In the spirit of my recently-concluded Cognitive Bias series I will be starting a new series exploring real-world scams, cons, and social engineering that exploits our cognitive terrain.
For this first installment I present you with the venerable Nigerian Prince Scam.
The Nigerian Prince Scam is an advance payment scam and found its origins during the French Reign of Terror in the form of stories about an escaped noble who needed help reclaiming treasures hidden before his flight. The story found a larger audience during the Spanish-American War and was rewritten to center around a prisoner of that conflict. The modern, Nigerian version was invented by a kid in the United States.
This scam relies on exploiting greed, ignorance, compassion, and an inclination to follow up investment with further investment.
The use of disqualification is an interesting feature of this scam. Nigerian Prince Scam e-mails contain misspellings and poor grammar that tend to turn away the astute and naturally suspicious so that the scammer can focus his subsequent efforts on those most likely to be duped.
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