Stupidity or Greed?

A woman was recently taken in on the well-known "Nigerian Letter" scam to the tune of $400,000. That's a different Lexus for each day of the week, with money left over for some designer clothes to make you look good while driving the cars! How does one lose that much money in a well-known scam? Read on at Katu.com (which appears to be the source of the story):

http://www.katu.com/news/34292654.html

To me, this just shows the power of sheer blind stupidity, or more likely, the stupidity brought on by sheer blind greed.

Let's look at this from the perspective of someone who is completely oblivious to the existence of these scams and assumes (foolishly) that someone in Nigeria has tracked down an email address for him/her through his/her now deceased grandfather, who has been out of touch since before you had an email address. If you can believe that, sending $100 for "paperwork" almost seems reasonable, and even worth the risk. $8300 for "accounting fees" or other costs could even be believable, but at this point one wonders why you wouldn't start asking to meet at the holding bank and be willing to pay for a plane ticket (and maybe a bodyguard/escort) -- if you can get past the "why don't you take it out of the funds available?" question burning in your mind. To go so far as to empty a retirement account and go into severe debt without investigating further seems beyond stupid to me.

Another article at MaximumPC.com states that "her friends, family, and law enforcement officials tried to get her to stop." Are we supposed to believe that not one of these people were familiar with this common scam and no one showed her examples to prove how common it is? I doubt that was the case -- despite all the evidence before her, obsessive greed kept her blind to the truth.

As cold as it may sound, I don't pity her in the least. She is either greedy and deserves this fate, or is immensely stupid and is lucky she survived natural selection this long. I may feel sorry for her husband, though, assuming he was unaware of what she was doing to their finances or why. Sometimes trust in a relationship has unfortunate side effects, and this could be one of those times.

I just hope this serves as a tale of warning for others who might not know any better than to fall for these scams. It should also serve as an example of how greed can destroy. Be ambitious and strive for success, but don't be greedy. Of course, always be skeptical and use a little common sense, too.