Social Engineering: Crooks preying on our parents

A menacing problem

I think this is becoming an emergency in Nigeria and it requires we begin to focus on the menace of unconscionable, unscrupulous and merciless confidence tricksters preying on the vulnerable sectors of our society.

Last year, somebody called my mother informing her of my being in trouble abroad and convincingly persuaded her to part with some money. Having tricked her the first time, they applied more pressure at which time she chatted to my siblings who were able to break her out of the spell she had fallen under and stop the criminal activity.

Using my blog, I tried to create a storm and though we never apprehended the nasty piece of work, the bank at least got involved enough for about 3 weeks trying to get hold of the person who for the pressure and bad publicity that had gone out regarding his identity was forced to go to ground.

My mother’s situation was not an exception, the fact is our once strong, able parents are now older and less agile in terms of things in their daily lives, there are people out there ready to create situations of distress, panic, anxiety or fear and by doing so getting our now vulnerable and sometimes lonely parents to part with their life’s savings.

Abductions and hypnoses

I heard today of another case where a fine and wonderful lady in her 70s had gone to withdraw some cash from a bank and as she left the bank, she was accosted by persons who abducted her and took her to some place she can no more recollect.

It is very possible she was hypnotised because she gave them the money she had withdrawn and then she was dropped off at home where the next day under some sort of influence she returned to the bank to withdraw 5 times what she withdrew before and handed it over to the gang.

At the end of the second day, she apparently came to and informed her daughter of what had happened but swore her daughter to secrecy about informing other siblings. Meanwhile the gang was trying again to get her to withdraw more money for them and thankfully to no avail.

Tackling the issue

At first one has to be thankful that she came to no physical harm but the mental anguish and scars of such an encounter will no doubt be more lasting. She is not as chatty as she used to be and she rarely leave her home; this is a lady who has travelled the world has been fiercely independent apart from the fact that she had been widowed for over 3 decades.

I do not think the case of my mother and that of this amazing lady are unique, I have the feeling it is happening a lot but the victims are not talking or telling anyone for the embarrassment, the shame or the realisation that they are a lot more vulnerable than they are ready to let on.

Banks must profile

Banks are usually the centres of this corrupt enterprise because that is where the money is with people being cajoled, blackmail, shaken-down or rustled. They need to be aware that people are targeting their customers usually gaining information about accounts or other pertinent details that will not draw suspicion to criminal activity preying on the vulnerability of the elderly.

Besides, I think banks have a greater duty of care and concern towards these vulnerable sections of society and it is important that they adopt measures that are sympathetic and cognisant of withdrawal patterns of these people – such as alerts to successive withdrawals of large sums of money, facilitation of wired transfers rather than the handling of large sums of cash and advising that senior citizens for their good be better accompanied to and from the banks.

They need to create better profiles of their customers of a certain age, install triggers to alert to unusual activity and have better levels of customer care and challenge/response scenarios to help their customers safeguard their wealth especially when things are somewhat out of the person’s control.

Any other ideas you might have towards helping our parents evade these crooks will be welcome and please post them as comments.

Thank you.

Related posts

Johnson Ademola Babatunde - I'm on your case

Nigeria: Banking on some assurances

Nigeria: Giving your relations a heads-up on scammers

Nigeria: Giving your relations a heads-up on scammers

Protocols of contact

It is necessary to send a cautionary note to the many of us separated from our close relations by time and distance that certain unscrupulous middlemen might be tempted to take advantage of that situation to misrepresent our situations to our close relations and by doing so deceive, defraud or scam them.

There have been a number of instances where certain confidence tricksters have contacted relations with tall tales about believable but made-up circumstances drawing close relations into confidence.

It is important that we establish the protocols of contact and communication with our relations that they are not unduly taken advantage of.

Eliminate surprises

In my case, I have decided that I will neither use couriers or messengers to convey goods, services or messages to my relations without first informing them that such an arrangement has been made.

In essence, do not surprise them such that cold calls and surprise packages or messages will allow them to drop their guard when confidence tricksters come in to play.

Never send strangers to your relations, if you do, ensure that you and that stranger have at the point of initiating that messaging activity talk to the specific relations you expect them to contact beforehand.

Maybe you should establish code words or passwords that need to be verified before strangers are given an audience, these culprits can have obtained your details from all sorts of sources and use that to convince your people – the absence of the secret password will put paid to that criminal enterprise.

In other words, adapt the money transfer verification protocols for your purposes.

Always for their net gain

In many cases, your relations are the receivers; you should never make arrangements that have your relations having to pay up for any goods, services or messages you have initiated, they should gain a net profit and not a loss by reason of poor coordination.

Ensure, your relations know your real circumstances in terms of status, needs, means and concerns, this should ensure no one is able to plant strange stories about you to gain unwarranted confidence.

It is important that they know that when they are contacted by strangers to part with anything your relations should at least contact you, failing which they should contact at least two of your siblings, close friends or known associates before they act to part with anything which should be done only in company and never blindly.

Share the information

If the contacts ask that none of the information they have offered or shared be discussed with others, immediately suspect foul play and ensure that the widest possible network of people are engaged – if the report is that you are in trouble, you need concerted efforts of help not isolated sources of uncoordinated activity.

It is difficult to properly codify a proper warning chart of things to make your relations aware of, but it is most important for them to be fully apprised, properly informed, rarely surprised and in complete control of any communication channel that is opened on your behalf with the support of everyone else who genuinely has your concerns to heart – those people can never be those strangers, no matter how good their intentions at the onset presaging the opportunity to take advantage of your kith and kin.

Johnson Ademola Babatunde - I'm on your case

I can be so evil

All men on earth must be thankful that I am no deity with the ability to visit the plagues of Egypt and the destruction of Pompeii on just one person and still ensure that he not be utterly destroyed but be left to endure pain he has never known and curses like they have never been visited even on Job and sevenfold without reprieve.

My blood boils and my anger will not be tamed because he who seeks to incur wrath like there has been no precedent to refer to has touched what is most dear to me, I will not rest and he will find no peace until he is apprehended and punished severely.

It must be one of the blackest days on the anniversary of the loss of her dear nephew and my loving cousin some rotten scum of the dregs of hell took the advantage of a vulnerable 69-year old mother to inform her that her son was in trouble having had his documents seized and was in need of urgent help.

A mother’s anxiety

Sadly, alarm bells that should rung when he suggested she keep the situation to herself were deadened by what one would call a mother’s anxiety beclouding better judgement.

So, to the bank she rushed to shell out tens of thousands of Naira in aid of her son when in fact she was being scammed – it was when demands were made for more money that she contacted my siblings and basically the penny dropped that whoever it was was up to no good at all.

Not only has it left my mother in serious distress, it was upsetting enough on my end to make me cry.

The detail

The money was paid into a Stanbic IBTC Bank Savings Account number 9304743966 with the account holder name being Johnson Ademola Babatunde.

I cannot say where that person got my mother’s telephone details from but I know that one of my Hotmail accounts was compromised recently.

In any case, I am trying to get all my contacts notified that they should read my blog, contact me, failing which they must discuss any cold calls about my being in distress with others before acting on any instruction to part with money.

In any case, I have contacted Stanbic IBTC Bank and written to them with the hope that something can be recovered of this unfortunate and sordid affair. I expect the bank to do something about it, if not the recovery of the money, they should have details of the identity of this criminal for purposes of criminal prosecution.

The phone number

The caller used +9447024062687, it is probably +447024062687; +4470 numbers are personal numbers which may not be from the UK because it belong in international call forwarding services, the +44 7024 0 range was allocated to Magrathea Telecommunications Ltd in 2005 and the company has been cited on certain scam and fraud watcher sites.

Whoever, this man is, I am coming after you and I will not relent, somewhere, some place, some time, you will slip up and I will have my chopping board and meat cleaver at the ready to take your fingers phalange by phalange to feed to rabid dogs.

Woe betide you for all your days, you have got it coming.

Nigerian scammers will always be a minority

Those rotten Nigerians

One is saddened to read that 87 Nigerians have been arrested in Spain on suspicion of defrauding at least 1,500 in a postal and internet lottery scam.

In the light of my last blog, these are the kind of people who make our inadvertent commission of being ambassadors of Nigeria a very difficult job.

They put us in inappropriate spotlight that many who do not have an alternative identity have to try harder at proving honesty, capability, eligibility and trustworthiness.

Be smart about scams

I have received many letters saying I have been put into some lottery and I have won a prize but for me to gain access to the prize I have to pay some administration fee to some agent engaged by the lottery firm.

I do not think you have to be too smart to see that there is something fishy about such a proposition, the news story indicates thousands of these letters and emails are written in ungrammatical English.

The question would then be why a “reputable” lottery organisation would engage an unprofessional outfit to manage lottery winnings that probably would reflect badly on their enterprise.

In it to win it

My view of lotteries is simple; you have to be in it to win it, and every lottery I have won has been because I consciously entered in that competition with the hope that my numbers or ticket would come up and win the grand prize or some other prize.

Where lotteries are managed on the Internet, especially in the Netherlands, you have the option to include both your address and bank account number so any winnings go directly into your bank account without the need of an agent.

In fact, the whole scheme of this scam looks quite wrong headed, whilst the administration of winnings might be a costly exercise, informing the winner directly of their winnings should not be too cumbersome.

Most people who register in competitions have the option to opt-out of having their details passed on to agents, if a lottery firm outsources this service, one would expect that the letter or email informing a person of winnings would bear all the official hallmarks of the lottery organisation at first.

No need to pay

Then, the lottery organisation would have paid the agency to handle the winnings, the agency should not then have to charge the winner any administration fees because a percentage of the winnings should have gone to covering the cost of administration – a winner should never have to pay administration costs.

Another question is how a lottery expects to break-even if it randomly chooses non-contributing participants from an email list, I do not believe there is some bottomless cash pool somewhere where someone derives joy from giving money to unknown strangers and then requires them to pay up to get paid.

The Caribbean for one

I remember one prize I won in 1992 before the Internet was popular which was for a 1-week cruise in the Caribbean, but living in the UK I had to pay a fortune to get to the Caribbean and then probably end up as a stowaway on some pirate’s vessel.

It did not take long for me to realise I was being taken for a ride and about to be scammed, I do not do stressful lottery wins, much as a Caribbean cruise for one could never have been any fun at all, the devil is always in the detail processed by a logical brain. The same scam is now rehashed for another medium.

The logic usually does not add up, eventually, the old saying catches up on the deluded or desperate that has been cajoled into a despicable enterprise – it only takes 1 out 1,000 fools answering to make a profit.

The old saying is – A fool and his money are soon parted – if you have not expressly entered a lottery you cannot seriously expect to have won anything and you should not believe you have won anything.

We are good Nigerians

Meanwhile, shame on all those Nigerians, I do hope that the full force of the law is visited upon them and we who keep on the good side of the law continue to prove that those shameful miscreants are the exception rather than the rule.

Most Nigerians abroad are engaged in meaningful activities that build economies, communities and relationships, we who take our ambassadorial jobs seriously would not relent in being the good and exemplary Nigerian.

I Go Chop Your Dollars - 419 Song Expose

We need to show the positives

I could not help but note the comment left in my blog about police recklessness in Amsterdam. It is a sad reflection on our society that there is a "White man's paranoia" when there is a gathering of people of African descent.

We who legally live in Western societies should and must not be afraid to gather for social events reflecting our culture, humour or traditions and we must not allow the nefarious activities of the few who besmirch the good name of our homelands to deny us the freedom to associate just because the police can be up to no good.

The freeing of the arrested detainees indicates a number of facts, the police were wrong in their assessment and actions; there are Nigerians who are law-abiding and legally resident in the Netherlands regardless of the impressions other prejudiced sections of society might have and the authorities can still be seriously embarrassed for being utterly irrational if people speak up for their having their right trampled over.

Pseudo-ambassadors undercover

If we all stay in our homes and refuse to associate with other countrymen and I can understand the reticence and suspicion of many, where would our host societies get to know about our culture, learn not to be afraid of our traditions and appreciate the good and worthy values we can bring to their societies?

We cannot allow ourselves to be completely subsumed into other cultures in the quest for acceptance, assimilation or integration, we are products of multiple cultures and we should celebrate all that makes us what we are.

Celebrating 419

This brings me to the "I go chop your dollars" song, it was released a few years ago, one does have to read the lyrics and understand what is being said because it is not so much about praising the scammers but highlighting a whole range of issues that affect the scammer and the scammed.

Having obtained the lyrics from Nikke's Index which appears to be pre-occupied with the public service of exposing scams, it is important to understand the language and the satire or irony that the song conveys - it is by no means a glorification of scam or 419 practices.

I would try and provide an exegesis for each line in order to help convey the thoughts.

I Go Chop Your Dollars

This is the song title - Chop means eat in Nigerian Pidgin English, but in this context it means swindle to spend. It has a corrupt connotation and this should be the giveaway about the song.

I don suffer no be small

Upon say I get sense

This highlights the socio-economic malaise in Nigeria, smart, intelligent and well-educated people who cannot seem to get opportunities for a career or more, it feeds a desperation to survive - in some cases, by any means possible - some turn to crime.

Poverty no good at all, no

Na im make I join this business

An excuse and a situation, one needs means to survive and we do not have the safety net of social services in Nigeria. Most of the time, the only people would have any means automatically become responsible for their extended families that whatever income they have is spread too thin to be of any effect.

Eventually, the benefactor would not be able to meet any of these needs and the supplicant has to come up with something.

A comment on Nikke's Index implied that most Africans are given to kleptocracy as a culture, we can ignore that comment, but there are issues in our societies that need to be addressed with good governance, infrastructure development, career opportunity and anti-graft revolutions.

419 no be thief, its just a game

Here he says that Advance Fee Fraud is not stealing, well, that is debatable depending on perspective. It is fraudulent no doubt because there is a false pretence in acquiring the trust that allows people to part with money for some sort of shady and corrupt deal.

Some people have turned this elaborate deception into an art or a craft and they are winning the game of deception, unfortunately.

Everybody dey play am

Everybody is playing this game. I think not, but probably everyone in that circle of desperation seeing others benefit from fraudulent activity is enticed into having a go and somehow, they do have rich pickings.

If anybody fall mugu, Ha! my brother I go chop am

This is the punch-line; if anyone is stupid enough to believe the stories then that person is game. Mugu means stupid fool - the etymology is Hausa but it has been adopted in Nigerian Pidgin English to mean the same thing.

Chorus

These are the tall tales that people believe and trust to become willing partners in the fraud and hence getting fleeced.

National Airport na me get am

I own the national airport

National Stadium na me build am

I built the national stadium

President na my sister brother

The president is my sister's brother - well that would translate to the President is my brother. However, sister in the Nigerian context could be a sibling, a relation or even close friend indigene of your town of origin.

You be the mugu, I be the master

If you believe all this, you are the stupid fool and I am the smart one - Mugu, appears again.

Oyinbo I go chop your dollar

White man, I would swindle you

I go take your money disappear

I would swindle you and be untraceable

419 is just a game, you are the loser I am the winner

Advance fee fraud is a game between you the losing fool and I the winner smart guy

The refinery na me get am,

I own the refinery - that is almost plausible, Nigeria is an oil-rich country, but really?

The contract, na you I go give am

But you go pay me small money make I bring am

I have a contract for you, but you have to pay kickbacks to get it signed over - Does the Al-Yamamah deal sound like this?

You be the mugu, I be the master... na me be the master ooo!!!!

Once again, if you believe all this, you are the stupid fool and I am the smart one

When Oyinbo play wayo, them go say na new style

When country man do im own, them go de shout bring am, kill am, die!

When a white man comes up with some money making (swindling) scheme, it is celebrated as a financial instrument, however, if my fellow countryman comes with a similar scheme he is criminalised, booked, jailed and shot down.

Oyinbo people greedy, I say them greedy

Westerners who fall for these deals are greedy, indeed they are very greedy and that is what these frauds rely on - greed.

I don see them tire thats why when them fall enter my trap o!

I am already fed up with the fact that they are greedy, but that makes them easy prey, if they can be deceived then they are game for the consequences.

I dey show them fire

I would do them for whatever I can, their money most especially.

My take

For all intents and purposes, this is really no glorification of the criminal activity, rather is simple social commentary on how desperate society is that they turn to crimes which some rationalise as games.

It highlights the willingness of the victims to believe the incredible in the hope that they can make large sums of money in some shady scheme - it is criminal too.

In what is seemingly a dog-eat-dog world, it is about pitting wits and some would in the end fall for the con because they are not half smart.

Once again, governments and law enforcement should do much to stop these activities, but it is change in the social circumstances of these countries that would sort this out - opportunity through merit, zero-tolerance of corruption and building of essential infrastructure to feed innovation and industry.

Solving the wrong problem

However, it is all a cop-out as the war on drugs - there is a growing demand in the West for the goods and rather than deal with drug addiction at home, they are spraying crops abroad.

It does not in anyway deal with the problem, rather, the makes the marketplace for drugs more violent. In the case of Advanced Fee Fraud, people who are vulnerable to tall tales about making large sums of money for doing literally nothing should first be educated and after education criminalised - it would take away the ready supply of greedy and gullible people who allow 419ers to exploit them.

The victims of fraud are not blameless in this matter and they too should be visited for being accomplices in nefarious and criminal financial activity.

Somehow, after reading through these lyrics, someone somewhere cannot take a joke and thinks it is glorifying scammers - I think not, it is the truth we hate to hear - the game, the mugu and the chop.