Effect of fraud

“The challenges we face in our society should not be used to neutralise the gravity of this so called “white collar crimes”, as their effects on the system is far reaching and on the victim can hardly be quantified.”- Fagbohun Oluwole


The effect of 419 scams can be viewed from 3 points;


1 The victim


2 The system and international community


3 Nigeria






The victim


1 As many of the victims have developed a seemly long trusted relationship with their scammer, it becomes really audacious to make them believe that they are been scammed, if they are confronted, there is a high tendency that they may just call their trusted scammer so as to be reassured that everything is on course. Being in this state is really pitiful, as the victim cannot or does not want to face the idea that he/she has been fooled.


Even when the victim is milked dry, the scammer skilful employs his victim to take a series of loans which would be paid as soon as the deal sails through, and this never happens. When the victim is beyond ruined and his scammer breaks contact, it finally dawns on the victim what was said all along. This kind of people find it really difficult trusting people in life, they go through emotional stress which could lead to illness, they could become fugitives as they may have been encouraged to do something shady in a bid to raise funds.


In some cases, such occurrence could lead to relationship breakdown, while in extreme cases were the victim finds the matter to difficult to swallow, they commit suicide. Anyone who has a heart, fully aware of the effects of 419 on the victim would desist from such acts.






The system and the international community


How often have done we here that this or that legal tender is not acceptable. Cheques and promissory notes which are legal means of payments have been rubbished, as scams fabricate “evil twins”, which could need more than an expert’s eye to detect. Hence, it could take days to be sure that one wasn’t given a bogus or a stolen cheque. The post, mobile phones, email accounts and websites have all suffered dearly. In the same vein banking systems have been called into question, as some of their policies unknowingly aid scams.


This days, the difference between hackers and scammers is getting slimmer, as they have moved from been cousins to brothers. Their activities tend to collide and in many cases lead to the same results- loss of money. Phishing, spoof website and vishing are now used to extract targets financial information or account password. Other dangers posed by hacker include; cyber stalking, cyber defamation, salami attacks and identity theft.


Because of the gravity of 419, many governments and private societies all over the globe spend huge amounts of time and money in setting up organizations, units and bodies to fight 419, were the case otherwise these resources could be channelled to better use.


The activities of the modern scammer translate to millions of dollars lost by nations.


“Over $41 billion dollars has been lost till date and 9.3 billion in2009 from the activities of over 300,000 Nigerian scammers, globally”- ultra scan investigators