How does the FBI Nigerian Scam work?
The FBI Nigerian scam puts a new twist to the played out Nigerian lottery scams. In the FBI Nigerian scam, con artists steal FBI letterhead and names of actual FBI officials. They then send FBI Nigerian scam letters to just about anyone they can think of. These FBI Nigerian scam letters intimidate the recipient by claiming they owe a substantial amount of money to the FBI; if they don’t pay, they’ll be put behind bars. There are many different threads of the FBI Nigeria scam emails; this is just the most common version of the FBI Nigerian scam.
Recipients of the fraudulent FBI Nigerian scam letters are prompted to contact only a specific person (the FBI Nigerian scam artist, of course) and to approach the situation with complete discretion. The FBI Nigerian scam artists eventually ask for a substantial amount of money to “settle the debt” or bury their file. Those who have responded and obliged to send the money are milked for all their assets by the FBI Nigeria scam artists. But, those who question their motives and threaten to contact the US FBI office for confirmation are often misled further, threatened with legal prosecution or even violence. It has been reported that several people have been lured to Nigeria and beaten/killed by the FBI Nigeria scam artists.
What to do if you receive a FBI Nigeria scam letter
I must say that the FBI Nigerian scam letter is by far the most convincing version of the Nigerian scams. If you receive a letter, fax or email and suspect that it is FBI Nigeria scam letter, contact the offices of the US FBI to confirm your suspicions. Never respond directly to the FBI Nigeria scam artists. The FBI Nigerian scam artists are masters of instilling fear into their victims. You can choose to simply ignore the FBI Nigerian scam letter or help save millions of dollars and thousands of lives by reporting the FBI Nigerian scam fraud to the FBI or FTC.
shelley smith
on Dec 23rd, 2009
@ 5:34 pm:
i was scammed by a guy calling himself james bill he was on a dating site here in australia it said he lived in australia in darwin but within a day or two he is in nergian working building bridges and roads but had to get out because they were going to kill him because he was white and they did not like working for a white boss so he need money until he could cash a check he had for $245,000 us on a nergian bank check will i have all his emails and my local police have all the westren union payment slips and phone numbers email address and i also have another inforamtion that i am about to hand over to the police too what should i do now can you help me as i am now in debt for over 10,000 au dollars and maybe about to lose me house because of him
Gerald Gilman
on Feb 4th, 2010
@ 12:07 pm:
Dear Kind People:
Atleast I hope you’re kind people.
Right now I’m scared to even send out my email address.
Received a scam letter. Figured what do I have to lose. Someone wants to give me money. The least I can do is check it out.
Next thing I now I’m being contacted by the FBI (not the real FBI ofcourse) and they say they are holding a large sume of money for me which they believe to be terrorist funds. “Oh my God in heaven, me being investigated as a terrorist.” For “Christ” sake, I’m Jewish. I support Isreal, but I also support my country.
Needless to say, I immediately looked up the FBI-Hawaii, where the letter supposedly originated and sent a copy of the letter to them, with the indication that this was the stupidest letter I ever wrote.
Now I get another letter from the original source, once again with an FBI letterhead, saying “We at the FBI take these matters very seriously and do not indulge in child’s play” (worst grammer I’ve ever witnessed).
This led me to believe that the letter originally sent by a so called FBI director by the name of Frank George, was real. I’m not denying that a Frank George is in fact a director at the FBI in Hawaii. However, there is no doubt that someone else used his name and wrote the letter.
What freightened me was that, I did not respond to the 1st letter I received. It was passed on to the real FBI in Hawaii.
So how could the impostor know I sent this letter and know to respond to it. Was it intercepted? Was it anticipated? Was some unknown entity able to read my e-mails?
Well, I’m ashamed to say, that the letter asked for my identification, and I sent it to them in the form of my driver’s license, my social security card and also my birth certicate (copies of course).
Because the letter said that I only have 48 hours to act or I’d be tracked down like the scervy naive I am (didn’t really say that), I willfully acted without thinking.
Within an hour, I received another threatening e-mail (FBI letterhead) telling me to deposit $250 in a Nigerian Bank.
Letter was ignored.
If I had only pulled up this web page before.
In the mean time, I filled out a police report, talked to two FBI agencies who had personnel who were familiar with this scam, canceled my credit card, filed a report with the FTC, placed a credit alert with the 3 reporting agencies and almost canceled my 2 bank accounts. I was told not to, because no information was ever given out.
All of this has happened during a 72 hour period. All indications were that it was a scam. I’m halfway intellegent, but I fell for this crap.
What’s still freightning me is that I am receiving phone calls for the previous 2 days from an unknown source. During the first call, the caller wanted to verify my address and know if I had a credit or debit card. They wanted to “give me something”. I told them I moved and cancelled my credit card. There is no call back number.
Since then I have answered “0″ calls with no call-back numbers. I have received maybe 5 or 6 of these calls. They leave no messages.
Maybe this is the end of it or just the beginning. Who knows?
I’d love to know about that 2nd FBI e-mail and how they knew I passed on the information to the FBI in Hawaii. I’d also like to know where these calls originated from. I can almost quarentee they won’t be listed on my cellular phone bill, but I will definately check next month.
Any advise, would be well taken. I had no idea this problem was so prevalent. I thought I’d find 1 or 2 web pages on the matter, but there’s a whole bunch. I read some of the stories from people who were so much less fortunate than I was. My heart goes out to them.
G. Gilman
Lake Worth, FL
brenda
on Feb 5th, 2010
@ 5:37 pm:
i was took for lots of money from a nigerian internet scanner od a con artisit what should i do now i been took 2 times and want to see them get catch behind bars and wish i can get some of my money back ,,they both promies me to come to me if i send them the money as i did and it just keep going on till i stop sending money ,,what can i do please let me no they need to be hind bars,,and hurt like they did me ????hope to here from you soon
larry
on Feb 21st, 2010
@ 3:55 am:
I was scammed of $20,000 and i was hoping if i could get any help here
larry
on Feb 21st, 2010
@ 3:58 am:
I was scammed of $20,000
admin
on Mar 3rd, 2010
@ 5:10 pm:
How were you scammed?
admin
on Mar 3rd, 2010
@ 5:12 pm:
Best thing to do is contact your closest authorities. Government/Federal Authorities can usually help the most.
Anonymous
on Mar 25th, 2010
@ 4:45 pm:
i was scam from a lender in nigeria from rebecca roberts and lost 100.00 and the sending fee for for times was four times witch was10.00 each. email me barbarastewart2@aol.com and tell about the lenders over there. gx7b2
adam
on Apr 6th, 2010
@ 7:57 am:
me and my fiance have recently been looking for a puppy online bc we are very specific in the type of breed that we want. We were almost scammed by a Nigerian scam artist who was posting adds on oodle.com for staffordshire pitbull puppies. After scetchy emails and them wanting us to western union them our payment for the dog to a town in cameroon africa we realized that these people were up to no good. be very weary of the telephone line starting in area code 237 its the area code for cameroon africa and its def a scammer