Imagine you are going about your day and you get a call/email/fax saying you have won the lottery and you need to claim it or lose it. WOW! After you lose your money, you get a call “You are a moegoe, you have just been scammed!” True Oprah Style guests on the show (16/10/2007) titled “scam alert: What scam artists don’t want you to know” were recovering victims of such scams. Sad, sad, sad...
I caught the show, 7 minutes late, almost at the end of the ABC special assignment clip in Nigeria. The ABC anchor was in Nigeria showing a bust and a house of a convicted scammer. The part I got was these scammers call themselves the “419 men”. The name refers to a Nigerian law of getting money from people under false pretenses. They run a “World Bank of Nigeria” scam conning people out of their money. Once they’ve got you, they distribute your name and another group hits on you.
The ABC Anchor, Brian Ross, was in studio and explained that the “419 men” are actually quite rich and scam people in America out of US$3 billion each year. When he showed a clip of one of the guys, I was very envious. That house looked like a grand house! And the owner scammed Americans out of their hard earned money with an email or fax!
( pic - Brian)
The pretence is always to assist a dying member of a family, a transfer of money issue or a deathly disease. The victims are referred to as moegoes. Well, Brian and Oprah pronounced it Moo-goo , Oprah web site says Mugus! I prayed they could hear me as I kept screaming “Moegoe, not Moo-goo”. Correction: Lizzy14 has corrected me, Nigerians actually do refer to the victims as Mugu, not Moegoe like in Msanzi. so Oprah, forgive me gal! You were right!
(pic - Patricia)
Taking cue from Oprah who kept saying to all her guests “so you were a moo-goo” so I will refer to the gusets as Moegoes. The first Oprah Moegoe, Patricia, was conned out of US$50 000 by a man in a Nigerian businessman who contacted her via fax and needed “money for reconstructive surgery”. She was told she would get almost double the money when the surgery is done. By the time she realized she was being conned, a simple google search for the bank she was transferring money to, she had maxed her credit cards and check account. Shame. It was said seeing her re-tell her story. The fax was not even meant for her but she called the number on the fax because she sincerely wanted to help. Years later, she is still getting “hits” – scam artists still contact her for some kind of assistance.
(pic - Julia)
The second moegoe, Julia, was scammed on a dating site. She placed her details to get “company”, got hooked on a widower called Scott. He sent daily emails and love letters; and sounded genuine. He said he was volunteering at a Nigerian orphanage. When she went through a rough patch and had skin cancer; Scott was there even if he was physically 5000 miles away. He proposed and Julia sent money to help with the orphanage. She waited at the airport for 6 hours in a white dress, and her knight in shining amour never pitched. She was conned!
The kind of documents these Moegoes had were so genuine, with letterheads, fancy libgo and convincing tone. I can understand why a gullible person, without verification or checking, would think they are real. Microsoft word is the demon here! You can do whatever you want with it. Ha ha ha! But seriously, it really doesn’t take that much to fake an “official” letter.
(Pic - Book)
Oprah’s expert was Sid Kirchheimer, who has written a book called Scam Proof Your Life, came to demonstrate how easy it is to check for dating website scammers! He visited some website that monitors dating site cons and found over 15 profiles for Scott. He had the same name, same picture and just a different sop story about his pain and suffering and needing a woman! Sid says some of the “men” scammers are actually woman! They steal pics off model websites and use them to post on dating sites as men in Russia. He says there is a list of over 6000 profiles of people like that! Is your profile on a dating site?
(Pic - Christina)
The next Moegoe, Christina, was conned out of a little over US$8000. She received a letter that said she had won the lotto in Australia. If she doesn’t claim it, she will lose it. How do you win lotto in another country when you haven’t even entered or bought the ticket? Well, Christina checked everything – made calls, googled and called the scam offices where everything was verified as genuine. She was sent a cheque, she called the scam office again to verify the bank checks - She went to cash the cheque, got money! She got a second cheque, she cashed it as well… and a couple of weeks later her bank called to say the cheque had bounced and fake. She was liable for the “withdrawals”. She had spent her own money and had sent some money to the scam office for the federal fees.
Sid, says the bank have the right to release the money for cheques as soon as possible, a minute to 5 days. BUT they still have to collect the money from the cheque owners. When there is no money, it’s your baby. You are responsible for whatever money was taken. Talk about organized crime!!!
The lessons here is we live in a society were we are now able communicate with complete strangers anywhere in the world and give them a lot of our personal details without thinking twice – Are we putting ourselves out there to be scammed? Even here on TVSA I chat to Meme J in Namibia, I have entrusted her with my full details and pictures without question. I trust her enough to do that but she is still a complete stranger. Damn! Hey, Meme J!
Oprah knowing that people will say she was picking on Africa, on the Nigerian scammers apologetically said “Please don’t send me letters about how small a percentage the Nigerian scammers are. I know there are good people in Nigeria. I just wanted people to know how to protect themselves and be vigilant”