Nigerian Webmaster Asks: "What Can Honest Nigerians Do to Stop 'Nigerian Scams'?

[mandy]

Nigerian webmaster talks about the problems Nigerian scammers have created for honest Nigerians in the online world.

What Can Honest Nigerians Do to Stop 'Nigerian Scams'?

Hello,

As a honest Nigerian webmaster and techie, global e-commerce remains a dream to me.  Thanks to the negative exploits of the large number of advanced fee fraudsters (419ers) who are Nigerians.  Phrases like "Nigerian scam" and "Nigerian e-mail" have become so common that the word "Nigerian" is synonymous with "scammer" on the Internet.

If you are based in Nigeria, you cannot easily earn money (with a merchant account) or spend it (with a legally owned credit card) online without the issue of "scam"coming up.  Paypal, the most popular and conveninent payments processor, will simply close your account and sieze your funds when they discover that you are a Nigerian.  When you mention that you're a Nigerian on forums or chat rooms, the issue of 'Nigerian' scams will be raised.  For each item you try to buy online, a scam alert is triggered.

One myth has been spreading online is that the 419 scam is our major foreign exchange earner.  This of course is wrong, because 95% of our foreign exchange comes from crude oil (Nigeria is a member of the OPEC oil cartel)...

full post and discussion: http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-3173.0.html

[mandy]

A related article:

While the concept of card payment is gradually gaining ground domestically, the same cannot be said of the global cards brands such as MasterCard and Visa issued by Nigerian banks for the purpose of conducting offshore transactions.

Most of the transactions initiated online by Nigerian based consumers using international debit/credit cards are deliberately rejected by international merchants...

Recent reports revealed that most international merchants have built automatic alerts into their online card processing to reject Nigerian transactions. They specially target for rejection transactions that bear mailing and shipping addresses and character showing cards issued in Nigeria.

Not only this. Business online support group sites are replete with warnings against orders from Nigerian businesses...

full article: http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/fe...06-001.htm