Money from my Nigerian friend



  • Whenever I get a "Nigerian scam" email I simply delete it. But apparently some people actually believe that these emails are legitimate. And then there is this guy, a lawyer who was convinced by his client that they'll both score big $$$ if they can just come up with $180K. The sad part is that the lawyer also roped in a 3rd party (aptly named Ms Putz), who gave up her money as well.

    Lawyer Who Falls for Nigerian Insurance Scam is Suspended



  • @OzPeter said:

    Whenever I get a "Nigerian scam" email I simply delete it. But apparently some people actually believe that these emails are legitimate. And then there is this guy, a lawyer who was convinced by his client that they'll both score big $$$ if they can just come up with $180K. The sad part is that the lawyer also roped in a 3rd party (aptly named Ms Putz), who gave up her money as well.

    Lawyer Who Falls for Nigerian Insurance Scam is Suspended

     

    That Blog is the real wtf. S*** looks like it was designed 1995 by the insurance gecko.

     There are about 4 doctypes and multiple <html> <header> <body> and so on-tags defined in the source. The website pulls in several dead libraries from twitter, google and ramdom .js-frameworks.

    Oh and since the author looks like a mix between the Golden Girls, Judge Judy and once again, the insurance gecko, I clicked on about. Which 404ed. Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany I could now sue her.



  • @fire2k said:

    Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany I could now sue her.

    Why?

     



  • @fire2k said:

    Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany I could now gas her.

    FTFY



  • @TGV said:

    @fire2k said:

    Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany I could now sue her.

    Why?

     


    Because in Germany, you are required by law to have an about page on your website, so that people can sue you over content on your site.

    It must include your name, address, phone and email. (Instead of having an about page, you can also include this information on every page.)



  • @blog said:

    The gullible Mr. Wright, during the course of this farce, communicated with people he believed to be representatives of the “Central Bank of Nigeria,” the “African Union,” and the President of Nigeria.
     

     

     why would the president care about an inheritance claim?



  • @derari said:

    Because in Germany, you are required by law to have an about page on your website, so that people can sue you over content on your site.

    It must include your name, address, phone and email. (Instead of having an about page, you can also include this information on every page.)

    I didn't know that. Interesting. Does that law also apply to non-German websites? The high court tends to think that German law applies to sites like Google and facebook, if I'm not mistaken.

     


  • Java Dev

    Can't speak for Germany specifically, but in European and Dutch courts American companies that market to European/Dutch citizens are considered to be subject to local law. That means they are subject to local consumer protection laws, tax laws, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that applied in this case as well.


  • Considered Harmful

    @PleegWat said:

    Can't speak for Germany specifically, but in European and Dutch courts American companies that market to European/Dutch citizens are considered to be subject to local law. That means they are subject to local consumer protection laws, tax laws, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that applied in this case as well.

    How do they go about enforcing these laws against foreign nationals residing outside their jurisdiction?

    Really, if I'm marketing* to the world at broad, should I have to worry about catering to the law and letter of every obscure province and principality in the world?



    *I realize if I'm shipping physical goods then I probably do, but say it's an online service or subscription.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @joe.edwards said:

    @PleegWat said:
    Can't speak for Germany specifically, but in European and Dutch courts American companies that market to European/Dutch citizens are considered to be subject to local law. That means they are subject to local consumer protection laws, tax laws, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that applied in this case as well.

    How do they go about enforcing these laws against foreign nationals residing outside their jurisdiction?

    Indeed, but someone like Google probably has an office or at least some official presence there to sell advertisements to the locals. Or maybe they just revoke your .de (or whatever) domain. Anyways, I applaud this law, because what the world needs is more lawsuits.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @PleegWat said:
    Can't speak for Germany specifically, but in European and Dutch courts American companies that market to European/Dutch citizens are considered to be subject to local law. That means they are subject to local consumer protection laws, tax laws, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that applied in this case as well.

    How do they go about enforcing these laws against foreign nationals residing outside their jurisdiction?

    Those foreign nationals weren't outside of jurisdiction as they made themselves subject to European law the moment they marketed to European citizens.* It's still a crime and there are international laws and treaties that can help bring criminals outside of the country to justice. That's the theory atleast. Ironically I've only ever seen it happen the other way around in practice; with a few high-profile cases fueled by the US entertainment maffia against pirates or companies facilitating piracy based outside of the US.

    *) Infact; even if they marketed exclusively to one member state, then by European law it still means they are marketing to all other EU member states as well and are subject to those member states' local laws. Moreover, iirc they may also not refuse transactions originating from other member states or mark up different prices on goods or services discriminated by member state. (That last bit also means that technically a platform like Steam is royally screwed if someone with balls, deep pockets and a vendetta starts a case against Valve, because Steam is doing exactly this...)



  • @derari said:

    @TGV said:

    @fire2k said:

    Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany I could now sue her.

    Why?

     

    Because in Germany, you are required by law to have an about page on your website, so that people can sue you over content on your site.

    It must include your name, address, phone and email. (Instead of having an about page, you can also include this information on every page.)

     

    In other words, Germany courts don't know about the whois database...

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @TGV said:

    Does that law also apply to non-German websites?
    Enforcing a judgement on someone who is outside the court's jurisdiction and who hasn't got any assets within the court's jurisdiction is rather tricky, and I'd be startled if anyone managed to get an extradition warrant for something this trivial. On the other hand, if you have a .de domain name, you've arguably got at least one asset within the jurisdiction of a German court: the domain name itself. (The servers concerned might be somewhere else, of course.)



  • @Mcoder said:

    @derari said:

    @TGV said:

    @fire2k said:

    Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany I could now sue her.

    Why?

     

    Because in Germany, you are required by law to have an about page on your website, so that people can sue you over content on your site.

    It must include your name, address, phone and email. (Instead of having an about page, you can also include this information on every page.)

     

    In other words, Germany courts don't know about the whois database...

     

     

    Because the person that the domain is registered on is automatically running all businesses hosted on that domain... right?

    Btw. the ruling extends to externally hosted company presences like facebook, twitter, wordpress and so on. The all have to have an easily discoverable about-page.

     



  • @dkf said:

    @TGV said:
    Does that law also apply to non-German websites?
    Enforcing a judgement on someone who is outside the court's jurisdiction and who hasn't got any assets within the court's jurisdiction is rather tricky, and I'd be startled if anyone managed to get an extradition warrant for something this trivial. On the other hand, if you have a .de domain name, you've arguably got at least one asset within the jurisdiction of a German court: the domain name itself. (The servers concerned might be somewhere else, of course.)
     

     The law does however extend to external domains and servers used by German citizens. The makers of kino.to, a german streaming and filesharing portal, which mainly linked to megaupload and consorts, got harsh fines and jail time.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @PleegWat said:
    Can't speak for Germany specifically, but in European and Dutch courts American companies that market to European/Dutch citizens are considered to be subject to local law. That means they are subject to local consumer protection laws, tax laws, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that applied in this case as well.

    How do they go about enforcing these laws against foreign nationals residing outside their jurisdiction?



    They seize whatever local assets you have. Or, if you have no local assets, they rely on treaty allies like the US, France and UK seizing said assets and turning them over. And these days since even even Switzerland and the Cayman Islands have buckled under the pressure, it's pretty impossible to find a place to stash your cash that is going to keep them from being handed over.

     


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