"Before his death we were both born again Christians without a child"
"I would appreciate a partner who is GOD-FEARING & dedicated to join me in establishing this industry,you might find it neccesary to come down here & see things for youself"
"I only give all praises to God who made every thing to be like this, my father is gone, I can count you as my father if you wish to be a Daddy to me"
"The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband's relatives are not Christians and I don't want my husband's hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers"
"Now that God is about to call me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends"
Dear Beloved,
These statements, or similar, will be familiar to anyone with an email address.
Infact they are all cut & pasted from unsolicited emails I’ve received pitching the idea that I’m in line for a multi-million dollar bequest or, retain a percentage of a large financial deal, on the basis I reveal my bank account details.
As we know these are nothing but scams, most of which originate in Western & Southern Africa, particularly Nigeria which gave rise to the term "4-1-9 Fraud’ (after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses fraud schemes)
But, why do these African Scammers so consistently & overtly target ‘those of faith’?
The prevalent and on-going use of Christian innuendo in these ‘fishing’ emails, strongly indicates Scammers receive more success by targeting this market.
At first appraisal it would appear to be because Christians are more likely to be believe ‘down on their luck stories’ from some dubious stranger offering them unimaginable fortunes. Especially when that individual claims to share the same belief.
But, there could of course be other under-lying mitigations which have lead the Scammers to target Christians, as opposed to other sectors of the secular west.
May be, after literally millions of ‘trial & error’ attempts to perfect their pitch, the Scammers have undertaken,by default, a massive worldwide behavioral study, that’s unearthed the facts that:
-Christians are more greedy, and more likely to ‘take the bait’.
- Christians are more naïve, thus easier to fool.
- As outlined above, conclusively Christians believe all fellow Christians are by definition honest, again making them easy targets to fleece.
Apologists will claim in defence of these points that ‘Christians are simply more generous and philanthropic’ and those well practiced Scammers exploit this.
But this is not a known reputable Charity requesting funds for a good cause, here. This is an underhand ‘get rich’ scheme. The only common bond between the scammer and his target is a shared loved of a mutual deity, so this argument doesn’t hold water.
Besides, it wouldn’t take much for these enterprising & hungry Scammers to work-out the two biggest benefactors on the planet (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet) are both atheists!
This being the case, we would have also seen by now, scammers slanting their pitch towards the non-theists in richer countries.
This hasn’t been the case though, and the well practiced fraudsters know Christians from the west, make the best on-going targets.
Have a blessed day and hoping to hear from you soonest.
Yours in Christ.
1 comment:
It's not only because the religious are a more gullible target audience that 419'ers target them, but also because Nigeria the proportion of religious nutjobs in Nigeria is far higher than anywhere in the world. It's the American Bible Belt on steroids.
Reacting against this religious rhetoric is actually a good way of finding out whether or not you're dealing with a scammer. If they don't start cursing you, you're probably dealing with a scammer.
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