A man on a work project in West Africa asks me for 2000 - is this a scam?

Question

A man that I met on Facebook was called to do a job in West Africa. He got there and found out that there is a problem with his Swiss bank account. He needs 2000 to finish the job so he can come home. He gave me the account numbers so I could check and the account says that he has 40,000,000 ! I still don't feel comfortable with it. How would I know if he is scamming me?

How did you verify the funds in his account? Did you navigate to a website or phone system that the man told you to visit? — Freiheit, Oct 23 '18 at 14:21
I don't see any indication in your question of why you WANT to send the money. Are you being promised a reward? It's obviously a scam either way, but still... ridiculous. — user91988, Oct 23 '18 at 15:55
Out of interest, how long did he befriend you for, before asking for the money? To clarify I am sure it's a scam, but interested how much effort he put in. — Jim W, Oct 23 '18 at 16:49
Maybe it's time to pick a canonic scam question, write a community wiki answer to it if needed, and stop going over yet another scam e-mail over and over again? — Dmitry Grigoryev, Oct 24 '18 at 07:38
@Anoplexian: In Germany, you need a TAN (from a generator or a list) to make transaction orders. And even with a TAN, there are typically daily transaction limits, often just a few thousand bucks per day, making this a potentially month-long task. Dunno how it is in other countries. — phresnel, Oct 24 '18 at 09:44
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. — GS - Apologise to Monica, Oct 24 '18 at 12:07
@GaneshSittampalam, one of the problems with this is that questions that get moved to chat are often valid comments for this section. Such as Anoplexian's. — tgm1024--Monica was mistreated, Oct 29 '18 at 01:27
Trying to tread the fine line here....But can this be a real question? It contains two highly conflicting and readily apparent issues: $40,000,000 in the account and "needs $2000". Isn't that simply too obvious to ask about? I apologize if this is insulting. — tgm1024--Monica was mistreated, Oct 29 '18 at 01:30
@tgm1024 it was marginal, but I've undeleted it. In general the comments on this question are way out of control though. — GS - Apologise to Monica, Oct 29 '18 at 09:19
@GaneshSittampalam, agreed. But his comment wasn't part of the back and forth. It was a single comment directed to the OP. Thanks for undeleting. I certainly wouldn't want the job of figuring out what is a comment and what is a sensless conversation, that's for sure. — tgm1024--Monica was mistreated, Oct 29 '18 at 13:02
@tgm1024 I suspect that on my first pass reading quickly, I saw it as a rhetorical question that was really just an answer. — GS - Apologise to Monica, Oct 29 '18 at 13:35
it's been a long time, but maybe you could accept one of the answers so the question doesn't show up as unanswered anymore? — Tom, Jun 10 '20 at 06:33

score 242 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 23 '18 at 15:04

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Nobody with 40 million in the bank needs a random stranger to help them out with a few thousands. No matter which problem he has, with the liquidity available to him, he can access funds and his bank will support him in this, because if he has 40 million sitting in a bank account, it means his invested capital is at least one order of magnitude larger.

So he is short something like 0.0005% of his net worth. His bank will be happy to send him that money, by personal courier if necessary, no matter what temporary account troubles there may be.

Not to mention that West Africa is not a remote jungle anymore. There are numerous payment services such as M-PESA in operation in Africa, and any millionaire going there for business would certainly have himself set up with an account for daily expenditures.

Which brings us to the "have himself set up" - people with this amount of cash don't work alone. They have secretaries, assistants, companies, financial advisors and many other people that would be far ahead on their list of "call in case of emergency" over some random guy on the Internet. Not to mention family.

Yes, this is a scam. It's hard to tell what kind of scam it is and whether you are intended to be a victim or an unknowning accomplice. But it has all the signs for a scam and none of the signs of being real.

answered Oct 23 '18 at 15:04

Tom

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Not to mention that nobody with $40 million would actually park that amount in a bank account. In the US, only $250,000 would be insured should the bank go belly up. – Michael Benjamin Oct 24 '18 at 12:36
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Your arguments are all valid but this would still obviously be a scam if he had only 40.000. – kapex Oct 24 '18 at 14:37
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@kapex it would still raise flags, but this is the one obvious red flag where you can just stop evaluating all the others. With 40k, it would not be such bright. – Tom Oct 24 '18 at 16:18
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@Tom It's for sure the most obvious sign to catch this scam. As a general rule for evaluating whether something is a scam you could also stop at "a random stranger contacted me" though, to catch almost all scams. I'm not disagreeing with your answer, I'm just wondering if a gullible person reading it might think "this time it's not a millionaire so this is not a scam" when the next scammer tries a similar trick. – kapex Oct 24 '18 at 16:44
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@Michael_B You would be surprised – user1723699 Oct 24 '18 at 17:30
@user1723699, yeah, you're probably right. But it's so unlikely, in my view. Aside from the FDIC hurdle, who would put so much money in such a low-yielding account? – Michael Benjamin Oct 24 '18 at 17:53
@kapex true, yes. Just for some reason "random stranger" doesn't immediately trigger scam warnings in most people, that's why I didn't lean on that. – Tom Oct 24 '18 at 18:25
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@Michael_B - Switzerland is not US. I know Americans like to think they are the best in everything, but to even compare reliability of American banks with Swiss is hilarious. – Davor Oct 26 '18 at 08:27
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Also, IF they were in situations like they describe, they'd likely be in it due to having serious enemies (doesn't matter if the enemies are legit authorities or criminals). People with serious enemies are not the kind to trust random strangers. And even if, you wouldn't want to be involved. – rackandboneman Oct 26 '18 at 19:53
I need to wait for the clock to turn to ensure you actually get the 10 reputation you deserve, but +1 in spirit for now. – jpmc26 Oct 26 '18 at 22:42
Ob comment regarding the fact that he appears to have moved west from Nigeria. – dgnuff Oct 28 '18 at 04:49
@Davor, I was also going to point out that they overlooked the Swiss account, but I certainly wasn't going to throw in the unwarranted America hatred. C'mon. If you have an axe to grind, post it elsewhere. – tgm1024--Monica was mistreated Oct 29 '18 at 01:35

Philipp · Answer 2 · 2018-10-23T12:50:46.143

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We are of course unable to tell for sure, but this situation has all the hallmarks of a classic confidence trick.

Meet random people on the Internet.
Build a personal connection.
Tell them you are in some pickle where you urgently need them to send you money. Promise them they get it back immediately.
If they fall for it and actually do send money, ask for even more money.
When they stop sending money, break contact.

This scam appears over and over again with all kinds of identities and stories.

In this case, it is really fishy that a businessman with over 40 million in their bank account would 1. use online banking with username and password to access that account and 2. give their password to someone they never met in person instead of an employee, trustworthy business partner or relative.

He gave me the account numbers so I could check and the account says he has 40000000 !

I assume what you mean with this is that he gave you online banking credentials, you logged into his account and found that amount of money. Possible explanations:

The bank doesn't actually exist. It's just a fake website the scammers set up to fraud people like you. This should be easy to check by simply googling the name of the bank.
It's a real account, but it's not his account. He bought the login credentials from a hacker.
It actually is his real account. The money you see is all the money he obtained from other people like you using the same method.

...or does he expect you to not send your own money but actually send him money from that account?

Then he is likely asking you to commit online banking fraud on his behalf. The account password was stolen by a hacker. The hacker wants you to send the money to his real account. When the real account owner reports the fraudulent transfer, the bank will check the access logs and find your IP address. A while later the police will knock on your door and start questioning you about why you log into online banking accounts which don't belong to you and send money to West Africa. You better hope that the court believes your story, or you will go to jail on the hacker's behalf.

edited Oct 23 '18 at 12:50

answered Oct 23 '18 at 12:16

Philipp

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I really don't like the first sentence of this - we know for sure it is a scam. That type of waivering is crucial to convincing someone on the fence that they should go along with what the scammer says. Being hardline here is more important, in my opinion, than allowing for lightning striking aliens-type chance. – Grade 'Eh' Bacon Oct 23 '18 at 12:55
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@Grade'Eh'Bacon What about this poor guy? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CymeqYvW8AA9gpu.jpg:large (nsfw language) – Tashus Oct 23 '18 at 15:47
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"It seems like nobody even wants one of our MASSIVE YACHTS!" – Ruadhan2300 Oct 23 '18 at 15:48
https://xkcd.com/570/ – user1717828 Oct 23 '18 at 16:04
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@Grade'Eh'Bacon From an emotional stand point, I completely agree with you since we care about OP not getting scammed. From an objective stand point, despite the risk it entails I actually prefer the wording Philipp chose here since we only have evidence, not proof. – cgage1 Oct 23 '18 at 16:06
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@Grade'Eh'Bacon I have to disagree with you there, in fact it is people taking some information and declaring that they therefor know all information that holds all scientific progress back. You don't find answers by just making them up. It is clearly a scam, but we do not KNOW that it is a scam. – Anton Oct 23 '18 at 16:44
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@Anton This isn't about 'scientific process'. This is about saving some poor soul from losing thousands of dollars to a 100% clear and verified scanner. It is a fact that *ZERO* people in the *entire history of planet earth* have given a stranger login details to their 'swiss bank account' with $40M inside, and needed a separate transfer of $2k in order to access it in West Africa. *ZERO*. – Grade 'Eh' Bacon Oct 23 '18 at 16:53
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As a compromise (if you don't want to remove the statement of uncertainty), I'd suggest starting the answer with "This situation has all the hallmarks..." and moving the first part of the first sentence to the end and making it something like: "We are of course unable to say this without a shadow of a doubt, but, given the above, this is almost certainly a scam". You really don't want to start (or end) with the implication that we're not really sure (nor do you want it in the middle, but at least there it has some padding). – NotThatGuy Oct 23 '18 at 17:13
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I agree with @Grade'Eh'Bacon that "we are unable to tell for sure" is a red herring and casts more doubt than it should. The answer should begin with "We are able to tell it's a scam far beyond a reasonable doubt", which is all anyone needs to know when deciding to send the money or not. – Nuclear Hoagie Oct 23 '18 at 17:14
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I'd say that the odds for an option "a real account, but not his account ... bought the login credentials from a hacker" are negligible. If you, as a hacker, have obtained credentials for a $40M account, you could find better ways to use this knowledge than some cheap scams which might fail completely. A fake bank site is much more likely. – IMil Oct 24 '18 at 01:25
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Meh. Being a hopelessly logical person, I agree with Phillip. While my peers sometimes hate me alreaddy when just starting a sentence "It depends ..." or "From what I am able to tell ..." or "I don't know enough to develop an opinion on this ...", it's really against my nature to sell my unproven beliefs as hard facts. Maybe a different, equally true wording is more acceptable? Something like "It shows all signs of a typical scam", possibly followed by "in my opinion, you should stay far away from this", or something ... – phresnel Oct 24 '18 at 10:07
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@Grade'Eh'Bacon Please point me to the verification process we have used to make this a "verified scammer"? I think the wording here is appropriate "We are of course unable to tell for sure..." is essentially a blanket warning about taking third party internet advice. As a unrelated third party, we don't have a method to make definitive statements; because we are having all the information provided by the OP; not from a real source. It's just logical wording. We aren't there, we aren't a service for "verifying" that someone is a scammer. We can just tell you how obviously bad it smells. – JMac Oct 25 '18 at 14:54
@Grade'Eh'Bacon You are wrong. There's no such thing as a 100% sure scam. That's why they are called scams. It's weird that someone would categorise a harmless action with scamming. You can be subjectively right if you want, but you are objectively wrong. Unlike us not knowing whether a scam is a scam for sure, we do know that you are wrong. Zero people have done many things that we would not be able to call impossible before finding all the facts.... yikes. – insidesin Oct 26 '18 at 07:24
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"It is a fact that ZERO people in the entire history of planet earth have given a stranger login details to their 'swiss bank account' with $40M inside..." No, that's not a fact. It's a conclusion. Neither you nor anyone else has actually done the required research to prove that claim. – barbecue Oct 26 '18 at 13:46
@Philipp I don't have to prove a negative because I'm not making the claim. – barbecue Oct 26 '18 at 13:47
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ZERO people have proven that ZERO people did anything ever. People do unbelievably stupid things every day. Just try not to be one of them. – candied_orange Oct 28 '18 at 02:59
@candied_orange, yes, even the most brilliant among us have done amazingly stupid things. It's a regrettable constant in life. – tgm1024--Monica was mistreated Oct 29 '18 at 01:39

Ruadhan2300 · Answer 3 · 2018-10-24T07:59:23.820

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There are absolutely no scenarios under which someone who has internet access sufficient to contact you cannot get his own money out of his own internet banking service.

That's your first Red Flag

The second is that he contacted you, a relative stranger, to handle his money.
Don't be taken in by having contacted initially via facebook. Facebook accounts are trivially easy to make up and because they're not email, they get less scrutiny than they should.
Rule of thumb: do not accept facebook requests unless you personally know the name, and even then, verify they are actually that person.
Spoofing a real person's facebook account by copying images and info from their public account is only fractionally less trivial than making one from scratch.

Thirdly, International Swiss banking is way less common than you'd expect, cold-war-themed fiction has given us the idea that swiss banks are where Loads of Money gets put as a tax-haven. This is..less than realistic. If someone is talking about their Swiss Bank Account, it's probably to make it sound more important. That's a major red flag.

This is a ridiculously unlikely scenario, there's no doubt in my mind that it's a scam and that you should block them on facebook and forget the whole thing.
Don't even consider it, unless you knew somehow that it was 100% legit. You will undoubtedly get scammed out of at least thousands of dollars and likely go to jail in the worst case if you pursue this.

edited Oct 24 '18 at 07:59

answered Oct 23 '18 at 15:15

Ruadhan2300

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Instead of blocking the Facebook account, OP could play along and feign obstacles that are keeping them from sending the funds, or keep providing "it's in the mail" responses. ;) Why let the scammer off easy and cut their losses? Keep them tied up and confused; you will be entertained, and they will be scamming fewer other people in the meantime. – Aaron Oct 23 '18 at 19:39
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While "Swiss bank account" does have enough of a cachet about to be a red flag, it's not entirely unrealistic. They could be from Switzerland, if it weren't for the fact that so many other things point to it being a scam. – Acccumulation Oct 23 '18 at 22:16
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@Aaron While the likes of James Veitch make messing with scammers look entertaining and fun, I'd say that distancing yourself from them is safer all-round. Messing with them likely doesn't actually stop them scamming others, you're just one of many they're dealing with at any given time. – Ruadhan2300 Oct 24 '18 at 07:58
@Acccumulation Good point, I've clarified with the word "International". – Ruadhan2300 Oct 24 '18 at 08:00
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The Swiss flag is for sure one of the biggest red flags. – Baptiste Candellier Oct 24 '18 at 08:50
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@Aaron I would also like some revenge. Most likely the scammer will get a little disturbed before continuing with other "prospects". But we already know, that a scammer won't follow our rules. He might threaten to hurt one of your facebook's friends. Play games with friends, not with criminals. – Walter A Oct 24 '18 at 11:47
I love some of James Veitch's skits, but I somewhat suspect they are often highly edited versions of reality. Actually messing with scammers is likely to be far less entertaining/ – TimothyAWiseman Oct 24 '18 at 20:36
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@BaptisteCandellier True, but there's also a white cross in the middle, which is a big plus. (sorry for the old joke) – user56reinstatemonica8 Oct 25 '18 at 10:46
"Messing with them likely doesn't actually stop them scamming others" — there is actually research on this point, and it contradicts your opinion. To quote section 4.2 of this paper, "It is...obvious that adding false positives reduces the attacker’s return. Scam-baiters...who intentionally lure Nigerian scammers into time-wasting conversations have this as one of their goals. What is not obvious, and what our analysis reveals, is how dramatic an effect this can have." – Wildcard Oct 26 '18 at 19:56
@Wildcard Also, there's probably a limited amount of money they can get out of any one victim, so depriving the scammer of one victim may make it a touch less rewarding. – David Thornley Oct 26 '18 at 21:07

Hanky Panky · Answer 4 · 2018-10-29T07:10:10.400

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His 40 Million dollars don't matter a dime to you, Your 2 thousand dollars do. Don't be distracted.

Remember All that glitters is not gold. While You may not be looking for a share in that 40 million, this scam utilizes the allure of fake wealth so that the target person feels some greed hoping they will get more than their principal loan amount when the rich guy is out of trouble and pays back for their good deed.

Think straight.

edited Oct 29 '18 at 07:10

answered Oct 25 '18 at 06:40

Hanky Panky

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Best answer yet. – tgm1024--Monica was mistreated Oct 29 '18 at 01:40

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 29 '18 at 12:47

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Ah, the legendary Swiss bank accounts. Having some first-hand experience with real-life Swiss bank accounts, I'll show yet another reason why this is a scam.

The so-called Swiss numbered accounts, as seen in movies etc. do not exist. Every single account belongs to a named person or company.
On the other hand, the Swiss are actually big on banking secrecy. Also, account numbers are assumed public knowledge. Knowing someones account number is nowhere near enough data to find out who that account belong to, let alone to check the balance on that account. Knowing an account number only allows one to deposit money onto that account, nothing more.
Like, seriously. You'd need login name, password and a 2nd factor token to actually check how much someone has on their account.
If you have 40 million in a Swiss account, the bank will do a whole lot of things for you, because you are a Very Important Customer. Most likely, you have access to a 24/7 consierge service provided by the bank. Just call them to receive plane tickets, concert tickets, etc. Arranging to receive a bit of cash would be trivial.

edited Oct 29 '18 at 12:47

whiskeychief

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answered Oct 25 '18 at 09:44

Niko Kiirala

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"The so-called Swiss numbered accounts, as seen in movies etc. do not exist" Yes they do. They are used for some customers to guarantee extra anonymity within the bank. The customer is referred by numbers and normal bank employees do not know who they are dealing with when processing this account. The mapping "number to customer" is known by a small circle. – WoJ Oct 28 '18 at 19:12
"You'd need login name, password and a 2nd factor token to actually check how much someone has on their account" In all the accounts I had (in Switzerland and in other places in the world) the 2FA was used for so called sensitive operations like wire transfers. The content of the account is visible after user/password login. YMMV though. – WoJ Oct 28 '18 at 19:14
@WoJ Postfinance for example uses a challenge-response system (which needs the correct debit card) in addition to username/password for each normal login. – Michael Bolli Oct 29 '18 at 10:12
@MichaelBolli: yes, there will certainly be all kind of accounts (though my "YMMV"). What I mentioned is based in the experience of a dozen+ accounts I had in the world, and specifically two in Switzerland (especially in line with the confident "Like, seriously. You'd need login name, password and a 2nd factor token to actually check how much someone has on their account" point) – WoJ Oct 29 '18 at 10:16

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 23 '18 at 22:13

Check this out, it's called Nigerian Scam: https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/unexpected-money/nigerian-scams

The scammer will tell you an elaborate story about large amounts of their money trapped in banks during events such as civil wars or coups, often in countries currently in the news. Or they may tell you about a large inheritance that is 'difficult to access' because of government restrictions or taxes in their country. The scammer will then offer you a large sum of money to help them transfer their personal fortune out of the country.

These scams are often known as 'Nigerian 419' scams because the first wave of them came from Nigeria. The '419' part of the name comes from the section of Nigeria’s Criminal Code which outlaws the practice. These scams now come from anywhere in the world.

Scammers may ask for your bank account details to 'help them transfer the money' and use this information to later steal your funds.

Or they may ask you to pay fees, charges or taxes to 'help release or transfer the money out of the country' through your bank. These fees may even start out as quite small amounts. If paid, the scammer may make up new fees that require payment before you can receive your reward. They will keep asking for more money as long as you are willing to part with it.

I get at least one os such emails every week and I was always wondering if somebody takes this for real. There is one golden rule in life if it is too good to be true it's not true. Or in other words, if it smells like a trap it's a trap.

This is not the Nigerian 419 scam. The victim is not being offered a share of some vast fortune. It might be a related scam, or a different one (e.g. the victim might be used as a money mule in a laundering operation). — Tom, Oct 30 '18 at 11:18
it's definitely a 419 scam: 40,000,000 is a fortune, he needs an upfront fee to "unlock" the fortune. Op didn't explicitly tell that a reward is involved but that can be assumed from the context. — Andi Giga, Oct 30 '18 at 22:10
Nowhere was the victim offered a share of 40 mio. He was offered to receive the loan back with interest and shown 40 mio. as a "proof" that the scammer is afluent enough that he will not trick you for what is for him small money. Related, but not the same thing. — Tom, Oct 31 '18 at 06:10

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 26 '18 at 03:24

A man that I met on Facebook was called to do a job in West Africa. He got there and found out that there is a problem with his Swiss bank account. He needs 2000 to finish the job so he can come home. He gave me the account numbers so I could check and the account says that he has 40,000,000 ! I still don't feel comfortable with it. How would I know if he is scamming me?

Why is this guy contacting you for help, and not his employer? When I travel overseas for work, my employer has an emergency contact service to help me if I get sick/robbed/etc. (What sort of "job" pays that well, anyway?)
Anybody who has that kind of money will have more than one account with more than one bank, not to mention VIP service to cover little hiccups like this.
Anybody who has that kind of money is unlikely to be travelling alone.
Anybody who has that kind of money is unlikely to be befriending random people on Facebook, let alone sharing their bank account details. For all he knows, you could use that information to pull off a scam by showing that info to somebody else and claiming it as your account.

If you use Google Image Search to check his Facebook profile photo, you will quite likely find that he has stolen it from somebody else. Sometimes scammers will "clone" people's accounts - e.g. somebody created a new account where they copied most of the profile from my father-in-law's account, and then tried to get money from his friends.

You don't mention exactly what makes you feel uncomfortable about this, but I will guess that your interaction with this guy has most of the following patterns:

He contacted you out of the blue and didn't have any good explanation for how he knew you.
He stepped up the friendship very quickly, talking a lot about how special you are to him.
He is telling you that it's very urgent that you get the money to him as soon as possible, and insisting on a payment method of his choosing.

If your instinct tells you it's a scam, trust your instinct. (The reverse isn't always true, alas.)

A man on a work project in West Africa asks me for 2000 - is this a scam?

7 Answers7