Nigerian Scam
An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears. FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that "An advance fee scheme occurs when the victim pays money to someone in anticipation of receiving something of greater value - such as a loan, contract, investment, or gift - and then receives little or nothing in return." There are many variations of this type of scam, including the Nigerian prince scam, also known as a 419 scam. The number "419" refers to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud and the charges and penalties for such offenders. The scam has been used with fax and tradit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scam Letter Posted Within South Africa
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust (emotion), trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, Moral responsibility, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct [...] intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men') at the expense of their victims (the 'Traveling carnival#Games, marks')". Terminology Synonyms include con, confidence game, confidence scheme, ripoff, scam, and stratagem. The perpetrator of a confidence trick (or "con trick") is often referred to as a confidence (or "con") man, con-artist, or a "wikt:grifter, grifter". The shell game dates back at least to Ancient Greece. William Thompson (confidence man), Samuel Thompson (1821–1856) was the original "confidence man". Thompson was a clumsy swindler who as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Other major cities include Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Poland has a temperate transitional climate and its territory traverses the Central European Plain, extending from Baltic Sea in the north to Sudeten and Carpathian Mountains in the south. The longest Polish river is the Vistula, and Poland's highest point is Mount Rysy, situated in the Tatra mountain range of the Carpathians. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west. It also shares maritime boundaries with Denmark a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Better Business Bureau
Better Business Bureau (BBB) is a private, 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization founded in 1912. BBB's self-described mission is to focus on advancing marketplace trust, consisting of 97 independently incorporated local BBB organizations in the United States and Canada, coordinated under the International Association of Better Business Bureaus (IABBB) in Arlington, Virginia. Better Business Bureau is not affiliated with any governmental agency. Businesses that affiliate with BBB and adhere to its standards do so through industry self-regulation. To avoid bias, BBB's policy is to refrain from recommending or endorsing any specific business, product or service. The BBB rating system uses an A+ through F letter-grade scale. The grades represent BBB's degree of confidence that the business is operating in good faith and will resolve customer concerns filed with the BBB. BBB's ratings are explained on itRatings Overview page BBB employees evaluate a business's behavior when assigning a r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nigerian Traditional Rulers
Nigerian traditional rulers often derive their titles from the rulers of independent states or communities that existed before the formation of modern Nigeria. Although they do not have formal political power, in many cases they continue to command respect from their people and have considerable influence in their community. Though their bearers usually maintain the monarchical styles and titles of their sovereign ancestors, both their independent activities and their relations with the central and regional governments of Nigeria are closer in substance to those of the high nobility of old Europe than to those of actual reigning monarchs. Cited here is a list of traditional rulers in Nigeria. Pre-colonial period Modern Nigeria encompasses lands traditionally occupied by highly diverse ethnic groups with very different languages and traditions. In broad terms, the southeast was occupied mainly by Igbo, the Niger Delta by Edo and Igbo related people, the southwest by Yoruba a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
NNPC Limited is a for profit oil company in Nigeria. Formerly a government-owned corporation, it was transformed from a corporation to a limited liability company in July 2022. NNPC Limited is the only entity licensed to operate in the country's petroleum industry. It partners with foreign oil companies to exploit Nigeria's fossil fuel resources. History NNPC was established on 1 April 1977 as a merger of the Nigerian National Oil Corporation and the Federal Ministry of Petroleum and Energy Resources. NNPC by law manages the joint venture between the Nigerian federal government and a number of foreign multinational corporations, which include Royal Dutch Shell, Agip, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Chevron, and Texaco (now merged with Chevron). Through collaboration with these companies, the Nigerian government conducts petroleum exploration and production. In 2007, the head of the Nigerian wing of Transparency International said salaries for NNPC workers were too low to prevent gr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner, a British army officer, and Rudolf Augstein, a former Wehrmacht radio operator who was recognized in 2000 by the International Press Institute as one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes. Typically, the magazine has a content to advertising ratio of 2:1. ''Der Spiegel'' is known in German-speaking countries mostly for its investigative journalism. It has played a key role in uncovering many political scandals such as the ''Spiegel'' affair in 1962 and the Flick affair in the 1980s. According to ''The Economist'', ''Der Spiegel'' is one of continental Europe's most influential magazines. The news website by the same name was launched in 1994 under the name ''Spiegel Online'' with an independent editorial staff. Today, the content ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Bulletin (Norwich)
''The Bulletin'' is a daily newspaper covering eastern Connecticut, United States, based in the city of Norwich and owned by Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.GateHouse Media bought the newspaper. In 2010, the paper expanded its coverage area and began publishing two different editions, one for southeastern Connecticut and one for the northeastern part of the state. In February 2011, in an effort to reflect the paper's wide geographic range, its name was changed to ''T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching , is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Private Investigator
A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators often work for attorneys in civil and criminal cases. History In 1833, Eugène François Vidocq, a French soldier, criminal, and privateer, founded the first known private detective agency, "Le Bureau des Renseignements Universels pour le commerce et l'Industrie" ("The Office of Universal Information For Commerce and Industry") and hired ex-convicts. Much of what private investigators did in the early days was to act as the police in matters for which their clients felt the police were not equipped or willing to do. Official law enforcement tried many times to shut it down. In 1842, police arrested him in suspicion of unlawful imprisonment and taking money on false pretences after he had solved an embezzlement case. Vidocq later suspect ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eugène François Vidocq
Eugène-François Vidocq (; 24 July 1775 – 11 May 1857) was a French criminal turned criminalist, whose life story inspired several writers, including Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe and Honoré de Balzac. The former criminal became the founder and first director of the crime-detection Sûreté nationale as well as the head of the first known private detective agency. Vidocq is considered to be the father of modern criminologySiegel, Jay A.: ''Forensic Science: The Basics''. CRC Press, 2006, , S. 12.Conser, James Andrew and Russell, Gregory D.: ''Law Enforcement in the United States.'' Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2005, , S. 39. and of the French police department. He is also regarded as the first private detective. Biography Eugène François Vidocq was born in Arras, northern France, during the night of 23/24 July 1775, in the Rue du Miroir-de-Venise, nowadays the Rue Eugène-François Vidocq. He was the third child of Henriette Françoise Vidocq (maiden name Dion, 1744–1824) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Snopes
''Snopes'' , formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture. History 1990s In 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson created an urban folklore web site that would become ''Snopes.com''. ''Snopes'' was an early online encyclopedia focused on urban legends, which mainly presented search results of user discussions. The site grew to encompass a wide range of subjects and became a resource to which Internet users began submitting pictures and stories of questionable veracity. According to the Mikkelsons, ''Snopes'' predated the search engine concept of fact-checking via search results. David Mikkelson had originally adopted the username "Snopes" (the name of a family of often unpleasant people in the works of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital media, digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as ''The Daily (podcast), The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones (publisher), George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won List of Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times, 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print it is ranked List of newspapers by circulation, 18th in the world by circulation and List of newspapers in the United States, 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is Public company, publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 189 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |