Woman out $400K to 'Nigerian scam' con artists

[Bob Juch]

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

Besides her work as a nursing administrator, Spears – no relation to the well-known pop star – 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?

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

[elwoodblues]

"no relation to the well-known pop star"

That was probably going to be everyone's first question.

[silverscreenselect]

This doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that this woman allowed heself to be seen in public admitting to being the world's biggest sucker.

I'm sure she's going to get more emails now offering to help her retrieve her money if she will just help out with the expenses for the detective firm that's going to take the case on her behalf.

[ulysses5019]

"no relation to the well-known pop star"

That was probably going to be everyone's first question.

My first thought was, "uh, ohn PSM finally answered one of her emails".

[MarleysGh0st]

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

Does she need a second opinion?

[Appa23]

I say that Mrs. Spears should resort to the new American way -- seek a bailout from the federal government.

Her "suckerhood" is not any worse than the people who bought too-expensive houses with adjustable-rate mortgages, and then complained when the mortgages actually adjusted during a down housing market. If Uncle Sam is helping them (and automakers, banks, etc), why not someone who believed in the Nigerian scam.

I might draw the line at the ***** enlargement victims, though.

[earendel]

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

Besides her work as a nursing administrator, Spears – no relation to the well-known pop star – 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?

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

A better question is where someone gets that kind of money to lose in the first place.

[sunflower]

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

Besides her work as a nursing administrator, Spears – no relation to the well-known pop star – 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?

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

A better question is where someone gets that kind of money to lose in the first place.

Mortgaging your already paid for house helps...

"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."

[Bob Juch]

In other news:

Deaf Husband Kills Idiot Wife

[ghostjmf]

Before it was a famous scam, back when it was a little infant scam, my then-assistant (I no longer have one), a Sierra Leoneian RichU work-study student, a very smart person, said "how did this Nigerian person find me?". They thought fellow-Africans-in-America were being sought out. I explained the scam. No money was sent.

You think only idiots fall for this stuff, but I have personal evidence from that story that you do not have to be an idiot, just an honest, open person yourself who has no scam detectors in your makeup & is new to the internet game, perhaps.

This same assistant, who would probably not want me to be posting this, I'd hazard, also though Antonio Bocelli, the opera star who was discovered working in a restaurant by Pavarotti, was just a very shy person with stage fright who needed to be lead out onstage, not a blind man (who therefore needed to be lead out onstage).

And they also did not peg to the fact that J!, which they watched & were good at, was giving "2 for 1" clues wherein the phrasing of the clue often gives you "helper" information until I told them it was. They disputed this until they had watched the show with this info in mind a few times. This despite English being their native language & their being schooled in a British school back in Sierra Leone.

Of course, this meant they were getting all those J! answers right without the extra clue.