I was always wondering if, after so much has been told on the topic of Nigerian scammers, they could still be in the business and making money. Apparently, they can.

On my recent trip to Atlanta, USA a colleague of mine showed me an article from the local Atlanta Journal-Constitution from December 3. According to that article a woman from Dacula (a small town in Georgia) reported to the local authorities that her debit card had been misused.

After further investigation, it turned out that the lady thought that a 2009 Toyota Camry would be a real bargain for 22k USD and that the nice gentleman from Nigeria who was offering it really needed her debit card info.

To her big surprise, even after she paid for the car, it had not been delivered and there had been more charges on the card! This really upset her so she decided to go to Nigeria to find out what was going on and file a formal complaint with local authorities. Luckily, she contacted her local police department before she did.

I think the morale of this story is that especially now during the shopping season before Christmas, many people fall victims to similar, or even more advanced tricks and lose their money because of a seemingly good bargain.

If you look at the latest post from Roger Thompson, the attackers are getting more sophisticated every day.

Picture credit under Creative Commons: Jeff Glucker