Nigerian Scammers Are Good People

Nigerian Scammers Are Good People

Via Slashdot comes an IEEE Spectrum article about a new scam from Nigeria. In brief, instead of asking you for money directly, they redirect your business email. They wait until someone orders something from your company, then rewrites the bank routing numbers and such so that the client sends money to the scammers’ account instead of yours.

So far, so bad. Technically interesting, ethically very bad. The moral of the story, as always, is be careful where you type your password, and if something looks hinky, think about it.

But then there’s this part:

Bettke and Stewart estimate the group they studied has at least 30 members and is likely earning a total of about $3 million a year from the thefts. The scammers appear to be “family men” in their late 20s to 40s who are well-respected, church-going figures in their communities. “They’re increasing the economic potential of the region they’re living in by doing this, and I think they feel somewhat of a duty to do this,” Stewart says.

Let’s just toss that on the pile marked “Religion doesn’t make people more moral”, shall we?

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