Online dating scams nigeria

Just picture this: you wake up one day, immediately roll over towards your nightstand, and reach for your phone to check you Facebook feed, Instagram, whatever! Before you can rub the sleep from your eyes, you notice you have a new notification from one of your dating apps. Your heart skips a beat! It reads:. You are so beautiful. I want to marry you.

A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining their affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers ; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf. These scams are often perpetrated by organized criminal gangs, who work together to take money from multiple victims at a time. More money is lost each year to romance scams than to similar internet scams, such as technical support scams. Older people are often targeted, because they are more likely to have assets, such as retirement funds or homes, that can be stolen. Sensitive people are more vulnerable to online dating scams, based on a study conducted by the British Psychological Society.

In our series of letters from African writers, Nigerian novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani laments that internet scammers have become role models for many youths in her country. But most shocking for Nigerians was the separate arrest of their internationally celebrated business tycoon, Obinwanne Okeke. The head of Nigeria's Invictus Group, which has interests in sectors ranging from agriculture to real estate, he was named by the respected Forbes magazine in as one of its 30 top African entrepreneurs aged under He pleaded not guilty in court last week, and was remanded in custody. The FBI publicises similarly sensational busts every few years, often followed by swift convictions and impressive jail sentences.

An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim or simply disappears. The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI states that, "An advance fee scheme occurs when the victim pays money to someone in anticipation of receiving something of greater value—such as a loan, contract, investment, or gift—and then receives little or nothing in return.