If this really happened, there must be some easy to use public tool they used. I'd really love to see the video.
¹ There's no way anyone else would log into a stolen account from a Nigerian IP.
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?).
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.
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.
> Their prince was the first email scam of note, and probably one of the longest running ones at that.
And all of the Nigerian prince spammers are incredibly unsophisticated. Anyone in the industry can tell you this, you can just look at the manner in which they send their emails.
Why needlessly alert the victim when you could just choose a proxy in their city?
>Sounds like the perfect cover then
How would that even work? It's not like this would provide any kind of an advantage. In what kind of a threat model could this possibly be beneficial?
I'm sure there are some exceptions, but those would probably be smart enough to conceal where they came from.
This isn't really surprising. Obviously Nigerian cybercriminals will be less sophisticated than the Russians for example, just look at their schools!