Scam-O-Rama: Absolutely incredible. These guys have taken the art of 419er-baiting to the ultimate extreme — they’re successfully extracting money from the ‘Lads from Lagos’:
Wow. Also this IDG.NET story notes:
There’s an odd battle building in the dark alleys and byways of the Internet, being fought by diverse characters such as Dr. Sigmund Freud, Kris Kringle, the late Princess Margaret, a German-Hungarian gypsy called Hans Gneesunt-Boompsadazi, a Chinese restaurateur called Hu Flung Dung, and the Patagonian Liberation Front. ….
In what is regarded as the Titanic of the genre … three bogus explorers called Captain Stabbin, Lonslo Tossov and Ilichy Miracsky, in their equally fictitious boat ‘The Lucky Lad’, kept a gang of Lads on the run for several months with clowning exploits describing their supposed passage up and down the West African coast, failing to meet the Lads on several occasions for a variety of improbable reasons.
Eventually the good captain pulled the plug on the reverse scam, informing the lads in no uncertain terms that they were ‘mugus’ — a word used in Nigeria to denote an utter idiot.
I came across this while looking for info on the practice of signing guestbooks as Mugu Guyman. One theory I’ve heard is that means a 419er has visited the guestbook, scraped the email addresses for 419 fraud, and it’s a sign for other 419ers to keep away from those addresses as they’re already ‘taken’. As the quote says above, ‘Mugu’ is apparently a term meaning something along the lines of ‘gullible idiot’. Most of the comments seem to support this:
- ‘me i done here mugu mugu off’
- ‘TOGO GUYMEN KEEP OFF FROM THIS SITE I DEY HERE LAGOS ?TOGO GHANA GUYMEN MUGU NO DEY HERE’
- ‘Avary good site pls all guyman keep off,oooooooooooooooooo.’
Then, a few seem to indicate that it’s a sign to other 419ers not to spam those addresses while a scam is in progress:
- ‘south africa, jo bong, mugu guyman kindly keep offoooooooooooooo someone have visitedooooooooooooooo and still waiting for reply ok’
- ‘VERY HICE ALL MUGU GUYMAN KEEP OFF IT HAS BEEN DONE PLEASE DON,T SPOIL JOB FOR I DONO DO ALL0000000000000000000000000000000000000’
Dunno what all the oooooooooing is about though… ;)