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FraudNews
06-20-2010, 11:14 AM
There are many variations on the most common stories, and also many variations on the way the scam works. The following are notable deviations from the standard Nigerian Letter scam, but still retain the core elements; the mark is deceived by some disproportionately large gain into sending an advance payment, which once made is irrecoverable.

Cheque cashing

Some schemes are based solely on conning the mark into cashing fake cheques. The scammer will contact the victim to interest them in a "work-at-home" opportunity, or asking them to cash a cheque or money order that for some reason cannot be redeemed locally. A recently-used cover story is that the scammer wishes the mark to work as a "mystery shopper", evaluating the service provided by MoneyGram or Western Union locations within major retailers such as Wal-Mart [32]. The scammer sends the victim a cheque or money order, the victim cashes it, sends the cash to the scammer via wire transfer, and the scammer disappears. Later the forgery is discovered and the bank transaction is reversed, leaving the mark liable for the balance. Schemes based solely on cheque cashing will usually offer only a small part of the cheque's total amount, with the assurance that many more cheques will follow; if the victim buys in to the scam and cashes all the cheques, the scammer can win big in a very short period of time. Other scams such as overpayment usually result in smaller payoffs for the scammer, but have a higher success rate as the scammer's request seems more believable.

Some cheque-cashing scammers involve multiple victims at multiple stages of the scam. A victim in the U.S. or other "safe" country such as the U.K. or Canada (often the country in which the cashing victim resides) is sometimes approached with an offer to fill out cheques sent to them by the scammer and mail them to other victims who will cash the cheque and wire the money to the scammer. The cheque mailer is usually promised a cut of the money from the scammer; this usually never occurs, and in fact the cheque mailer is often conned into paying for the production and shipping costs of the cheques. The cheque information has either been stolen or fictionalized and the cheques forged. The victim mailing the cheque is usually far easier to track (and prosecute) than the scammer, so when the cheques turn up as fraudulent, the one mailing them usually ends up not only facing federal bank fraud and conspiracy charges, but liability for the full amount of the fraudulent cheques. Because the cheque mailer is taking the fall, the scammer is even less likely to be caught, which makes it a popular variation of the scam for scammers in nations with tougher anti-fraud laws and better enforcement than that of Nigeria.

Romance angle

A recent variant is the "Romance Scam" which is a money-for-romance angle. The victim is usually approached by the mark on an online dating service, on an Instant messenger (like Yahoo IM) or even social networking sites. The scammer claims to have become interested in the mark, and have pictures posted of an attractive person who is not actually the poster. The scammer uses this communication to gain the mark's confidence, and then ask for money. The offending party may claim to be interested in meeting the victim, but needs some cash up front in order to book the plane, hotel room, and other expenses. In other cases, they may claim they're trapped in a foreign country and need assistance to return, to escape imprisonment by corrupt local officials, to pay for medical expenses due to an illness contracted abroad, and so on. The scammer may also use the confidence gained by the romance angle to introduce some variant of the original Nigerian Letter scheme, such as saying they need to get money or valuables out of the country and offer to share the wealth, making the request for help in leaving the country even more attractive to the mark.

Classified ad scams

Scammer is buyer

Related to check cashing scams, the scammer will contact the seller of a listed item or service on eBay, Craigslist or other classified ad site, and offer to buy the item or hire the lister's services. The scam then plays one of two ways.

In an overpayment scam, the scammer will send a check or money order that is far larger than the agreed-upon price of the item, telling the seller to deduct any packing or shipping costs incurred, then refund him the remainder (which could be several hundred or even thousand dollars more) using a wire transfer service. This wire transfer is an advance fee similar to check cashing scams; the payment note is a forgery, and once discovered the mark has lost both the item and the amount of the overpayment.

The second method is a cancellation; after the mark receives and deposits the fraudulent check, the scammer cancels the transaction and demands their money back immediately, often by inventing some sort of personal catastrophe to gain the mark's sympathy. The scammer may also threaten to leave negative feedback about the mark on sites like eBay. The mark then refunds the entire balance of the check by wire transfer, and as before is eventually made to repay the amount of the fake check to the bank.

The overpayment scam has evolved considerably over time. Originally the scammer contacted sellers of items valuable to the scammer, such as items that can be resold on the black market (such as jewelry), would personally benefit the scammer (such as consumer electronics like HDTVs and stereo equipment), or could be used in further scams (such as laptops, portable storage devices, printers, cameras and scanners). However, the intent of scammers has largely changed from acquiring the item to getting the money. This may have been influenced by the growing awareness of this scam in online communities, resulting in sellers refusing to ship an item internationally. Currently, if the advertisement is an item for sale, the scam is usually run using a "drop"; the item is sent to a third party in the scam, who is often a scam victim themselves being manipulated into receiving packages for the scammer. This third party may forward a package (at their own expense) that is of high value to the scammer, or could be instructed to sell the item to a pawn shop or through a classified ad and forward the money, but most often they are told simply to hold the packages indefinitely.

Scammer is seller

A scammer will advertise an item for sale (usually a digital camera, laptop computer, plasma TV, video game console, or cell phone) at a very low cost (usually about 1/3 of the normal retail price). The body of the listing instructs buyers to contact the seller directly, outside of any controlled communication in place on the site, using a Yahoo or Hotmail web-based free e-mail account. When contact is made, the seller insists that the buyer send money by Western Union, usually giving a series of excuses for why they will not accept payment via a secured means such as PayPal. The allure is that the product is a huge bargain (e.g. a $2000 item for only $700). If money is sent, it is gone forever and no product is ever delivered. The phony seller sometimes boosts credibility by using a legitimate user account to list the item. The account has been hijacked from a legitimate seller with good feedback, usually by means of e-mail phishing. Alternatively, the false seller will sometimes buy many items at nominal value in order to receive many months of good feedback, before advertising the scam items.

Though the scam often involves wire transfer or other irreversible method of payment, even "zero liability" forms of payment such as PayPal can be used to maintain confidence in the transaction. Regardless of whether the money lost in the scam is refunded to the mark under fraud protection guarantees, the scammer has taken the money in cash and disappeared, in such cases making the payment service the end victim.

The scammer will sometimes offer a service, such as a room for rent, or an animal or pet. These variants usually evolve into traditional advance fee fraud, where the scammer will invent one fictional cost or fee after another relating to the transaction and attempt to collect, but can also accept a payment and disappear similar to offers of tangible goods. The scammer can also offer a job; such a scam either evolves into a check cashing scam, or the scammer will invent fees and other startup costs similarly to the basic Nigerian scam.

Lottery scam

The lottery scam involves fake notices of lottery wins. The winner will usually be asked to send sensitive information to a free email account. The scammer will then notify the victim that in order to release the funds, some small fee (insurance, registration, or shipping) is required. Once the fee has been sent, the scammer will invent another fee and attempt to collect it.

Much like the various forms of overpayment fraud detailed above, a new variant of the lottery scam involves fake or stolen cheques being sent to the 'winner' of the lottery (these cheques representing a part payment of the winnings). The winner will then be more likely to assume that the win is legitimate and subsequently more likely to send the fee (which he does not realize is an advance fee). The cheque, and associated funds, will then be flagged by the bank when the fraud is discovered and debited from the victim's account.

Hitman

An e-mail is sent to the victim's inbox, supposedly from a hitman who has been hired by a "close friend" of the recipient to kill him/her, but will call off the hit in exchange for a large sum of money. This is usually backed up with a warning not to contact the local police or FBI, or the "hitman" will be forced to go through with the plan. This is less an advance fee fraud and more outright extortion, but a reward can sometimes be offered in the form of the "hitman" offering to kill the man who ordered the original hit on the mark.

Bomb scams

Related to the hitman scam, the scammer will contact a business, mall, office building or other commercial location with a bomb threat. The scammer says they will detonate the bomb unless the management of the business does as the scammer tells them. Often, the scammer says that they have the store under surveillance; however, analysis of the calls by police have established that the vast majority of threat calls are made from other states or even from outside the country. Some evidence exists that points to the scammers hacking into the store's surveillance network, but this has not been confirmed in any case and has been refuted in others. The scammer usually demands that the store management or people in the headquarters office of the store (if the store is a chain) send money via wire transfer to the scammer to spare the store and the people in it. Other demands of these scammers have been more personal and humiliating, such as demanding that everyone in the store disrobe.

Because the underlying threat in the scam is a bomb threat, local law enforcement very quickly responds to the site under threat; however, because the scammer is usually nowhere near this location, the scammer is in little if any danger of being apprehended while the scam is playing out. Law enforcement, in the meantime, cannot assume the threat is anything but genuine, and therefore can do little to intervene without risking the detonation of the bomb. The fact that the threat was in reality a scam has usually not been discovered until long after the situation is over.

Charity scams

The scammer poses as a charitable organization soliciting donations to help the victims of a natural disaster, terrorist attack (such as the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack), regional conflict, or epidemic. Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami were popular targets of scammers perpetrating charity scams; other more timeless scam charities purport to be raising money for cancer, AIDS or Ebola virus research, or impersonate charities such as the Red Cross or United Way. The scammer asks for donations, often linking to online news articles to strengthen their story of a funds drive. The scammer's victims are charitable people who believe they are helping a worthy cause and expect nothing in return. Once sent, the money is gone and the scammer often disappears, though many will attempt to keep the scam going by asking for a series of payments. The victim may sometimes find themselves in legal trouble after deducting their supposed donations from their income taxes. United States tax law states that charitable donations are only deductible if made to a qualified non-profit organization. The scammer may tell the victim their donation is deductible and provide all necessary proof of donation, but the information provided by the scammer is fictional, and if audited, the victim faces stiff penalties as a result of the fraud. Though these scams have some of the highest success rates especially following a major disaster, and are employed by scammers all over the world, the average loss per victim is less than other fraud schemes. This is because, unlike scams involving a large expected payoff, the victim is far less likely to borrow money to donate or donate more than they can spare.

In a related variant, the scammer will pose as a terminally ill mother, poor university student, or other down-on-their-luck person and simply beg the mark for money for college tuition, to sponsor their children, or a similar ruse. The money, they say, will be repaid plus interest by some third party at a later date (often these third parties are some fictitious agency of the Nigerian government, or the scammer themself once a payment from someone else is made available to them). Once the victim starts paying money to the scammer, the scammer will tell the victim that additional money is needed for unforeseen expenses, similar to most other variants; in the case of the ill mother, the children will fall ill as well and require money for a doctor's care and medicine (many scammers go as far as to say that as the sponsor of the children, the victim is legally liable for such costs), where the student might claim that a dormitory fire destroyed everything they own.

Death in the family scams

These scams prey on families who have lost loved ones, or who have not been in touch with a loved one for some time. The scammer will obtain obituary information from city morgues, news of a death where the victim has not yet been identified, and/or personal information about a missing person. The scammer will contact victims saying that their loved one has passed away, and the victim is required to pay final medical costs or fees for the release of the body. The scammer may also say that the victim, as the next of kin, is liable for debts incurred by the deceased. This is often a highly personalized scam, but using news of an unidentified victim and a mass e-mail, the scammer can often lure victims who have loved ones in the same city whom the victim cannot get in touch with. The scam's operation is more of an extortion, however the "payoff" could be considered to be the remains of the deceased, and the groups that perpetrate these scams are alleged to be the same groups that perpetrate other advance fee frauds. This scam has also been attempted on families of soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan by scammers claiming to be agents of the United States Army.

Fraud recovery scams

This variant targets former victims of scams. The scammer contacts the victim saying that their organization can track and apprehend the scammer and recover the money lost by the victim, for a price. Alternatively, the scammer may say that a fund has been set up by the Nigerian government to compensate victims of 419 fraud, and all that is required is proof of loss (which usually includes personal information) and a processing and handling fee to release the amount of the claim. The scammer is counting on the victim's dire need to recover their lost money, as well as the fact that they have fallen victim before and are therefore susceptible to such scams. Often, these scams are perpetrated by the same scammer who conned the victim in the first place, as an attempt to ensure the scammer gets every penny possible from the victim. Alternately, the original scammer will "sell" a list of the people he has scammed but who have ceased contact to another scammer who runs the recovery scam. Sometimes the scammer impersonates the foremost "fraud related crime-fighters" in Nigeria, the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), which not only adds credibility to the scam, but tarnishes the reputation of the EFCC once this second scam is discovered.

Vicky.Talore
03-05-2011, 05:12 AM
Other scams such as overpayment usually result in smaller payoffs for the scammer, but have a higher success rate as the scammer's request seems more believable.