This is just an example of how STUPID redneck white people can be. I'm white myself, so I'm well aware of these people, as they surround me daily with their blatant ignorance for any truths, believing anything that they hear.

Just like the lady at the McCain rally that thought Obama is a terrorist... just complete unadulterated ignorance.

In the words of David Duke, a KKK leader (whose views I personally do not agree with), "WAKE UP WHITE PEOPLE" - hahaha you morons... serves you right for being so ignorant.

@HIV 2 Elway Resurrected: Unfortunately, it's also not too hard for some people to take the "smarter than thou" approach to a ridiculous extreme, either, as evidenced by these replies.

@ViperBorg: Yup, it's that poster/s fault and not the person who didn't think of the concept of "other people" before making such a ridiculous and kinda stupid s/n...

@Dooley: Never read the book of Job, huh?

Or the four gospels, something about a guy named Jesus...

It only takes one of her for all of us to get these emails.

Wow. I can understand getting scammed once for $100, but when you start mortgaging your home for this...I just don't know. I guess she wears the balls in the family, where was the husband?

A friend of mine also fell into such a scam sometime back. The promise of a good life with a successful Nigerian businessman was too enticing for someone in her situation - single and lonely, educated with a good job, plus a little savings. I feel sorry for her, but was surprised that she would be a victim of such a scam that has been going on for years.

MAT 23:25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but insidethey are full of greed and self-indulgence."

@danger the pirate ★ feels as though he should have a star a...: I just wanted to let you know that I like your screen name.

Also - I beat you to it!

Here at Bank of Wormica we belive that opportunity is a one way street.

Bank of Wormica, Bank of Opulence

Either way, it's a shame, but at the same time, it's 2008, you have to be careful.

I wish She was my Nurse!

Where was "El Wimpo" Hubby during all of this?

Mac

@PinkBox: I meant that in response to MrDeeno. Oops.

@Segador: Man, my boyfriend fell for that one. :/

And I'm not saying she isn't an idiot, but are we sure she's not also a little cracked?

Let's take a poll! How many folks think that this woman had a "Sarah Palin" sign in her front yard?

@homerjay- Smiling politely: The TV interview was just the cherry on top of her "I'm a Retard" sundae.

What a fool. Go to a casino lady, you might save some money.

He didn't start by saying "Hey, I'm gonna turn this country inside out and charge you for the privilege". That would raise huge flags. Instead, it's just an election to start with. Change is coming, have hope, "yes we can". Then, oh no, we hit a snag, and need more (taxes) before we can pay off your credit cards and mortgages.

Part of it is pure greed, true. But it seems so earnest and honest... (Really, you heard his speeches, they are horribly irrational, but drip with earnestness). Then comes the catch: there's a point that America is too far in to NOT hold out hope. If we stop now, admit we were scammed, we are fools and out our paychecks and personal freedoms for life. But if there's just a tiny chance it's real...we'd have it all back...

Greed, yes. But also some hope. And finally, and this is the one that makes the huge difference: Crushing desperation. Desperation from 8 years of neo-con pantywaists in the White House giving conservatives a bad name, ushering in an era of insanity where an unknown Kenyan is given the keys to the country for promising the moon, stars and all the rich corporate evil white male capitalist pigs' money (= $100M of royal Nigerian funds).

God help us now.

/hoping people will get the satire and not disemvowel me

@HIV 2 Elway Resurrected: I receive similar solicitations almost monthly, and I am baffled that people actually fall for them. There has been too much media attention warning potential victims, so lets chalk her case as being Simple Stupidity.

(frown)

@danger the pirate ★ feels as though he should have a star a...: You've succeeded in making your username so long that your comment is illegible, because it's completely blocked out by your username (at least on my computer, which uses Internet Explorer 7 at default settings for font type/size). Thought you might want to know that. I have no idea what you wrote.

I'm not usually the "blame the victim" type, but come on. You've got to have rocks in your head to fall for this.

@RedwoodFlyer: My atheist heart laughed at that!

@ajlei: Gawd those parents are too stupid to have kids. The nerve of them sending that tape to anyone! This lady makes me also feel a bit stupider for being an Oregonian :-(

Why did the reporter feel the need to throw this in there: "no relation to the well-known pop star"? Just because her last name is Spears and she's, well, as smart as a box of rocks, then she must be related to Brittney?

Also, what crime did the DoJ threaten to charge her with? Criminal stupidity???

In addition, she took out a loan/lien against her car, which was also already paid in full.

I still can't believe she thought that President Bush and the director of the FBI personally and privately asked her to send money to people in Nigeria to "keep money out of the hands of terrorists." Did she really think she was THAT special that the president and FBI contacted her for a secret mission? A secret mission that she had to pay for with her own money to stop terrorists?

The reporter in the video said, "The scammers exploited her compassion."

NO

Compassion does not mean destroying your husbands plans for retirement. You wanna help out a lady with cancer? (That bit is in the video briefly and they don't really explain it.) Why not send the money to her instead of to Nigeria! Furthermore, it stops being charity when you're hurting yourself.

The scammers may have exploited something but it wasn't compassion. Like previous commentors, I say they exploited that she has some kind of mental illness because if you need law enforcement to threaten to arrest you before you stop (and this after warnings from said law enforcement agents) then you have some serious problems.

What kills me is that she still thinks she isn't a dupe or an easy mark. That means that this could actually happen again because she still thinks she's too smart to fall for it.

It's god's way of making sure Nigerian's don't starve!

Just like fossils aren't proof that earth has been here for more than 4,000 years...they're just god's way of testing our faith!

I've never done drugs, but believe that this is why they should just legalize drugs...

To be fair...she also believes the whole religion scam...

This woman does make me angry, not only in her stupidity but because she affects her loved ones with her stupidity.

I will break my long standing rule about blaming the victim here...this women is beyond stupid.

@Ubik2501: Ha! No, but you do think you shouldn't have to explain these things to someone of your generation, unlike say, other relatives who I routinely have to send responses to their forwarded e-mails like "um, no, actually, it turns out Barack Obama is not a Muslim" and no, carjackers are not waiting to prey on me outside the mall parking lot. I love Snopes.

@IHaveAFreezeRay: Can't you just report it to CraigsList?

Nice .... Better than Kazaksthan ..

Nigeria, What a country!

@GothGirl: I keep waiting for my MIL to learn that. Thank God she doesn't have a computer or she would be every Nigerian's wet dream.

Would "god" allow a reverend, one of "his" messengers, lose everything to a scammer?

Religion: 0
Atheism: 1

I only wish there was a "hell" so these nigerian scammers could burn there.

@Ftp1423:
Dont be a MUGU

signed,
F. Gump

If only she had been wearing her tinfoil hat. I wear mine daily and have never been a victim of a nigerian scam. When my russian bride gets here I will make her wear one also. Only 8 more payments to go and olgas all mine.

"The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help."

So she belived the PRESIDENT and the FBI were "in on the deal" and needed HER HELP?

I'm sorry. This woman should not be a nurse. She should be in the psychiatric ward. This is just sad. She needs mental health counseling if she believes she is part of secret government conspiracies.

@mac-phisto: Are you just in a pissy mood today?

@HIV 2 Elway Resurrected: Yeah... sorry... that story is only sad because he went to jail and owes 600,000 dollars. But as for the other 5 pages, I just sat there thinking to myself: "IDIOT! IDIOT! IDIOT!"

Giving your money away to scammers is still a better investment than investing in GM.

But something has to be done about Nigeria...pull the damn plug on that nation. Sheesh.

@XianZhuXuande: Maybe she can get qualified for some government bailout money. Greed seems to have worked for the banks.

Feel sorry for the husband and the kids that will have to take care of them now that their retirement is gone.

As it is this is completely beyond me.

Also, FTR, the article says she's a nurse. Let's hope she's not senile.

Point being, KATU seems to always be running articles that would seem like they should be categorized in the "Weird/Unusual" section of a normal news site. I still read them though, so that's saying something.

@Rhayader:

She was warned numerous times by friends and family that it was a scam. Hard to feel sorry for someone who chooses to trust a bunch of strangers instead of friends and family.

She was in so far, she couldn't stop.

Oh my goodness, how did her know her last name? Let me guess... her email is probably firstinitial.lastname@cablecompany.com! There's no way this could be a scam!

how does your heart feel now?

There are very few people who even open these emails let alone respond; let alone respond interested; let alone respond with money; let alone return to the well multiple times. This takes a kind of ingenius stupidity.

Her efforts alone will lead to us recieving dumb emails for the next two years.

@IHaveAFreezeRay: Luckily, I have an apartment that is not connected to my other, actual billing, addresses. If he/she really wanted to show up and challenge me there... well then... hooray for the 2nd amendment.

After reading the article I still don't understand how people fall for 419s, but I do finally understand how our country got so messed up:

When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush's letter said.

Geez, these people will do whatever even fake President Bush says.

@mrdeeno: Classmates.com seems like a completely untapped rescource for the scammers.

"Wow! One of my former classmates moved to Nigeria and inherited $13 million dollars!"

If only there was some sort of filter, say one you can put on your e-mail that would delete these messages for you...

Take a look at some of the sites like 419eater.com, the forums have quite a bit of information answering your question about what's going on in Nigeria with this stuff.

For more than two years... Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.


She wiped out her husband's retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.

Frankly, I'm surprised the headline wasn't "Man kills wife after she throws away their entire life savings"

I'd like to know what kind of "reverend" she is. That type of greed and willful ignoring of advice doesn't fit with the term "reverend." Of course, neither does a woman in most religions, but that's another topic. :)

I have nothing against many of the principles encouraged by most religions -- love thy neighbor and all that jazz. Something about the NEED to be right about religion really distorts people's perspectives though.

She's worse than the feds. Ooooh snap!

Gambling Addiction FTL

Maybe God told her to do it....

Obviously they aren't enforcing the law too strongly, or she would be behind bars already.

A fool and their money....

At least she's providing economic stimulus to a third world nation. All that money should go a long way.

Obviously there is some reason it's always coming out of Nigeria.

I agree, I have NO sympathy for the woman... I do feel for the husband however. He may have been completely in the dark about this. This type pf stuff happens more often than people think. A spouse causes significant debt before the other realizes what's going on. Personally, I think it should be criminal for that to occur.

BTW, I didn't see anyone mention that fact that this woman was a reverend... What kind of craptastic religous figure is she that her greed controlled her to this extent? Fayes, Robertson, Fawell.... makes me think religion needs to be outlawed...

@m4ximusprim3: i think you could buy all of Nigeria for about half that

For some reason the fact that she's a reverend makes it really easy to blame her in this case. Probably my own prejudice, but hey. Reverend or not, this is one dull mark.

@LoriLynn: Yeah the scammers are in Nigeria and Russia and Atlanta and just about every other county.

From what I understand the term just referes to one of the more popular scams. The term is still used (though maybe not as accurately as other names) for e-mails and criminals that have nothing to do with Nigeria.

i can't believe she's a nurse. the real victim is the poor hospital patient that has this moron overseeing their hearlthcare

Of course, if this woman had spent ANY time whatsoever thinking about what was happening, it never would have gone as far as it did.

I hope that Nigerian dude is living well.

if she was that easy to bilk she would have been duped by someone eventually.

@mac-phisto: True dat. And amazingly smart people do fall for this. I have a ex, a very intelligent former military officer, who went white as a sheet one day reading his e-mail and told me in whispered tones about this guy, in Nigeria, who needed this money, to get his friend, a political dissident out of jail.....etc. And I really did have to sit him down and type in www.snopes.com to convince him that, no, he should not send any money to anyone.

If your really so greedy for money that you can't see this scam taking place (because they are dead obvious... it's not an easy one to fall for) even when family warns you of the scam... your not getting any sympathy.

It's one thing when they get a 80 year old lady who didn't know the "polite young man on the phone" was a con. It's another thing when your greed makes you blind to common sense.

*thought*(sic)

She kept sending money because she though that part of the bailout would be coming her way!

What really shocks me is that this woman went on TV to share her stupidity with the whole world. Or at least Portland, OR and the readers of Consumerist.

I agree with the posts above and their lack of sympathy for the 'victim' (idiot) in this situation. How could you not have even a single ounce of suspicion after being told to send money to someone you've never met, never heard of, and don't know? One would think to request some type of documentation. If they have computers in Nigera, you'd think they'd have fax machines.

These scams will always exist because there are people dumb enough to fall for them.

'There's a sucker born every minute, and two to take him.' - PT Barnum

@Murph1908: Probably right, still the New Yorker story is really sad.

I'm surprised no one has commented on the Department of Justice threatening to arrest her if she kept it up...so it's actually illegal to to piss your money away? Where do send our complaints about lottery addicts?

D-

I feel bad for victims in this case when (like many Americans right now) they are in debt, may lose their homes, and are desperate for a miricale (like playing the lottery).

BUT, if she can get together $400,000 to send to scamers, then she doesn't fall into that category. She wasn't on the verge of forclosure, or have excessive medical bills...she was just greedy.

And thus I don't feel bad for her.

Go Nigera!

I used to work at this teeny publishing company that published books about volunteerism and non-profits. That was it. We'd get credit card orders all the them from Nigeria that we wouldn't process, and we always wondered why they would want to try to get books about volunteerism.

LOL she thought she was going to get Britney Spears' money.

Scammers recently got one of my e-mails recently. No idea how.

Funny thing was that I was telling some friends that work in the IT field that I got an e-mail telling me that I won the UK lottery and I only had to send $X in to claim my prize and they asked if I was going to do it...

*sigh* I need smarter f*****g friends.

She's a reverend too, shouldn't she be firmilliar with that bible passage about gaining the world at the cost of your soul?

Ah well. She's made her bed, and now must sleep in it.

Empathy, never.

Yes, this lady made a huge one ($400,000!!!), but I've seen some people who are just ideal personalities to fall for these things. They're not bright, but if there's some einsteins out there, law of averages tends to mean there are people who aren't so bright. They are probably down on their luck because they aren't really smart enough to make things happen for themselves. And they are just dumb enough to believe these things because of the promise of a better life.

This lady could've had it pretty good if she had 400,000 "available" to her. The guy I knew who fell for the russian lady scam was so heartbroken. If you knew this lady, you'd say she's crazy/stupid/etc, but you'd feel bad for her. It's called senility, and it'll happen to you.

Way to kill human emotion, internet.

It actually warms my heart a little to imagine how well off the nigerian who stumbled upon her is.

She probably bought them a giant house, a couple cars, and enough of a nest egg to live out the rest of thier days without ever touching a computer again.

And you know what? If she's that dumb, they deserve every penny. That's true capitalism, right there.

Part of it is pure greed, true. But it seems so earnest and honest... (Really, you read the letters, they are horribly misspelled, but drip with earnestness). Then comes the catch : There's a point that the person is too far in to NOT hold out hope. If you stop now, admit you were scammed, you are a fool and out $400,000. But if there's just a tiny chance it's real...you'd have it all back...

Greed, yes. But also some hope. And finally, and this is the one that makes the huge difference: Crushing desperation.

Especially to that extent.

What. A. Dumb. Greedy. Hag.

Somebody that stupid doesn't deserve to have money.

Reminds me of the Doug Stanhope bit where he's talking about elderly people getting scammed 11, 12 times in a row and then finally catching on.

"No, it's not because you're old...it's because you're dumb as a rock and you always have been."

This big score will embolden the lowliest of Nigerian two-bit scammers to reach for the brass ring. This woman doesn't deserve our pity at all. She has just guaranteed an ever increasing flood of these fucking emails.

And yes, she does fucking look like Neil Diamond

Janella Spears doesn't think she's a sucker or an easy mark.

Obviously not! She never would have sent money if she thought she was a sucker! Dumb people will always be dumb.

@KyleOrton: +1 of the rich stuff

You'd think the family/friends would stop her in time...a few YEARS? Are you kidding me? I guess it takes all kinds...

With that being said, I can't because this Nigerian scam thing has been going on for years and most people should know what the hell is going and her own family and friends tried to stop her.

The thing I'm most pissed off about is that now that they got the 400k out of her it just pushes them to keep going for the next sucker!

Yeesh! And a big FTW!

@IHaveAFreezeRay: yes

I called a nigerian scammer an asshole the other day and he sent back a hilarious reply:
"Hey hey,please do not address me in that manner and i demand an apology from you for using such swear words on human being like you. Kindly have the item i paid for shipped because i want it to be with my pastor before his wedding ceremony and you know i can not afford to dissappoint him as i have already told him about this package.
Please do not hurt my feelings here."

I never received his money order. Strange! I love fishing for them every once in a while, on craigslist.

The thing that strikes me the most is that the bulk of warnings from REAL people in authority (FBI, Local police, Etc.) were dismissed in favor of their phony email counterparts.

America needs a bailout for Nigerian Scammers!

There was a long and detailed scammer victim story in the New Yorker a few years back. Say what you want about the marks being stupid, if you read the article its hard not to feel empathy for them.

Agreed...plus it mentions that her family and friends tried to tell her it was a scam.