SF saves souls!

[watervole]

As most of you will know, I'm chair of Redemption, an SF convention held every other year in February.

This year, we've had a sudden rush of memberships from Nigeria. Being of a suspicious nature (and not wanting to risk getting landed with cost of a booked hotel room for someone who fails to show), I asked one of them a


What is your current address, even if it is only a temporary one? (I asked this as the credit card address didn't match the country where the payment was made, which suggests a stolen card)

What are your main SF interests and why?

Here's his reply:

Currently I reside in nigeria, but I usaully travel overseas.
I am a redeem church worker.

My interest in coming to the Redemption for the convention is to have the total grace to achieve words and advices at the camp during the convention on my life and also to request for Lord's grace to abide by his rules and not to backslide.

I wish to be at the redemption convention centre over there by the Grace of God almighty.

Thank you very much and wishing to hearing from you soon.

-------------------

You'd think someone trying to sneak into England would at least have the sense to read the web site!

Comments

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

smirk

Gina

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

I got this (names have been changed just in case of innocence):

DEAR SIR,

I WRITE TO EXPRESS MY INTEREST IN BOTH PUBLICISING THE EASTERCON 2005
CONVENTION IN NIGERIA AND AS WELL BE A PARTICIPANT WITH MY MEMBERS OF STAFF.

XXX XXX IS MY FULLNAMES. I AM FROM NIGERIA. I HEAR ABOUT
THIS CONVENTION FROM THE INTERNET. I OWN A COMPANY CALLED XXX XXX
IN NIGERIA. WE ARE INTO YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND IT CONSULTANCY.

I WILL LIKE TO HAVE SOME OF THE FLYERS FOR THE PUBLICITY.

HOW DO I MAKE MY PAYMENT THROUGH TO YOU. I WILL LIKE TO PAY IN CASH.

PLEASE I NEED URGENT REPLY.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I suggest asking him who his favourite SF writers are and why he enjoyed their books...

[julesjones]

He will probably turn out to have no way of paying for it other than by some method which involves him overpaying you by some hundreds or thousands of dollars, and you paying the excess to some third party to whom he happens to also owe money. Needless to say, the bank draft or whatever it is that you receive will turn out to be forged, and both he and the third party will have vanished. It's a variant of the 419 or Nigerian fraud, and a fairly common fraud on the "for sale second-hand" newsgroups - a friend of mine ran into this one while trying to sell something.

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually ours seem to be more some sort of scam to get illegal immigrants into the country- I'm guessing the one with the credit card is here, and trying to find an excuse to bring a shipload of friends and family in so they can disappear the instant they hit the beaches. (Nigerians seem to be taking over a lot of London corner-shops, leading one Pakistani comic I saw on TV the other day to bemoan them "coming over here and taking our jobs")

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's almost certainly an immigration scam. They all paid by credit card, the first one over two months ago (I waited to see if it bounced before allowing anything to be mailed to him).

I've refunded the cards. If they're stolen, at least the original owner won't be too out of pocket.

My problem is that they're booking hotel rooms and I don't want to risk us having to pay for those rooms when they fail to show. Nor do I want to risk chargebacks on stolen cards after we've finalised our accounts.

PS. Why is the usual scam called a 419?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

From the relevent section of the Nigerial legal code.

MC

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

oops, even the Nigerian legal code.

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

Except they're not getting hotel rooms booked - I haven't put any of them through, and their deposit is refunded with the rest of their payment.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

We get a lot of this at the day-job (http://www.childreninscotland.org.uk) - it's not a cash scam, it's an illegal immigration one. Basically, having joined and signed up for an event, they then ask for a letter saying they are attending or have been invited, which they can then use to get a visa. No problem, you may think. However, if they do a runner, you can be held liable....

As for the 419 scam, it's named after the statute in the Nigerian legal code (the Nigerian Finance Minister (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/cast/nigerianfinanceminister.html) was on the radio talking about it the other day).

A recent example is the one that thought Tsunami was a country linked to by the_magician, or the one below which I'm going to send a friend (who lent me a certain book) as soon as I can find a disposable address to do it from:

Dear [name],
Please accept my apologies for intruding in your mail box for reasons of the needfulness of divine charity. My name is Lil Changeover, widow of the late President Mark Changeover of Nwmkwami....

needs work, though.

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we had one of those letters asking for an invitation letter. I politely rebuffed them. Well, actually Lesley politely rebuffed them, co I'd have just laughed in their virtual faces and told them to sod off.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I believe similar things were being tried on conventions a decade or so ago, but that time it was people coming from eastern europe.

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

We got a few at Intuition, that was 1998.

[(Anonymous)]

There were big problems at Helicon and Intersection. Of course most of those eastern European countries are now in the EU or timetabled to join soon, so visas are presumably no longer an issue (work permits will be though I guess).

Paul T