Oregon Woman Loses $400,000 to Nigerian E-Mail Scam

By Hum
in Real World News

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Grand Master

Hum

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Posted

SWEET HOME, OR ? An Oregon woman who is out $400,000 after falling for a well-known Internet scam says she wasn't a sucker or an easy mark.

Janella Spears of Sweet Home says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front.

Spears told KATU-TV about the scammers' ability to identify her relative by name was persuasive.

"That's what got me to believe it," She said. "So, why wouldn't you send over $100?&quot:blink:k:

Spears, who is a nursing administrator and CPR teacher, said she mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car, and ran through her husband's retirement account.

"The retirement he was dreaming of ? cruising and going around and seeing America ? is pretty much gone for him right now," she said.

She estimates it will take two years to clear the debt that accumulated in the more than two years she spent sending money to con artists.

Her family and bank officials told her it was all a scam, she said, and begged her to stop, but she persisted because she became obsessed with getting paid.

The scheme is often called the "Nigerian scam" and it's familiar to many people with e-mail accounts. It still exists and it still works.

Spears first sent $100 through an untraceable wire service as directed by the scammers. Then, more multimillion dollar promises followed so long as she sent more money.

The scammers sent Spears official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and the United Nations. President Bush and FBI Director Robert Mueller were also involved, the e-mails said, and needed her help.

They sent official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and even from the United Nations, saying her payment was "guaranteed."

But it wasn't and now Spears is paying the price for her costly lesson.

"The hope is [other people] are not going to fall as hard as I fell," Spears said.

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Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
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A woman who "isn't a sucker" somehow managed to mortgage her house and not listen to bank managers who told her it was a scam? I think she just doesn't want to believe what an idiot she is.

Grand Master

Scirwode

Posted
Posted
A woman who "isn't a sucker" somehow managed to mortgage her house and not listen to bank managers who told her it was a scam? I think she just doesn't want to believe what an idiot she is.

Doesn't matter, she has already prove herself to be an idiot. Get rich quick schemes don't work, no matter how much you try. Now, she has to face a debt that shouldn't have been there in the first place and putting others, such as her husband, through misery when it could have been joy.

Scirwode

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White Cuban

Posted
Posted

She's trying to say it can happen to anyone i guess by that shes not an easy mark, too bad she is a damn easy mark, bah, if i would Pound my house every time i got a scam mail i'd be living in the core of the earth.

Grand Master

Lee G. Veteran

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Wow, what a stupid woman. She was a sucker, who didn't listen to her family and bank officials telling her that it was scam? And she went so far as to mortgage the house and take a lien out on the family car? No sympathy from me either. I wonder why the family didn't try to force her to stop?

Grand Master

kombolcha

Posted
Posted
If i was her husband I would divorce her for being so damn stupid.

divorce!? i woulda killed the bitch.

and what the **** was the husband doing while the screwed with all that money and his retirement?

i have a feeling he's just as much a dumb ass as her.

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