Word: scammed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...scheme that has persisted on the Internet at least since 1996, and for many years before that in postal mail. The financial crimes division of the U.S. Secret Service says it receives upwards of 100 complaints a day about the Nigerian scheme-commonly known as the 4-1-9 scam, after the section in the Nigerian penal code that deals with financial crimes...
...scam, which is dragged out over several months, asks the recipient to pay assorted fees, supposedly to help cover the banking transaction and legal costs. Eventually, the victim is asked to travel to Nigeria or a nearby country to complete the transaction...
Following through on the scheme can be hazardous. Scambusters.org, an Internet watchdog group, says that an American was murdered in Nigeria in 1995 while pursuing a 4-1-9 scam. U.S. Postal Service (USPS) reports show that another victim was confronted by two Nigerians with automatic weapons, and was forced to turn over $4,000 in traveler's checks before receiving permission to leave the country. Another victim lost over $400,000 before reporting the fraud...
...Central Bank of Nigeria has denied any role, even going so far as to take out full-page ads in The Washington Post and USA Today in 1998 to warn Americans about the scam...
...matter of weeks, and that he needed some cash to pay his expenses to Washington, where he would redeem the Federal Reserve note before it expired. In exchange, he offered to pay back 1%?or $1 million to $5 million?on every note cashed in. "It is the scam du jour," says U.S. Secret Service agent David Popp, a former White House bodyguard now stationed in Manila to protect U.S. monetary instruments against an onslaught of hustles, swindles and fakes that have sprung up in the Philippines...