In a sick sort of way, I have to admire the Nigerian scammers' talent for constant innovation:
In a twist on their usual e-mail scams, Nigerian con men are taking out newspaper advertisements offering purebred English bulldog puppies for adoption. Victims who respond to the ads are informed that the puppy can only be obtained after wire transferring hundreds of dollars overseas in vaccination and shipping fees. Of course, no puppy is ever delivered.
Couldn't they apply those natural abilities to . . . I don't know, inventing something useful?
A few years ago there was a story on the web by someone who responded to one of the Nigerian emails. He conned them into thinking he was able to offer a large prize for art work. The projects he demanded became more and more elaborate and the models sent by the spammers were really quite wonderful. I remember thinking at the time if only this talent could be harnessed to something truly productive.
> Couldn't they apply those natural abilities to . . . I don't know, inventing something useful?
How do we know they (they in the general sense) are not?
I was trying to give my cats away a couple of years ago, and got a weird scam in response asking me to mail them my cats(!) and that they wanted to know the price so they could send me money. I'm not sure how the scam would have gone from there, although I have to admit, I was curious to respond to see how they were going to try to get my money. Basically the opposite of the scam you described. Amazing.
I'm not sure how the scam would have gone from there
They would have tried to part you from a bank account or credit card number, and as many personal details as possible, on the premise of crediting the money to your account.
Ah, CTB, I remember that, the "scholarship" for carving a Commodore 64 out of wood.. Classic. The site is still around if anyone wants to peek; it's good for a laugh.
http://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm
Inventing something useful mostly requires capital and property protection (both physical and intellectual) that are in small supply in Nigeria.
Also, while the scammers have a lot of energy (so to speak; mass-email isn't that hard), they're not actually very clever, for the most part. They only need a fractional percentage success rate (a few hundred dollars a month or even a year goes a long way in Lagos) to make it worth their while. The rest is basic grifting and deceit.
B. Minich: Easy. If you engaged them they'd offer to send you "this cashier's check they have from another deal that fell through", which is for more than the amount of the cat.
And then they talk you into cashing it and sending them the cat and the difference in money (or even a fraction of it, to get the greed factor up) - or even that they'll have someone come pick up the cat.
Then two weeks later your bank tells you the check was forged and you need to pay back the entire sum.
What's the regulatory environment like in Nigeria? Maybe legitimate business practices are cost prohibitive. If there are significant government-generated or other barriers to entry but lax or no enforcement for fraud, then I would think these enterprising souls have made the right decision.
The business climate in Nigeria can't be all that bad. They have their own journal of otorhinolaryngology, usually referred to as - NJORL.