping the employee get the money the scam victim will receive a large percentage. There is even one that tries to scam the victim a second time by claiming to help prior scam victims of 419 scams.

The phishing email scam and the scam letter are some of the top scams on the Internet. The check scam is basically the African scam while phishing relies on the victim going to scam websites to enter financial information. Some places on the Internet allow people to report a scam.