Australian Woman Fined After Scamming Nigerian Scammers

A 23 year old Australian woman, Sarah Jane Cochrane-Ramsey, has been fined after stealing more than $30,000 from Nigerian scammers who were running a fraudulent car sales website. In March 2010, Sarah agreed to open an Australian bank account in her name for a group of Nigerians who said they needed the account to transfer money from a phony car sales website. The Nigerians told her that she could keep 8% of the money funneled through the account, but instead Sarah decided to keep all of it.

Scammer scam scammer, gbo gbo eferibody ode...:-). Continue reading...

 

The real victims, who thought they were buying cars online, reported the scam to the police, who traced the account back to Cochrane-Ramsey.  Cochrane-Ramsey insists that she didn't know that the people who asked her to open up a bank account in her name were scam artists. She thought they were just normal, everyday strangers who approach people to entice them to open bank accounts to hold proceeds from totally legal activities.

She appeared before the Brisbane District Court and  pleaded guilty to the one-count charge of aggravated fraud. For now, the Judge is allowing Cochrane-Ramsey time to come up with the money to pay-off the victims, while she awaits sentencing in March.