Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin Fraud and Scams

I receive daily emails from several dubious people or companies from Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin regarding their huge requirements of one commodity or the other. Most of these emails are tender based requirements or Government sponsored requirements.

Since the 2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup is about to happen, most of their current requirements seem to be targeted towards this event.

It is amazing to see that these fraudsters are getting more and more professional everyday. They send detailed specifications of the required items including pictures etc (they probably get it from a genuine source) and make the manufacturers like us believe that they are serious in their business.

Once the manufacturer sends a quote, they (obviously) are awarded the tender and are first required to send samples and company details by courier. As soon as the samples are received by these fraudsters, they send professionally looking documents by email stating that the tender has been awarded alongwith contact details of the concerned people in the Ministry etc etc (these numbers never tend to work or are received by the fraudsters themselves).

Now here lies the trick – you cannot accept the tender without an intermediary such as a lawyer who will pretend to handle the transaction. These lawyers will charge you a professional fee which could be anything – $4000/$10000 or even more payable in 1 or 2 instalments.

As soon as the manufacturers are tricked into sending this professional fee to the so-called lawyers, everything comes to a standstill and you shall not hear from these fraudsters again no matter how much you chase them.

These fraudsters uses fake emails, fake addresses, fake documents. The only thing real is their bank account number of the lawyer which is where they receive the payment. The banks used by these fraudsters are small and this makes them untraceable.

The Governments in these countries have done nothing to prevent these scams and inspite of the efforts of several organisations worldwide, more and more people fall into their trap everyday.

A sincere request to eveyone who may have been pulled towards replying to these people – Just Stay Away. Don’t even bother. And, please do help us spread the word by distributing this article as much as you can (Use digg, stumble, facebook, whatever you think may be suitable to get attention).