419 Eater explains scambaiting as such: "Well, put simply, you enter into a dialogue with scammers, simply to waste their time and resources. Whilst you are doing this, you will be helping to keep the scammers away from real potential victims and screwing around with the minds of deserving thieves."
Here's a classic example of scambaiting (just one of many at 419 Eater, by the way): tricking Nigerian 419 scammer to rewrite Harry Potter's The Chamber of Secrets - all 293 pages of the book - by hand! http://419eater.com/html/joyce_ozioma.htm
Previously on Neatorama: Scambaiting the Nigerian Scammers: The Butterfly Bait
so i got him to send a picture of
himself and my email adress on his
computer before i termated all post it
so if we get a data base of mug shots
of these clowns.
Any ideas, most start with ads and websites like:
"Executive Style Income"
Earn money from home approx $5000 per week
Results may vary
call 1800 XXXXXX
There must be a way to mess around with these non tax paying symbiotes
Let me get what your saying straight.
1) People who commit crimes are not guilty if
a) The crime was unsuccessful and unprofitable.
b) The person who commited the crime is poor.
c) It is the first time the person has commited this crime.
2) People who commit crimes , should not be punished in any way by the people they try to prey upon. People who are attacked (even by E mail fraud) have no right to retaliate and cause harm to those attacking.
I understand that you are extremely naive and unexperienced. You believe that people who commit crimes aren't bad just misunderstood. You also think that the world has some kind of formal order and international law and universal judgement. These people commit international crimes that our society has no way of prosecuting- so they go unpunished. There is no real international court of justice to file a complaint to against these anonymous theives.
So yes I have the right to retaliate and cause harm to people trying to steal my money through fraud. I need to make sure my retaliation is proportional and just.
1) Just - because I know the person I am targeting sent me the first E mail trying to scam me. Scamming people is against the law in most of the world. Meaning that the person sending me the mail is a criminal.
2) Proportionate - Making someone spend many hours copying a book sounds like a decent punishment for fraud (If the scammer were American and were to be caught he would spend a few months in prison , which is even worse than writing Harry Potter. Ted wouldn't want to be in prison either so maybe we shouldn't put criminals there at all).
Anyways in a social structure - A society has the right to find a means to protect itself. This is an interesting way the international community has found a way to protect itself from these 419 conmen.
They deserve everything they get! Yes, making a scammer hand write a complete novel is fair, legal, moral, and pretty damned amusing. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. I do not "suspect" they've done something wrong... it's obvious to anyone with an IQ of 1 or more that they are up to no good. But unfortunately they still make money out of it. A LOT OF MONEY!
And I actually know someone that was stupid enough to hand over a couple of thousand pounds to one of these gangs (ABOUT $4,000). Yep, he's a bit dim, but a thoroughly nice guy. And they took his money!
These people are nasty pieces of work. They often belong to dangerous gangs that are known to mame and kill.
The bottom line is that "Nigerian" scammers are dangerous criminals. Something needs to be done about them and the government clearly aren't doing anything. If someone wants to bait them they've got my full support. The BBC actually had one of them digging for buried treasure in the middle of a public park in Belgium last year :-)
As for me, I'm a pretty peaceful type and never start trouble but if someone punches me I'll punch them back harder. If they con me out of money I'll take them for everything they have. If someone burgles my house I'll burn theirs down.
I don't reverse scam myself. I just report them. What's the point? They are pretty easy to spot and you've got to be a bit dim to fall for them. But if someone wants to have a bit of fun with these idiots I say good for them.
Unfortunately we now seem to live in a society that no longer takes appropriate action against criminals. I'm sorry if that goes against tedwilson's woolly liberal views but I think it's perfectly OK to turn the tables on these idiots and hit them where it hurts.
What I don't understand is why tedwilson says it's NOT OK to strike back at these people. He keeps questioning everyone's arguments (which all seem pretty clear to me) but doesn't seem to have one himself.
If you try to kill someone but don't succeed that's OK is it? If it's your first attempted murder or you've tried 1000's of times but not succeeded, then that's OK is it?
As far as I'm concerned, if someone sends one of these emails and a scam baiter responds by persuading them to hang themselves, I have no problem with that! They really do deserve it! And yes, it's morally justifiable.