Friday, May 04, 2007
NO WONDER THEY END UP LIVING IN CARS
Queenslanders - one of them might be our next Prime Minister - are easy marks for email scams:
In a recent operation into Nigerian-based scams alone, $400,000 was tracked leaving the state in just one month, Supt Hay said.
When the 25 victims involved were contacted by police, it was discovered they had paid more than $7.2 million over several years in the hope of receiving lucrative payouts.
But this isn’t happening because they’re greedy or stupid. It’s because they believe in fairness:
Queenslanders are pouring tens of millions of dollars into overseas scams because of their misguided belief in “a fair go” rather than stupidity, a senior fraud investigator says.
They care too much.
UPDATE. Queensland needs help:
As a lawyer in Queensland, I must have at least one person per month coming in and asking if these things are real.