419 is a prime number. It is also the Article Number in the Nigerian Criminal Code, Chapter 38 “Obtaining Property by false pretences; Cheating” dealing with fraud, and has become the byword describing those wonderful advance-fee fraud emails …
Today I'm wearing my 419 t-shirt - “My money went to Nigeria and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”. Thanks to The Register for that one!
Also thanks to El Reg for today's article reporting that an Irish victim of one of these scams has been released after being kidnapped while trying to reclaim his lost money from the scammers in Ghana.
The t-shirt prompted comment from one of my colleagues who has lost money to another advance fee fraud – he found a forum advertising a cheap cellphone (around NZ$400 instead of NZ$1000), and sent his order, along with payment via Western Union. After a couple of days he received the invoice and courier details – but as well as the phone another item was listed, and therefore a higher total – an additional NZ$200. He emailed to query this unwanted extra. The response was "we've got the courier to hold the delivery, if you pay for the additional item we accidentally added it can be released". After a few more exchanges he just had to walk away and lose the original money sent. If he had paid the additional uplift, I'm sure something else would have gone wrong …