victims

This page discusses the victimology of email scams: who are the victims of the Nigerian email scam and other frauds?

It covers -

• introduction
• examples
• demographics
• mechanisms

     introduction

Preceding pages of this note highlighted that 419 scam victims are not restricted to what one Australian policeman naughtily described as "people whose knuckles drag on the ground and need help opening their email".

The scam has instead snared a wide range of citizens, including those who are supposedly intelligent, upright and informed.

David Maurer's 1940 The Big Con (New York: Anchor 1999) lamented that

As the lust for large and easy profits is fanned into a hot flame, the mark puts all his scruples behind him. He closes out his bank account, liquidates his property, borrows from his friends, embezzles from his employer or his clients. In the mad frenzy of cheating someone else, he is unaware of the fact that he is the real victim, carefully selected and fatted for the kill. Thus arises the trite but none the less sage maxim: 'You can't cheat an honest man'.

The Nigerian Embassy more piously commented in 2003 that

There would be no 419 scam if there are no greedy, credulous and criminally-minded victims ready to reap where they did not sow.

In 2008, after yet another report that over $3 million per year was disappearing from Australia through 419 scams, Nigerian High Commissioner Olu Agbi claimed that "It is not in the character of Nigerians to be engaged in this kind of scam". Agbi said that the victims should be arrested: "People who send their money are as guilty as those who are asking them to send the money".

     examples

Media coverage often caters to a certain schadenfreude, with reports that distinguished academics, lawyers, psychologists and of course politicians have succumbed to a tempting offer of pain-free instant wealth.

We noted the Swiss professor who lost US$482,000 after being promised 25% of US$36 million. In 2006 prominent US psychologist and neuroscientist Louis Gottschalk - arguably experiencing difficulties of his own after gaining fame for diagnosing exPresident Reagan's alzheimers - was reported to have lost US$3m over a ten year period. 'Christian psychotherapist' John Worley ended up in a US prison over charges regarding bank fraud, money laundering and possession of counterfeit checks in sending money to Nigeria. Former Iowa congressman Edward Mezvinsky stole from clients, friends and of course his mother-in-law to cover losses from 419 scams. Mark Whitacre, an Archer Daniels Midland executive, spiralled to disaster after succumbing to the 419 offers.

In 2007 Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox announced that former Alcona County Treasurer Thomas A. Katona had been sentenced to 9-14 years for embezzlement of over US$1.2 million in county funds sent to 419 scammers.

Embezzlement allegations against Katona were brought to the attention of the Attorney General's Office in mid-November 2006 while Katona was still serving as the Alcona County Treasurer.  It was discovered by bank personnel that Katona had wired approximately $150,000 of Alcona County funds to banks in Taiwan and England.  An audit by the Michigan Department of Treasury in December 2006 discovered a shortage of $1,236,700 in the county funds for the calendar year of 2006.  This was approximately 25% of the county budget.

Search warrant executions and interviews of witnesses disclosed that Katona was involved in a "Nigerian" fraud scheme.  In June 2006, Katona was wiring money from his personal account to the same banks and was warned by bank officials and by county employees that he might be involved in a "Nigerian" fraud scheme.  He ignored these warnings.  During November 2006, Katona flew to London, England, to pick up money from the scheme and notified a local bank in Harrisville to reactivate an old account of his and that he was to receive millions of dollars shortly.  This money did not materialize.

Perhaps more sadly, the SMH reported in 2007 that a 30 year old Adelaide woman was been duped into sending over $30,000 to a Nigerian suitor she met over the internet. Her new friend encouraged her to send him money so that he could visit her in Australia.

The woman was keen to forge a relationship with the man and, as a result, has been dispatching money via a mailing company to him ... Unfortunately the woman reported she has lost in excess of $30,000 and it has left her in shock and very upset at being victimised in this way.

Some readers will also be disillusioned and distraught at hearing there's no Santa Claus.

Janella Spears, a registered nurse and minister of religion in Oregon, kindly sent scammers US$400,000 (emptying her bank account and mortgaging her home) when promised a multi-million dollar payout from a lost relative. She is reported as having disregarded alarms from family and US officials, instead placing her trust in the good faith of the scammers and what they claimed were letters from the FBI Director, the US President and the President of Nigeria.

     mechanisms

There has been surprisingly little substantive research regarding the psychology of 419 scams, in contrast to studies of areas such as postal and telephone investment and consumer product scams directed at seniors.

Some observers have argued that the 419 scam works because of of one or more of the following factors -

• mode - people appear to place more trust in written communication from a stranger rather than oral communication, something that has variously been attributed to exposure to official correspondence, perceptions that behaviour will be consistent with a written undertaking and perceptions that written communication represents the stranger's true attitudes. That is reflected in the behaviour of those 419 email recipients who respond to the initial message: subconsciously they are more likely than their peers to feel committed to continuing with the exchange, as to do otherwise would be to demonstrate to themselves that they are inconsistent and even untrustworthy. We thus periodically remind contacts that just because something is written (whether in email or on paper with an impressive letterhead) does not mean that it is true.
• authority - as with the discussions of social engineering and fraud elsewhere on this site, it is clear that many people (irrespective of education or intellect) are susceptible to expressions of authority. That appears to be particularly the case if the authority is situated in a context where it is expected (eg is 'obviously' a doctor or police officer because the person wears a white gown in a hospital or a blue uniform in the street) or where what Goffman referred to as the 'frame' for validation is uncertain. 419 scammers thus typically claim special status (bankers, lawyers, next of kin of deposed mass murderers). You will receive few 419 messages from supposed plumbers, bus drivers, restaurateurs, teachers or others without mana.
• exoticism - 419 scam messages are credible, even compelling, to some readers because they supposedly emanate from lands where the 'normal rules' of life do not apply and where 'anything' can happen and 'frequently does'. A reader of newspapers and financial journals in advanced economies would be unsurprised to discover corporate misbehaviour and rampant embezzlement or money laundering. Few people would, however, embrace offers from the blue to dispose of proceeds for an entrepreneur who is now seeking a retirement villa in a jurisdiction without extradition hassles. Some would instead give credence to offers from Africa, the 'other' that features famines, plagues, civil wars and wealthy kleptocrats. 419 emails appear 'real' simply because they come from "a place where people are different to us"
• reciprocity - some victims appear to engage with scammers after initial contact because of some sense of reciprocity, reflecting the mechanisms identified by Marcel Maus and others regarding exchanges and internal pressures to respond when a contact offers a favour or a gift, even if the response is more tangible and valuable than the initial solicitation
• confidence - many victims respond because they overrate their expertise and ability to deal with scammers, with indications for example that people who have dabbled in investing are more likely to be victimised by investment scammers. Some take the position that if the offer sounds too good to be true it must indeed be true, dismissing the 'negativity' of their more sceptical peers.
• privilege - scam messages typically reinforce the ego of the recipient, the person who (supposedly uniquely) has been chosen to be a beneficiary or doer of good deeds
• greed and sanctioned guilt - some victims are lured by easy money. Claims by scammers that most of the supposed fortune will be dedicated to philanthropic or religious activity assuage guilt, with the recipient supposedly to be rewarded both in the here & now and in the ever after. Some recipients appear to have had a frisson in being complicit with a breach of another state's law
• contingency - most 419 messages are pitched in terms of a finite opportunity, to be seized before the send of the message is fed to the crocodiles, the bank's audit committee discovers the loot or "some other greedy bastard" does a deal.
• compassion - 'Spanish Prisoner' scams appeal to the recipient's compassion, tugging the heart strings with an appeal to rescue someone in distress.
  

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