Why does spam come from Nigeria? Here's why

Ever wonder why those spam emails —the unsolicited messages landing in your inbox and promising a cut of fabulous wealth— claim to be from Nigeria? Or why they never seem to improve their grammar?

 

Here's one reason why: they managed to fool enough recipients to continue with their scam, tech sites reported on Thursday.

 

Cormac Herley, principal researcher at Microsoft Research's Machine Learning Department, as saying scammers are not interested in becoming believable but are just looking for the most gullible victims.

 

"Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor," Herley said.

 

He also pointed out that while sending an email may be virtually free, other steps such as actually emptying bank accounts will require "recruiting and managing mules."

 

"Since gullibility is unobservable, the best strategy is to get those who possess this quality to self-identify. (While most may see through and ignore the email), (t)hose who remain are the scammers ideal targets. They represent a tiny subset of the overall population," he said.

 

An article on Computerworld appears to bolster this, with some scammers actually succeeding in getting millions from victims.

 

It cited a case of a Nigerian man who was sentenced to 12 years in jail two years ago, "after scamming US$1.3 million from victims."

 

A separate article on MSNBC added poorly written emails or those that identify the sender as from Nigeria — a country often associated with certain scams — "weed out the skeptics, the people who wouldn't easily believe that a stranger would send them millions in exchange for a small fee."

 

"This means that the scammers can focus on the folks who are most likely to suspend disbelief and proceed to lure them into their schemes (which is an effort intensive process). Using transparent emails for the initial contact keeps the scammers from wasting time communicating with potential victims who'd see through their lies before it's too late," it added. — TJD, GMA News