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[MSE Andrea]

This is a chat forum discussion on Martin's 'The President of Liberia needs my help.... how can I say no?' blog which you can read here.

[tfdodo]

Any money-savers who are bored and don't expect to get 5% of $10,500,000 may like to know that there is a minority sport of stringing these guys along for as long as possible without parting with any money ; a "useful" response generator here:
http://www.flooble.com/fun/reply.php

And if, like me, you keep your email details quiet enough never to get any 419 emails and feel left out and ignored there is a "419 letter generator" here, so you can do one and send it to yourself
http://www.flooble.com/fun/proposal.php
[alternatively of course - it's summer, try getting out more ]

[presenthyme]

the best version of this i heard was about the nigerian astronaut who had been secretly sent into space on the space station by the russians and was abandoned there because russia and nigeria had fallen out.
some years later russia and nigeria had made up and plans were made to recover the astronaut.
during his time in space the astronaut had acquired a large sum in unpaid wages and a keep quiet bonus, some of which could of course come your way for a small consideration!

[Dora the Explorer]

You’ve got to give them credit for trying! Actually on second thoughts, the worst thing you should do is give them any credit at all!

Actually, isn't what you should do is inform the police ?

[max2002ad]

This is a classic 419 scam from nigeria.

To check out more and see the fight against it check out this site:

http://www.419eater.com/index.htm

This site will make you laugh and think at the same time!!

[finetune9]

Its better to go to the OFT than the Police in the first instance if you receive a letter or email or worse still get caught up in it. 419 is named after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code. Most of these scams emanate from Nigeria however they are becoming more commonplace in other African countries, e.g. Sierra Leone. Ten years ago it was reputed to be a $5billion a year industry. Official reports into these suggest that the elite from which Nigerian Government officials are drawn are actually involved in them - not surprising then that hardly ever are the people responsible traced let alone money get returned to the victim. Police investigations are virtually impossible. Sometimes a scam, purporting to come from Nigeria, is actually instigated in the UK so if you do get an email etc its always worth checking the IP address from where the email came. If its from the Uk/Europe please contact your local police station. Information re this and many other scams can be obtained from the OFT website
http://www.oft.gov.uk
scams@oft.gsi.gov.uk ... use this to send them scam emails that you have received
Stay safe!

[Donger20]

Hi,
Interesting to note that these scammers are now trying to get you to call 0870 numbers - i'm surprised they are not using 070 or 090 numbers.

Being in the travel industry we used to get lots of faxes asking for bookings and the reply fax number was an 090 or 070 - premium number - needless to say it was just a way to get you to dial the number - I am sure the fax machine on the other end was set to the lowest baud speed so it would take an age for the fax to get through it at all.

These have pretty much dried up since we joined the fax preference service - however we have just started getting calls from an obviously off-shore call centre asking for us to fax across brochures and price lists to a 070 number. On a few occasions I started asking questions about where they are calling from etc. and as soon as I did that they hang up - obviously trying to save on their phone bill!


Take care,

B

[themadbird]

I've got an 070 personal phone number - don't like giving out my proper landline or moby to companies really, so they get my personal number. But does sound dodgy having to fax the numbers. How they making money out of them though? I don't make anything from my number as I got it free.