Timeline for Why do Nigerian email scammers openly say they are from Nigeria?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 24, 2018 at 17:16 | comment | added | Rich Smith | The paper in question doesn't actually present any evidence that bad spelling (etc.) is deliberate; it's entirely a theoretical argument about effectiveness. It may well be an effective approach, but there's no evidence that this is a deliberate strategy. It seems to me to be more likely that people who are desperate enough to attempt this scam also have poor knowledge of English and general knowledge. There's also the possibility that this is natural selection rather than intention; people who write well-crafted emails get a lower signal:noise ratio and find it too costly in time to continue. | |
| S Sep 24, 2018 at 12:35 | history | suggested | 8192K | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Expressing it more clearly
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| Sep 24, 2018 at 10:12 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Sep 24, 2018 at 12:35 | |||||
| Sep 24, 2018 at 1:37 | comment | added | phoog | @BruceWayne that should be "why the grammar and spelling are often incorrect." | |
| Sep 22, 2018 at 7:38 | comment | added | oliver | One other important point: almost all people have some residual skepticism when it comes to spending money. By raising some suspicion in the victim early on, he is forced to trade off fear/risk against greed/gain. So if he decides potential gain exceeds risk, he enters into an (imaginary) contract, which makes it very difficult for him to bail out later when more and more suspicious facts pile up. Usually we simply say: "he can't admit that he's made a mistake", but that is essentially at the core of why decisions are decisions: they tend to stabilize themselves. | |
| Sep 21, 2018 at 15:05 | comment | added | Chloe | I'm going to start a scam saying I'm from the Trump Administration. Should be very profitable. | |
| Sep 20, 2018 at 15:37 | comment | added | Yakk | This does open up a counter attack; if you wrote a scam-responding bot and got it spread far enough, you could flood scammers with crippling noise. | |
| Sep 19, 2018 at 17:21 | comment | added | Monica Apologists Get Out | @ChrisCirefice Worth keeping in mind that the people that these are effective against are typically old people - as you age and your mental faculties decline you tend to become more trusting. It is 'sad' but in a tragic way, not in a 'good grief people are stupid' way. | |
| Sep 19, 2018 at 17:17 | comment | added | zwol | Here is a direct link to the Microsoft research paper cited by AakashM's Telegraph article. Its title, amusingly, is "Why do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria?" — almost exactly the title of this question. May I suggest that these links be edited into the text of the answer? | |
| Sep 19, 2018 at 16:09 | comment | added | BruceWayne | It's implied, but this also explains why the grammar and spelling is often incorrect. | |
| Sep 19, 2018 at 9:56 | comment | added | user56reinstatemonica8 | Same principle as this earlier question we had where the scammer claimed to be from "the west coast of Austria" (Austria is land-locked). Filters out savvy, attentive people who will not go all the way. | |
| Sep 18, 2018 at 21:42 | comment | added | jcaron | youtube.com/watch?v=C4Uc-cztsJo | |
| Sep 18, 2018 at 20:19 | comment | added | Jeffiekins | The idea is this: they send a bajillion spam messages out, and will only get money from a tiny percentage of the most gullible, and will have to deal with each response individually. So it makes perfect sense they will screen out all the not-so-gullible as quickly as possible so they won't have to deal with people who won't in the end send them money. | |
| Sep 18, 2018 at 19:29 | comment | added | Chris Cirefice | Wow, that's actually genius.. and sad that it's actually effective. | |
| Sep 18, 2018 at 7:43 | comment | added | AakashM | telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/9346371/… includes links to a Microsoft research paper with exactly this conclusion - "by sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select" | |
| Sep 18, 2018 at 3:29 | history | edited | Bob Baerker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
spelling
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| Sep 18, 2018 at 2:05 | review | First posts | |||
| Sep 18, 2018 at 10:27 | |||||
| Sep 18, 2018 at 2:00 | history | answered | David Woodroof | CC BY-SA 4.0 |