One of my customers lost a lot of money in a Nigerian internet scam. Apparently, this is big business in Nigeria.

My customer is an intelligent, educated, sophisticated person, who you would never think would get caught by one of these scams. I wrote an article in another newsletter warning the readers.

Two weeks later I was helping a friend move. The movers told my friend that her cost would be $5,000+, instead of the $1,500 quote. I knew they were cheating her, but I could not figure out how the scam worked. (Maybe because we had been up all night packing.)

My customer reported her loss to authorities and she is going through a legal process, but she may not get anything back.

The next night I figured out how the moving scam worked and we managed some damage control, but my friend had already left behind half her stuff to lower her fees.

Searching on google turns up endless entries for Nigerian and moving scams. Anyone can easily take a second to educate themselves.

My point is this, you can get scammed even when you know you are getting scammed. Try not to lose too much money.

By Andrew Weitzen (c) 2010

Weitzen is the publisher of several online Internet journals including: InternetHandholding.com, DomainNames.gs, DotNetNuke.bz, Programmer.bz, Software.vg, WebHosting.vg