Bob:
Two years ago, I received a letter to my work mail. I worked at an instrument-making plant, so I did not see anything suspicious in the letter.
An activist from Togo working on drinking water has written to me. He wanted to buy a batch of ozonizers to purify water more efficiently, and tried to find a supplier. He was also interested in our devices, which we produced in some city.
The letter was accompanied by various letters and documents from partners and officials, everything was on official letterheads.
We corresponded for a week, discussed our products, the price tag, etc., and then it turned out that a whole delegation from Togo was planning to come to our plant - employees of public organizations and foundations, doctors, curators of social programs. The Togolese asked to prepare for the meeting - to make invitation visas for each member of the delegation.
Only then, already delighted by the prospect of a solid international deal, I suspected something was wrong and decided to check the information more carefully. It turned out that I almost became a victim of scammers, although it always seemed to me that I would definitely not be led to such an obvious deception.
It was confusing that the scammer was well prepared: he used data from real foundations and organizations involved in water purification in Africa, and was really well versed in ozonizers.
On the Internet, I read that often fraudsters with visas who urgently need to leave the country, and they can do this only with a visitor visa, are doing it. Although it may have been a banal "scam" for money, and the scammers would have made me pay for something in the future, if I had continued to communicate.
Financial Culture Expert:
To see the famous "Nigerian letters", just open the spam folder in your mailbox. Scammers tell stories that boil down to one thing - help is needed to pull off a multimillion-dollar deal. For providing such assistance, the recipient of the letter is promised a large percentage, and then those who believe in the promises are lured out of funds - supposedly for some fees, duties or paperwork.
Bob's situation is not quite usual - the scammers were trying to get not money, but visas. However, in general, they acted according to the standard scheme: they pressed on emotions with the promise of a profitable deal, tried to gain confidence and lure out what was needed.
There are letters allegedly from oil tycoons, lottery companies, international organizations, scientists working on the hadron collider, and even from the wives of famous millionaires.
Sometimes scripts are deliberately clumsy and implausible. Critical people are immediately weeded out on them, and scammers do not waste time on correspondence with those who are easily off the hook.
Almost everyone is confident that they will never fall into such an obvious trap. However, the scheme continues to work, so it is better to be safe.
Two years ago, I received a letter to my work mail. I worked at an instrument-making plant, so I did not see anything suspicious in the letter.
An activist from Togo working on drinking water has written to me. He wanted to buy a batch of ozonizers to purify water more efficiently, and tried to find a supplier. He was also interested in our devices, which we produced in some city.
The letter was accompanied by various letters and documents from partners and officials, everything was on official letterheads.
We corresponded for a week, discussed our products, the price tag, etc., and then it turned out that a whole delegation from Togo was planning to come to our plant - employees of public organizations and foundations, doctors, curators of social programs. The Togolese asked to prepare for the meeting - to make invitation visas for each member of the delegation.
Only then, already delighted by the prospect of a solid international deal, I suspected something was wrong and decided to check the information more carefully. It turned out that I almost became a victim of scammers, although it always seemed to me that I would definitely not be led to such an obvious deception.
It was confusing that the scammer was well prepared: he used data from real foundations and organizations involved in water purification in Africa, and was really well versed in ozonizers.
On the Internet, I read that often fraudsters with visas who urgently need to leave the country, and they can do this only with a visitor visa, are doing it. Although it may have been a banal "scam" for money, and the scammers would have made me pay for something in the future, if I had continued to communicate.
Financial Culture Expert:
To see the famous "Nigerian letters", just open the spam folder in your mailbox. Scammers tell stories that boil down to one thing - help is needed to pull off a multimillion-dollar deal. For providing such assistance, the recipient of the letter is promised a large percentage, and then those who believe in the promises are lured out of funds - supposedly for some fees, duties or paperwork.
Bob's situation is not quite usual - the scammers were trying to get not money, but visas. However, in general, they acted according to the standard scheme: they pressed on emotions with the promise of a profitable deal, tried to gain confidence and lure out what was needed.
There are letters allegedly from oil tycoons, lottery companies, international organizations, scientists working on the hadron collider, and even from the wives of famous millionaires.
Sometimes scripts are deliberately clumsy and implausible. Critical people are immediately weeded out on them, and scammers do not waste time on correspondence with those who are easily off the hook.
Almost everyone is confident that they will never fall into such an obvious trap. However, the scheme continues to work, so it is better to be safe.
- Set up spam filters for your mailboxes.
- Use a separate e-mail for chatting on forums and working on open network resources.
- Never share personal information about your bank accounts, retirement benefits or taxes with strangers, or do so under an agreement that will specify the terms of use of such data. Do not send copies of your documents to companies that you have not dealt with before without verifying their information.
