Oregon Woman Loses $400,000 to Nigerian E-Mail Scam

Oregon Woman Loses $400,000 to Nigerian E-Mail Scam

www.foxnews.com

Janella Spears of Sweet Home says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front.

Spears told KATU-TV about the scammers' ability to identify her relative by name was persuasive.

Spears, who is a nursing administrator and CPR teacher, said she mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car, and ran through her husband's retirement account.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow... and from my own state too.

I would be so unbelievably mad at her if this was my wife. Giving up everything they have to probably the most widely known scam on the internet.... amazing.

Just a personal rule here...but before I cash out my retirement or mortgage my house, I try to ask around and see if maybe someone could tell me that I am about to get scammed.

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I can't believe that there are still people who fall for this. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

*edited for dyslexia

[edit on 11/18/2008 by darkelf]

This is why we have been so easily scammed by our own government, the prof is in the pudding, when you have people that still are so ignorant that ought fall for E-mail scams.

Maybe she should ask the government or Paulson to bail her out.

We really are in deep, deep dodo.

Omg thats terrible!

mean ok her bad! but i feel sorry for her.....ive lost 200 quid (400 dollars) on a scam but they proper had me, buying electric goods at cheap prices...once i found out i lost 200 quid i was gutted, i cant even think if i lost 400,000 dollars!!! thats just crazy.

An undercover investigator who worked on the case said greed helped blind Spears to the reality of the situation, which he called the worst example of the scam he’s ever seen.

He also said he has seen people become obsessed with the scam before. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false promises will turn out to be real.

www.2news.tv...

Sounds to me a lot like the bailout bills, doesn't it? I think the bank, insurance, and auto companies are playing an internal 'Nigerian Scam' on the U.S. populace, especially with AIG asking for another hunk of money after their taxpayer funded multi-hundred thousand dollar getaways to luxury resorts. The more we give to them, the more desperate we get to recoup the money, so we give them a little more, then more, etc. until we are totally drained out. Why do we never learn?

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

I know its pretty mean, but shouldn't people be a bit more careful?
This is human greed at its worst, from both sides.

Ms. Spears unfortunately got greedy, and was willing to risk everything to get millions of dollars from a relative she had never heard of.
I have no sympathy whatsoever. You just don't go sending money to anybody who asks for it. If someone said they had a million pounds for me, I'd tell them to use some of it to travel from whereever they are to present it to me in person, and if they need some 'collateral' or 'advance transfer fees' or whatever, to take it out.

Eg. I have 1 million for you. Send me 400,000 and I will send you your million.

My response would be 'Use some of that million to sort it and send me the balance'.

Nonetheless, I have never received a response after sending that reply.

Yes its very sad,but i mean come on...can you say gullible,greed of thinking she was going to make a fortune completely clouded her judgement.

How could somebody that absolutely stupid have saved up or otherwise amassed $400,000 . . . I mean what bank would front that money on a bullcrank story such as that?

I'm thinking something's not right with this story . . .

[edit on 18-11-2008 by GoalPoster]

reply to post by GoalPoster


Mortgaging her house and her husbands retirement account. I think it is very plausible. If her husband was already thinking about retiring, they have probably lived in their home for a while. I have been to Sweet Home and they probably have some acreage as well. If they lived there long enough, they could easily have built up quite a bit of equity. Housing prices haven't deflated that bad yet.

Greed to the extreme.

She just wasn't satisfied with what she had. Avery common theme among many Americans, including myself. Except I didn't fall for the scam.

Originally posted by Karlhungis

Janella Spears of Sweet Home says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front.

"Oh, yeah, when I mean, curious, I really meant to say greedy".

This is a woman who appears to have a good job, manages to run a house, has a car, but falls for something like this? She's obviously not a stupid woman with learning difficulties or something. The thing that made her fall for the scam wasn't an intelligence issue but simply because she was blinded by the dollar signs in her eyes.

I don't even fall for the 'helping a relative' angle. Even the most charitable of us would be wary about a "long lost relative" like this. If a relative isn't close enough to approach you personally, then they're not really family, certainly not family enough to start opening your purse or wallet for.

[edit on 18-11-2008 by Merriman Weir]

She didn't just lose it at once, but she sent successive payments to them.

If I am a juror, I am not convicting that guy of anything. Just saying.

These Nigerian based scams have been around for years. Some people fall prey to these scams. How?? I have no idea. Perhaps a lack of common sense and instinct. If its to good to be true it probably is. Looks like a duck..... If it were this easy we would all be rich. Life is full of lessons like this. It is a shame the some people never learned them. Buyer beware!!

too bad Congress can't help her with some TARP appropriations

I don't feel sorry for the woman. She is dangerous.

If she is so stupid to fall form the scam then she needs to be put away
where she can't hurt herself or anyone else.

Geesh, what else could she be talked into doing? If the money was right would she commit murder?

It's a good thing I sold my business. I'd probably be in jail because there are a whole lot of stupid people running loose. I might be inclined to knock them upside the head a few times.

What ever happened to common sense?

I am a peace loving old lady but really stupid people get me very irate.

Going to meditate now and get rid of all this negative energy .

As the saying goes, "A fool and his money will soon be parted..."

There was a study released last week that analyzed the psychology behind cons. I'll try to look for it again and post it. Edit: Not the study but:

blogs.psychologytoday.com...

The results found that it was not so important that the con got you to trust them but whether they got you to perceive that they trust you.

In other words your desire to be viewed as trustworthy is stronger than your instinct to distrust someone else. That's why they call it a confidence scheme.




[edit on 18/11/2008 by kosmicjack]

reply to post by dizziedame


Dangerous? Put away? Peace loving? Knock her in the head a few times? Alright then.

Nigerian 419 scams generate $500 million per year and is Nigeria's fifth largest industry.

So I am not surprised at all, if a bit boggled how someone in this day and age could fall for it.