Woohoo, I'm Rich! So Long, Suckers!!!

[Arrogantcur]

I haven't opened the thing and don't plan to, but I kept it around because I wanted to share it with you.

This actually made me laugh when I first saw it. Because you know, me and J. Paul Getty were so close.

I wonder how many people actually fall for this kind of thing.

[Cam63]

Enough fuckwits reply and give up their account info to keep the bastards going with this obvious wankery.

[GigaLeo]

I remember having a co-worker around 2003 getting one of these before they were commonplace, I had to talk the goober out of giving the guy all his info. He really thought he was just lucky enough to fall into a big 'hush-hush' secret that would plop 20 Million dollars in his lap.

[the4thpip]

Ronald Reagan's personal psychiatrist fell for Nigerian scammers and lost something like $ 140,000.
So it does happen to educated people as well.

[Lester C.]

I think a part of the problem is that you have a lot of people on the internet who are new to the whole computer experience. By their logic if tv commercials have to be real, lest their be a lawsuit, then why not a banner saying you can earn five thousand a week on goggle. After all wouldn't people be able to sue the corporation if the ad wasn't real.

[CutterMike]

I worked for a manufacturing company in the mid- to late- '90s.

The owner of the company, an older man with an MIT engineering doctorate got one of the "a mutual friend told me that you would b a good business contact to help me get my money out of the country" letters faxed to him. It was the first that any of us had heard of this sort of thing but, fortunately, he didn't bite, although the main reason that he DIDN'T was that he asked some of us what we thought and -- although, at the time none of us knew the mechanics of the scam -- we thought it sounded "off".

It's not always stupid people who get caught -- sometimes it's very SMART people who are just not cynical enough.

[the4thpip]

I think a part of the problem is that you have a lot of people on the internet who are new to the whole computer experience. By their logic if tv commercials have to be real, lest their be a lawsuit, then why not a banner saying you can earn five thousand a week on goggle. After all wouldn't people be able to sue the corporation if the ad wasn't real.

There was a Brave and the Bold comic in the late 60s where Batman explains what we know as the Nigerian internet scams. These things have been around much longer, they used to be done via mail and then via fax before spreading much faster and wider thanks to the Interwebs.

[Bob Violence]

The thing is, there are many things in life that we have no idea how they work. Ask most people to tell you how the internet gets into their computer: No Idea!
So people trust in the magic of their tv, computer, ipod whatever because they don't understand how it works, and 99% of the time, they don't need to. People have no idea how the will of J. Paul Getty is executed, they just hope they can be a part of it, because money makes believers out of people.

[Electric i]

Former Pennsylvania politician Marjorie Margolis-Mezvinsky had her political career irrevocably destroyed by her husband falling for one of these scams. He went on to embezzle money and defraud friends so he could get MILLIONS of dollars from his good friends in...Nigeria.

[FeminineMystique]

I always have to wonder at the kind of people who fall for these scams. You're more likely to get rich by chasing the end of a rainbow to get the pot of gold hidden there than you are by clicking on one of these things

[Tyr]

I always have to wonder at the kind of people who fall for these scams. You're more likely to get rich by chasing the end of a rainbow to get the pot of gold hidden there than you are by clicking on one of these things

Right, silly people, everyone knows the rainbow is actually the bridge to Asgard, the end is merely the end of the bridge that connects it to the mortal realm, stupid stupid people.

[Weetomuncher]

There used to be envelopes that came through the doors of people with "You have won £6,600,000" on the front asking for you to send details to a company.

It was some sort of stupid prize draw thing and it was a scam.

My aunt has a few minor learning difficulties and she asked us if the letter was in any way genuine and we explained that we knew at least six people who had received the same letter.

We also pointed out that no company offering a large prize would print it on the front of the letter.

Some people are really dumb.

[Vakanai]

Man, I got like a dozen of those kinds of spam emails in my spam folder. And rarely on occasion in my none spam folder.
Kind of makes me shake my head in shame for the human race everytime I get a new one.

[CutterMike]

Right, silly people, everyone knows the rainbow is actually the bridge to Asgard, the end is merely the end of the bridge that connects it to the mortal realm, stupid stupid people.

This all makes sense, then.

[Arrogantcur]

This all makes sense, then.

Ah, I was gonna take a picture of the Beer Store nearest me one of these days and post it for Cam and everybody else who likes beer. (Yeah, those are in Canada.) Oh well, nothing I could've set up could have possibly compared to that.