We have a new customer from Nigeria who is looking to do business, they ordered 5 hosting accounts and told us that they would wire the payment to our account. I explained our no mun no fun policy and it was agreed that there account would be activated once payment has cleared.

2 months went by and the payment had not reached our account, they rang up and told us that they were having problems with there bank and that they could not make payment by wire. At this point I had concluded that they were just trying to get free hosting and forgot about it.

Yesterday I got an email asking for directions to our office so they could drop in payment of UK£10k for future accounts. (Our office is in Ireland)

The only reason that I have been entertaining this is because a lot of our International customers are from odd ball places.

Anyway, has anyone ever seen this is the past with Nigerians or anywhere else for that matter & how did you deal with them?

Not competely on the subject but Nigeria has been a very good source of fraud for a while. This isn't saying these people are fraudulent, but it is something to consider.

Another thing to consider is ~60%+ of Nigeria's National Trade is Fraud.

More commonly then you meet someone from nigeria who is a businessman, you will meet someone willing to kill you for your money.

Checkout the 419 scams.

SERIOUSLY - exercise extreme care, Nigeria is home to many scams, I would strongly advise against giving any details until the cash is in the bank ... and then be careful! The UK Foreign Office has tons of complaint files of scams involving Nigeria.

Originally posted by ninji
Another thing to consider is ~60%+ of Nigeria's National Trade is Fraud.

More commonly then you meet someone from nigeria who is a businessman, you will meet someone willing to kill you for your money.

Checkout the 419 scams.

Ah yeah, Im well use to getting 419 scams, I get 2/3 emails everyday from the people of Nigeria who need my help with there billions of $$$. :)

Originally posted by daveww
Anyway, has anyone ever seen this is the past with Nigerians or anywhere else for that matter & how did you deal with them?

Something similar. A reseller from Malaysia assured us a cheque had been sent, and msg'd daily for their login details. We held off. Then a note arrived from Fedex..."please provide a physical address as we need a signature for this delivery". Our Malaysian friend had sent the payment as promised, but to a PO Box that Fedex took a while to send a note to asking for our office address.

Gary

make sure they dont show up at your physical address with a bunch of spears and bbq you for dinner (after expropriating all your liquid funds and kit) =]

Paul, now I'm afraid you would show up with a white hood.

We host a couple of businesses/websites that are Nigerian based. All larger accounts for the most part, all pay on time, and all are long term customers. One guy's been hosting with us for close to two years.

While I wouldn't recommend Nigeria as a great place to look for customers given the issues with scams, our experience has been very positive. No need to paint everyone with the same brush after all...

Greg Moore

BE CAREFUL..................
This could be a variation of the old Nigerian scam (give us your account # so I can send you millions).

Originally posted by daveww
We have a new customer from Nigeria who is looking to do business, they ordered 5 hosting accounts and told us that they would wire the payment to our account. I explained our no mun no fun policy and it was agreed that there account would be activated once payment has cleared.

2 months went by and the payment had not reached our account, they rang up and told us that they were having problems with there bank and that they could not make payment by wire. At this point I had concluded that they were just trying to get free hosting and forgot about it.

Originally posted by Lurleene
Paul, now I'm afraid you would show up with a white hood.

has nothing to do with that. first off, the 'problem with the bank' due to which they couldnt wire the money is very suspicious. if the people who defraud americans from nigeria are able to withdraw funds from the victims' accounts to a nigerian bank, there must be a way to wire money from a nigerian bank to a uk bank. i just dont buy that 'problem with a bank' spiel.

on a personal note, my mother gave piano concerts in nigeria, money was wired to europe with no issues and she stayed in a 5-star hotel in kinshasa i think it was.

secondly, if they are able to drop money off personally, they sure as heck are in the uk already and can remit the money in other ways.

third, 10k pounds sounds a tad high to me, unless the hosting in question is really high-end =]

the bbq bit was of course a joke. everyone knows their religion forbids them to eat computer professionals (watch your secreatries though) =]

cheers,
paul

Of course the transaction has nothing to do with spears and cannibalism. Which is why I wonder why you brought it up?

Originally posted by ninji
Another thing to consider is ~60%+ of Nigeria's National Trade is Fraud.

More commonly then you meet someone from nigeria who is a businessman, you will meet someone willing to kill you for your money.

Checkout the 419 scams.

Its true Nigeria has its fair share of problems with fraudsters and scammers. Its no worse than here in the US. Your comments border on ignorance, and to be honest with you, stupidity. NOT ALL Nigerians are scammers, just as much as NOT ALL Americans are gangsters. Maybe you should take a second or two to read up on other people and cultures before you make such ignorant statements and try to back 'em up with flawed stats like you just did. Were in the world did you get the statistics from that 60%+ of Nigerian Trade is Fraud????????? Look b4 you leap, buddy.

Originally posted by Lurleene
Of course the transaction has nothing to do with spears and cannibalism. Which is why I wonder why you brought it up?

i wrote a really long paragraph attempting to pierce your politically correct shell, but then i changed my mind. i am not going to dignify your lack of sense of humour with an arguement. the fault is not with me - its with with you and everyone who considers humour (whether in bad taste or not) offensive. lighten up =]

Originally posted by Jburnley
flawed stats like you just did. Were in the world did you get the statistics from that 60%+ of Nigerian Trade is Fraud????????? Look b4 you leap, buddy.

i think the figure i heard mentioned at the money laundering counter-measures symposium in 2002 was 49% of the gross domestic product. though statistics for developing countries are unreliable because most of the business is transacted off the books.

noone claimed there are no legit businesses in nigeria. i can testify to it that there are. however, same as with statistics on credit card fraud, we as businessmen have to take the probabilities into account. why not? the insurance companies charge me out the ... for my sportscar because im not 40 and married with 5 children. no matter how unfair i think that is towards me as an individual, they have a statistical basis for it.

in any case, this issue is moot. there are so many suspicious circumstances in this case that all statistics are totally irrelevant - the individual circumstances mandate caution no matter where the business is from.

Don't be so hard on him. It's not ignorant for him to comment about Nigeria's fraud. Everyone who has had an email address for more than 6 months has received atleast one of the nigerian 419 scam emails. This is huge business.

UK and US authorities take this very seriously. I am sure other countries do too, but the items I have been reading lately have focused on US and UK efforts to stop this country's scamming.

Remember, this is business. Don't take things personal. Godaddy didn't specifically paint every person in the countries they cutoff from their services - they just made the business move to not deal with that type of potentially fraudulent business behavior.

Look at it the same way. I wouldn't take a nigerian account, only because of all the press the 419 scams have received.

-WC-

Originally posted by WildCard
Don't be so hard on him. It's not ignorant for him to comment about Nigeria's fraud. Everyone who has had an email address for more than 6 months has received atleast one of the nigerian 419 scam emails. This is huge business. ......
-WC-

Yeah its not ignorant to comment about anything under the sun, but when you make statements based on facts from a dumpster, and when we make statements that stereotype a whole group of people, heck yes it is very ingnorant. His remarks were amongst the most ignorant I have ever heard and I have no regrets saying what I said. Yes, we all know about Nigerian scams and we all know how cautious we should be when dealing with Nigerian business. I have one client in Nigeria and before we took him on we had to go through all kinds of checks to make sure we were not being ripped-off.

However making such stupid and crude statements like: "More commonly then you meet someone from nigeria who is a businessman, you will meet someone willing to kill you for your money. " deserves a serious spanking. Its people like this that give us a bad name around the world. Sad.

1

While working as a banker I attended a series of classes presided over by a U.S. Secret Service agent specializing in white colar crime. He pointed out that Nigerians operate the most successful financial crime syndicates in the United States and they are very difficult to break up. The few Nigerians I've known were exceptionally bright people (physicians all). I can see how, given desperate conditions and innate intelligence, white collar crime would be tempting for them.

Im not sure if your speaking about my comments about nigeria, but I got this as a direct quote from the FBI, when a friend and I had attempted to help them catch someone of the 419'ers who tried to get access to our accounts.

What the person said was "over 60% of nigerias National Trade is fraud" some countrys sell steel some sell coffee, but when 60% of the biz in the country is recorded to be fraud, I think its feasible that we comment and tell eachother not to become a part of that countries 60%.

There is alot of legit business in Nigeria guys! Look at this e-mail I got today!

-----------COPY/PASTE------------
Dear Sir,

It is with heartfelt hope that I write to seek your
co-operation and
assistance in the context stated
below:May I first introduce my self: I am DR.(MRS.)
MARIAM
ABACHA,the wife of Late General Sani Abacha (former
Military head of state and President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria) who died suddenly on 8th June
1998. I got your contact through the help of my
sister-inlaw that works
with the Canadian Chambers of Commerce and
Tourrism,due,I did not disclose
to her my humble intention for a honest foreigner who
will help save my
life and my children. Having noted the confidence
reposed on your person by
the sponsor of the recommendation, I became convinced
of your capability
and goodwill to assist me in receiving the sum of
US$20 Million secretly
willed in my favour by the late general (my husband).

This money was kept in a Security Company in Amsterdam
Holland and I have
all documents with me as of when it was deposited in
a Security Vault for
safe keeping.This money has been defaced for Security
reasons and also to
avoid it been spent by unauthorized persons.We have
been deliberating on
how to invest this fund abroad in a confidential
manner until we came to a
conclusion to use it to buy houses and part of it will
be used for
non-speculative investments in your
country.However,the current civilian
administration of retired General Olusegun
Obasanjo(The President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria) is
seeking vengeance on the Abacha family because of the
life prison jail
sentence confirmed on him by my late husband while in
office. In pursuit of
this vendetta,the present Government have resolved to
freeze all known
assets of General Sani Abacha including properties at
home and abroad and
are presently embarking on to seize the various bank
accounts of my husband
in Switzerland,UK and Australia. In fact, the attack
on our family (The
Abacha's) is so devastated to an extent of seizing our
travelling
passport,family accounts and even trying some members
of our family in
court for offences allegedly committed by my late
husband..My first son Mohammed Abacha who was arristed
and incacerated for the past 3years was just reliese
from prison on the agreement to refund $1.5 Billion to
the Federal Government of Nigeria allegedly stollen by
my late Husband.We are not ready to comply to this as
most of the family assets and bank accounts abroad
have been Freezen by the Obasanjo regime.

In view of this grevious threat to our Economic and
personal survival,our
family trustee have secretly protected the will,The
Security Company has
called me to do something about claiming this
consignment because of the
demurrage it is incurring and I told them we would
come and claim it very
soon but they seriously advised me to move the fund
into an overseas
amount, hence the reason why I have chosen you and
hope that you will come
to my full assistance and unlimited
co-operation.In the meantime,there is a travelling
embargo on us(the whole
family members) and our local accounts are seized. We
are currently living
on goodwill of people who believe we cannot be held
responsible for the
sins of my late husband. In view of this plight, I
expect you to be
trustworthy and kind enough to respond to this
distressed call to save me
and my children from a hopeless future. And if you
agree to help, we will
compensate you sincerely for your candid effort in
this regard with 25% of
the total amount of $20 Million US Dollars.
In that case, when the money ($20 Million) is moved
into your
discrete account, you will be allowed to withdraw 25%
in
your favour,while 10% has been set aside for any
expenses you might incur
(There are demurrage to pay before the fund is sign
and claimed by
you.)during the process of securing this fund.
The remaining 65% will be invested meaningfully for my
children's future.
My cousin (DR yemi musa) has perfected arrangements
with the Trust
Company concerned and has been assured 100% risk free
and safe
operation.What I demand from you now is to arrange to
visit the Finance
Company where this money is being deposited and claim
it as the bona-fide
owner.

And in due course, all contacts must be made through
DR yemi musa through this E-mail address:
yemi_musa1@hotvoice.com or tel:234-8033184852

I look forward to your quick response while thanking
you for your co-operation. In view of all above
details, I request you to keep this letter and
co-operation highly confidential.

Best wishes,

DR.(MRS). MARIAM ABACHA.
---- END COPY/PASTE----

I e-mailed them my bank account information two hours ago, I hope to see my share of the money in my account soon!!!!


riiiiight ;)


Zach

Originally posted by ninji
Im not sure if your speaking about my comments about nigeria, but I got this as a direct quote from the FBI, when a friend and I had attempted to help them catch someone of the 419'ers who tried to get access to our accounts.

What the person said was "over 60% of nigerias National Trade is fraud" some countrys sell steel some sell coffee, but when 60% of the biz in the country is recorded to be fraud, I think its feasible that we comment and tell eachother not to become a part of that countries 60%.

Yes I was responding to your comment about 60% of Nigerian business transactions being fraudulent. If you think flawed stats given to you by someone who cannot beck them up is correct, then you are no less ignorant than the source of your stats. Its no problem you letting people know about the risks they may face with regard to doing business in Nigeria., its not a problem at all. But simply trying to scare people with flawed statistics you ge from someone else only make you look ignorant.

Originally posted by Jburnley
Yes I was responding to your comment about 60% of Nigerian business transactions being fraudulent. If you think flawed stats given to you by someone who cannot beck them up is correct, then you are no less ignorant than the source of your stats.

If you're so sure he's wrong, perhaps then you'd like to prove it by providing us with the correct stats?

You do know them, don't you?


=mazz=

In the end I told these fellas to make payment or hit the high road, there was definetly something not right.

Greetings:

Our parent company has a hosting customer in Nigeria.

All invoices going to them must be on company letterhead.

They only pay by wire.

They were informed, and know that they do not receive services in advance of payment; it is payment, then services.

The only thing we ran into the first year of hosting (they pay for one year at a time), was that they did not include the international wire transfer fees when they paid the first time.

Thank you.

The FBI is whom told me 60%. Look at what before I do what?

Originally posted by Jburnley


Its true Nigeria has its fair share of problems with fraudsters and scammers. Its no worse than here in the US. Your comments border on ignorance, and to be honest with you, stupidity. NOT ALL Nigerians are scammers, just as much as NOT ALL Americans are gangsters. Maybe you should take a second or two to read up on other people and cultures before you make such ignorant statements and try to back 'em up with flawed stats like you just did. Were in the world did you get the statistics from that 60%+ of Nigerian Trade is Fraud????????? Look b4 you leap, buddy.

I'm actually getting nigerian fraud spam on a weekly basis. Don't give them your bank acount. I'm not exactyl sure how they do it but once you gave them you bank account they somehow manage to get into it.

Hi
Anybody knows why they sending this type of mails??

-----------COPY/PASTE------------
Dear Sir,

It is with heartfelt hope that I write to seek your
co-operation and
assistance in the context stated
below:May I first introduce my self: I am DR.(MRS.)
MARIAM
ABACHA,the wife of Late General Sani Abacha (former
Military head of state and President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria) who died suddenly on 8th

I don't exactly understand the fraud, but it alwasy consist of millions of dollars and your bank account

Godaddy didn't specifically paint every person in the countries they cutoff from their services - they just made the business move to not deal with that type of potentially fraudulent business behavior.

Does someone have any information, how many countries has it blocked?

Go Daddy actively blocks the following countries from using our services:

Cuba
Iran
Iraq
Libya
North Korea
Sudan
Syria

The U.S. Department of State has declared the governments of these states to be sponsors of international terrorism.


Hmm..i guess i found my answer..

It is a wonder Nigeria has any dignitaries left....at least 10 a week are dieing...and they all want to give their money to me. I am so lucky....by the way...Kinshasa is in the Congo...not Nigeria.

Simon

it took us 1 month to get money from Italy for a ded server customer.

I know there is a difference between Italy and Nigeria but bank problems do accure.

As someone said above no need to paint everyone with the same brush.

Regards
Phillip

Some of the banks require you to have a dollar account before making international wires, so this sometimes creates problems for clients who have to take up a dollar account in order to pay thru wire...

many variables tho.. :)

I am talking about clients living outside canada or USA

Originally posted by SimonMc
I am so lucky....by the way...Kinshasa is in the Congo...not Nigeria.


yep, i was off on that one. come to think of it my mother actually have concerts in lagos, not kinshasa.

cheers,
paul

Originally posted by ForumsAddict
Some of the banks require you to have a dollar account before making international wires, so this sometimes creates problems for clients who have to take up a dollar account in order to pay thru wire...

many variables tho.. :)

Yeah Most of them have that problem

Originally posted by Choppy
it took us 1 month to get money from Italy for a ded server customer.




Having traveled throught Italy, I've learned there is real time and Italy time. So if a train/bus/boat is scheduled to arrive at 9:30, it might arrive 9:45, 10 or 10:30 or whenever.

What's worse is the postal system, to send anything, might be easier to take it with you or mail it from the Vactican post office. A few years ago the Italy postal system went on strike and burned all the mail. So stranger things have happened.

western union money transfer is good option.

I had a nigerian guy who wanted to wire me $1 million to my account,if i agreed to give him $500,000 upon his arrival in my country. :rolleyes:

:D

Aaah Nigeria, the motherland of fraud and "40.000.000$ funds" :D :D

I am a nigerian and have dealth with people back home, the key is don't ship till you receive until you finally gain the trust of the person even then you must be careful but it is not every one that is fraudulent.
Before anyone can need a hosting, they must have registered their domain name with a credit card, this can easily identify the person.

Sometimes Nigerians pay people in Europe or America to register their domain name for them because of lack of credit cards in that country, there is nothing wrong if they decide to mail it to you, I have helped a couple of friends to mail payment to providers in US the only thing is don't do anything until you receive the money if they want to mail the payment give them your postal address. I know you are scared that this might mean they will come to you with arrows and spears but remember people are killed in the Bronx like chicken everyday yet nobody say America is unsafe.

If you believe in hard work you will not fall for 95 % of those scams because they make it clear in the beginning that the money is ill gotten all you have to do is help with the transfer, if you are a good person you will know that this money belong to 120 million hungry people and should be returned to them but most people are so dubious that they instantly fall for it because all they think is, they are getting 35% of $100 million without investing in a legitimate business.

My sympathy goes to those who lost money because they think they are in a genuine business deal or scammed after shipping an item and I do condemn 419 and any time of fraud for any reason I passionately hate those fraudulent Nigerians who are spoiling the name of the country but at the same time people should be made to understand that if something is too good to be true then it is not true.

Check this scenario and tell me what you think.
If as a Nigerian I am contacted by an American claiming that he has aquire some money from Britian a result of his position in government and he need my help in transfering the money to Nigeria with a promise to give me certain percenatage of the money, if I do and I am able to get him the transfer, upon finding out the British govt will pressurize my country to give the money back or the whole country will face sanctions, yet the money that has been stolen and kept at most of this western banks have not been returned to all the poor countries where they come from despite the kind of hunger going on in those countries, there are known cases and widely reported in the media, I am not justifying this scam but saying that this is what make them succeed because people know it is true, they know money is been siphone out of Africa everyday and it is landing in some pockets so when they receive this kind of mail instead of them reporting it to the cia, or authority in their various countries they think God have finally smiled on them.

Untill people stop being greedy this kind of scam will keep working because the NIgerian government does not have the capacity to control emails.

am a nigerian and have dealth with people back home, the key is don't ship till you receive until you finally gain the trust of the person even then you must be careful but it is not every one that is fraudulent.
Before anyone can need a hosting, they must have registered their domain name with a credit card, this can easily identify the person.

Sometimes Nigerians pay people in Europe or America to register their domain name for them because of lack of credit cards in that country, there is nothing wrong if they decide to mail it to you, I have helped a couple of friends to mail payment to providers in US the only thing is don't do anything until you receive the money if they want to mail the payment give them your postal address. I know you are scared that this might mean they will come to you with arrows and spears but remember people are killed in the Bronx like chicken everyday yet nobody say America is unsafe.

If you believe in hard work you will not fall for 95 % of those scams because they make it clear in the beginning that the money is ill gotten all you have to do is help with the transfer, if you are a good person you will know that this money belong to 120 million hungry people and should be returned to them but most people are so dubious that they instantly fall for it because all they think is, they are getting 35% of $100 million without investing in a legitimate business.

My sympathy goes to those who lost money because they think they are in a genuine business deal or scammed after shipping an item and I do condemn 419 and any time of fraud for any reason I passionately hate those fraudulent Nigerians who are spoiling the name of the country but at the same time people should be made to understand that if something is too good to be true then it is not true.

Check this scenario and tell me what you think.
If as a Nigerian I am contacted by an American claiming that he has aquire some money from Britian a result of his position in government and he need my help in transfering the money to Nigeria with a promise to give me certain percenatage of the money, if I do and I am able to get him the transfer, upon finding out the British govt will pressurize my country to give the money back or the whole country will face sanctions, yet the money that has been stolen and kept at most of this western banks have not been returned to all the poor countries where they come from despite the kind of hunger going on in those countries, there are known cases and widely reported in the media, I am not justifying this scam but saying that this is what make them succeed because people know it is true, they know money is been siphone out of Africa everyday and it is landing in some pockets so when they receive this kind of mail instead of them reporting it to the cia, or authority in their various countries they think God have finally smiled on them.

Untill people stop being greedy this kind of scam will keep working because the NIgerian government does not have the capacity to control emails.

Never, ever take an order from Nigeria, Russia or Indonesia. I wouldn't trust a Nigerian as far as I can spit and it is for good reason.....look at what their #3 business is in the country. Scamming people for money......nice....

Nigerian "419" Scam Letters: 416 different examples:

http://www.potifos.com/fraud/

More current examples:

http://www.quicktopic.com/15/H/BBttNbVFGV5hG

How does the fraud work? The bait is the fictional millions of dollars described in each one of these letters. The goal is to get you to come up with money for the "expenses" required to transfer those millions to you. The victim thinks, a few hundred or a few thousand dollars is trivial when $31 million is at stake. Each demand for more money is claimed to be the very last obstacle before the big money is released. Sometimes, the victim is lured to Nigeria, where even worse things happen.

Why would anyone want to spend a few thousands to get 31 million, it is a matter of trying to get things unlawfully but getting caught up in the fraud, it will never help the cause of those of us trying to stop this thing if all the blames lay with the Nigerian guy, People must be educated on the need to avoid "get rich quick"schemes in general, if you accept an offer to defraud the people of Nigeria in connivance with another Nigerian you have not only commited a crime against Nigeria it is also a crime against humanity.

They promise you a couple of millions just for an exchange of some information and a couple of thousands, the only reason you agree is because you thinks you are getting it too good.

I don't understand why everyone think it is alright for someone in Europe, Asia or America to get involve in this fraud as long as they get the millions but everyone cries when it doesn't turn out that way. If you are truthful about it, tell people it is wrong legally and morally to help anyone transfer any ill gotten wealth from countries such as Nigeria.

If someone walk up to you and offer you a stolen car with a value of $50,000 for $500 you would not buy because you know it is wrong to buy a stolen item and if you do buy and something happen will you run to the police and tell them you were defrauded by a man who told you he stole the vehicle but becauses it was so cheap, you paid but he never delivered the stolen vehicle???!!!so why don't we call a spade a spade, maybe then we can really stop this things.

Help our cause, we are not happy as a people that a few rotten individuals are spoiling our name, but it is more disheartening to read what others write, the only way you guys can help is to let your people know all the risk involved, they will always lose and it is wrong to even conspire to defraud the people of Nigeria, I once read the case of an evangelist who was defrauded? what no one is asking is why did he agree to part with a couple of thousands in exchange for a couple of million that belong to the poor people he should protect?.

I sell very selectively to international customers. I don't host ANY African based domains. I get very little demand for them, and it isn't worth my headache to fight a different scam every day.

Read about Nigerian Scam:
http://www.quatloos.com/scams/nigerian.htm
http://www.greaterthings.com/News/NigerianScam
We have many B2B tradesites and our members receive every day Nigerian Scam. In December last year, we decided to end this scam, we monitorize every e-mail sent to our members and imediatelly block the e-mail address and IP address of the person who is sending suspicious mailing. So far we are at the beginning, but already blocked 22 IP-s and 22 e-mail addresses (in about 1 month).

Hoppe said people need to use common sense when they receive such offers.

"Nobody is going to call someone they don't know and offer to pay millions of dollars to help transfer money to the United States unless they're up to no good," Hoppe said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Gorland said the law firm is the victim -- not Poet.

"You can't use somebody else's money to follow one of these get-rich schemes," she said.

"If you use your own money, the worst thing you will be is a fool."