These tips apply not only to internet based businesses, but also to newspaper ads, retail businesses, fax machines, mail order, and other mediums as well.

If you are the recipient of any questionable replies through our site, please forward them to webmaster@50statesclassifieds.com immediately so that we can delete the offending user and block them from the site.

What is a Mugu, you may ask? It is a term originally used in nigeria, but now with universal usage. Originally, it was adopted by the scammers to refer to what they consider to be "Stupid, Greedy People" - in other words, it's how they refer to the victims who fall for their scams. The word "mugu" implies that the victim deserved what they got for being greedy, or naive.

From Wikipedia: The 419 scam originated in the early 1980s as the oil-based Nigerian economy declined. Several unemployed university students first used this scam as a means of manipulating business visitors interested in shady deals in the Nigerian oil sector before targeting businessmen in the west, and later the wider population. Scammers in the early-to-mid 1990s targeted companies, sending scam messages via letter, fax, or Telex. The spread of email and easy access to email-harvesting software made the cost of sending scam letters through the Internet low. In the 2000s, the 419 scam has spurred imitations from other locations in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, and, more recently, from North America, Western Europe (mainly UK), and Australia.

What does this mean to sellers on the Internet? Read on...

Beware of anyone offering to pay more than you are asking for the item. This is typically called the "Advance Fee Scam" This variation involves sending you an international money order for a large amount of money. Then, a "shipper" or "friend" or other partner comes to collect the item and the excess cash. A month later, when the MO bounces, the scammer has already gotten away with the item and the cash. Tricky!

A great way to spot these people early is to look at their grammar and spelling. Yes, normal people will make typos and other mistakes. But if you read the message and it sounds like the person barely speaks english, or if the sentences are choppy and very badly spelled, this is a HUGE warning flag!

Another common scam includes using stolen credit cards to purchase large ticket items from US companies, and having them shipped to foreign locations. By the time the person sees the fraudulent charges to their credit card and reverses them, the items are unrecoverable.

The sad truth is, there are as many different variations on these scams as there are people perpetrating them. Always trust your gut instincts. If you think that the person responding to your ad seems strange, they probably are!Be wary of anyone who wants to buy your item without regard to price, color, size, etc. If they contact you about "your item" and have a long list of questions like "what is the last known condition that the item was in" and "where is the item currently located", but never mention what the item is anywhere in their message to you, chances are that they responded to dozens or even hundreds of ads and just copy/pasted the same note to each seller.

Also beware of anyone who repeatedly calls you "Dear" for no apparent reason, or who talks about God excessively. I've found that many of these scammers will "Praise God" dozens of times in their messages, hoping to throw you off track and gain your trust. They assume that if they praise God, you will automatically trust them without question! The phrase that comes to mind is, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much". In other words, they're talking about it over and over to try and convince you of something that simply isn't true. The reason they say it a rediculous amount of times and work "God" or "Jesus" or "Praise Be" or similar phrases into every 3rd sentance is that they are so desperate for you to believe them and fall for their scam, that they "over-act" the part. Those who praise god continuously are most likey just trying to distract you with one hand so you won't notice what their other hand is doing, so to speak. The USA is known worldwide as being one of the most religious countries in the world, and yet, something that most foreigners would not understand about us is that it's also considered extremely tacky, in poor taste, and incredibly rude, to bring up personal religious beliefs during business transactions with strangers. This rule varies by region, for example in the south, they are much more religious than we are in the north. However, someone who is not from the United States won't understand that nuance, they only know that statistically, we are very religious. So, basically, it's a red flag for several reasons.

Perhaps the weirdest variation of these types of scams is regarding personals and dating. These scammers reply to personal ads and lonely people looking for friends, rush into a friendship or relationship online after a few hours of chatting, and then convince these lonely souls to wire them money for plane tickets, train tickets, or whatever the case may be. Often, they will talk to someone for an hour and then declare their undying love and ask for a few grand to make preparations to fly to the victim's home immediately. The lucky victims are the ones who never hear from the scammer again after they've been had - it's much worse to have one show up on your doorstep! And sometimes they really do.

In yet another variation of the 419 scam, a supposed widow, child, friend, etc. of a famous general, or other important person, offers to split billions of dollars with you in return for your help in fleeing their country and their supposed enemies. This involves - you guessed it - giving the scammer your SSN, bank account number, a scan of your passport, etc. in order to facilitate the transfer of billions of dollars to your account. They need you to send them lots and lots of money in order to get the money released from their country. (Some will say it's to bribe officials; others will say that they have to pay to retrieve the trunk the money is hidden in from a bank, storage locker, or other holding facility; and still others will claim that they are currently afraid for their lives in a refugee camp, or that their baby sister is dying of a rare disease and they need to seek emergency medical help, or that their family has been killed by enemies looking for the cash and they must escape, or are enduring some other horrible living conditions - anything to play on your human sympathies.

Once you send them money, they will continue to come up with reasons why they need "just a little bit more" - to bribe one last official, to fill out one last permit or form, to complete the transaction, to escape the refugee camp, to make preparations... They are banking on the fact that you will not want to lose what you already sent them, and that you will send them "just one more payment" to avoid losing the previous advances. In some cases, they will even send you a check if they are desperate enough. They claim that it is a good faith show to reimburse you, or to cover your expenses while you wait for the rest. But make no mistake: cashing these checks will catch up with you in a very, very bad way! They are usually forged replicas, either stolen or created from the stolen banking information of people or companies who have previously fallen for their scam. When these people notice that the check has cleared their account, they will invariably contact the bank about the fraud, and then whomever cashed it will have two problems: One, check fraud, for cashing a fraudulent check. Two, usually the scammer will have some clever reason why you should send them the money to complete the transaction - and by the time you find out it's a bad check, the money is long gone.

We're usually talking tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, which you become responsible for if you are greedy or naive enough to cash the check.) To the scammers it's just a game, but to you, it's a terrible nightmare. Click that link - you'll see an example of how Nigerian popular culture often idolizes scammers - the country is so poor that the scammers become heroes because they're the only ones who are spending any money in the community, which helps everyone - much in the same way that US gangs are often welcomed in certain neighborhoods despite people realizing it's technically illegal. They are seen as helping the community, and are often looked up to as role models and businesspersons..

You have to be alert - protect yourself by using common sense - do not let scammers lull you into being criminally greedy! Don't let them play on your human sympathies either! It is a human tendancy to believe that which we want to believe, even when we know in the back of our heads it is "not quite right".

Many people who have fallen for these schemes end up in jail, with their homes taken away, and worse. On the other hand, there have even been cases where people have gone to meet these people in Africa and other countries, believing they were going to complete the transaction, rescue their "friend", or help their "partner" leave the country safely... only to be robbed, assaulted, and even murdered by the scammers. These "people" usually operate in groups, and can be extremely dangerous. Here is a very scary story, for example. Other victims have committed suicide after they realize what has happened - imagine being $100,000+ in debt because you mortgaged your house, sold your possessions, and borrowed money from friends, family, or business associates, which you can never repay no matter how hard you work - and the shame that goes along with knowing how badly you were taken by the scammer - pretty depressing, huh? These scams are truly harmful, any way you look at them.

My advice is to ignore them (replying to them will just confirm that you've got a valid email address, which they can spam, and/or sell to all their other spammer buddies). You can also report them to the FBI. However, whenever I've called them in the past, they generally say something along the lines of "thanks for telling us, but we don't have the manpower to follow up on this". By far the most fun and satisfying solution (if you have the time) is Scam Baiting.

Scam Baiting is when people reply to these fraudulent messages in order to bait the scammer. The idea behind this is to tie them up so long that they miss the chance to scam more naive people, thereby doing a noble service for your fellow human beings, as well as getting a good laugh and passing the time constructively. The Baiters will pretend to go along with things, delaying as long as possible, with involved stories about why it's taking them so long to get the cash together, and why they need this picture, or that carving in wood, or to see a picture of the stargate symbol being tattood on the scammer's arm. In some cases, they get the scammers to take embarrassing and even humiliating pictures - thanks to the language barrier, you can get them to write bizarre things on signs that they are then photographed with, to prove their identity and/or sincerity before you complete the deal. The baiters that do it regularly sometimes have friendly competitions with others to see who can get the funniest or most outrageous pictures based on a theme or phrase.

My favorite site for Scam Baiting is www.419eater.com. It's hilarious! They always have a good explanation of why they want the scammer to write a particular phrase, or pose a particular way, or tattoo a particular thing on their body, and since your average foreign scammer doesn't tend to speak proper english anyways, they often don't catch the nuances of how bizarre these things are that they're being asked to do. What's could possibly be more fun than messing with criminals who want to defraud unsuspecting people? Not much! :) However, with that being said, use caution and leave it to the pro's. The last thing you want is to accidentally make an enemy of an international crime ring! There are plenty of Scam Baiting websites out there for you to enjoy. The seasoned members are extremely conscious of the security risks involved and take all due precautions so that the rest of us can be safely entertained at the expense of the bad guys.

Now, just to vent my own frustrations a bit, I'll tell you about my daily struggle with these scammers. I design websites, and I have over 600 "webmaster@" email addresses under my control, all of which receive more spam than I can count, each and every day. Because "webmaster@..." is the most common email address, the spammers email it knowing that 95% of the time it will be valid. I receive at least 20 copies of every variation of this scam each day, times 600 email addresses. I used to go through and get the IP address and headers for each message and forward them to spamcop, the FBI, etc, until I just gave up as time went on. Now, I've learned to just keep updating my spam filters to catch each new variation I find. If I still did it the old way, I'd be spending 40+ hours a week just deleting them! So, while I can completely empathize with everyone who gets these messages occasionally, I have to tell you, it could be much worse - you could have *my* spam problems and receive scams and viruses in your email hundreds of times a day!

Please don't let the scammers and spammers scare you away from Internet based selling. These scammers target retail businesses, newspaper advertisers, mail order catalogs, random fax machines, telephone order companies, and other businesses as well. The internet is just the latest medium these criminals are using to reach potential targets. It's really no different than any of the other methods they used before the Internet came along. To protect yourself, just use caution and common sense, and trust your gut instincts when doing business both online and in real life!

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Resources:

What is a Ponzi scheme?

419 Eater - Scam Baiting website. Educational and entertaining! Seriously funny stuff, and it's even for a good cause!