Why did this woman, a reverend and a nurse, give over $400,000 to Nigerian email scammers? It started with just $100. The emails told her a long-lost relative with the same last name had $20.5 million caught up in the banks of Nigeria. Janella Spears just had to help with a few processing fees…
As she sent the money, more and more obstacles would arise, each needing more money to solve. Driven by blind greed, she sent over $400,000 to the scammers, draining her and her husband’s savings, retirement fund, mortgaged the house and put a lien on the car.
Despite warning from family and friends for over two years that it was a scam, she was obsessed with getting the jackpot. Only after Department of Justice investigators happened across her $144,000 Western Union transfers while investigating a different money laundering did she stop. She only stopped because the DoJ told her if she sent any more money they would charge her with a crime
That’s why these emails will continue to clog our spam filters. There will always be someone greedy out there where the prospect of a huge payday with just trip something in their brain and they suspend all reason and let themselves get bled dry.
Woman out $400K to ‘Nigerian scam’ con artists [KATU]
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Check out 419eater.com they bait the scammers, get them to do stupid stuff to waste their time, even turning the tables and sending them to other parts of Nigeria or war torn countrys so they can recieve money.
I think Bugs Bunny says it all here.
After reading the article I still don’t understand how people fall for 419s, but I do finally understand how our country got so messed up:
When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said.
Geez, these people will do whatever even fake President Bush says.
There are very few people who even open these emails let alone respond; let alone respond interested; let alone respond with money; let alone return to the well multiple times. This takes a kind of ingenius stupidity.
Her efforts alone will lead to us recieving dumb emails for the next two years.
She needs epic fail tattooed across her face.
Oh my goodness, how did her know her last name? Let me guess… her email is probably firstinitial.lastname@cablecompany.com! There’s no way this could be a scam!
Totally blaming the victim here.
It’s always sad when people lose this much money to scammers, but when you are SO greedy that you cannot stop sending more and more money until the DoJ stops you… that is a new level of ignorance, naivete, stupidity, whatever you’d like to call it. I would very much love to feel bad for this woman, but I just cannot find anything. When you are this greedy, quite frankly, you deserve everything you get. I feel bad for her husband though. Can we say divorce?
Moist Von Lipwig, your public awaits.
@Roclawzi: oh no, he does much better work than this. even Vetinari isn’t SURE he’s running a scam…..
I wonder if AIG sent a similar email to Henry Paulson…
I wish I had access to $400,000 to give away.
Now with all that money, can the Nigerian scammers afford a spell checker?
I think the IQ levels of people with Spears last name seems to be way low. Maybe the money caught up of her relative was Britney Spears !!
both the nurse and the scammer share equal blame.
But something has to be done about Nigeria…pull the damn plug on that nation. Sheesh.
Giving your money away to scammers is still a better investment than investing in GM.
How does someone so stupid get to have $400,000??
@LordieLordie: Not all of it was even her money. Some of it was her husband’s retirement account.
@LordieLordie: In addition to spending her husband’s entire retirement acount, she also took out a mortgage on their house, a house which was already paid in full, to borrow the money to give the scammers.
In addition, she took out a loan/lien against her car, which was also already paid in full.
I still can’t believe she thought that President Bush and the director of the FBI personally and privately asked her to send money to people in Nigeria to “keep money out of the hands of terrorists.” Did she really think she was THAT special that the president and FBI contacted her for a secret mission? A secret mission that she had to pay for with her own money to stop terrorists?
With her being a nurse, I’m glad she never cared for me.
Financial Darwinism.
“The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director “Robert Muller” (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help.”
So she belived the PRESIDENT and the FBI were “in on the deal” and needed HER HELP?
I’m sorry. This woman should not be a nurse. She should be in the psychiatric ward. This is just sad. She needs mental health counseling if she believes she is part of secret government conspiracies.
If only she had been wearing her tinfoil hat. I wear mine daily and have never been a victim of a nigerian scam. When my russian bride gets here I will make her wear one also. Only 8 more payments to go and olgas all mine.
Stupid is, as stupid does.
signed,
F. Gump
Awesome… More to fuel the proof of the non-existence of “god” …
Would “god” allow a reverend, one of “his” messengers, lose everything to a scammer?
Religion: 0
Atheism: 1
I only wish there was a “hell” so these nigerian scammers could burn there.
@Dooley:
It’s god’s way of making sure Nigerian’s don’t starve!
Just like fossils aren’t proof that earth has been here for more than 4,000 years…they’re just god’s way of testing our faith!
@RedwoodFlyer: My atheist heart laughed at that!
@Dooley: Never read the book of Job, huh?
Or the four gospels, something about a guy named Jesus…
Nigeria, What a country!
@TedCopacabana:
Nice …. Better than Kazaksthan ..
Let me guess… She’s from the south?
@OULAXER11: Yeah ’cause we’re all so stupid here in the South. Actually, she lives in Oregon. If she is originally from the South, I guess the extreme intelligence of all northerners failed to rub off on her.
April, 2001. The date which I received my first 419 scam mail. I was still a cop then and copied the email and took it to the local FBI field office. They knew what it was and told me that these scams had been around since the beginning of the internet.
I will break my long standing rule about blaming the victim here…this women is beyond stupid.
What’s her email? I’ll get her money back if she wires me $8000 for the paperwork.
Normally, I’m all about defending people who get taken in by scams. However, this woman actually stole her husbands retirement account money (I feel comfortable saying that she stole from him since he was telling her to stop sending the money) to keep sending these people money.
The reporter in the video said, “The scammers exploited her compassion.”
NO
Compassion does not mean destroying your husbands plans for retirement. You wanna help out a lady with cancer? (That bit is in the video briefly and they don’t really explain it.) Why not send the money to her instead of to Nigeria! Furthermore, it stops being charity when you’re hurting yourself.
The scammers may have exploited something but it wasn’t compassion. Like previous commentors, I say they exploited that she has some kind of mental illness because if you need law enforcement to threaten to arrest you before you stop (and this after warnings from said law enforcement agents) then you have some serious problems.
What kills me is that she still thinks she isn’t a dupe or an easy mark. That means that this could actually happen again because she still thinks she’s too smart to fall for it.
Why did the reporter feel the need to throw this in there: “no relation to the well-known pop star”? Just because her last name is Spears and she’s, well, as smart as a box of rocks, then she must be related to Brittney?
Also, what crime did the DoJ threaten to charge her with? Criminal stupidity???
How much U.S taxpayer money is given to Nigeria via foreign aid?
if my spouse started bleeding the money out of the accounts, i’d withdraw it in cash and stash it in a safe deposit box that only i knew of. better to lose the interest than the principal.
now if you’ll excuse me, it’s payday and i just got an email that the brooklyn bridge is for sale…..
i don’t feel bad for her, but i feel bad for her husband and children who no longer have a retirement and inheritance.
OK, now I think Genesis P. Orridge is taking this whole pandrogynous a bit too far. It just doesn’t age well.
Idiocy at its best.
How is it that someone who’s obviously got an education can be this stupid?
I’m not usually the “blame the victim” type, but come on. You’ve got to have rocks in your head to fall for this.
The only way these scams work is if the person being scammed is very greedy, and is willing to break the law. The idea of spending 400k to get an inheritence that does not belong to you, or for that matter, does not exist, is shockingly stupid and amazingly greedy for a supposed reverand.. Good Lord, Charlie Brown…………….
A perfect example of why letting every adult vote is a bad idea.
Driven by greed she spent 400 grand? I am betting that the casinos are sending her comps as we speak!
yeah, well she doesn’t sound so dumb to me…some of us have lost more on the wallstreetian pretend-money scam.
(frown)
Dumb shit. Being warned by family and friends and still doing this, I hate to say it, but I don’t feel any thing for her. This time, the Nigerian deserved it.
Guys, I have a true story, I have 31 million in an Iraqi bank account that I can’t get tout. Who wants to send me $100,000 to help get it out? We’ll split it, I swear on my mother’s unused grave! How can people honestly be this retarded?
$10 says she kept going along with the scam because she enjoyed the attention and was addicted to the thrill of it all.
What a fool. Go to a casino lady, you might save some money.
Can we stop with the Nigerians scam post? You have to be a one mentally challenged person to fall for this kind of stuff.
Hey, I have a deal on some property for her to help her make her money back. She can take out a 0% down loan on this great piece of investment property and then sell it in a few years when the house prices go up, like they always do. All she has to do is pay this little origination fee…
Someone this stupid, should not have 400K in the first place–especially after being told it was a scam– repeatedly.
catskyfire is correct in that most people once they give the first 100 bucks, will continue until someone forces them to stop , face it 400,000 grand to make 20 million .. thats a good trade off.
The truth of it is , most people are so desperate for an easy out , then put common sense on the sidelines.
Stupid idiot , that doesn’t cut it for me. I’d prefer greedy desperate easy out woman.
I think everyone else has said everything that needs to be said
@my_imaginary_friends_bore_me: Ditto.
Let’s take a poll! How many folks think that this woman had a “Sarah Palin” sign in her front yard?
I never thought someone could be so stupid as to actually think that someone out there as $20 mil with their name on it as long as they pay a few hundred grand to get it out of hock. Amazing.
you know, with all the publicity these scams have gotten (hell, even our local news outlet has done bits on it, and they’re completely technologically inept) I really don’t have a whole lot of pity for the “victims” anymore.
Publicity aside, who the hell sends money to a stranger without checking out the validity of their claims first?
I accidentally my whole life savings, is this bad?
@smint: The whole thing? Oh man. Better do a barrel roll.