Tuesday, 13. July 2004
Topic: - on July 13, 2004 at 11:09:00 AM CEST
'Internet's first blood sport'
The messages — with their fractured syntax and wild promises — are a familiar sight in e-mail inboxes. Sent primarily from Nigeria, they promise recipients up to tens of millions of dollars if they agree to take part in an arcane banking scheme.
Naive victims — spurred by promises of vast wealth that always remains tantalizingly out of reach — endure a constant drain of money as the scammers invent an endless series of fees and commissions, which will only end when the victim pulls out of the scam or is penniless. It's often referred to as the 419 scam, after the section of the Nigerian penal code it violates.
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