GlennLog

Turning technology from mumbo-jumbo into rich tasty gumbo

< Christ's Suffering and Gibson's Profit | Main | More Realistic Report on Laptops in Schools >

February 27, 2004

More on Nigerian Book Scam

I posted this note a few days ago about how I'd received an order for books to be shipped to Nigeria, even though I'm not a bookstore, and how I suspected it was yet another Nigerian scam. Books probably have a high value in places where it's hard to import hard external goods.

A bookseller who asked not to be named provided me with the following story via email:

I read your blurb about a suspicious order for Black's Law Dictionary that originated from Nigeria. Our store has had several of these questionable orders, both via email and operator assisted calls. These types of phone calls are usually by deaf people who need an operator to relay the information but are used more and more by scammers who don't want to be traced. A lot of the email orders I have seen are for bibles and I guess for some dealers that can be disarming.

The last order I got that I spent any time with was for medical books and came via one of these relay phone calls. They actually supplied the credit card number but as my research has shown, these credit cards are stolen and the bookstore could end up holding the bag if were to fill the order. On this particular transaction I was able to call Visa and they gave me the issuer's phone number. They thought it was suspicious enough to cancel the card even though it had not been reported missing or stolen.

I also found out during my research that the books actually end up in the former USSR a majority of the time and not Nigeria. Here is my most recent email order from these Nigerian scammers and if we had acted on it we would have been out more than $20,000.00. It boggles the mind.

DEAR SIR/MA, I WILL LIKE TO ORDER THE BELOW LISTED BOOKS FOR YOUR STORE AND I WILL LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU DO SHIP INTERNATIONAL,IF YOU DO KINDLY GET ME THE TOTAL COST OF 60 COPICES OF THE BOOKS INCLUDING THE SHIPPING COST TO MY CLIENT'S LOCATION IN NIGERIA SO I CAN SEND YOU MY CREDIT CARD INFORMATION FOR YOU TO CHARGE FOR THE TOTAL COST. 1.CLINICAL MEDICINE (KUMAR AND CLARK ) 2..Clinically Oriented Anatomy Fourth Edition by (Keith L.Moore,Arthur F. Dalley).Isbn 0683061410. 3.Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry. David L. Nelson, Albert L. Lehninger, Michael M. Cox. ISBN:1572599316. 4.Clinical Medicine, 5th Edition Kumar & Clark 0702025798 WITH ALL REGARDS, WILLIAMS SMITH

The bookseller also pointed me to this discussion at Edifying Spectacle by booksellers and relay operators. Here's a story the bookseller pointed me to, also, about how a religious bookstore was ripped off for about $3,000 plus additional holdbacks.

This obviously needs to be further publicized, and I assume the ABA has done so. But there are many places that sell books that aren't associated with the ABA or that don't have the time to learn about this kind of thing. Alert your local bookstore today!

Posted by Glennf at February 27, 2004 3:33 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://db.isbn.nu/mt3/mt-tb.pl/2095

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference More on Nigerian Book Scam:

Another Nigerian credit card scam from Skeptinomicon
Just spreading the word (this via BoingBoing): [Read More]

Tracked on April 10, 2004 10:38 AM

Comments