Go DGCCRF!

After receiving the scam letter from the El Bordo bunch of lowlife scumbags I sent a report to the direction générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) and got a very nice letter back from them.

They are, of course, aware of this sort of attempted fraud although I'm not sure they had already received a complaint about the El Bordo bunch. Unfortunately, as the perpetrators operate in Spain, the French authorities are not able to pursue them and fling them into irons.

However, the European Commission has been invoked to get to grips with the situation, and you'll be delighted to hear that a group of scammy buggers were identified and rounded up in a fantastic coup. Were they Spanish nationals? Well no, they weren't. They were... wait for it... NIGERIANS. I can almost hear your sharp intake of breath.

Unfortunately for the honest law-abiding and lawfully employed nationals of Nigeria, the disreputable elements are doing much to sully the overall reputation of the whole nation. It's a great shame that such obvious creativity and industry is not put to less fraudulent use. Every time Nigeria is mentioned it's in the context of corruption, scams, violence or lawlessness.

My nice letter from the DGCCRF explained how the scam operates. The scammers send out about 15,000 hand-typed envelopes all over Europe and they reckon that if they get 20-30 replies the operation is financially worthwhile. When people contact them, the scammers assess their financial worth and then set about explaining that in order to liberate the money certain fees have to be paid, or an advance on taxes and so on. The amount of money scammed ranges from 900 to 24,000 euros per person.

That's some serious money and it's not surprising that the European authorities are on the warpath. So, if you receive a scam letter, don't just throw it away, send it to the police or fraud office to make them aware how such schemes are evolving.

And never EVER send cash to someone you don't know personally (by Western Union, Moneygram, etc.). You can be sure that you'll never see it again.

El Bordo Scam

Beware the scam.This one is supposed to resemble the Spanish lottery El Gordo, so it's called El Bordo. Apparently, without even entering for the lottery, I am the happy winner of 615,810 euros, paid in 42 installments.

All I have to do to get my grubby paws on all this lovely money is to send all my bank details, my name and address and that of my heir. It is, of course a 419 type of scam.

I sent an email to the local branch of the direction générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) to inform them of this scam. Will they be able to do something about it? I'm not sure, but they are now aware of it, if they weren't before.

It's amazing what you can run up on a word processor these days, although I think you'll agree that this letter is a pretty rough and ready attempt at an official declaration. I think my favourite bit is the photo of a woman receiving a cheque from what looks like the UK Lottery (note the blue fingers-crossed hand logo).

Do advise any in your entourage who might be susceptible to answering such a letter (usually the less scam-savvy granny/aged auntie group) to chuck any communication they get of this type. Alternatively, they can send it to you, and you can inform the site joewein.de. He also suggests reporting it to the police, taking the letter to see if they can get fingerprints off it.

I'll be emailing my letter to him.

Why did he do it?

Looking at my most recent posts, I notice a distinct tendency towards the banal. I suppose it's because everyone is so busy at the moment, including myself, getting ready for Christmas, that it doesn't leave much time for pondering the Bigger Questions.

I have been wondering about one Big Question, however: Why did he do it? Who? Mr Madoff, of course. There's been lots of reporting about what he did, who's lost what, and why didn't anyone dig deeper into the inconsistencies that came to light over the years. For the moment though, I haven't seen anything on why he did it.

I have come to the conclusion that he was taking the piss. Basically he could have done anything he liked. He was a respected businessman, had a reputation you could frame and hang in the loo, and wasn't short of a bob or two. It can't just have been about greed because I'm sure he could have come up with many ways to make money without dicing with death on a precipice.

Yet he decided to set up a scam, lure in the greatest and wealthiest, including highly successful business people, like Nicola Horlick who is as savvy as they come, and fleece them for vast sums of money. He could have done this perfectly legally, by becoming a consultant, or a banker, or board director for example, but he chose to take the conman route. Doesn't anyone else find this fascinating?

He was courted by those who wished to invest with him. Some spent thousands on fees to join clubs he belonged to in the hope they could meet him and then do business with him. He must have been laughing all the way to the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.

He has exposed the folly of greed, humiliating those who believed that some things aren't too good to be true because they are the Chosen Ones, accepted into membership of his exclusive club.

What happened to those who dared to question his results? They were ignored, or written off as party poopers because they had probably tried to join the club but had been rejected. Jealousy is a terrible sin... So is selective blind smugness, especially when it comes to investing in a scheme that is opaque to say the least, with other people's money.

So Mr Madoff goes down in history as the greatest swindler of all time. He had fifteen glorious years of taking the piss out of the West's richest, most naive and smuggest set. He's now 70 so can sit back and enjoy a snug little cell for the next ten years or so, maybe write that autobiography he's not had time to attend to yet what with keeping tabs on all that money he was deluding people into paying, and, hopefully, tell us why he did it.

Basic truth: if it looks too good to be true, it is. No exceptions.