Reverse Scamming 419ers

[Roy M. Silvernail]

Eric Cordian wrote:

> It's certainly unethical for Nigerians to try and make a living by bilking
> foreigners with elaborate schemes that promise vast riches in return for an
> advance fee.

Granted.

> But Nigeria is a very poor country, with high unemployment, where people are 
> forced by economic circumstances to do almost anything to try and feed their 
> families.  I see no reason to be proud of reverse-scamming a Nigerian out of 
> $80 when it might be his entire family's food money for the month.

The 419 scam has been going on for the best part of half a century.  The 
advent of the net and email has only allowed it to spread farther and 
wider, while law enforcement has been unable to stem it significantly. 
If reverse-scamming some Nigerian fraudster out of the month's food 
budget incents him to seek out legal means of income, that's one less 
419er.  If a few of his friends drop their fraud careers after seeing 
one of them get taken, that's more ex-419ers.

> It seems to me the relationship between affluent Americans and poor 
> Nigerians is an example of a dominant class/subordinate class structure, and 
> in such a structure, the subordinate class has rights, and the dominant 
> class has responsibilities.

Including the responsibility to tacitly underwrite a massive, 
national-scale fraud campaign?  Somehow, I don't think so.

> It is beneath the station of those those with the power to define, describe, 
> and profile the world to pick the pocket of some poor black man in Africa, 
> while encouraging him to pose for funny pictures that will be laughed at on 
> some comfortably well off white person's web site.

But it's the proper station of that poor black African to attempt 
picking the pocket of any number of comfortably well-off white people? 
419ers are criminals.  They steal money by dint of deception.  They 
break the social contract.  I can't get too worked up about turning the 
tables on them.  Think of it as evolution in action.
-- 
Roy M. Silvernail is roy at rant-central.com, and you're not
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