Recognizing Nigerian Scam Ads

The vast majority of scam ads come from Nigeria, and the vast majority of these, if paid, will be paid by stolen credit cards.

I'll get into the specifics of certain types of Nigerian Scam ads, but they have a lot of features in common. So as new types arrive, there are earmarks to look for.

First: They now typically ordered via email. The email will come from a free email provider, usually yahoo.com, but also hotmail, gmail, and other similar services.

If you are geeky, you check the email header information for the originating IP address (the internet address used to create the email). MaxMind provides the country lookup service now used by AD2AD; you can use their free demo by clicking here. Mostly the scammers use IPs located in Nigeria, but they also use "A2" proxies, and IPs located in other African and Arab countries.

For a very low cost, your webmaster can probably block forms or emails coming from Nigerian IP addesses.

Another give away of these sorts of ads is Bad Grammar, Bad Spelling and Bad Punctuation. I don't know how to ID this exactly, but there's just something odd about the email text. Look for strange use of commas, unusual sentence construction, etc. Usually the ad text will be a little off, but the accompanying email for the ad will be written with a very different style, usually much less literate.

No phone number, only a yahoo type email address for response.

Or if a phone number, one from a very different area code. If you have doubts, call the number. 99 times out of 100 it will be fax line.

Typically the person sending the email will use a different email address than that shown in the ad.

When and if you get payment info, the name of the submitted credit card will be totally different than any name on previous correspondence. (If you want to have real fun, say the credit card didn't go through. The scammers will cheerfully submit card after card, each with a completely different name and address from the previous. For extra amusement, ask them to explain why.)

To recap:

• IP in Nigeria or similar
• Yahoo, hotmail, gmail or similar
• Bad grammar, bad spelling, bad punctuation
  
• Ad has email response only, no phone
  
• Or phone number doesn't work or is fax line
• Email address in ad differs from email address of customer
• Credit card data doesn't match information in ad or email