A woman from Oregon has set a new (unofficial) world record for being the biggest sucker.Most people with an email box have heard of the so called Nigerian scam. It usually involves a huge amount of money. A lottery win, an inheritance, or some kind of rich person who needs your help to get his money out of the country. And anyone with a brain promptly deletes such an email, and wonders who would be stupid enough to believe it.
Apparently the answer to the question is Reverend Janella Spears (no relation to Britney), a nurse who teaches CPR in Oregon.
Her story began with a Nigerian email claiming that her long lost grandfather had left her $26.6m, and requested $100. After she sent that, she was asked for $8,300, which she also sent.
As time went on she was asked for more and more money. Each time she became suspicious or reluctant to part with money, they would send her proof. A letter from George Bush, a letter from the FBI director, and a letter from the President of Nigeria (all faked of course).
This woman ended up wiping our her husbands retirement account, their savings account, mortgaging their house, and putting a lien on the family car (both the house and car were already paid for).
By the end of the scam the woman (who interviewers described as lucid and intelligent), had sent $400,000 to Nigeria.
When she finally realized she was being scammed, she took the matter to the authorities, who of course could do very little but offer their sympathy, and the information that she had been taken for the largest amount of money in the history of Nigerian scams.
I just thought this was an incredible story. I always found it hard to imagine that there were people out there gullible enough to part with any money at all. But then I also considered that if the scam never worked, they wouldn't still be sending the emails.
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