My friend's 411 trip to Nigeria

A few years ago, I worked with this guy (let's call him Mr. X). Actually, Mr. X was my supervisor. We would play chess during lunch.

Now, while I'm not really a good chess player, dummies can't beat me. Mr. X would beat me 2/3 games. So, not a dummy.

He started coming into work with large folders crammed with paperwork, and would spend most of the day making furtive phone calls; we knew he was up to something, but we couldn't figger it out.

BUT...Mr. X was trying to get into the pants of a lady at work, and let it slip that he was going to get rich. She wasn't the nicest of folks, so when Mr. X told her how he would coming into his wealth, she recognized the scam, and told the rest of us.

It was a 411 scam(more details on this scam)...

In Mr. X's case, he was told that there was oil money someone wanted to sneak into the country, and..."needed"...his help.

By 2001, this was a pretty well-known con, mostly targeting senior citizens. In fact. I had spent one night just a few months earlier LMAO off at some website that was baiting these scammers into revealing themselves by photo...

So we started pointing out to Mr. X what the scam was, how it worked, showed him stories of the scam in action...everything we could think to do to warn him off.

No dice.

In the course of our arguments, he revealed that he had already sent them money...more than once. Every time he sent more money, they would send him another check for "big money"...a check that never cleared, and always required just one more fee to clear.

What it came down to was that he had already made himself a fool...but as long as he didn't admit it, then he wasn't a fool in his mind...plus there was big payoff just around the corner. (see sunken cost fallacy), (also see members of a certain political fantasy...I mean ideology..."that's NOT socialism!")

And in the end, Mr. X went to the source of the problem. He borrowed money from his people and flew to Nigeria to "straighten out the paperwork". He was kidnapped within a day of arrival and his passport was stolen. His family ransomed him home (I still don't know why nobody here demanded we use the Marines to get him out...).

He was held for two months, time for his family to put together the money...and finally came back to work. He was always a lot quieter after that.

But at least I started winning at chess more often.

Post-script: I left that job about a year later. At the time I left, Mr. X had involved himself in the same damn situation. Nobody said a damn word to him about either, except for me, and he dismissed me right off the bat.

yay...human nature...yay

My Books