I am a Nigerian.<p>Many assumptions and errors here.<p>Advance fee fraud scams originated in Lagos in the mid eighties with <i>Lebanese</i> immigrants who fled to Nigeria as a result of the civil war in their country.(Obviously they did not use email )<p>In the nineties, young males entrepreneurial and unemployed, seized upon the opportunities offered by globalization and entered the game. It was fairly high level stuff, with the targets being mostly rich corporations, governments and high networth individuals. A slew of iconic cult figures emerged due to their successes - Ade Bendel, Eze Ego, and Fred Ajudua (the last's claim to fame was successfully duping Ghadaffi of millions of dollars under the guise of seeking support for a military coup in Nigeria to oust the sitting Head of State Ibrahim Babangida).<p>The internet made things easier and 'democratized' the industry putting it within reach of anyone with a laptop and cell phone.<p>To address the point raised by the title of the article.<p>Not all Nigerian scams originate from Nigeria. While advance fee fraud, love scams and such are indeed a cottage industry in the country, many "Nigerian" scams originate elsewhere: Ghana, Liberia, Cote D'Ivore, South Africa, Dubai, USA, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, Spain, Russia and the UK -where scam artists of Nigerian origin may or may not be involved.
The steady barrage of Nigerian e-mail scams alongside those originating elsewhere effectively blinds many people to the possibility of being fleeced by a non Nigerian operator.<p>Second, internet scam artists from countries other than Nigeria are unwilling to expose their nationalities and claim to be Nigerians when apprehended. This is perhaps due to shame at being caught or perhaps the legal consequences are graver in their countries of origin.<p>Third "Yahoo boys" (as they are known locally), exploit the ignorance of their targets who most of the time believe that Nigeria is a land of unbelievable wealth with gold mines and oil wells just sitting pretty and waiting to be bought, or looted dollars ripe and ready to be wired. It is more difficult to make a target believe that he/she will score a hundred million dollars from a dodgy deal that originates from say, Togo or Liberia which are perceived as less wealthy nations.<p>One more thing, the spelling errors in email scams are (to the best of my knowledge) genuine , and not some sophisticated attempt to weed out less gullible recipients.<p>"Nigerian" scammers tend to strike a raw nerve in the West -nobody particularly likes the idea of pensioners being defrauded of their money; but credit card fraud, sophisticated phising software written by Brazilian and East European programmers and botnets from Russia make far more money for their criminal operators than any Nigerian ever could using crude email attacks.<p>In sum I am not sure this problem has a technological solution as Microsoft believes. As long as there are lonely people looking for love or businesses willing to take blind risks and the means of communication that link them to fraudsters, the phenomenon will exist<p>(Apologies for the many edits. Typing from a cell phone)