Letter from Africa: Why Nigeria's internet scammers are 'role models'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49759392
This part stuck out to me; "When Nigerians first attained notoriety in the 1990s for defrauding Westerners..." I remembered back in the 1980's travel agencies were constantly dealing with telephone scams dealing in pre-paid tickets. Nigerians were the vast majority of the callers.
Back then, airline tickets were physical coupons for travel. Prepaid tickets were the first "electronic ticket." You'd purchase the ticket at a travel agency like mine for someone to travel, we would complete the paperwork (there was still that) then call in the ticket number to the originating airline. Once we called that number in, that's it, the ticket was paid and there was no way for us to cancel the financial transaction.
The scammers would have someone on the receiving end cash that ticket. The travel agency would be on the hook for the money when the stolen credit card would deny the charge.
We just did not do business with Nigerians because it was too risky.
