What is the online nigerian scams? How do you know if a company is one???

Question

I had a company offer to lend me 10000 US dollars for a term of 36 months with a interest rate of 0.02% a month, making the total payback 1180.00. They are based out of UK(supposidely) and said they will send the money to me via Western Union. All they wanted me to do was fill out a form and send a copy of my DL or work ID. Is this legit???

Answer 1

First of all, the scams don't just come Nigeria. Second there are several types. One is where the company, trying to employ you, state that you need to receive funds from one of their clients, your keep a portion of the check or money order and send the rest off to the company, well when you deposit the check and send off the check or money order to the company, the funds you sent where certified, but then the check they sent you gets returned as fraudulent to your bank and then your out the amount of the check as well as the amount of the money order you sent off. Other way they try to accomplish this task is by sending fake lotteries from places like Canada. The send you a check for lets say, $3000.00, then they state in the letter you have just won the lottery and you just need to mail them back the filing fee (or some type of fee) and you get to keep the rest. Well they same thing happens like the first incident. Another way, is maybe you are selling something on-line, let say a TV for $800.00, well they'll send you a check for $1500.00 and then contact you and say they made a mistake and sent you too much, so they ask you to send them back the difference. And then again you sent off certified funds, and the check they sent you comes back as fraudulent.

Answer 2

It will look something like this: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/nigeria.asp

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Answer 3

If something seems to good to be true, it probably is.....