Text, lies and electronic bait: An analysis of email fraud and the decisions of the unsuspecting

Corresponding author:Mark R. Freiermuth, Gunma Prefectural Women’s University, Faculty of International Communication, 1395–1 Kaminote, Tamamura-machi, Gunma-ken ╤ 370–1193, Japan.Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

Text, lies and electronic bait: An analysis of email fraud and the decisions of the unsuspecting

Mark R FreiermuthGunma Prefectural Women’s University, Japan

Abstract Despite the preponderance of advance fee fraud scams, many in society still fall victim to such con games. The internet has provided scammers with an opportunity to perpetrate fraud on a global scale. In particular, the 419 email scam has become a popular tool used by scammers to entice their victims. Our purpose is to establish rhetorical moves that exist in these 419 messages, and then analyze the intention of the scammers behind each move – a scam must shake the potential victim out of the status quo behavior. In other words, how is the content of particular moves able to facilitate change in a potential victim’s mind, goading him or her to unwise action? After examining each move in light of features considered necessary for mind change, it was determined that the scammers are most concerned about building solidarity with the mark and playing to a mark’s egocentrism, both of which keep the mark from making well-informed decisions.

Keywords419, change, con game, discourse analysis, persuasion, rhetorical moves, scam, trigger

In a dark cybercafé in Festac, a Lagos, Nigeria suburb, young Nigerian men trawl online looking for maghas – fools – to respond to their cyber scams (Dixon, 2005). 419 scams, named for the section of the Nigerian penal code which they violate, are now being per-petrated with ease from all parts of the globe; the internet has brought the scammers to our inboxes and into our online chat spaces. The manner in which scammers communi-cate has changed to fit society; however, certain parts of the 419 fit the well-established cons of old (Mauer, 1940):

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1. Putting up the mark (locating the victim) requires much less legwork because it can be done from any internet-connected computer. (Blommaert and Omoniyi, 2006: 576, refer to the scammers as being, ‘. . . fully inserted in the technology of globalized communication’.)

2. Playing the con for him or her (gaining the victim’s confidence) comes from the messages themselves and any additional contacts that the roper (the scammer who ropes the victim) has with the mark.

3. Steering the mark to the insideman is done via email messages for 419 scams (sometimes allowing the roper to play the insideman as well).

4. Telling the mark the tale is simply a twist of the original tales that confidence tricksters used with their marks; the primary difference is that 419 messages are propagated via electronic means rather than through face-to-face contact (at least at the initial contact stages).

5. Giving the mark a convincer (a short-term profit) has been altered as the mark being played in 419 scams usually never sees any real money.

6. Giving the mark the breakdown, which is the information provided to the mark detailing how much he or she needs to invest to make a bigger profit; this is basically the same maneuver that has always been used by scammers.

7. Putting him on the send; in other words, sending the mark home (to get the money) is basically an unneeded step considering that monies can be easily wired to almost any place in the world.

8. Taking off the touch is the fleecing of the mark and, of course, is the main objective of the 419 scammers as well.

9. Blowing him off or getting rid of him is much easier since most marks are played from overseas. (If a mark is foolish enough to demand a meeting with the scam-mers, the ‘blowing him off’ scenario might mean steps as drastic as actually killing the mark.)

10. Putting in the fix, which basically equates with dealing with law enforcement, is usually not too difficult even in this day and age as it is extremely difficult to arrest, let alone prosecute, a criminal of this sort unless the crime takes place in the victim’s backyard. (Scammers’ messages are basically untraceable; Blommaert and Omoniyi, 2006.)

Here we look at 419 email messages that fall into the category of narratives of experi-ence and trust. They can be roughly divided into three types: dormant accounts, rescue operations and charity, though new variations do crop up from time to time. The consis-tent feature of all three of these types of fraud is that they are marked with registers that encourage the reader to become personally involved with the scammer (Blommaert and Omoniyi, 2006). The basic scenario of these messages is that there are (usually) millions of dollars that have either been discovered or are part of a secret family treasure. The catch is that the money is somehow tied up and if the person who is being contacted (the mark) can help get the money released, the scammer would be more than willing to reward such a person with a substantial chunk of the take. In brief, the millions of dollars offered hinge on the mark’s willingness to send cash or deliver cash in person so that the

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promised millions can be released (US Department of State, 1997). This is the ‘sting’. The cash that is put up by the mark is the money absconded with by the scammers.

In many cases, a willing mark is strung along by the scammers for a long and expensive ride. Dixon (2005: 3) reported the following in her Los Angeles Times article:

Though the fraud is apparent to many, some people think they have stumbled on a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and scammers can string them along for months with mythical difficulties. Some victims eventually contribute huge sums of money to save the deal when it is suddenly ‘at risk’.

Once the mark has been hooked, it is often difficult to convince him or her that the anticipated millions of dollars are never going to materialize, and if the mark is enticed to the point of attempting to meet the scammers in person to collect the promised trea-sure, it may cost the mark more than the transported cash. Marks have been beaten, kidnapped and even killed, and in one horrific case, dismembered and then set ablaze. In the extreme cases, ensnared marks have lost upwards of a million dollars. In 2002, the National Criminal Intelligence Service reported that Britons were bilked out of more than £8.4m by 419 advance fee scams, but the report emphasized that this was probably just a fraction of the actual losses as many of the victims choose not to report their losses because of the shame associated with being duped (Heger and Brady, 2003; Reich, 2004; Wizard, 2000). According to Charles Pascale, the coordinator of a group calling itself the 419 Coalition, victims of 419 scams are defrauded out of more than $700m dollars annually (Rolland, 2004).

From a language analysis perspective, there has been scant research on 419 scam email messages. The most prominent and interesting research was conducted by Blommaert and Omoniyi (2006). They looked at what might be needed by a scammer who wanted to communicate with competence and perpetrate fraud on a global scale. They point to three aspects. First, scammers must be able to ‘control, explore and exploit’ the global opportunities to communicate. Second, they need to have a certain level of ‘cultural competence’ – an ability to satisfy reasonably the genres and genre expectations of potential marks. And, finally, they must be able to produce messages that demonstrate a linguistic competence in line with their projected identities. Blommaert and Omoniyi claim that the scammers are capable of communicating effectively regarding the first two aspects but fail on the latter, pointing to obvious fraud. This article, on the other hand, looks at what triggers scammers to become engaged. Rather than contrasting Blommaert and Omoniyi, we build upon their foundation and ask the following questions. What causes people to fall victim to such scams? How can they make such unwise decisions? Do they make uneducated or naïve decisions? Undoubtedly, they have no intention of giving their money to strangers, so what makes them change their minds?

Because of the widespread distribution of these fraudulent 419 advance fee scams, and their damaging effect on victims, it is constructive to analyze their content. In our study, we have divided 419 email messages into rhetorical moves to determine what ele-ments within these messages ignite a spark that results in a loss of huge sums of money. In this study, then, we investigated 52 full-length email messages. The 419 messages that we examined primarily fall into four categories:


1. The scammer is posing as a refugee or a person in trouble. A relative or a friend of the scammer has died or more likely has been killed during some political upheaval in an unstable country leaving behind huge sums of cash, but the scam-mer has no way of transferring the money out of the country. A variant of this type has the scammer in bed with a terminal illness and he or she wishes to pro-tect family money from other greedy or unscrupulous friends and relatives. Under either scenario, the scammer’s mail is a plea for help.

2. The scammer is posing as a financial officer of a bank or an institution and has discovered a large sum of cash in an account or sometimes in a trunk. Upon fur-ther investigation, it turns out that the monies are sitting idle because the account holder (often a foreigner) has died often in some horrible disaster. The scammer asks for the help of the recipient so that the money will not be confiscated by evil government officials. The scammer’s mail is an offer to share in some profits.

3. The scammer is posing as a lottery official. The email message announces the recipient as the winner of a lottery. The scammer’s mail is a proclamation of win-ning huge sums of cash.

4. The scammer is posing as a member of a company and is offering the recipient a too-good-to-be-true job. (This scam type is relatively new when compared to the others.)

The 52 messages that we looked at are types 1 (rescue or charity) and 2 (dormant accounts); these seem to have similar rhetorical structures and content – both types offer to engage the scammer in a ‘business transaction’ of sorts (narratives of experience and trust). In both of these types of email messages, the scammer is essentially asking for the mark’s assistance in releasing the huge sums of cash.

Genre of persuasive writing

The scammers’ impetus behind sending fraudulent email messages is to convince the mark to engage the scammer in business. From a theoretical standpoint, it can be said that such email messages fall broadly under the guise of persuasive writing. In this study, we are looking particularly for conventionalized rhetorical patterns or moves that 419 scam email messages exhibit and some individualized moves that might occur for spe-cific email messages.

Conventionalized ‘moves’ within the genre of persuasive writing have been explored in some detail. Andersson and Gunnarsson (1995), Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995), Faber (1996), Räisänen (1999), and most recently Halleck and Connor (2006) examined conference proposals, which are aimed at persuading reviewers that a submitted proposal is worthy of being presented at the conference. In particular, the research revealed that for specific conferences accepted abstracts exhibited conventionalized moves, but for other conferences the patterns were difficult to establish.

With no intention to disparage grant proposals as a form of persuasion, they seem slightly closer to 419 scam letters, only inasmuch as the proposal writers are intent on securing funds. The goal of this subcategory of persuasive writing is to convince review-ers that the project in question represents a meaningful and potentially fruitful

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investment (Connor, 2000; Connor and Mauranen, 1999). It should be mentioned that although proposal letters are aimed at securing funding, the decision-making process is decidedly one-way (as is the case with conference proposal reviewing). In other words, there is no intention of establishing and then building upon a relationship.

Even closer to 419 scam texts are sales letters, because the pragmatic objective of a sales letter at the initial stage is to make contact with a customer and then to persuade the prospective client to start a business relationship. Hence, sales letters and 419 email messages have similar aims: find a potential customer, whet the appetite of that customer and cause the customer to act upon his or her desire (Pilegaard, 1997; Vergaro, 2004). Of course, what cannot be overlooked is the most striking difference between sales letters and scams: the intent of sales letters is to solicit a legal transaction – an exchange; 419s are aimed at illegally taking a mark’s money, providing the mark with nothing in return. In our case, we wish to follow this well-worn trail as a way of identifying content-based moves as the basis of determining what aims the scammers might have in mind for each part of an email message.

Changing minds: The crux of the matter

Since the goal for the scammers is to pocket illicitly secured monies, the content of their email messages needs to be convincing enough to alter the mark’s status quo mentality, that is, ‘one does not send one’s own money to some unknown person’. Identifying what features of an email message (or chat message) might lead a potential mark to a point where they are willing to depart with some of their ‘hard-earned’ money is interesting inasmuch as if the triggers become more widely understood, such scams will need to evolve if they are to continue to succeed.

With this in mind, it is imperative to establish a framework that considers what ele-ments cause people to change their minds. Baker (1996) mentions that if a particular proposition is presented in a variety of ways it can affect change in a person’s mind. Nevertheless, it is difficult for a fraudulent email message to encompass various aberra-tions of the same message without sounding strange (although it is possible and even likely that such messages might be conveyed in subsequent contacts with the mark as a means to keep the mark spellbound). A more applicable approach for this type of study is the one proposed by Gardner (2006). Gardner suggests that triggers exist within the mind that have the power to cause a person to change his or her position. Gardner lists the following as potential triggers of change (pp. 15–18):

1. Reason: Reason figures heavily in matters involving beliefs. This usually involves weighing matters to determine the best course of action.

2. Research: Research involves gathering evidence about the matter (even anecdotal or personal experience), so that the best decision can be made.

3. Resonance: Resonance is an affective component; if the situation feels right to an individual, then it must be right and further considerations are superfluous.

4. Redescription: Redescription is the process whereby a person can recreate, usually in the mind, the various manifestations of what could happen.


5. Resources and rewards: Resources and rewards can influence change based upon the cost versus the reward.

6. Real world events: Real world events can influence change in a variety of ways, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly.

7. Resistances: Resistances refers to the level of resistance that one has to a change, so that even when changes might be warranted when other elements are considered, change may still not come about if resistance is high enough.

When an individual is pondering a decision, any one of these elements and often more than one of these elements come into play. Concerning 419 messages, if a scammer succeeds in taking down a mark, these elements necessarily play a considerable role in getting the mark to change his or her mind and play the scammer’s game.

Analysis

In an attempt to analyze the rhetorical moves of 419 scams, first, which actual moves that exist in these messages must be determined. To address this, two practical methodologies have been developed that would seem to suit this task. The first method is the one devel-oped primarily by Hasan (1996), who looked at nursery tales along with other kinds of texts to see if patterns existed within a particular genre. The second is the methodology developed by Swales (1990), who wished to frame rhetorical moves that were contained in research reports as a means to delineate patterns that were conventional (see also Bhatia, 1993). Here, we pursue the second method, following in the footsteps of Vergaro (2004), who examined promotional business sales letters in Italian and English. Vergaro analyzed contrastive rhetorical strategies that such business letters demonstrated in Italian and English, as means to identify differences and similarities at a macro- and micro-level. Here, we focus on moves at the macro-level and mark rhetorical moves on the basis of pragmatic and perceptual notions by defining them based upon their rhetori-cal aims (see Paltridge, 1995). Our objective is that once typical moves have been estab-lished, recurring moves can be examined to see the intended purpose of that move – how the move will change the mark’s mind and goad him or her into action.

Procedures

A pilot examination of 10 email messages was conducted to see if any rhetorical patterns might become evident. From these 10 email messages, it was determined that the moves listed in Table 1 were likely to be present in a significant number of email messages.

Interestingly, many of these moves are consistent with the sales letters that Vergaro (2004) assessed. There were some differences as well. Specifically, soliciting the offer, tale, trust statement, establishing historical credentials, confidentiality plea and urgency statement were moves that were examined in 419 email messages that did not occur or were not discussed by Vergaro (2004). The categories of subject, introduce the offer and enhance the offer were not specifically looked at within the texts of 419 email messages, and consequently did not comprise any of the moves investigated. In the case of subject, since all of the 419 messages examined were in fact email messages, the subject was

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Table 1. Probable rhetorical moves of 419 email messages

Rhetorical moves

Opening salutationEstablish personal/professional credentialsSoliciting the offerTaleTrust statementEstablish historical credentialsDetail the offerConfidentiality pleaUrgency statementInvite further contactsEnds politelyClosing salutation

usually already provided in the slot designated for Subject that is a standard feature of most email software, and so was not actually part of the texts. As for the enhance the offer move, it was not prevalent in 419 messages. This is probably due to the outrageous amounts of money mentioned in the initial offer – no enhancements being needed. Finally, it should be noted that introduce the offer and soliciting the offer can be con-strued as being rather similar but not identical moves. We chose to refer to the move in 419 email messages as soliciting the offer because of the proactive nature of the 419 email messages.

Upon establishing the set of moves to be investigated, 52 full-length email messages were collected to determine what rhetorical patterns, if any, existed in 419 email mes-sages. The messages were then saved as word processing files (.doc documents). Next, we analyzed the messages looking for macro-textual level moves (Bhatia, 1993; Vergaro, 2004). Ultimately, we looked at each move in respect to Gardner’s (2006) levers as a means of determining the intent behind a particular move.

Results

Table 2 lists the frequency of each move as a percentage, the average rank order of each move, and the most common rank of each of the moves identified.

Expectations from the original pilot were realized in these actual findings as all of the moves considered occurred in at least 30 percent of the messages. That the average rank and the common ranks are not markedly different is a good indicator that the scammers are fairly consistent in the ordering of their rhetorical moves, which is not surprising when one considers the potential number of email messages that scammers need to pro-duce to entice one mark. (Blommaert and Omoniyi [2006] mention that certain parts of messages, apparently deemed as being effective, are likely borrowed from other messages.)

From the table, one can see there is an unidentified category simply listed in the table as other. These are moves that could not be categorized according to the matrix. Some of these


were headers that identified either the person or the company, and some of these were rhe-torical moves that only appeared once or twice in the data set and so were not ordered.

Discussion: Rhetorical moves of 419 email messages

In this section, each of Gardner’s triggers is examined in light of the content of any of the various moves that 419 emails contain. We will not discuss the category labeled other because of the relative infrequency of moves within that category.

Reason

Recall that reason is based upon belief. It is therefore imperative that the scammer sounds believable. One way a scammer attempts to accomplish this is through the move: estab-lish historical credentials. By putting personal events that the scammer has presented to the mark within a historically accurate event or series of events, the scammer believes the mark will see that the tale being spun is likely to have occurred. Here are some examples from some of the 419 messages.

• I work as a personal secret agent for Mr. Charles Taylor, former Liberia President, presently in exile in Calabar Nigeria. President Taylor, was forced out of office by Mr. George Bush(American President).

• My late was killed by the military rebels in my home town BOUAKE the second Economic Capital of Cote d’Ivoire during the recent political Crisis of 19th september 2002.

• I am writing in respect of a foreign customer of my bank with account number 14–255- 004/utb/t who perished in a plane crash Korean Air Flight 801] with the whole passengers aboard on August 6, 1997.

• My father was a fighter for Justice and a moving force in the MDC, a part of bodies that wanted to end the several years of brutal dictatorship government of President Robert Mugabe. You will read more stories about President Mugabe’s brutal acts by visiting these websites, http://www.rte.ie/news/2000/0418/zimbabwe.html

Table 2. Rhetorical moves of 419 email messages

Rhetorical move Percentage Average position Sequential rank

Opening salutation 86.54 1.44 1Establish personal/professional credentials 88.46 2.54 2Solicit the offer 82.69 4.21 3Tale 92.31 4.29 4Trust statement 65.38 4.56 3Establish historical credentials 40.38 4.62 5Detail the offer 75.0 6.49 6Confidentiality plea 30.77 7.50 9Urgency statement 53.85 7.93 8/9Invite further contacts 82.69 8.02 8Ends politely 69.23 9.28 10Closing salutation 94.23 10.29 10Other 42.31 1.82 1

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Scammers use people and places to lend credibility to their own stories, even encourag-ing the mark to check a website to confirm the events that surround the scammer’s tale. Blommaert and Omoniyi (2006) determined that scammers are well aware that what they say and how they identify themselves is an important factor in appearing as competent. The connection to real events allows scammers to portray themselves as realistic and reasonable individuals. The fact that everyone faces tragedies of one sort or another is simply the icing on the cake. The scammers hope that the marks draw the conclusion that because so much of what is being reported is actually the truth, then what is unverifiable must be the truth as well. Besides, in dialogic interaction (419s are definitely dialogic), people are not supposed to tell untruths. Violation of this notion must be done covertly and is, consequently, unpalatable to interlocutors (Ekman, 1985; Grice, 1975, 1989; McCornack, 1992; McCornack et al., 1992; Metts, 1989).

Research

It is difficult to find out how much, if any, research potential marks conduct; however, the question we seek to address is whether or not the email messages encourage the mark to do some research, which in fact is what the scammer is hoping will happen - not outside the parameters of the con but as directed by the scammer. When the mark discovers that everything is above board, he or she will become more open to engaging the scammer. Hence, the scammer generally encourages the mark to research the message by inviting further contact – a whopping 82.9 percent of the time. Deceit is the scammer’s profession. Investigation, by way of communication with the scammer, is likely to end badly for the mark. The following are some examples.

• Please feel free to contact me as soon as possible, by email above is (ok) so that we can discuss modalities concerning the transaction.

• REPLY TO: [email protected]• Nb= You can contact me on alternate Email is = ([email protected] )• You should try to call me on my atellite phone no. 882–1646685262 if you are calling my

No. dial the way you use to call other countries,do not put South African area code, because it is a satellite phone.

• You can e-mail me at:[email protected]• In the meantime, I will appreciate if you can call> me or make your contacts through my mail.

Notice the proclivity to use requests as a means to encourage further contact. Undoubtedly, the harder sell will follow the initial contact, and make the matter more convincing to the mark. Here is an example of a follow-up message from a scambaiting1 website (Young, 2008):

The contact information’s of the bank is as follows, ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC LONDON. Email address; ([email protected]) OR Email address: ([email protected]) Name of the transfer officer is Sir Tom Telephone number +447 -031–867–589 or +447–031–867–596 Fax number +44- 703–194–2148 Account Number BLB745008901546/QB/91/A Already i have informed this bank about my intention to claim my late father’s deposit of which my name appears as the next of king.The only thing the bank told me is to


look for a foreign partner who will assist me in the transfer due to my refugee status here in Senegal,as a refugee i am not allowed direct claim of the money but through an appointed representative as the united refugee law governing refugee all over the world states.Based on this information i will like you to send an email to the transfer department of the bank today.which is Sir Tom the foreign transfer officer of the bank. tell him that you are my representa-tive and that you want to assist me transfer my 6.5 million dollars deposited by my late father of which i am the next of king after which you call me on phone today my sweet heart i will be very happy to hear from you soon.God bless you as you do this today by sending email to the my bank

The information in the message seems real enough with real banks and legitimate bank account numbers and authentic looking email addresses, followed by a story that sounds as if it could be true – there are refugee camps in Senegal after all. An example of a certificate of deposit slip actually sent by one of the scammers, and taken from Young’s (2008) website, is shown in Figure 1. As one can see, it does look rather official.

It should be mentioned that if the mark’s research of a 419 email message does not involve engagement with the scammer but seeks advice outside of the relationship with

Figure 1. Phony bank certificate

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the scammer, he or she will likely discover that such e-mail messages are simply fraudu-lent. Many ‘would-have-been’ marks have sent letters of appreciation to the authors of scambaiting websites for enlightening them concerning this type of fraud – the kind of research that scammers do not want marks to engage in. From the point of view of the scammer, research is fine and encouraged as long as the research follows the path laid out by the scammers and does not get others involved. When marks start doing their research from an egocentric point of view, they are in trouble (Gardner, 2006).

Redescription

When glossing this term in a previous section, it was noted that within one email it would be difficult to restate a proposition in various ways to a potential victim. However, once a mark engages the scammer, this is likely to change. Young (2008) has documented numerous cases showing that email messages are frequently sent from the same person but presented in a variety of ways. Understandably, a quick perusal of some of the messages on Young’s website reveals that the message that is most likely to be redescribed by the scammer is how to appropriate the funds to the scammer’s bank account or Western Union address so that the ‘millions’ can be released.

Resources and rewards

Generally speaking, the initial email message sent to the mark refers only to rewards, not any resources that need to be expended. That resources need to be sent is simply an unforeseen, uncontrollable consequence when attempting to get such huge sums of money out of an unstable country. The ropers feign ignorance about any bank charges (demurrage, power of attorney, etc.) that will be charged to the mark by the insideman (who is usually playing a bank official). Instead the initial message focuses on the huge sums of money that can be shared by the mark (for helping out) and the scammer, which can be found in the Detail the offer move.

• Therefore, upon this discovery I and other two officials in my department now decide to establish a cordial business relationship with you, hence my contacting you. We want you to purportedly present your good self as the next of Kin or relation of the deceased so that we can prepare documentations and release the funds (US$13 Million) into your account for safety and subsequent disbursement since

nobody is coming for it and again we do not want the funds to go into the Governments account as “Unclaimed Bill”.

The banking law and procedures herein stipulates that any account abandoned or dormant for a period of some years is subjected to be closed and all money contained therein will be forfeited to the Government Treasury Account. Now it is being speculated that the above sum will be transferred into Government Treasury Account as unclaimed funds on or before November 2004. The reason for you to present your good self as the next of kin in occasioned by the fact that the deceased customer was a foreigner.


Mode of sharing after the successful completion of the transfer is as follows, for the role you will be expected to play in the whole twenty five (25%) of the total sum, and 5% has been set aside for expenses we are going to encounter by both parties in the process of this transaction and the remaining 70% shall be for my colleagues and I.

• I AM WRITING TO SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE TRANSFER OF US$1,550.000.00. THIS FUND IS THE EXCESS OF WHAT MY BRANCH IN WHICH I AM THE MANGER MADE AS PROFIT DURING THE LAST YEAR. I HAVE ALREADY SUBMITTED AN APPROVED END OF THE YEAR REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2003 TO MY HEAD OFFICE HERE IN ACCRA AND THEY WILL NEVER KNOW OF THIS EXCESS. I HAVE SINCE THEN, PLACED THIS AMOUNT OF US$ 1,550.000.00 ON A SUSPENCE ACCOUNT WITHOUT A BENEFICIARY.

AS AN OFFICER OF THE BANK, I CANNOT BE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO THIS MONEY THUS I AM IMPELLED TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO RECEIVE THIS MONEY INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. I INTEND TO PART 30% OF THIS FUND TO YOU WHILE 70% SHALL BE FOR ME.

• I have choosen you to assist me invest the money in any of the countries or where ever you felt is politically condusive for investment opportunities. I will also like you to make arrangement for my only son to further his Education in your country.

I have agreed to offer you %20 of the total sum as your compensation after the transfer is made into your account and you will serve as guardian to the company that you will estarblish for us until we are capable of managing it ourselves.

Detailing the offer is a relatively lengthy move concerning the number of words expended by the scammers; hence, it is obviously an important one. In 419 messages, this move acts as the enticement to impel the mark to act. The lure of the cash is likely the catnip that drives an unwise mark to engage the scammer, and it motivates a hooked victim to never give up on the dream of completing the transaction. Even as the scammer contin-ues to request payment after payment, the monies dangling just around the corner are enticement enough to keep many of the marks hooked and accommodating. Any fee that might be paid by a fallen mark looks insignificant with the knowledge that all of the expenses will soon be recovered and that there will be plenty of money to go around besides. Certainly, rewards can play a huge factor in turning a potential mark into a vic-tim; however, the mark’s psyche must also be considered. Goffman (1957) suggests that there is a need to avoid embarrassment in any interaction, and because the mark gener-ally perceives him- or herself as being rather shrewd, this type of degradation will likely be avoided at all costs. Certainly there is an element of fear of being a loser in the game and this reinforces the need to be right. If the mark does ‘go ballistic’ with the perception that something has gone seriously wrong, the roper will generally try to ‘cool the mark’ by offering sympathy and understanding, which in turn is aimed at keeping the mark pliable and eager.

The confidentiality plea, found in approximately 30 percent of the messages, also plays to the mark’s avarice. The scammer hopes to convince the mark to keep the deal secret as these examples illustrate.

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• Note also, this transaction must be kept STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL because of its nature.• PLEASE YOUR CONFIDENTIALITY IN THIS TRANSACTION IS HIGHLY

REQUIRED.• Conclusively, keep this transaction strickly confidential.• I wish for utmost confidentiality in handling this transaction as my job and the future of my

family would be jeopardized if it were breached.• I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished as

I don’t want anything that will Jeopardize my last wish.• Do not disclose this offer to anybody. This is because we are top and influence officials and

do not want our image to be dented, keep it TOP SECRET.

The scammer hopes to sway the mark into believing ‘The deal is only for you and me. We will split all of the money and live happily ever after’. A confidentiality plea also attempts to build solidarity with the scammer, so it can be considered a resonance move2 as well. By gaining footing with the mark, the scammer hopes to solidify the relationship (Goffman, 1971, 1974; Schiffrin, 1994). If the deal is only for you and me, it means that the you (the mark) has to have complete confidence in the me (the scammer). It should also be noted that marks generally will not make effective counterarguments against the scammers. Meyers et al.’s (1991) research shows that when one party – in our case the scammers – makes a claim or an offer in the form of a persuasive argument, the claims tend to go relatively unchallenged – eventually leading to faulty conclusions.

Resistance

All of the moves a scammer employs in a 419 message are intended to break down resis-tance since the scammers’ ultimate goal is to fleece the mark. However, two moves struck us as being aimed particularly at breaking down resistance. The first is polite endings – slightly impolite in these cases.

• May God bless you as you assist me.• I look forward to receiving your prompt response.• I look forward to your earliest response.

In these 419 samples, the positive politeness is rather forcefully applied to put the onus on the reader, and to push the reader to action. These seem to border on face-threatening acts, but apparently maintain enough politeness not to scare off every mark (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Nevertheless, because 419 messages tend to be written by non-native speakers of English (or at least appear as if they are), there may be strong cultural differ-ences at play. The recognition by the mark that the scammer is a non-native speaker who has struggled to produce an all English email and who has also kind of bungled polite-ness strategies actually works in favor of the mark by helping to build solidarity, which helps to break down resistance (Magill, 2003). The scammer takes advantage of this perception of naiveté (Dixon, 2005).

A second move that is apparently aimed at breaking down a mark’s resistance to engage the scammer is the urgency statement. Scammers are banking on the mark believing that if they do not act soon, this opportunity may disappear.


• Awaiting anxiously to hear from you so that we can discuss the modalities of this transaction.

• I am hoping to hear your urgent response to my private email address ([email protected])so that I can not look for another foreign partner.

• Please treat this as a matter of urgency to us. Expecting to hear from you immediately.• your urgent reply is highly needed

If the scammer can get a mark to consider that the opportunity to make some easy money is fleeting, that may help to break down any resistance to a change of mind.

Real world events

Real world events are those events that affect change by affecting the situation at hand. It can be said, therefore, that no actual move within a 419 email message has put a mark in a position that would facilitate a change in his or her life. On the other hand, it is true that marks can be fooled into believing that the scammer is in some sort of predicament whose solution rests with the mark. It is not a stretch to believe that the mark empathizes with the scammer’s plight and this has potential to alter the mark’s decision-making process. In such cases, it is likely the tale that is most convincing because it is often anchored in recognizable, real world events contained within it, as this example illustrates (Blommaert and Omoniyi, 2006).

• In my department, we discovered an abandoned sum of US$13,000,000.00 (Thirteen Million United States Dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our customers who died along with his entire family in 1988 Lockerbie Pan American Airline plane crash.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of Kin to come over and claim his money, because we can not release it unless somebody applied for its next of Kin or Relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking procedure, but unfortunately to no avail, and nobody has come forward to claim the money (because the mentioned next of kin which is Son died as well).

There certainly was a Pan American Airline crash in 1988 and it seems conceivable that this has put the person drafting this email in a troublesome position. With that said, it seems unlikely that the mark would be hard pressed to act on that knowledge alone, but in combination with other elements, it could help to convince the mark to take ill-advised action. Metts and Chronis (1986) label such messages as half-truths, where the message contains a certain amount of verifiable truthfulness in an attempt to deceive others (also McCornack, 1992). The amount of information that is left out (violations of quantity) or blatantly lied about (violations of quality) is considered as being equally deceptive based upon the level of harmfulness such information inflicts (Levine et al., 2003).

Resonance

Resonance was saved for last because at the very core of the 419 advance fee fraud scams are the affective measures that the ropers employ to try to get the mark to play the game.

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Without altering the affective, it is hard to imagine that the mark would engage the scam-mer. Indeed, all of the previously discussed moves that scammers use are intended to affect change by attempting to build solidarity, clearly relying most heavily on the reso-nance factor. Here, we focus on moves that seem to be directly aimed at building kinship with the mark.

At the beginning of a message there is usually a rather casual greeting. The opening salutation was consistently used (86.54%) by the scammers as the opening move. Here are some samples of opening salutations from the 419 email message data:

• DEAR SIR.

• Hello, Good-day to you.

• Beloved In Christ, Calvary greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .

• Dear sir, Greetings, How are you today, I do hope that you are fine.

• Dear Friend,

• Dear Sir, Compliments of the day.

There are a couple of elements of interest from these samples. If we compare these greet-ings to a typical business letter the colloquial language is somewhat surprising. Vergaro (2004) does not report any such occurrence in business sales letters. As she notes, ‘. . . solidarity is signaled by duteously recognizing the gap between sender and receiver, not by attempting to close the gap by such linguistic strategies as a colloquial greeting . . .’ (p. 190). As for many 419 messages, it seems that the scammers attempt to close this solidarity gap through a rather casual greeting. The same can be said for the closing salutations as seen in these examples.

• With warm greetings, Cliff W. Jones

• Best Regard and God Bless.

MRS.FELICIA KONE.

• Yours sincerely

Nena Donald.

• Yours faithfully,

Markson Cisse.


Perhaps the gap is perceived by the scammers as being so wide between themselves and their potential marks that they feel they must forgo conventional formality in favor of the more colloquial in an attempt to break down barriers. They may also favor the friendly letter approach over the business letter style (Chafe and Danielewicz, 1987). However, as these messages are generally written by non-native speakers of English, colloquial style endings might simply be attributed to lack of the linguistic skills necessary to concoct ‘proper’ businesslike endings.

The second snare for the potential victim is that the scammer often refers to him- or herself as being someone who is someone important, which is a part of establishing personal/professional credentials. Goffman (1969) calls this establishing credibility and it is an essential part of the con game.

• In brief introduction, I am IBRAHIM KAMARA MASHADA the Son of late KAMARA MASHADA, the former Minister of Finance in the Republic of Guinea Bissau.

• I am Mr Micheal Silas the Accountant of ECOBANK BENIN.• My name is Mr.Tosi Penka, Director of Petroleum Explorations in Iraq• I am Eloy Sakiata Savimbi,son of the late leader of Unita Rebel Jonas Savimbi of

Angola• I AM ERIC KATA THE ONLY CHILD OF LATE MR AND MRS RAPHAEL,MY

FATHER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN, THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF IVORY COAST

In most cases, there is no way to verify or even cast doubt on a claim because the scam-mers’ false identities are unknown, and other information provided can often be easily verified by checking the Web. For example, Ecobank does have a branch in Benin, which brings more legitimacy to the claim by ‘Mr. Silas’, and Jonas Savimbi was most certainly a Unita Rebel leader. As for ‘Mr. Kata’ and ‘Mr. Penka’, it is difficult to verify the infor-mation they have provided, which is likely meant to protect their status. Politeness rules are assumed to hold sway when there is question of veracity, giving the benefit of the doubt to people who are who they say they are (Grice, 1975, 1989). Such expectations undoubtedly help to persuade susceptible marks to engage the scammers. This, in tan-dem with historical recitations, provides the text with what Fisher (1984) terms ‘narra-tive fidelity’. If the mark concludes that the text has fidelity, he or she is much more likely to play the game.

The third move aimed at solidarity with the mark is the trust statement. Here are some examples:

• I want to personally entrust my future and that of my family into your hands• I have the courage to ask for your assistance to handle this important and confidential

business believing that you will never let me down either now or in future.• I need truthful person in this business because I don’t want to make mistake I need your

strong assurance and trust.• please do not make undue advantage of the trust i bestow on you• And promise me and my younger sister to be a guidian considering our situation and not to

betray us.• Can I completely trust you?

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• I will not fail to bring to your notice that this business is 100% risk and trouble free and that you should not entertain any fear as all modalities for fund transfer can be finalized within 7 to 9 banking days

• I assure you that there is no risk attached to this and we will work out modalities for the success of this transaction.

What is ironic here is that in many of the 419 messages, it is the scammers themselves who are imploring that the mark be an honest and trustworthy person. In the first five examples shown above, the scammer is feigning being at the mercy of the mark in securing his or her help. We have labeled these as ‘Can I trust you?’ statements. There is a certain kind of endearing quality to the scammers’ pleas for honesty. Clearly, this kind of reverse psycho-logical scheming is part of the clever masquerade, meant to entrap the mark into thinking that only an honest person would insist on dealing with an honest person. Hence, once again, the scammer cleverly attempts to build solidarity with the mark.

Regarding the final two examples mentioned above, the scammer is bent on alleviat-ing any worries that the mark may have. We call these ‘You can trust me’ statements. The belief by any mark that the transaction must be risk-free is a clear indicator that the scammer can be trusted to be contacted. Whether the mark proceeds to actually send any monies is dependent upon changing the mark’s mind initially and keeping the mark from reverting to the status quo position. The scammers often rely on flattery and indebtedness to the mark to build trust and solidarity with the mark (Goffman, 1969).

The tale also is a valuable tool to establish resonance with the mark. Generally speak-ing, people see themselves as decent and can relate to problems that others have. Here are some examples.

• There is an account opened in this bank in 1980 and since 1990 nobody has operated on this account again. After going through some old files in the records, I discovered that if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing. The owner of this account is Mr. Peter Smith, a foreigner, and a miner at D&D INVESTMENT CO., a geologist by profession and he died since 1990. No other person knows about this account or any thing concerning it, the account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that this company does not know anything about this account and the amount involved is (USD 45M) Forty Five million United States Dollars).

• In the year 1998 during our father’s tenure in office, he diverted some fund meant for estate complex Development Project (700 Housing Unt). The project awarded to read US$64.7Million dollars, on execution of the contract it reads US$36.0 Million dollars while 28.7 Million dollars was diverted by our late father after the completion. All the depository documents are with us. This event dated 13th November 1999, during political crisis in my country Sierra Leone. My father later died in the heat of the crisis in the year 2000. The fund being deposited in the Bank in Abidjan Cote d’Ivoire due to security rea-son. we source to contact you to assist us in transferring the above fund into your account as the beneficiary in your country for onward investment in your country.

Following the brake out of the war, almost all government offices, coperations and parastatals were attacked and vandalized. The SLDMC was loothed and burnt down to ashes, and diamonds worth millions of dollars was stolen by the rebel military forces who attacked my fathers office.


• Many top government officials and senior army officers were assassinated and my father was a key target because of his very sensitive military position and appointment in the SLDMC. Regreatably, my father was captured and murdered along with half brother in cool blood during a mid-night rebel shoot-out when our official residence in freetown was armbushed by Fordey Sanko the notorious rebel leader.

My mother sustainded very sever bullet injuries which resulted to her untimelyand painful death in a private hospital here in Ivory Coast.

Now I am alone in a totally strange country without parents, relatives or any body to care for me at my tender ages.

Before my mother died, she told me that my father deposited some money which he made from diamond sales and contracts at this bank here in Ivory Coast and that i should pray and find a trustworthy foreign business partner who would help me to transfer and invest this money in profitable business venture overseas.

The mark may surmise that these ‘tales’ could have a positive outcome if he or she can help out, and since there is no cost to the mark at the initial stage, this seems like a reasonable position. The scammers rely on a false posturing of desperation to convince the mark of the great need for help; this is aimed at increasing intimacy and conse-quently solidarity (Goffman, 1969). As Blommaert and Omoniyi (2006: 592) point out, ‘The general tone is clear: this is a one-to-one relationship built on mutual confidence and supported by a realization of mutual benefits, or in some cases by the Almighty’. Once solidarity has been strengthened and eventually cemented, the mark is ready to be fleeced.

There is one additional element concerning resonance that I think warrants some discussion. It may be believed that all of the formatting and syntactical errors as well as the misspellings and misuse of various lexical items in the 419 messages would signal the marks that they are in danger. Certainly, in many cases the incongruent picture painted by the identity of the message writer, blurred by the content of the message itself, points to fraud (Blommaert and Omoniyi, 2006). Nevertheless, to a willing mark, this is likely to have the reverse effect. Mauer (1940) suggests that marks generally have great confidence in themselves and tend to believe that they are rather intelligent. In addition, marks believe they are good people. A hooked mark is often supremely confident that the resolution of the matter is just around the corner. Moreover, they tend to consider them-selves as being very good judges of others’ character and so believe that they would never fall into an ‘obvious’ trap. The scammers play off of this confidence. Marks often become so overly confident that the matter will be resolved after just one more payment that they will ignore valuable and sound advice from those whom they should be trust-ing, putting unwavering trust in someone they have never even met, and ironically end up destroying relationships with their own families and friends in order to ‘save’ the deal with the scammers.

That marks are overconfident is nothing new because victimized marks over the years have tended to be those who have been formally educated and are upstanding members in the eyes of society. Apparently, scammers are aware of this; Mauer (1940) insists that

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scammers do not like to deal with slow-witted marks3 because contrary to general opin-ion, it is the intelligent who can envision how events are supposed to play themselves out and so, as a consequence of this kind of mentality, it is they who are likely becomes addicts – those who come back again and again to make the deal happen. They often become so exhilarated by the deal that they can see unfolding in their mind, they simply cannot walk away. As Gardner (2006) suggests, it is egocentrism at its worst – ‘becoming ensnared in one’s own construal of events’ (p. 163).

In addition, when considering the conclusions of Loewenstein et al. (2005), it is plausible that a lack of synchronous communication in the form of an email may have the consequence of lulling marks into a false sense of security as they have sufficient time to ponder the message from the scammers. Rather than feeling conversationally dominated, which can happen easily in face-to-face negotiations, the mark instead may have a sense of safety knowing that he or she is on an equal footing in the negotiation process, and may even feel a certain level of dominance over the scammer because of superior linguistic skills and the perception that they are more educated and sophisticated. Interestingly, research has shown that if an individual has an initially favorable reaction to a proposition, the proposition will tend to be viewed increasingly more favorably as time passes rather than less favorably, essentially hardening the individual’s position (Cacioppo and Petty, 1979; Sadler and Tesser, 1973; Tesser and Conlee, 1975).

Concluding remarks

When 419 scammers concoct email messages, they follow a very consistent pattern regarding the moves that they employ. All of these moves are aimed at convincing a mark that the story being spun is a legitimate affair. To goad the mark into action requires that the mark change his or her mind – going from simply reading a message to wiring large sums of money overseas to someone who they really do not know personally. Gardner (2006) claims that all of the elements that we discussed are important towards facilitating change; it depends on the person or persons and the situation. Concerning 419 scams, resonance is rather an important factor because the scammer is banking on the mark’s empathy. In brief, the scammer is hoping to:

1. establish and build solidarity with the mark;2. play on the mark’s avarice;3. keep the mark from discussing the issue with others (i.e. keep the mark thinking

from an egocentric perspective).

Magill (2003) mentions that the scammers are after two types of marks: gullible and greedy or gullible and charitable. Either way, if the mark decides to discuss the issue with others, he or she is unlikely to engage the scammer, so to keep the mark locked into a two-way dialogue is vital if the scammer hopes to succeed. And, although the scammer’s main objective is to engage the mark, the mark will not be moved if no solidarity can be established. Trust is the key. Dixon (2005) reports that, according to one scammer she interviewed, if the mark trusts the scammer by making contact there is about a 70 percent chance that the mark will also be fleeced out of some money.


In addition, but still of great importance to the mark, is the mark’s interest in securing millions of dollars – resources and rewards. The cyber scammers believe that they will hook the greedy and complicit, and this is confirmed by the content composition that can be found within various moves (Dixon, 2005). In general, marks consider themselves as being more intelligent than the message writer (the scammer is often viewed as being less educated in the ways of the Western world based upon the linguistic problems scat-tered throughout most of the messages), and consequently, can be blinded by greed – get-ting something for nothing. And once marks become hooked, they can be driven to the point of making wildly irrational decisions just to get their hands on the promised mil-lions (Heger and Brady, 2003; Mauer, 1940; Wizard, 2000).

Lastly, scammers want marks to be isolated while they are dealing with them. Marks tend to be overconfident and that makes them poor judges of character as well. Their confidence lies in their perceived ability to be able to quickly decipher real propositions from legitimate sources and phony propositions from scam artists. By focusing inward, effective research involving others is ignored, meaning their decisions are rooted in emotions rather than the facts on the ground. In other words, emotions blind them, resulting in inaccurate character assessment, and the scammers move in for the ‘kill’ (Dixon et al., 2002).

One of the goals of this research was to see if 419 messages had established patterns of rhetorical moves, and then to see what the purpose of each individual move might be. As I have mentioned briefly, the various elements that can elicit change are apparent in all of the moves and there is much overlap; however, they do have one common denominator – changing the mind of the mark, so he or she takes action.

As previously mentioned, there is not a great deal of research investigating these types of fraud, so much additional research needs to be conducted towards gaining a bet-ter understanding of the linguistic elements that are common to fraudulent messages being propagated by electronic means. One potential avenue of inquiry is how fraud is perpetrated dependent upon the technological platform used. For example, fraud has been perpetrated upon unsuspecting marks using social networks, Skype and internet chat rooms. Questions need to be asked about messages and manner concerning various similarities and differences between the platforms. Another potential area of interest is the language of ‘scambaiters’. These are individuals who intentionally engage scammers so as to waste the scammers’ time and money and moreover, to embarrass them in a public venue. There are a number of scambaiting websites replete with the data of inter-action between the scambaiters and the scammers.

Through this brief look at content-based rhetorical moves, we hope this research has illustrated how change is triggered when victims fall prey to 419 scammers, as one possible explanation of normally rational, intelligent people acting in seemingly irratio-nal ways. We hope that we have added one more tiny kernel to the knowledge base of what happens when people fall prey to con games. As for potential marks, we suggest that perhaps the most dangerous element in decision-making is viewing the scenario from an egocentric position. This keeps the mark from doing appropriate research; this keeps the mark from proper reasoning; and this convinces the mark to put trust in the wrong places. By taking a highly egocentric position, a mark’s version of reality can be painted, without solid evidence, by those who are considered as trustworthy, and once a

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trust relationship has been established, the mark will likely be stung financially, socially and emotionally.

Notes

1. Scambaiting is practiced by certain individuals in essence to scam the scammers. Scambaiters engage the scammers but with the intention of simply wasting the scammers’ time. A scammer often continues a dialogue with the scambaiter for months trying to get some money out of his or her pocket. The scammer eventually realizes that he or she has been scammed because the scambaiters have no intention of ever sending any monies to the scammers. A Google search of ‘scambaiting’ turns up a number of sites of those engage in the practice of scambaiting.

2. It should be noted that the confidentiality plea also serves the purpose of keeping the transaction private. The scammer certainly does not want the mark to start informing others of what is transpiring for fear that the contact may be well aware of 419 scams.

3. One scammer mentioned this in an email message: ‘Thank God you are educated and i believe you know the basic rudiments in university’ (419 Baiter.com, 2008).

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Mark R. Freiermuth is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Gunma Prefectural Women’s University in central Japan. He teaches a variety of linguistics and English language courses for the Faculty of International Communication at GPWU. He is interested in the many facets of electronic communication, and his publications are a reflection of these interests.

Text, lies and electronic bait: An analysis of email fraud and the decisions of the unsuspecting

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