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Nigerian Scammer Gets the Laptop He Deserves 36

wiredmikey writes "After switching to a Mac recently, I decided to put my old laptop up for sale to help recoup a little of the Mac cost. I received an email almost immediately from a girl named Rebecca and we had this email exchange." My favorite part is the fake letter from the FBI demanding tracking numbers.

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Nigerian Scammer Gets the Laptop He Deserves

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  • P-p-p-powerbook (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Thursday July 15, 2010 @10:20AM (#32914152) Homepage Journal

    It's not enough that Hollywood keeps remaking their old movies, even the internet is doing the same. This is a remake of the old P-p-p-powerbook story.

    • by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      Not only remaking, but with how they keep coming out with new formats every 6 months, they just sell the same movies again and again.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's interesting that to them (nigerian scammer) they think the FBI would get involved and demand a tracking number while to people growing up in the US we know that that is something outside the scope of FBI duties

    • I suspect that internationally-exported American action movies strongly over-represent the role of the FBI in US policing...
      • Re:FBI (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pushing-robot ( 1037830 ) on Thursday July 15, 2010 @07:55PM (#32921892)

        Ah, you've discovered our brilliant form of counter-espionage. Hollywood floods the planet with ridiculous stereotypes and bizarre portrayals of American society as part of a disinformation campaign to fool foreign powers. You and I might simply roll our eyes at a bad movie, but two invasion attempts were aborted due to concerns about the throngs of gun-toting mobsters and "masked avengers" in every American city. Several terror plots fell apart as the organizers became convinced that they had been overheard by CIA surveillance satellites bristling with parabolic microphones. And thousands of PRC agents wasted nearly five years trying futilely to "hack the Gibson."

        • Simply Amazing! You've managed an "Interesting" mod. Fantasticly crafted, expertly planned, and well executed good sir!

        • Real-life cops love the way guns are held in movies because the ballistic accuracy is basically zero when you hold a gun sideways.

          [citation needed]

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Real-life cops love the way guns are held in movies because the ballistic accuracy is basically zero when you hold a gun sideways.

            [citation needed]

            Here's your citation.

            http://www.slate.com/id/2238560 [slate.com]

            Although, accuracy isn't zero, but it is much lower.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by Nikkos ( 544004 )
              Bullshit. The inherent ballistic accuracy of a weapon is not changed because the weapon is held in a different manner. Instead (and the article says this) accuracy is a problem of the shooter, and that it's hard to use the top-mounted sight.

              If you're gonna cite something make sure it actually supports your argument. :P

              PS: whoever modded you is an idiot for not checking your source.
              • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

                by JWSmythe ( 446288 )

                Ditto.

                It's all about the shooters control of the weapon. Vertically aligned, there is lots of strength against the recoil. There isn't as much horizontally. The "kick" is up relative to the weapon, due to the fact that you're always holding it below the center of force.

                For those who don't understand, go to the gym. On a machine where you can fully extend your arm, such as a machine for the biceps, push and see how much you can push straight up. Then try a machine where

    • What's more interesting is how absolutely horrendous the grammar is in the "FBI" message. You'd think it was babbelfished. How hard would it be for them to get someone who actually speaks English well to proofread their message before sending it?

      I mean, really:

      We believed you entered into buying agreement by requesting money through PayPal, and by non response to the payment confirmation made to your account you have violate PayPal agreement. However the buyer has already contacted us in other to make report about your non response. We are ensuring to make PayPal a safer place, therefore we need to set confidence on our users.

      Therefore, your Money has been credit into your Account, that means the item must have been shipped to the Buyer. From IC3 we give you 24hours(1day) to ship the package to the Delivery Address given to you by your buyer, and also send the Shipment Tracking Number immediately to us to verify the shipment.Immediately we confirm the shipping.You will receive a confirmation e-mail that your account has been credited.

      Just as bad is them referring to the supposed buyer earlier in this letter as "our client". Nobody hires the FBI - no one is their "client".

      While I deplore them, I swear seeing how bad this stuff is it almost makes me want to scream AMATEURS!!!!

      • Re:FBI (Score:4, Informative)

        by crmarvin42 ( 652893 ) on Saturday July 24, 2010 @12:29PM (#33014590)
        I've actually broached this subject with a couple of different Nigerian guys that I went to Graduate School with. They told me how Nigeria has such an ethnically diverse population (literally thousands of ethnic groups with their own distinct languages), that the only way the government can work is if everyone speaks English (courtesy of the old British Colonial occupation). The problem is that everyone speaks their native tongue at home, and only learns English in school and some times they don't learn it until they are high school aged. For most Nigerians, English is not about getting the grammar right, but about being understood. As long as the person to whom you are talking gets the gist of what you are saying, then that is enough. All of the Nigerians I know (a dozen or so) either were tutored prior to applying to US graduate schools, or attended private schools that drilled British English with a strong focus on speaking English like it was their 1st and not 2nd language.

        The up shot of all this is that those Nigerians who could have proofed such emails are too busy working legitimate jobs to waste their time helping out the scammers, and the scammers are to illiterate to realize that their poor grammar is a dead giveaway.
    • by treeves ( 963993 )
      And funny how they cut and pasted into their email from an FBI web page an image that says "US Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Publications". Ooooh, the people that print FBI reports are after me!
  • Subject (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ihmhi ( 1206036 ) <i_have_mental_health_issues@yahoo.com> on Thursday July 15, 2010 @04:10PM (#32919516)

    P-p-p-powerbook! [encycloped...matica.com]

    • by quatin ( 1589389 )

      419eater.com have been doing it for years. They have one case where they had a scammer pay literally several thousand dollars on a broken washing machine, thinking it was a case of laptops.

  • The days of scammers are ending. It's the start the biggest anti-scammer piss-them-off-till-they-cry-for-mercy scam on scammers!

  • Horse, barn door, etc.

    One of the first rules is that you don't use a photo of a real person. Use, for example, David Hyde Pierce, or some clipart.

    Gimp is your daughter's friend, unless your son has a really bad haircut.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by poptones ( 653660 )

      You can't even tell her son is a boy and yet you're telling her she should be worried after sharing his picture? Worried about what, exactly? Nigerians are gonna come steal her kid? Slashdotters are gonna came take her daughter?

      Yeesh. THe Olsens became two of the most powerful kids ever to rule in Hollywood in large part because of this whole "online" thing. The entire internets knew their real name, their dad's name, the SCHOOl they went to, the house they lived in - some even went so far as to track down

  • Well done :)

    You should make a few more and sell them, 500 imaginary dollars is no small sum!
  • Thanks for the laugh, and a few ideas.

Avoid strange women and temporary variables.

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