Scambaiters

turning tables on the Nigerian scam

[Rugles]

Has anyone else been following the reverse Nigerian 419 scam?

It is a story on the BBC and other new outlets about a group of Brits taking revenge on Nigerian scammers. <snip> just follow the link from the BBC news site.

It is real funny and somewhat refreshing to hear the scammers getting scammed.

To Mods.

Will you allow me to post a link?

[edited by: lawman at 9:26 pm (utc) on July 13, 2004]
[edit reason] Link To Genuine News Article Is Acceptable [/edit]

[loanuniverse]

My personal favorite is the guy that sent a package to an Ebay scammer in Britain full of junk and made the guy pay the custom taxes. The scammer wanted to get an apple pc for free.

[mattglet]

I saw that one too... classic. I wish more people could have the time/energy/imagination to pull that more often.

[Rugles]

Matt

Did you read the whole long story with Prince Joe?

[vkaryl]

While these sorts of reverse exploits are funny and we feel somehow vindicated even if we haven't participated ourselves, I tend to have a "cautionary" attitude here.

If you make these people even angrier than they are already, I'd be willing to bet they'll come up with even nastier stuff.

I'm just not sure escalation is a really good idea.... because a lot of this sort of stuff IS the product of anger. "Let sleeping dogs lie" is a truism for excellent reasons.

[Teknorat]

Heh- I got them to talk to me on my Mobile for hours at a time.

[Rugles]

>>>If you make these people even angrier

That occured to me, I am not sure I would want to get these people angry at me personally. So I will just enjoy reading about it as opposed to participating.

[fazer600]

I am a scambaiter and must admit it is a very funny and rewarding past time. To be completely safe you can use certain free webmail services which do not give away your ip address so your identity is protected.

I am a member of a scambaiting forum and it is amusing to hear who's getting these scamers to do the strangest things, quite a few people have managed to get items (watches, music, ties...) sent to them, and the best baiters manage to turn the tables and get money out of the scammers.

<snip> if it's not against the tos <snip>

[edited by: lawman at 4:35 pm (utc) on July 14, 2004]

[lawman]

I am a scambaiter

Is there a 12 Step Program for that? :)

[fazer600]

no i'm afraid once you're hooked that's it

[DXL]

I came across a site for scambaiters <snip>.

Anyhow, the idea was to bait the scammer into taking a photo of themselves, usually holding a sign up with a funny message. It took me 3-4 weeks of baiting a scammer before getting him to take a photo of himself holding up a sign with the name of one of my sites (not the URL).

[edited by: lawman at 5:04 pm (utc) on July 15, 2004]