IBDat:

the guys using these internet cafes don't have such luxury hence why it was so easy for them to be apprehended.

You have just said something that will make me have a good nite rest,only a few, dumb, illiterate Nigerians are involved in this nonsense

A nation of 140 million minus 40 million that were not counted and over 25 million of us living abroad that were totally neglected, i dont think that scammers are up to a million in total

I still argue that 75% of Nigerians dont know how to switch on a computer lest do fraud

Even a few of us that launched Internet use in Naija (late Nineties) dont know a thing about all these things and Oprah opens her big mouth to exagerrate about how a handful of area boys from lagos are destroying America and the rest of the world.

What Oprah also neglected to empahsis on is the greed of the Americans in being duped in such a way in the first place.
But don't forget u also have the syndicates working within Nigeria and overseas and those are the big boys that do these as a profession and mostly definitely have their own set-ups, system, people and legally savvy.

When I was entering this country last year for my program, and I was about to pass through immigrations, and the
officers looked at my passport, and saw it was nigerian, I was told to move to one side. The same thing happened to another
Nigerian student going for his masters in a different city. We were detained for 45 mins, and our passports taken away by these
officers. during this time the immigrations guys had attended to passengers from another flight.
When they discovered nothing shady about our papers, they returned them, without so much as an apology, and we were allowed to go.
My point is that these officers didnt care whether I was Ibo, hausa, or yoruba, or whether my mum was a green alien from mars.
Myself and the other student were NIGERIAN, and that was enough for them.

Please lets stop the tribalism, its not going to help. We cannot solve Nigeria's problems if we arent united.

FYI , my best friend is Ibo, and my ex is an Ibo chick that I liked a lot.
Ibos arent bad. We also have thieves and fraudsters in every tribe.

If a white supremacist stumbled on this site, hed prolly be laffing his head off because we are busy attacking each other instead of the problem.
This is why some foreigners still see us as backward.

To stop this menace, we have to rebrand Nigeria. Before I can change Nigeria, I must change myself. So over here I study hard, and try to keep
my promises. And I try to comport myself in a good manner, cus I know that for some of these people, I might be the only Nigerian they might
ever meet.

I was doing a lab course, and when it was a bit difficult and i jokingly said I wanted to go back home, one of them asked me where I was from.
when I said nigeria, all he said was "oh, I got an email from you last week". (for slow guys, he meant a 419 mail from a yahoo boi)
I didnt get the jibe, until 2 mins later. They all burst out laughing. I laughed along at the irony, but I was sad inside.
They didnt care about if I was yoruba or anything. I was Nigerian, and that was enough.
I like to think I influenced them by my behavoir to think positively of us.

We have Ibo guys here doing Phd, and on scholarships who are hardworking. So lets look for solutions, and not problems.

I was given a dutch paper by a moroccan when he heard I was from nigeria, and when I opened the page, I saw pics of atiku and obj and
the whole corruption scandal. This is another example of how our name is being tarnished. I was ashamed, but what could I do?
For this man, a negative seed about Nigeria has been sown.

My solution:
Change yourself. Im working on myself too. Represent your country and be a good example. let them know there are good ones amongst us.
when we make personal change, then since our problem in Naija (IMO) is a leadership issue, then surely the leadership would change.

Personally, name calling and we abusing each other wont work.

Wow, my longest post on nairaland till date!!!

By the way I am proudly yoruba, and I love my fellow HONEST Nigerians. _{(esp the omoges)}

@ibdat and all,
Ill tell you why im defending this point strongly,

I live in the UK and have never seen british people admit to wrongdoing, ever

(Drunkards are called regulars, football thugs are called passionate people)

Only Nigerians admit that there are thieves, fraudsters etc in our society and that is why Oprah can ridicule us as a people and get away with it

Did u hear about british sailors abducted in Iran? They actually tresspased illegaly but their government refuted the claims and even threatened Iran until they were released

If Oprah wants to advise Americans, she needs not mention the N-word (As in Naija).

[/quote][quote author=wavemasta link=topic=48907.msg1039769#msg1039769 date=1176594025]
When I was entering this country last year for my program, and I was about to pass through immigrations, and the
officers looked at my passport, and saw it was nigerian, I was told to move to one side. The same thing happened to another
Nigerian student going for his masters in a different city. We were detained for 45 mins, and our passports taken away by these
officers. during this time the immigrations guys had attended to passengers from another flight.
When they discovered nothing shady about our papers, they returned them, without so much as an apology, and we were allowed to go.
My point is that these officers didnt care whether I was Ibo, hausa, or yoruba, or whether my mum was a green alien from mars.
Myself and the other student were NIGERIAN, and that was enough for them.

Please lets stop the tribalism, its not going to help. We cannot solve Nigeria's problems if we arent united.

FYI , my best friend is Ibo, and my ex is an Ibo chick that I liked a lot.
Ibos arent bad. We also have thieves and fraudsters in every tribe.

If a white supremacist stumbled on this site, hed prolly be laffing his head off because we are busy attacking each other instead of the problem.
This is why some foreigners still see us as backward.

To stop this menace, we have to rebrand Nigeria. Before I can change Nigeria, I must change myself. So over here I study hard, and try to keep
my promises. And I try to comport myself in a good manner, cus I know that for some of these people, I might be the only Nigerian they might
ever meet.

I was doing a lab course, and when it was a bit difficult and i jokingly said I wanted to go back home, one of them asked me where I was from.
when I said nigeria, all he said was "oh, I got an email from you last week". (for slow guys, he meant a 419 mail from a yahoo boi)
I didnt get the jibe, until 2 mins later. They all burst out laughing. I laughed along at the irony, but I was sad inside.
They didnt care about if I was yoruba or anything. I was Nigerian, and that was enough.
I like to think I influenced them by my behavoir to think positively of us.

We have Ibo guys here doing Phd, and on scholarships who are hardworking. So lets look for solutions, and not problems.

I was given a dutch paper by a moroccan when he heard I was from nigeria, and when I opened the page, I saw pics of atiku and obj and
the whole corruption scandal. This is another example of how our name is being tarnished. I was ashamed, but what could I do?
For this man, a negative seed about Nigeria has been sown.

My solution:
Change yourself. I'm working on myself too. Represent your country and be a good example. let them know there are good ones amongst us.
when we make personal change, then since our problem in Naija (IMO) is a leadership issue, then surely the leadership would change.

Personally, name calling and we abusing each other wont work.

Wow, my longest post on nairaland till date!!!

By the way I am proudly yoruba, and I love my fellow HONEST Nigerians. _{(esp the omoges)}

Nice post, You really made sense!

@wavemasta - i understand where u're coming from, for us based overseas it is purely a Nigerian tarnish and we are all (irrespective of tribe) labelled the same, but as a people u ave to acknowledge that there had been n to some extent still the case differences b'tween all tribes. Generalising at this point doesn't solve anything if not increasing diversity. It's our govnmnt that needs to take a stronger stance n lead by example as well as provide n protect the people. The ones that have graduated in this way of life are constantly living the life and the yougins see them n dream of such luxury. With very limited means they see this as an easy option and hence more n more people joining in - which is why Nigeria is always on the radar internationally.

@walelead  - i second yo motion ealier from when this thread first started i mentioned that other nationality do it too, not necessarily on a greater scale (everyone doing it) but on a greater level (pay-off) but they are smart about it and can cover their tracks - Nigerians (yeye boys) are not this advance but yet constantly trying, celebrating, slipping, getting caught - hence the reason for the tarnish.
- Yea i heard about the Iran crossing and the British stance, but the greatest of all has to be the Irag war and the MODs!

@busygirl

thank you!!

The United States still top the list of top spamming countries in 2006 ;

1 United States======================================= ====21.6%
2 China (incl Hong Kong) ====================================13.4%
3 France ===============================================6.3%
3 South Korea ==========================================6.3%
5 Spain ================================================5.8%
6 Poland ================================================4.8%
7 Brazil ================================================4.7%
8 Italy =================================================4.3%
9 Germany ===========================================3.0%
10 Taiwan ===============================================2.0%
11 Israel ================================================1.8%
12 Japan ================================================1.7%
Others================================================= 24.3%

source ; http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/11/dirtydozq306.html

Yet we don't have Nigeria in this list ,so why is Nigeria the first place to call when they want to talk about identity theft ? Ophra would have done a job nice she would commit a whole program to the spam industries in america the way she did on Nigeria .
i don't support 419 ,but if this kind of statistics does not have Nigeria name ,then its shows that there are americans who are into online fraud very much than yahoo boys ,afteral what is the main reasons they send those spams if not get your info like credit card and banking details .

@walelead

What part of town are you living in??
You have a very skewed idea of  British society, British mentality and British values

I am yet to come across any football thug who is given a pat on the back and told by the judge its just passion for the game. I am also yet to come across a drunkard called a regular. In England a regular actually means someone who attends a particular pub regularly not someone who gets drunk regularly
Brits do admit to wrong doing, they recognise the ills of society and do something about it thats why the laws are always changing, thats why their are laws against racism, discrimination etc Why do you think slavery was abolished?

The problem with  British society now is they overcompensate when trying to correct a wrong in society all in the name of being PC (politically correct) the laws then become silly and don't make sense anymore

We as Nigerians whether Ibo Hausa or Yoruba should recognise there is a problem and do something about it not condone it because we are hiding the truth
There is a difference between being fiercely patriotic and defensive of your country Nigeria and hiding your head in the sand and pretending nothing is wrong
Should you wait till the house has burnt down before you shout fire?

The real cause of 419 and now militancy in Nigeria is lack of opportunities for a highly educated, dynamic and intelligent youth who have no prospects
If the Government creats jobs and an environment where there is reward for hard work in Nigeria few people will turn to 419 because they can do better in a better environment
The devil works in idle minds!

@egoldman

There is a difference between 'spam' and 'scam' emails

Spam is simply junk mail selling rubbish like viagra, penis enlargements, you name it. They originate from countries with the biggest web servers, web hosting companies and internet traffic hence your league tables showing the US etc
If i want to send spam i will use a company in the US to process my emails even though i am in the UK because it is cheaper

Scam emails are sent by fraudsters and are usually disguised to appear to come from another country.
I can be in Nigeria and send an email which appears to come from canada
Would you reply my scam email if i said i was in Nigeria or if i said i was in Switzerland?

Eastern europe and Asia is the source of most phishing emails ( a type of scam email that targets bank details) and 419 fraudsters are the source of 419 emails whereever they are sent from, Nigerians are everywhere

           

studdys:

Pls elaborate.

Good to focus on Oprah again. If you think she hates naija, wait till you hear Gen. Colin Powell, former secretary of state. He and many other akata really hate naija with all their heart. For Oprah, I know the best way for us to fight her back: embark on a well organized bycott of everything 'Oprah' The Jews and the NAACP do it all the time.

Bank loses $1.1m to online fraud
Nordea branch sign
Nordea says it has refunded the affected account holders
Internet fraudsters have stolen around 8m kronor ($1.1m; £576,000) from account holders at Swedish bank Nordea.

The theft, described by Swedish media as the world's biggest online fraud, took place over three months.

The criminals siphoned money from customers' accounts after obtaining login details using a malicious program that claimed to be anti-spam software.

Nordea said it had now refunded the lost money to all 250 customers affected by the scam.

"What is important is that none of our customers will have lost their money," said a bank spokesman.

"We are doing all we can to stop this."

Largest Nordic bank

The attack used a program called a trojan, known as haxdoor.ki, to obtain customers details. Trojans are programs that look benign but contain malicious software.

Victims were duped into downloading the program after receiving an email, purporting to come from the bank, encouraging them to download anti-spam software.

Once installed the trojan monitored the PCs' online activities.

"It listens for key web addresses, in this case the Nordea bank address," said Greg Day, security analyst at McAfee.

When a user navigated to the Nordea bank login page, the trojan would kick into action, saving the customers login details. It then displayed an error message asking them to resend the information.

With two access codes the criminals could transfer money from the customer's accounts.

Trade newspaper Computer Sweden said the police had traced the fraudulent emails first to computer servers in the US and then to Russia.

Nordea added that customers who had been affected often did not have any anti-virus protection on their computers.

The bank, which has 2.2 million customers, is the largest across the four Nordic nations of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

In August 2005, it was forced to temporarily shut down its online arm due to a sophisticated phishing attack.

observe the words in red .
why am i posting this stuff ? to prove that nigeria does not have image problem or that we are all saints ? far from it ,however what am trying to do here is to show that the exaggeration by the western people about our problem for their own selfish reasons is wicked,i wonder why ophra does not address this sort of issues .Can someone here tell me when was the last time that ophra addressed the issue of western banks, america and uk incuded, that take care of the loot of african leaders even when they know such money does not correspond to their salaries .

no nigerian connection sources ; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6279561.stm

naijaking1:

Good to focus on Oprah again. If you think she hates naija, wait till you hear Gen. Colin Powell, former secretary of state. He and many other akata really hate naija with all their heart. For Oprah, I know the best way for us to fight her back: embark on a well organized bycott of everything 'Oprah' The Jews and the NAACP do it all the time.

Which Nigerian individual would suggest leads it? The Jews are able to do this because they have high level economic, positions and connections within the American and British government - us Nigerians don't.

@egoldman i have to agree with naijaking1 on this point - these are crimes as a result of ID theft - due to spam and phishing techniques. The one relating to Oprahs is sraight up FRAUD, the victims have been engaged in communications (phone, fax, emails etc) and convinced that they are investing their large sums into something that will pay-off in whatever time period.

With the internet fraud this is obtaining their personal n bank details and transfering money, cloning on credit cards, obtaining loans/morgages - yes Nigerian do this too but they are not alone. The chinese in fact have mastered cloning of credit cards and print fake notes - but they don't stick their heads out, they have their resturants at the same time and will never advertise such acts in public or even their own communities, which Nigerians do. They don't have jobs, on benefit, but yet drive the best cars, own nice houses, throw lavish parties, spray money any-how meet in bars and discuss business, yap on mobile and landlines about deals and easily get caught.

The Credit Card Scam actually originated in Nigeria, I used to have a diskette of such programs, i even developed a sequence myself. Some ran in DOS while some had VB5 Interfaces (originally developed by Americans)

When the PIN code was enforced on sites this program almost failed, although it worked for online registrations but not for shipping, Nigerians devised means of getting the PIN codes directly from owners. Email spyders everywhere, then they send Mohammed Abacha mails asking for your COMPLETE CC details.

Many People aren't falling for that anymore, now it's traveller checks and bogus Checks.
In all cases, it's pay first before confirmation.

System 1. The manager signed a huge check but i'm in a hurry i've sent it by DHL, please confirm. Withdraw all the money and wire mine back (there's 9k dolls, subtract your 1k dolls and send 8k back to me). The maga confirms from DHL, doesn't even wait for the package to land before wiring by western union to the guyman here.

System 2. The check is so authentic, it lands, the maga goes to the bank (sometimes fraud detection dept ask to wait 2 days before clearing) Check is certified authentic and cash is paid to maga, maga feels cool, sends 7k back instead of 8k and feels like a don. 3 days after the cops show up with cuffs, maga's gonna have to be in huge debt for years or sell off some valuables to offset the debt.

And you say we are not fraudulent enough? Let me tell you a confessional i've been reserving for my forthcoming book (name witheld).


A yahoo boy gave up scamming because:

"He had been in this business for about 7 months but there was this mugu who needed 85 truck loads of cocoa.Guyman kept asking the maga for more money, and more money, the truck has been loaded, more money needs to pass the border and pay the naija policemen, more money needs to protect against pests since harmattan was much, more money cocoa needs to be repackaged for shipping, more money cocoa is on ship (as at this time, maga was sleeping in the church, house sold, car sold errthang sold, and huge debts), until one day he didn't see maga on chat no more. He called his phone and his wife picked it (He actually told guyman he was separated, how the wife came into the scene is not clear) and asked

"who are you?",

the guy said "his business partner",

wife says" oh the man from Nigeria, the cocoa exporter?".

"Yes, please let me talk to Alan, we need to bribe the seamen to keep our goods safe"

"Wife says, thank you scammer, you have finally killed my husband, Alan died on Friday the 13th and will be buried next week. Thank you so much (sobbing)"


Guyman dropped (and gave his life to christ), now works with the "Biggest Bank" in Nigeria.


Tell me how that woman'll treat a Nigerian?


I always advise nigerians, please visit www.419eater.com this site is even more popular than nairaland sef. Fraud is big biz.

The chinese in fact have mastered cloning of credit cards and print fake notes -

so when was the last time that ophra and team investigated and produced an episode of her show concerning the chinese credit card crime ? or do you think ophra and her team dont have much info about the chinese cloning of credit card than you do ? my brother , i am not saying 419 is good ,its bad ,but i would like you to ask if nigeria is the only corrupt nation that ophra knows since she started her show .

Obamedo:

@egoldman

There is a difference between 'spam' and 'scam' emails

Scam emails are sent by fraudsters and are usually disguised to appear to come from another country.
I can be in Nigeria and send an email which appears to come from canada
Would you reply my scam email if i said i was in Nigeria or if i said i was in Switzerland?

Eastern europe and Asia is the source of most phishing emails ( a type of scam email that targets bank details) and 419 fraudsters are the source of 419 emails whereever they are sent from, Nigerians are everywhere

You will think twice after this statement. I will present data from the IC3 2004-Internet Crime Report from the US government:

"Among perpetrators, nearly 74.7% were male and half resided in one of the following states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Ohio. The majority of reported perpetrators were from the United States. However, perpetrators also had a representation in Canada, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Italy, and Greece.

Top Ten Countries - Perpetrator

*

1. United States – 78.75%

*

2. Canada – 3.03%

*

3. Nigeria – 2.87%

*

4. United Kingdom – 2.32%

*

5. Italy – 2.01%

*

6. Greece – 1.04%

*

7. Romania – .92%

*

8. France– .86%

*

9. Spain – .6%

*

10. China – .58%

http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2004_IC3Report.pdf

Thank you anyanfe ,now see the % margin between us and the united states ,yet ophra and her team hardly see that .

egoldman, the emphasis is to spoil the image of Nigeria, as a destination for any form of investment. Notice that every show in America is taking turns to link Nigerian with fraud. Even on E-Channel News, I was innocently watching a tabloid program when the Nigerian scammer was brought up.

While we indulge in tribalism, we fail to see that we are seen as black people first, and as the largest black nation with huge economic potential, we are a genuine target for attack by the ones who want to continue to control global wealth!

Guys, PLS STOP THIS WE AREN'T THE WORSE sHIZZLE!!!!


WE ARE THE WORST!

We place so much emphasis on Material things.

Can someone please listen to this short audio: http://www.419eater.com/images/audio/colin_michael(david_scamo).wav

Infact there are more recorded Scam Audios here: just click and listen, mostly Nigerian: http://www.419eater.com/html/audio.htm

Can someone see what 419 baiters are doing to our Nigerian Brothers? Real pictures, Must see: http://www.419eater.com/html/trophy_room106.htm

A naija guy even went to the extent of stripping himself naked: http://members.419eater.com/~eliza_doolittle/coo_coo_cachoo.JPG

http://members.419eater.com/~eliza_doolittle/heres_to_you.JPG

And this one ended up on imageshack, the [b]49th most visited website [/b]in the world (i no fit laugh, white people don dey fight back now): http://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=non5xd8.jpg

(if you ever need a password to get in there, just buzz me on chat)

And you are here blaming Oprah, abegi.

egoldman:

so when was the last time that ophra and team investigated and produced an episode of her show concerning the chinese credit card crime ? or do you think ophra and her team don't have much info about the chinese cloning of credit card than you do ? my brother , i am not saying 419 is good ,its bad ,but i would like you to ask if nigeria is the only corrupt nation that ophra knows since she started her show .

Am i saying that she or her investigators don't know about these crimes? NO! All i'm saying is YES a lot of Countries are involved in one way or another in some sort of fraudulent dealings including Americans and British - even their govmts themselves - What i am saying is that Nigerians make themselves an easy target. They are too exposed, loud-mouthed, flashy, ill trained and cannot cover their tracks properly (paper trails, phone recordings, faxes - remeber they work with documents that are hardly shreded/destroyed - just thrown away). The individuals in this expose where arrested at the desk of the computers they were using in internet cafes. The Chinese on the other practise within a very close and dangerous community, Oprah's investigators would think 7 times b4 they even embark on such an investigation as they would mostly be caught and murdered and their bodies would never be found with very little evidence to prosecute. Have you been to any China towns at all? Do you see the settings, any outsiders can be identified from miles away and they would be cautious, but Nigerians would see them as marks and play into their hands which is what happened here. You should try watch one of these investigations one day and see the extent they go to in collecting their proofs (tailing, tapping phones, internet connections, pictures, lo-jacks, finger-prints etc) and it will suprise you as to what capabilities n resource they have at their disposal.

@Christino - my guy i hear and agree with you.

@ IBDat,

It's good to know that someone else also understands that the BIG THIEVES get away easily. Can anyone do a show about the Mafia? They don't rob credit cards, they move a Bank's entire funds away The evacuate mines and chests. Those one's are not 419ers, they are not thieves without weapons, they are ALL OUT TO DESTROY (Godfathers) what bout hip hop Lords and Crack Specialist? Any show revealing one? yet their activities didn't help Tupac, Biggie and Whitney.

That is life for you, that's what i tell my friends, if i can't steal 1 Trillion pounds, i'm not gonna steal (of course errbody got a price and now that you know mine, try me)!

@ayanfe

Your list does not make sense. How can Nigeria rank 3rd and Igbos are nowhere to be found on the list?. . .Didn't you see the evidence presented that Igbos commit from credit card fraud than Nigerians?. . .Fake stats, Igbos have to be on the list for credibility

LOL, your sarcasm is well noted, I hope others will note that it is a sarcasm.

Donzman:

@ayanfe
Your list does not make sense. How can Nigeria rank 3rd and Igbos are nowhere to be found on the list?. . .Didn't you see the evidence presented that Igbos commit from credit card fraud than Nigerians?. . .Fake stats, Igbos have to be on the list for credibility

ROFLMAO - you pple just don't want to let this thing go!

@Christino - definitely with you, but others on here are just too passionate about this subject that they fail to see the failings behind these so called yahoo boys and why the media are quick to point a finger at Nigeria - but not without cause!

You can also contribute on Oprah's forum

http://boards.oprah.com/WebX/.f14e602!DYNID=CIEVRY1PPKR5JLARAZ2R3KQ

so many stupid nigeria here and there

oprah could go to helll with all that money

for me its feel good to be NIGERIAN

NOW FOR AL YALL EMM SOMETHING YALL COULD DISSSIPATE

GOD BLESS NIGERIA

I TAKE MY NEXT FLIGHT TO SWIZZ BANK WHERE OUR EMBEZZLE MONEY DEY ON HOLIDAY FOR THAT UNDERGROUND BANK!

OPRAH ARE U COMIN WITH ME?

Having conducted my own extensive research into Internet 419 fraud by responding to literally hundreds of scam letters and providing the con-men with a US phone number so I could listen to the recorded voice-mail messages of the culprits, I would say that I am in a very good position to comment on the tribal origin of the 419 criminals.

Out of several DOZEN voice mail messages left at my decoy phone number, I was amazed to learn that EVERY SINGLE SPEAKER that recorded a voice message did so with a very easily recognizable IGBO accent.   Regardless of whether the trickster placed his call from Spain, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Thailand, the United States, or Nigeria, the accent of the speaker was ALWAYS IGBO ON EVERY SINGLE SCAM PHONE CALL placed to my message phone number.

Astounded by this discovery, I logged on to 419eater.com and spent a good while listening to a large number of the recorded messages left by would-be 419 fraudsters on the voice-mail tapes of subscribers to that website and stored in the audio archives there.  Again I was confronted with the numbing fact that ALL the recorded voices belonged to men from Nigeria's IGBO tribe, and were easily recognizable as such despite the attempts of many speakers to disguise their accents with hilarious American or British cadences.

Now I happen to hold the Igbo intellect in great esteem, and among all the tribes indigenous to Nigeria, it is from amongst the Igbos that I have seen the greatest number of individuals who have earned awesome strings of academic credentials from top universities in the West where college diploma's cannot be purchased, and in this light I would classify myself as an admirer rather than a hater of this particular tribe.   That admiration, however, is mitigated by a sense of bewildered dismay over the fact that a culture of people so intellectually gifted have also produced such an alarmingly disproportionate number of Internet fraudsters who have now fanned out across the globe to systematically destroy what little is left of Nigeria's battered image.

Oprah just needs to know more of Nigeria.Its certain she doesnt know things about Nigeria.