This woman sent Nigerian scam artists $400,000 - a fool or a victim?

This may well be the mother of all internet scam cases.
Janella Spears, a reverend and a registered nurse from Sweet Home, Oregon, ended up sending Nigerian fraudsters more than $400,000 when she was promised a multi-million dollar pay out from a lost relative.

When she began to doubt she was sent letters from the FBI Director, the US President and the President of Nigeria. She still thought it was genuine and ignored the pleas of her family and law enforcement officials in the US.

She spoke out to warn others of the scams and told KATU TV that she "doesn’t think she’s a sucker or an easy mark". The blogs have been ripping her to shreds. What do you think?

Here is KATU.com's version of her almost unbelievable story:

Besides her work as a registered nurse, Spears also teaches CPR and is a reverend who has married many couples. She also communicates with lightning-fast sign language with her hearing-impaired husband.

So how did this otherwise lucid, intelligent woman end up sending nearly half a million dollars to a bunch of con artists running what has to be one of the best-known Internet scams in the world?

Spears fell victim to the "Nigerian scam," which is familiar to almost anyone who has ever had an e-mail account.

The e-mail pitch is familiar to most people by now: a long-lost relative or desperate government official in a war-torn country needs to shuffle some funds around, say $10 million or $20 million, and if you could just help them out for a bit, you get to keep 10 (or 20 or 30) percent for your trouble.

All you need to do is send X-amount of dollars to pay some fees and all that cash will suddenly land in your checking account, putting you on Easy Street. By the way, please send the funds though an untraceable wire service.

By this time, not many people will fall for such an outrageous pitch, and the scam is very well-known. But it persists, and for a reason: every now and then, it works.

Spears received just such an e-mail, promising her that she’d get $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative – identified in the e-mail as J.B. Spears – with a little money up front. "That's what got me to believe it," Spears said.

It turned out to be a lot of money up front, but it started with just $100.

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.

They sent official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and even from the United Nations. Her payment was "guaranteed."

Then the amount she would get jumped up to $26.6 million – if she would just send $8,300. Spears sent the money.

More promises and teases of multi-millions followed, with each one dependent on her sending yet more money. Most of the missives were rife with misspellings.

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. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.

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.

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

Spears said she kept sending money because the scammers kept telling her that the next payment would be the last one, that the big money was inbound. Spears said she became obsessed with getting paid.

An undercover investigator who worked on the case said greed helped blind Spears to the reality of the situation, which he called the worst example of the scam he’s ever seen.

He also said he has seen people become obsessed with the scam before. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false promises will turn out to be real.

Now, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim.

She hopes her story will warn others to listen to reason and avoid going down the dark tunnel of obsession that ended up costing her so much.

Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold.

 

                                     

Comments

[Brian MacLeod]

The worst of it is she has funded them to keep doing this.

Greed is its own reward.

[A Brown]

how laughable to read about the incompetent Police in this day and age,..still unable to trace these criminal via the internet

Strange how the KGB,..Mossad and the CIA can trace anyone in a few hours

instead of the millions of bloggers on the www slating the women,..why not donate one quid to her to help her out

it costs the trolls that in spamming time

[bob]

$400,000? I'm sorry but I think this lady is a greedy fool, not a victim.

I can't understand why she couldn't rationalise her situation - huge, crippling financial losses every month - and conclude that she had been duped once and for all. Surely losing that first $100-1000 should be enough cause for concern among ordinary people!

Someone - for the good of her family - keep her the hell away from her inbox and her credit cards!

[Tunde Olayode]

It's difficult to understand how she could be so naive. Otherwise, this puts her integrity in question. How could she expect to benefit from where she did not sow?

[Andrei]

What a greedy moron. She deserves to be ripped to shreds on the blogs.

I pity her husband - he should file for divorce and then sue her back for the money she wiped out.

Victim? Not if your family, friends, and professional experts were telling you to stop. She was, frankly, a total fool.

[Leila]

nincompoop

[C Curtis]

Incredibly stupid and greedy of her to fall for this.

Someone tried to scam me this week. I've sent the info to the authorities and didn't fall for it for one second.

And she's supposed to be in charge of people's lives??

[Terry]

I feel for Mrs Spears & urge her to somehow turn this around and use this incident as a sign from above that she should devote her life to staying on top of the most recent scams and educate the vulnerable elderly people out there so that they never become a victim!

[nokequig@eircom.net]

Theres no fool like an old fool,except perhaps a greedy fool.Whatever about being conned,what is remarkable is that many others were aware of this scam and advised caution,and all were ignored.A sad story,but a fool and their mortgaged money are soon parted. NoelQ Wicklow,Ireland

[Alfie Hynes]

She's a bloody idiot. And a greedy one at that. After all the warnings, after all the sob stories, and it isn't as if she has no intelligence, being a nurse and all. This is what stupidity coupled with greed brings you to. A fine example of Christian values.

Still at least it kept the scammers from bothering rational people.

[paddy]

she's obviously compulsive i some manner. question is what. clearly her issue goes beyond being "stupid", it must be a mental illness of some sort.

what amazes me is that there was no way to protect her husband from her frittering away the money like this. perhaps a reluctance based on gender?

it also shows the kind of intelligence level required of religious people, belief in the clearly absurd.

[Robert Jones]

I replied to one of these "so-called scams", and ended up sending them £15000 (all my savings) to help re-claim "lost money" due to intestacy in Nigeria.
I ended up with $18.9 Million dollars and now live in Mustique, with my own private Lear jet!

[janella Spears]

one more thing to add, as my husband wants me to add it. We had people from the customs department in Nigeria AND New York ask to send us money. I tried to look it up on the internet, call in person, and was always given the run around by the people who talked to me on the phone. I looked up phone numbers and addresses on the internet to counter varify the truth. Some were verified, but then after being varified that it was true, I found it was a fake website.

I did not know people faked websites as well.

Sincerely,

Janella Spears

[Helen]

If this woman has some kind of mental health problem or learning disability - shame on the bank officials who allowed it.

If not, then maybe she has learned her lesson. But what does she want from the publicity - free money? I'm not digging deep.

[Mike Hunt]

"Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold."
..I wish it only took me 3-4 years to save up $0.5m- what kind of nurse is she?

[KeithW]

I can not believe that anyone these days who has an Email account, still falls for this. I even have a seperate email folder into which I send all these scam emails. I usually copy them to Law enforcement agencies as well.
I feel sorry for her family not for her as she refused to listen to people in the know. A lesson to ALL who still believe in Fairies and Santa Clause.

[steve]

As you said...Pure greed with a big touch of stupidity

[Katie]

What a total greedy moron. She doesn't deserve any sympathy.

[C Nugent]

I have to say I liked the deadpan ending: "Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
Victim to what? Bottomless and wilful ignorance fostered by blind greed? Yeah, I'll remember that - thanks for the reminder.

[john]

Ahhh,
Stupidity and greed , that includes her family and the bank , since they knew the mony was for criminal activity , they could have blocked it.

[Rod]

Fools and their money...What an ignorant plonker she is!

[ML]

All these scams rely on is people who are greedy - that despite people in authority telling her to stop paying them, because she was convinced she was going to get paid 'soon' proves how stupid, ignorant and greedy this woman is.

[Ralph]

Dear Janella,

I am looking for investors such as yourself with a history of sound fiscal judgement, to fund the cost of our search for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Due to the unique way our operation is funded it would be prudent to send your bank details so we can deposit your share of the bounty immediately once found.
We have been working closley with PRESIDENT ELECT OBAMA and he says it's OK.

[Faik]

Please do not put all the sins onto this lady. Did you ever play lottery? These Nigerian guys actually give even more hope than a lottery. I do not see anything wonderful in this story. In our country (Russia) the per cent of morons is about the same, I'm afraid.
Faik. St.Petersburg, RUSSIA

[ali]

If this woman willfully choses to ignore police advice that she is being defrauded then she only has her own greed and idiocy to answer to. I feel sorry for her husband and family who clearly also take second place where money is concerned.