Scam - our friends in Nigeria (again)

Spain holds lottery scam suspects
At least 1,500 people were defrauded

Spanish police have arrested 87 Nigerians suspected of defrauding at least 1,500 people in a postal and internet lottery scam.
The arrests were made in and around Madrid in an operation co-ordinated with the FBI.
Police said millions of euros were taken from the victims, most of them in the United States and European Union.

Those targeted were wrongly told they had won a lottery and asked to send a payment before prize money could sent.
Thousands of letters and e-mails, most in ungrammatical English, were sent out to prospective victims every day, police said.

The faked documents asked them to make an initial payment of 900 euros ($1,400, £720) in taxes or administrative costs.

The scam is estimated to have netted around 20 million euros, but the actual sum could be many times that, say police.

Anglican bishop
Police said the number of those defrauded could run into many thousands, as most of them probably failed to report the crime out of embarrassment.
Police estimate that only one in 1,000 recipients of the letters needed to fall for the fraud for it to make a profit. An Anglican bishop was among those duped, according to Spanish officials.

The operation to track down the gang began in May 2007 when a huge number of identical letters destined for addresses in the US was discovered at Madrid's Barajas airport.

Police confiscated hundreds of computers, mobile phones and 60,000 letters in a raid on more than 30 homes and businesses.

Law enforcement officers also seized a suitcase full of fake $100 notes which they say was used to convince some victims who came to Spain in person to collect their "prize money".

20 million €...makes you wonder what's more prelevent...greed or stupidity?

Hey,lexass...do you want to say..'prevalent' instead of 'prelevent'.I think this word don't exist.

ditto, tanks for correction :)

I can't understand how someone, who has never entered a competition, could ever think that they have won a prize.
More, and this is where greed takes over all human sensibilities, they send money to totally unknown people. Surely, some 'bells' should start ringing, that maybe all is not what it seems. The oldest scam in the business and people still fall for it.
Meanwhile, our friends in Nigeria, just rub their hands with glee and think 'well, well, well who is the clever one, then?'

Terri…. in States quite a number of people count on winning lottery ticket to secure their retirement. It's a microwave society, everything is "now". It used to be that if you missed a train you took one the next day(19 century)...nowadays...you're late 5 minutes and people want to sue you...tells you a lot what kind of society we have become....it's a no no that requires effort, everything has to be effortless and NOW!.....or else...

Young people (and I mean high school students) need to be taught about compound interest and they'll have no need for a lottery.

If you start investing at the age of 19 and invest $2000 a year at 10% annual return for only 8 years, you will end up with over a million bucks by the time you're ready to retire at the age of 65.

If, on the other hand, you start investing the same amount at the same annual return of 10%, but at the age of 27 instead of 19, you will have to keep investing for 39 years as opposed to just 8 in order to have about $800,000 at the age of 65.

Neet, eh? I love compound interest.

*neet
neat of course

Question is...how much is 1 mil worth 46 years form now...10k in todays money?..
Look at the price of gold and you'll realize what inflation does to your money...the real inflation, not the one they talk in TV. 10 years ago for 450k you could buy a mansion, today just a nice house, 20 years form now you may just be able to get a house. Your compound interest may just lose the race

>>>people count on winning lottery ticket to secure their retirement.
I'm also thinking of security in my old age.
I'm counting on meeting a sweet, young, intelligent millionaire, who will find me so fascinating, that he will, without giving it a second thought, sign over all his fortune to me. Only then, will I decide to marry him.
But what are the chances of that happening?

True, but by the time you retire your kids are on their own and you don't have any obligation to support them; your house is paid off and you have a nice equity in it; and hopefully you haven't maxed out your cards. Really, at 65 the only expenses you should have is just your living expenses. So that million, even if it's worth only $300K, it's still a little something and only for an investment of $16K.

Besides, in 30-40 years, CPP and Old Age Security may be the things of the past. What are you going to do then?

I'm self employed...so my point of view is a tad different, I don't count on CPP or Old Age Security check..I see old people that worked hard all their lives to end up with...nothing....if I've been doing what they've had done...I'd have the same results...naaah, thanks, there's better ways to secure retirement, besides when I retire, I am not gonna be sitting home with no resources to do things that I wanna do, I actually will be doing the things I want.....there're different ways to skin a cat ( make a living) and if you ever want your life to be any different from most people, see what they do and turn around and do something different. Ever heard of herd mentality?

in due time :)

What does being self-employed have to do with anything I wrote? I'm self employed, most of my family is s.e., almost everyone I know is s.e. Self employed or not, you still need money to retire. Being self-employed you probably have a greater chance of having more money; after all when you're working for someone else, you're building their wealth, not yours.

I see old people that worked
>hard all their lives to end up with...nothing...
People don't think about their future or worse, they count on the gov't or their kids to take care of them. LOL

There is a sucker born every minute.

Fajny Facet,
I think you've been brainwashed :)

I was only referring to the original post (Nigerian scams).