Saturday, February 28, 2009

SCAMMING: A SECRET SOCIETY OR 4-1-9

Another Cameroonian youth of 16 is mysteriously killed in Buea by some unknown forces. These killings have become serial and usually targeting young boys in especial around the nation. However, one overt common denomination elects the relation to scamming.


The above highlight may not be novel nowadays in urban communities in the country. I have come within the past several months to intercept news broken by folks around my town on a mass basis regarding young boys who in bids to assist in the new found trend of electronic business, and braced with the fantasies about wealth and affluence, amid the providence of the quirks of the internet, and having succeeded in the receipt of huge sums of money there-from, then lavishing the lot on spending sprees aided by swing cars and women, ended up being killed suddenly and mysteriously.


The latest event allegedly involved a sixteen year old school lad who was asked to use ten million francs weekly, the contrary to which he might surely die. I was told, he had earlier had some secret and suspicious dealings with persons on the internet who eventually swelled his account with huge sums of money following his acquiescing to execute a blood pact by spilling his blood onto a white sheet of paper, scanning same and sending via electronic mail to his associates of the other side of the web. This lad received the money with a tag to adhere to a simple rule, otherwise that caused his death. Poor kid.


Therefore, everyone is talking scam presently as a synonym of a secret society these days. Currently young fellows are initiating themselves into these acts albeit mindful of the underlying consequences. In spite of this, you would be surprised to know that, this sort of label, plausibly intended for a circumscription, if at all it is working towards stifling any election on the part of potential scammers, are only bearing on bent disciples of the subject, otherwise these may only be disillusioning to those who are advocating it, be it ignorantly or consciously for by the day, would you see more internet cafes surging with them apprentices of the not-too-spent-on career, some buying airtime that extends right into the wee hours of the night.


On the other side of the coin of those who may be believing that these activities are related to secret cults are those who know they may be not. Scamming, otherwise known hitherto as conning (Wikipedia), which synonyms may include amongst others: a confidence trick or confidence game, a bunko, scheme, or swindle, is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. These Confidence tricksters often rely on the greed and dishonesty of their victims, who may attempt to out-cheat the con artist, only to discover that he or she has been manipulated into losing from the very beginning though nowadays too, they have upgraded their methodologies to simple business.


When I was growing up as a boy, I knew of this as the numbers four one nine (4-1-9). Today, I know many Cameroonians may still be thinking the terminology was conceived out of some cliché homestead event. Rather it referred to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud (part of Chapter 38: "Obtaining Property by false pretences; Cheating") These frauds have come presently in variables; from fake checks to wire transfers, anonymous communication, web-based e-mail, e-mail hijacking/friend scams, fake websites, invitation to visit the country and even the sales of pets, all online.


The latter, that is sales of pets such as puppies etc has become mainstream and the mainstay approach of these Cameroonians to trick people of any level of intelligence whom unfortunately have become very vulnerable to deception by these experienced con artists. No wonder that these confidence tricks exploit human weaknesses like greed, dishonesty, vanity, but also virtues like honesty, compassion, or a naïve expectation of good faith on the part of the con artist.


I have come among many articles on fine print and soft copies alike edifying incidents of people overland who have been tricked into western unioning money to these tricksters believing they were dealing with some reliable web company that sells pets online. But you may be interested to know that scores of individual websites and blogs all over the webscope are now warning people against the event of buying pets from Cameroon.


There was one site I was directed by these notices to attempt. When I did, I was asked to fill in my email details and all. Presently, I have come to the conclusion that my password was keylogged because these fraudsters have been e-mailing some of my associates, friends, and family members using my legitimate account in an attempt to defraud them. This ruse generally requires the use of phishing or key logger computer viruses to gain login information for e-mail addresses. Then one day I also received a mail purportedly from one of my undergraduate tutors asking me to redeem her from a financial situation in Nigeria. She had travelled to Nigeria and it had come to pass that the hotel she was staying in suffered a stroke of arson, as a result, all her money was gone. So she was discrete not to raise an alarm to her family back in Cameroon lest they may fret to some unpleasant extreme, so she decided I was the only person whom she could recourse to under the circumstance. What a sham that was! This has led many into losing their hard earned dough coming to think of it that the solicitation did earn you no suspicion.


It is this substantive loss of hard earned money which victims of scammers suffered that is causing some victims to hire private investigators or having themselves traveled to Cameroon to kill these scammers. It is now sad to know that some victims have now become criminals in falling directly into crime by pursuing and killing the con artists. Many documented articles are available regarding these killing and the Cameroon experience is yet to shine a harbinger.


Karlz JBilz


PS


Please I invite u to read the following must-read important articles.


http://www.nextdaypets.com/directory/dogs/forum/1461~6.aspx


http://www.quatloos.com/scams/nigerian.htm


http://www.scamletters.com/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam

1 comment:

  1. I stumbled upon this blog and after reading it, I did some research on Cameroonian scammers. I found this page/website and thought you might find it interesting.

    http://antifraudintl.org/showthread.php?t=37743

    It documents the personal details of many Cameroonian scammers living abroad. The entire site itself is dedicated to exposing various 419 frauds. There were 22 Cameroonians arrested because of the exposures at that website, that is some good work by them!

    ReplyDelete

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