[gramie]

I don't think that the Nigerian scammers are necessarily unsophisticated. Their scam emails intentionally contain enough red flags that any reasonably intelligent person will recognize the scam and not reply.

This way, the only replies they get are from people who are extremely gullible and/or desperate. It allows the scammers to avoid wasting time on targets that have a low probability of success.

That said, there are certainly plenty of stories about Nigerian scammers who are themselves not very bright or perceptive (is the 401Eater website still up and running?).

[pixelgeek]

> I don't think that the Nigerian scammers are necessarily unsophisticated. Their scam emails intentionally contain enough red flags that any reasonably intelligent person will recognize the scam and not reply.

It is actually deliberate. It has been part of scams like that for decades

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/9346371/Nig...

It used to be seen in scams sent via the post as well.

[FDSGSG]

>I don't think that the Nigerian scammers are necessarily unsophisticated. Their scam emails intentionally contain enough red flags that any reasonably intelligent person will recognize the scam and not reply.

The "nigerian scams" are extremely unprofitable compared to even mildly sophisticated scams like BEC or basic craigslist scams. I think it's safe to say that they're unsophisticated.

>That said, there are certainly plenty of stories about Nigerian scammers who are themselves not very bright or perceptive (is the 401Eater website still up and running?).

Yeah, because the actually intelligent ones are generally running very different scams.