Nigerian Internet Scam Claims
Yet Another Victim – Myself
By M.P. Prabhakaran
Kulamarva Balakrishna is a close friend of mine. For the past several months, he has been living in Austria. We stay in constant touch with each other mostly through e-mails. When I received an e-mail from him the other day, whose “Subject” read “An Emergency (I need your urgent help),” my heart started pounding. I immediately opened the mail and rushed to the text.
The text began with an apology for not informing me “about my traveling to Africa.” What took him to Africa, the text continued, was a program aimed at “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education.” I know the program of this type is close to his heart, as it is to that of mine. So his not finding time to inform me, in the last-minute hurry to reach Africa to participate in it, was understandable. His apology for not informing me about the trip before leaving Austria was of the least importance to me at that moment. My eyes were racing through the text to find out what the emergency was and what he needed my urgent help for. That came in the next paragraph:
“I am really stranded in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept….”
I was panic-stricken. Bala, as his closest friends call him, is on strict medication. If he lost his “little bag” in a taxi, I feared, he might have also lost the medicine kit which he carries with him all the time. I know that if his medication regimen is disrupted, he wouldn’t last even a day.
The e-mail went on to say that he had been starving. To feed himself, pay the hotel bills and fly back home, he needed $3500. Could I help?
Credit Cards Come to Rescue
Bala knows very well that I don’t have that kind of money to spare on moment’s notice. If in spite of that knowledge, he decided to ask me for help, the reason could be two, I said to myself. One, he was not comfortable asking any other person. Two, he knew I would do it if humanly possible. I decided to do it by dipping into my credit cards. How to rush $3500 to him before his health condition deteriorated was the only thought I had in mind from that moment on. I e-mailed back, asking him how. The reply e-mail was swift.
After thanking me “so much for the understanding and concern,” it said that he had been “running around with my friend Mr. Donald Adams here, he is so much helpful to me, he helps me with my feeding and other little things, i am really thankful to him.” Because all his ID’s were in the bag that he lost, the e-mail further said, he wouldn’t be able to collect the money himself. He asked me to send it to Mr. Adams through MoneyGram or Western Union. Donald Adams’s address: Victoria Island, Lagos State, Nigeria.
I went to the nearest Western Union agent and dispatched the money. Only after that, I felt somewhat at ease. I came home and sent Bala another e-mail, saying: “I have just sent $3,500 to Donald Adams through Western Union (I hope he has a lot of IDs with him). The money is available right now. Take Mr. Adams to the nearest Western Union office and let him collect and give it to you.”
I also mentioned in the same e-mail the details of the money transfer, without which he wouldn't be able to collect the money. The most important details were the transaction number and an identifying question and answer. In normal circumstance, when one is sending money to a close friend through Western Union, he has to inform him only the transaction number. He would naturally be picking an identifying question which he is absolutely sure his friend would be able to answer correctly. Also, it would be unwise to mention such a confidential thing in an e-mail that has a possibility of reaching the wrong person.
Transaction Details
But in this case, the agency that pays out the money was going to put the identifying question not to my friend, but my friend’s friend. So I had to send my friend both the question and the answer, with instructions that his friend be told to memorize them before going to collect the money. My greatest concern was: the money should reach my friend as fast as possible. After sending the e-mail, I went to sleep.
I didn’t sleep well, though. I was tossing and turning most of the night, worrying about my friend’s health. “I am in so much pain here, the stress is too much for me,” his second e-mail had said. Early the next morning, I rushed to my computer and checked the e-mail. To my shock, the e-mail from my friend said that he had not received the transaction details and so had not been able to collect the money. I immediately sent the details again, and sent a copy through another e-mail address my friend uses. I also asked him to call me as soon as he received it.
The call came in an hour. The first thing I asked after picking up the phone was: “Which part of Nigeria are you calling from?”
“No, I am calling from Austria,” Bala said. “I never went to Nigeria. Some Nigerian crook hacked into my e-mail program, stole my address – balakrishnaorama@gmail.com – and played this trick. I have already disabled that address. It was thoughtful of you to send a copy of your last e-mail to my second e-mail address. The crook sent e-mails, asking for help, to all my other friends, too. They all saw through the game. Unfortunately, you fell into the trap. I feel guilty.”
I was flabbergasted. As soon as I regained some composure, I said, “Don’t feel guilty. Partly, I am to blame. The crook has already collected the money. Western Union told me a few minutes ago that it was collected in a city called Surulere, in Nigeria. Let me hang up now. We’ll talk later.”
I hung up the phone and sank in my chair. I sat there motionless, just staring at the wall.
I have heard about Nigerian Internet scams before, but never took them seriously. I always thought that only those who fall for get-rich-quick plans which those scams offered would have to worry about such things. I receive spam mails and junk mails almost every day. I have received e-mails asking me to collect the millions of dollars of prize money I won in lottery draws in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and elsewhere. I have received e-mails from “bankers” and “senior government officials,” mostly from Nigeria and South Africa, informing me that I have been chosen as the beneficiary of huge deposits of money lying in certain banks. The money would soon lapse to the government if I did not collect it, the e-mails would say, because the depositors died long ago and the next-of-kin named in the documents they had provided to the banks died in an accident recently. I delete them all as fast as I read them. I delete them for two reasons: the senders are total strangers and the offers are too good to be true.
But in this case, the name and address of the sender shown on the e-mails was that of my dear friend. The deep crisis he was in called for immediate action on my part. Until I completed that action, I didn’t think of anything else. And for my inability to think when terribly upset, I paid a heavy price.
On re-reading the e-mails in cold blood, I could see several clues which, if I had acted upon, would have exposed the fraud. Instead of realizing the mistake after re-reading them, wouldn’t it have been better if I had read them with a little care the first time? When will I learn?
Callous Attitude of Nigerian Embassy
I live in New York City. On being advised by Western Union, I reported the matter to law enforcement authorities in the United States, including the FBI. The crime took place on Nigerian soil. So I decided to bring it to the attention of Nigerian authorities also. I called up the Nigerian embassy in Washington, D.C. When I told the person who picked up the phone that I was calling to report an Internet scam, I was directed to an extension. After that, only an answering machine would deal with me. The machine told me to leave a message and my telephone number and assured a call back as soon as possible. The call never came. I telephoned the next day and the day after, and went through the same rigmarole. No response as yet from the Nigerian embassy.
If the term Internet scam has almost become synonymous with Nigerian Internet scam, it is incumbent upon the Nigerian government to do something about it. An important first step would be to treat complaints about Internet scams involving its citizens with the seriousness they demand. The rest of the 140 million Nigerians, who are decent, law-abiding citizens will be grateful to their government if it takes that first step. And it will do a lot of good to the image of the country.
[Published on August 11, 2007.]
[Readers are invited to comment. Send your comments to letters@eastwestinquirer.com]
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Readers' Responses
How I Outwitted the Crooks This Time
I hope my latest experience proves to be a blessing in disguise for Internet users. A few days back, maybe on August 31, 2007, I had an e-mail, commenting on my writings. It was supposedly from my Mangalorean friend, Dr. Austin Prabhu, who lives in Chicago. At the end of his message, there was a link, www.kala sampath.com. When I clicked on it, I was asked to provide my e-mail ID and password. Now, how many friends of yours send you e-mail asking for ID and password? The foul play was very apparent, especially to a person like me who spent years working as a news reporter covering the underworld of Bombay. I decided to play along and obliged the crook who sent the e-mail. The next thing I did was to change my password. Using the new password, I sent an e-mail to Dr. Prabhu, without letting him know what was going on. It helped. Now when I open my e-mail, I see a red notice: There had been some 296 failed attempts at entry into my e-mail account! I would like to warm East-West Inquirer readers that separate, specialized gangs are prowling each e-mail provider. These goons use different methods of phishing.
Kulamarva Balakrishna, Vienna, Austria
September 4, 2007
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Another Victim of the Nigerian Scam
I am a recent victim of a similar scam. My gmail ID, too, was hacked and a message similar to the one the scammer in this story used was sent to all my contacts. Unfortunately, I did my summer internship in Africa. As I am a student, I had informed my professors and peers about my trip. Fortunately, my peers knew that I had already returned to the U.S. I had also kept them informed about my next travel plan -- to the West Coast.
On receiving the e-mail from the hacker who impersonated me, one of my friends called me up and asked if it was my idea of a bad joke. I had no clue to what had happened until I realized that my gmail had been hacked. Immediately, I informed my school and family, and started tracking my friends in India and the U.S. I managed to inform all of them about what happened.
The distress the fraud has caused to myself, my schoolmates and my professors is irreparable. My professors were so concerned when they read that I was stranded in Nigeria that they were all set to inform the U.S. and Indian embassies there about it. Some of my peers were ready to send money for my safe return.
I have lost all my contacts and important e-mails as a result of this scam. I wish the Nigerians who are engaged in this kind of activity had put their creativity into making their country a better place. Instead, they spend their time trying to make fast money and victimize innocent people.
One would think that the Internet is safe, but is it? GMAIL, as an Internet service provider, has some explaining to do about their privacy policies. My repeated requests to them to disable my account have fallen on deaf ears. I made frantic searches on the Web to find contact numbers for GMAIL but my efforts were futile.
The damage has already been done. To those who have worked or interned in Africa, here is my advice: Please change your e-mail passwords immediately.
Uma Krishnan, U.S.A.
August 31, 2007
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'You Just Saved Me'
I just received the same e-mail from a friend in Serbia. Well, actually, a close friend from Austria called me very excitedly, asking if I had got the mail from Sanja, and said that we needed to help her fast. I checked my mail and, yes, there it was. So in a state of panic we were just thinking of how to get the money and checking where the nearest Western Union agent was. Then, I read the mail again and somehow I thought in "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education," there was something that didn't quite fit in. So I did a Google search for information on the program. All I could find was your article. So you just saved me from falling into the same trap. Thank you very much.
Piers Erbsloeh, Vienna, Austria
August 26, 2007
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'Your Thoughts and Deeds Were Noble'
I am very sorry that some Nigerian played a hoax on you. Your intentions were to help a friend in urgent need and you were in haste to do that. Your thoughts and deeds were noble. I really commend your kind gesture.
I always go through your write-ups. Keep up the good work you are doing.
Irfan Khan, Mumbai, India
August 17, 2004
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Scammers Playing on Humane Emotions
Your experience with the Nigerian scam is stranger than fiction. Your concern for your friend took the better of your caution against such scams. The Nigerian scammers normally exploit human weaknesses such as greed, but in your case, they succeeded in playing on your more humane emotions. When Nigerian youngsters send thousands of e-mails out, they are actually targeting just one or two good souls like you.
I have recounted my own experiences with Nigerian scams in an article carried by www.rediff.com a few weeks ago, entitled "Nigeria Calling: Indians Beware". In terms of readers' responses and e-mailing, it was considered one of the most popular features of rediff. This shows how widespread these scams are. In my case, there were several clues in the letter I received, allegedly from my brother, and the only action I took after confirming that my brother had not gone to Nigeria was to write an article to warn others. It is a pity my article did not come to your attention before you became a victim.
I am not surprised that the Nigerian authorities did not respond to your complaints.
T.P. Sreenivasan, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
August 12, 2007
(T.P. Sreenivasan is a former member of the Indian Foreign Service. Notable among the many positions he held during his 37-year-long diplomatic career were: Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of India, Washington, D.C. and India's Permanent Representative to the U.N. agencies in Vienna, including International Atomic Energy Agency.)
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'We Are All Gullible'
We are all gullible. Please don't allow yourself to be perturbed by those who claim to know better. The closer you are to another human being, the more you feel the pain of his suffering. You came forward to share with your readers your sense of loss. They certainly benefit from it. The tons of advice you may be getting from others now do not heal the hurt.
For the past 25 years or more, Nigerians have been cheating themselves and the rest of the world. Remember their unsuccessful attempt to smuggle their former oil minister Omer Dicko out of London by packing him in a basket. Even when there was no Internet around, ordinary Nigerians used to engage in con games to 'fish' for cash. They did it by copying addresses from telephone books.
In most European cities, one comes across young Nigerian women hanging out on roadsides day and night and selling themselves. Most of their men folks in those cities are involved in selling drugs. It's all about power and cash. As Vasishta said, it amounts to nothing but a fleeting theater performance.
The methods these hijackers employ are endless. In the first week of August, over 7,000 specialists gathered in Las Vegas, U.S., for five days of training and demonstration of hackers' latest exploits. These specialists will meet again next year. And they know their fight against this crime is an endless one.
Kulamarva Balakrishna, Vienna, Austria
August 12, 2007
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The Article Will Help Others
I'm so sorry you had this experience, but hopefully your article will help others to avoid the same trap.
Adrienne O'Keefe, New York, New York, U.S.A.
August 12, 2007
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A Near-Victim Narrates His Experience
I am extremely sad to read about your falling victim to that scam, about which I was aware from the beginning. I sympathize with you. You could have avoided being targeted, if you had taken a little precaution before sending the money. Anyhow, the damage is done and it is pointless to go through all that now.
I, too, had received 'Bala's' mail asking for help, but I had my doubt. I replied asking him whether he was in touch with his family. On not receiving further mail, I knew that the first one was a hoax! Another friend also had received similar mail and he started negotiating with the hacker. The hacker was not willing to give his bank account number and was ready to accept $1,000.
If Bala was really in trouble, he'd not have waited for two days to get help. Moreover, he was supposed to be attending a conference in Nigeria. If so, he'd have easily contacted any of his friends there for help. (I did do a Google search, and I didn't see any such event happening in Nigeria, on that day.)
The best part is, the day the hacker was posting that mail, Bala was posting his comments on the 'Express Your Thoughts' forum in Mangalorean.com. With all these findings, I came to the conclusion that Bala's e-mail account was hacked into. And I immediately wrote him about it, using his other e-mail address.
Rajanikanth Shenoy, Mangalore, Karnataka State, India
August 12, 2007