John Rempel said he quit his truck driving job, lost friends, borrowed money and crossed the globe in pursuit of a non-existent inheritance, after he was contacted by e-mail in what is known as a Nigerian 419 scam.
Rempel said he borrowed $55,000 from an uncle in Mexico and his parents gave him $60,000 on credit to cover fees for transferring $12.8 million into his name.
“They’re in it now because of me,” said Rempel, 22, breaking into sobs. “If it wasn’t for me, nobody would be in this mess. You think things will work out, but it doesn’t. It’s a very bad feeling. I had lots of friends.
“I never get calls anymore from my friends. You know, a bad reputation.”
His troubles began in July 2007. He said he got an e-mail from someone claiming to be a lawyer with a client named David Rempel who died in a 2005 bomb attack in London, England, and left behind $12.8 million.
[…]
The lawyer said his client had no family but wanted to leave the money to a Rempel. It was his lucky day.“It sounded all good so I called him,” said Rempel.
His family’s gene pool needs a thorough cleaning. Is he related to the Royal family?
1. Why don’t any of these scams originate from Mexico, or Latvia, or Peru????? What is it with Nigeria?
2. Tired of getting these annoying, ignorantly written, convoluted, insulting scam emails? Then send this dope an email telling him if it weren’t for complete asses as himself, this would not exist as a pox on humanity.
3. His family is as stupid as he is. He should save up a few hundred bucks and get himself sterilized.
Greed is good.
There is a lesson here beyond just “don’t be stupid”. This individual and his family were extremely naive and not terribly smart (an understatement) but first and foremost they were greedy. The lure of free money (that they did not earn) obscured their thought process from seeing any of the common sense warning signs that most people would have seen. Human greed is the underlying reason that these and other scams still work.
Here is a video clip from the movie The Magic Christian that illustrates the point.
Time for a bailout.
Free money? He is as stupid as Americans who think the $ for the massive bailouts really exists…
He voted for George W. Bush, twice!!
Mr. Uncle Dave,
Congratulations, you winning online internet submission prize for fine article you sent to a Mr. Dvoark, who has recently passed away and left behind large inheritance for purposes of encouraging fine article linking on internet. To collect your share inheritance please send send link to your Wells Fargo online account along with password so that we can directly put money in your account.
Best Regards,
Bill
Moron, not moran.
[
– ed.]
Re: #2, Shucks,
Scams like this originate in America as well. No country has the corner on thieving bastards, or the dumb-asses they prey on. Any stock exchange is packed with examples. “We have this miraculous product that will !!!make you rich!!! Get your shares now before it’s too late!” (and of course, it’s never too late to take your money).
Must one be a moran to get taken by these scammers?
I think it more has to do with a risk-taking personality.
I’m fairly invulnerable to these kind of scams because I’m so cautious. But one of my clients — a successful businessman who seems fairly smart — got taken by one. It wasn’t for a huge amount of money but it was a scam I never would have fallen for.
After knowing him, my theory is that vulnerability to scams isn’t so much IQ as temperament: risk taking coupled with a bit of naive optimism.
In these schemes money is very rarely lost all at once. The initial payment is small. Once the mark has bought in they are gradually convinced that backing out now would waste their growing contributions. Like a compulsive gambler the mark attempts to “double down” the bet, hoping for the huge payoff which is always just around the corner.
As to why these are associated with Nigeria….
When oil was discovered in the Niger delta the Nigerian economy was decimated. Producers of basic goods found themselves squeezed by growing imports of luxury imported goods which the newly wealthy gov’t types could now afford.
High inflation caused the gov’t to limit convertibility of the currency by most of the citizens. Those able to convert in official banks were able to become very wealthy by playing the difference between the bank rate and black market rates.
Most of the people doing this were gov’t employees, or hangers-on. The country’s establishment became scammers, essentially. Once the public saw what was going on everything went bad.
Within the country fraud and theft of oil has reached incredible levels. Outside of the country Nigerians are over represented in many types of fraud and other illegal activity, including wholesale drug distribution.
This story is important as an example of what can happen when the business and governmental leaders of a country go bad.
In the USA the various bubbles we have seen are, in a way, similar to the humble 419 scam. The Madoff scandal is similar to ponzi schemes in post-Soviet Russia and former Soviet satellites. Nigeria or Russia can fairly be said to be centers of dishonesty and criminality. But are we really that far behind?
Steve S,
I watched the Magic Christian link. Interesting film I was not aware of.
The current analogy I would make, however, is to people who are willing to debase themselves on reality TV to get fairly modest amounts of money.
One of the best pieces I’ve every hear on the 419ers, was a This American Life episode where they scam-bait a naive 419er and send him into a war zone in Chad. The SERIOUSLY jeopardize the guy’s life and they think it is hilarious.
Here is the link:
http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1260
9 Dave. Send me $5 and I’ll explain that “moran” is an inside thing.
RBG
Having a good heart, and hoping for better is a REAL PAIN IN THE BUTT.
Im a REALIST, and it took me a long time to Understand SCAMS as I was growing up.
We are taught, to BE NICE, to do what we can for others, to BEND OVER and GET RAPED.
It took along time to understand that there are MORE CROOKS out there trying to get my MONEY, then there are LEGIT offers. Either from companies or individuals..
THIS is like this CHECKS in the mail, that SAY they are from the CC corp, and you read the fine print, and they will SCREW YOU IF YOU CASH THE CHECK.
This is like the company COUPON/CHECK that says we will give you $14, and you read the back and IF you cash it, they will CHARGE you $47-$79 per year for their service.
This is LIKE those “LEARN HOW TO SELL ON THE INTERNET” seminars that dont tell you the TIME/EFFORT responsibilities of setting up a company on the NET, NOR the COST they are going to CHARGE you for a SITE rental, and that COMPETING with the BIG BOYS will probably SINK you in 1 year.
Out of 3-4 persons INVOLVED, someone should have seen this happening, and SAID/DONE SOMETHING.
I think this needs a BS award. and that SOMEONE is complaining to much…JUST to see if OTHER SOFT HEARTS will send him money. As has happened before, with CRY BABIES on the net.
What interests me is that there ought to be NOBODY, especially a 22-year-old, who doesn’t know about these scams by now….
The first time I saw one, I was tempted. But the BS Detector kicked in when I realized that Spam was Spam, this guy was somebody I’d never heard of, and the “English as a second language” inferences in the text were kinda visible. A little while later, I found out why….
I get at least one a week, and some are kind of funny. I wish I could talk to the sender, just to be insulting or something, but even acknowledging receipt is a good way to get on somebody’s list, so I just click “Delete” and forget about ’em….
(Beats the occasional storm when a ‘Bot apparently sends a pile of bogus messages to bad addresses, with my e-mail on ’em….)
Regards,
iT’S moron.
not mORAN
Doesn’t everybody know the MORAN reference yet?
Here’s an image link to where it started:
http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/moran-7512.jpg
This guy is infamous!
#12 chris wrote “In these schemes money is very rarely lost all at once. The initial payment is small. Once the mark has bought in they are gradually convinced that backing out now would waste their growing contributions.”
That’s exactly what is happening in America’s own version of the 419 scam. Just last week we learned that the B-of-A/Merrill Lynch combo is a deeper hole than the general public was ever led to believe, and Paulson and Bernanke convinced Ken Lewis at B-of-A not to abandon the acquisition, pledging increasing amounts of government money to B-of-A. Remember, this is the bank that originally claimed they didn’t need any bailout money at all, but were virtually forced to take it by Paulson as part of a group of banks. It’s looking exactly as you described, because it’s hard to imagine that much of this wasn’t already known at the time of the Merrill acquisition. We can’t back out now, or it will all have been for naught.
click to see Bank of America Shocker
This will just dribble and dribble until it starts gushing and all hell breaks loose.
#19, Mr. Moran,
Thank you for not living up to the new take on your name.
#16, ECR,
Good points. Is it our innate greed or our naive trust of people that allows these scams to flourish. As long as there is a will, there be some scammer trying to get a piece of the action.
Is this guy stupid? Probably no more than any of Bernie Maddoff’s victims. Scams are not relegated to just one socio-economic group. We readily see scammers preying on the elderly, the religious, and with today’s worsening economy, the unemployed.
BTW, lottery ticket sales are increasing rapidly. Only they are a government sponsored scam.
He probably uses Windows and IE as well.
#21, gq,
He probably uses Windows and IE as well.
Windows still has 90% of the market and IE is close to that. I guess that is a safe bet.
Friend of yours?
He also said oil was going up to 200 a barrel.
Oh, that was Rubin from CIBC world markets or T Boone Pickens or Goldman Sachs.
#9 and #18, could we ask that you guys be a little better informed so as not to make yourselves look like a butt wipe?
i love the look on his face.
damn wouldn’t like to be in his shoes. but then again there’s always something worse in the world. and some people have lost even more money and experienced worse tragedies.
“The Spanish Prisoner” is an excellent scam. The Nigerian Scam and its variants make a very key mistake: they start off way too high. Greed causes you to do something wrong or immoral to get your loot. These scams are nothing but taking advantage of simple minded credulous people. My mother got that notice that went around about winning a lottery in England. I told her to “go for it” until such time as they want any money to process anything. She emailed back but never got a return.
Still—how many of us carefully read “Free Shipping” or “Free After MIR”. Same thing, different degree.
# 2 Shucks said, in part:
“1. Why don’t any of these scams originate from Mexico, or Latvia, or Peru????? What is it with Nigeria?”
Nigeria used to be a fairly successfully governed country, with a thriving middle class, widespread education, large numbers of skilled engineers, etc. Then it became a kleptocracy and everything went to hell. Large numbers of people went on the grift to get by, and since there were lots of technically educated people, Nigerians became disproportionately represented in the annals of Internet crime. In particular, they seem to have specialized in this kind of come-on, so much so that wherever it originates from, it’s usually called a Nigerian scam.
Actually, this particular scam originated in Great Britain, but got labeled with the “Nigerian 419 scam” tag because of this very reason. (“419” being the section of Nigerian law dealing with this kind of fraud.)
I always ignored those emails since having email for first time in 2003, except 1 time in 2007 I decided to reply with tons of insults to the sender just for fun, and the result was after 30 minutes i found my yahoo inbox flooded with 606 (exactly that number) of messages :S
it took me an hour to remove everything and never decided to reply again :S
Free money is only for the wealthy.