Nigerian Scammers say they are from Nigeria because that's what makes then "Nigerian Scammers".
Scammers who say they are from Cameroon or Botswana are "Cameroonian Scammers" and "Botswanian Scammers", respectively and not, "Nigerian Scammers".
We might ask why Nigeria is a popular choice among scammers, as the country to which to claim a connection or origin. But that is a different question. The article seems to be trying to answer that question, but mostly fails. Yes, the point is well understood that scammers have to pitch their proposal in such a way that only the gullible will bite, who are likely to follow through. However, it doesn't answer, "why specifically Nigeria?" Because to someone of reasonable intellect, a scam letter claiming connections to Cameroon is just as "comical" as one claiming connections to Nigeria.
Let me offer a hypothesis.
The choice of Nigeria may simply be some sort of unquestioned tradition among scammers.
Perhaps it like the proverbial "onion in the varnish" (written about by our dearly beloved Paul Graham himself: http://paulgraham.com/arcll1.html).
Maybe scammers learn scamming from other scammers via some hand-me-down "Scamming HOWTO" documents, and those documents claim that using Nigeria works (so just use it and don't question it). If the scammer newbies tried Cameroon instead, they might find that it also works just as well, but they don't; they stick with the shibboleth of using the "tried and true" Nigeria.
Perhaps at some time in history, the name Nigeria did actually invoke images of financial corruption and could specifically appeal to some gullible person's sense of greed. (Just like the onion in the varnish did once help to identify temperature by how fast it caramelizes.) Today, Nigeria isn't any sort of "poster country" for corruption in the popular imagination.
Interestingly, Nigeria is even used in scams that don't have to do with financial corruption. Years ago, some woman claiming to be from Nigeria sent me links to her profile: a dating scam! Just for fun, I started to send "her" some conversations, discussing all sorts of Nigerian matters that I could google up: current events in Nigeria and such. Then the story turned that "she" is actually in Portland Oregon, but originally from Nigeria. LOL ...
Basically, scammers seem to be quite stupidly clinging to some formula involving Nigeria, which they possibly pick up from their predecessors, and are even naively applying it in irrelevant ways which have nothing to do with any connection between Nigeria and corruption.
Nigerian Scammers say they are from Nigeria because that's what makes then "Nigerian Scammers".
Scammers who say they are from Cameroon or Botswana are "Cameroonian Scammers" and "Botswanian Scammers", respectively and not, "Nigerian Scammers".
We might ask why Nigeria is a popular choice among scammers, as the country to which to claim a connection or origin. But that is a different question. The article seems to be trying to answer that question, but mostly fails. Yes, the point is well understood that scammers have to pitch their proposal in such a way that only the gullible will bite, who are likely to follow through. However, it doesn't answer, "why specifically Nigeria?" Because to someone of reasonable intellect, a scam letter claiming connections to Cameroon is just as "comical" as one claiming connections to Nigeria.
Let me offer a hypothesis.
The choice of Nigeria may simply be some sort of unquestioned tradition among scammers.
Perhaps it like the proverbial "onion in the varnish" (written about by our dearly beloved Paul Graham himself: http://paulgraham.com/arcll1.html).
Maybe scammers learn scamming from other scammers via some hand-me-down "Scamming HOWTO" documents, and those documents claim that using Nigeria works (so just use it and don't question it). If the scammer newbies tried Cameroon instead, they might find that it also works just as well, but they don't; they stick with the shibboleth of using the "tried and true" Nigeria.
Perhaps at some time in history, the name Nigeria did actually invoke images of financial corruption and could specifically appeal to some gullible person's sense of greed. (Just like the onion in the varnish did once help to identify temperature by how fast it caramelizes.) Today, Nigeria isn't any sort of "poster country" for corruption in the popular imagination.
Interestingly, Nigeria is even used in scams that don't have to do with financial corruption. Years ago, some woman claiming to be from Nigeria sent me links to her profile: a dating scam! Just for fun, I started to send "her" some conversations, discussing all sorts of Nigerian matters that I could google up: current events in Nigeria and such. Then the story turned that "she" is actually in Portland Oregon, but originally from Nigeria. LOL ...
Basically, scammers seem to be quite stupidly clinging to some formula involving Nigeria, which they possibly pick up from their predecessors, and are even naively applying it in irrelevant ways which have nothing to do with any connection between Nigeria and corruption.