Slashdot Mirror
Sweet Revenge On Nigerian Scammers
davesag writes "I just came across this fine site, 419Eater, wherin people counter scam the Nigerian 419 scammers that have been plaguing our spam filters for the past few years. The UK paper The Guardian is also running a fine article on this site. The site author, and several other contributors, have taken to responding to the scammers, using obviously fake names and so forth, and then string the scammer along for as long as possible. In many cases they get the scammer to pose for a photograph! Amazingly the scammers are just as gullible and greedy as their typical victims, and fall for the most obvious ruses hook, line, and sinker. 419eater welcomes contributors, so if you ever wanted to get your sweet revenge on these low-lives, here's a channel for you. The 419 refers to the section of the Nigerian criminal code under which such scams fall." We've linked to a few such fraud-baiters before, though few with as amusing a photograph.
They look just like I'd imagined too!
just made my day. On a side note it's good to see people wasting these scammers time. The more time wasted for these scammers makes it more and more unprofitable to do what they do.
What is that on his head?
ebolamonkeyman (the original?).
It is kind of funny how scamorama.com beat them to it. But they steal they limelight. Oh well its all for a good cause i suppose.
In one of the letter threads, he requires the scammer to identify himself on a photo, With His Chosen Password!. Of course, this password is carefully chosen in order to positively identify the business transaction partner.
:-)
Hilarious.
There are a whole host people replying and stringing along the thieves and potential kidnappers - the Lads from Lagos have some great stories and images, Scamjunky (be kind, he's on geocities), and the obligatory Snopes link. There are also tons of links at Google Directory.
Just a friendly reminder to everyone that the criminals behind the Nigerian scam emails are just that -- criminals. There have been several murders involving those who have become involved with the scammers. Granted, these are people who went to meet with them foreign locales with pockets full of money. However, this is definitely a "better safe than sorry" scenario. If you really must contact these people for pestering purposes, guard your information carefully.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Having conned some con artists, myself (in other contexts), I am always amazed at how blind they are to the game. I mean, isn't it cliche that those who can't be trusted are always suspicious, because they expect the world to have motives like they do?
I once conned someone ten minutes after he conned me, in exactly the same way, to teach him a lesson, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Apparently the cartoons of my youth were right -- evil defeats itself through fatal flaws of its own design.
Lack of vision: courtesy of greed.
From: "Deeoni Chow" (address classified)
To: Slashdot
Dear Sir.
My name is Deeoni Chow, and I am the Lawyer of Son of Marcos Jacobs, the recently Assassinated President of Nigeria. Your contact information was referred to me by one of my trusted contacts, whose name I am not at liberty to compromize. I would like to approach you with reguards to a possible lawsuite. Please to remove my clients picture from your internet immediately or we shall sue for $16,000,000.00 (SIXTEEN MILLION) US DOLLARS.
Having a nice day, Hope this helping
Deeoni Chow
Why bother???
If you wanna reply just do it like this:
Hello, I hope you will take your self a minute to read what I wrote:
FUCK YOU AND STARVE TO DEATH
Thanks for your attention
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
From the article:
"Other sites feature similar pictures with signs reading 'Iama Dildo', 'Mr Bukakke' and 'Ben Dover'."
They misspelled "bukkake". This is an offence against my sexual orientation!
I wonder how far you could get them to go. If you sent one of the scammers a plane ticket to the US, would they come? With a little bit of work and a few hundred dollars, you could probably put them in a US jail.
I'm amused that people think they're getting any sort of revenge against these people. When you can milk them out of US$19M then you have revenge, otherwise it seems to me the scammers are still winning as the time anyone spends to string along these people is not worth it.
This is one of the few scams that I actually don't mind, as anyone foolish enough to think they're going to get millions of dollars in some sort of spontaneous money-laundering scheme, deserves to be penalized for their naivety and perverse sense of greed.
My favourite anti-scam-scam on that site is the one where they got the Nigerian guy to pose for a business card photo under the name "IAMA DILDO." It's laughalicious!
I highly recommend checking out this site. This is a guy that replies to spam and leads them on for as long as he can. It's completely hilarious, his sense of humour is wicked. Here is the page dedicated to Nigerian Scam spam
Random is the New Order.
These are rather unscrupulous people, and if they realize they have been played like this, they may very well try to get some sort of revenge that is less funny than these photographs.
Personally I would just stay clear of them completely. Making fun of hard core criminals is not always that funny in the end.
a Chinese restaurateur called Hu Flung Dung
What are they thinking?
1) Claim to have millions of dollars in stolen funds.
2) Ask millions of people for bank account numbers.
3) Pose for a photograph for the nice mark.
4) ???
5) Profit!
This is almost as bad as SCO.
Whatever it is I'm complaining about, I'm sure the Republicans did it. This is
I know its a shameless plug, but I did pretty much the same thing to one of these guys a while back. I even got him to tell me what kind of boxer shorts he wears (flannel multicolored). I logged it all here/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A swedish reporter (from Expressen) did this a few months ago.
After a while, he ended up meeting one of the people behind the scam.. in amsterdam. For anyone able to read swedish, the article can be found here.
The best part is definitely the 26th of April.
Back in stockholm
I call Lucas up:
Hi, it's Ingvar
-Where did you go? Are you trying to con me?
Lucas, I'm not who you think I am. I'm a reporter from a large newspaper, I'm just investigating your business.
*silence*
*click*
Geeze and I thought I was bad. Our office sport is to try waste as much possible time of those who call to peddle their products and services to us over the phone. The only rule of the sport is that you are actually accomplishing work while you are entertaining the caller with interest.
This applies usually to long distance, copy machines, etc... but never to non-profits, no matter if we agree with their cause or not.
I think the record is 1 hour 28 minutes and 3 follow up faxes.
Has consisted of forwarding massive quantities of penis-enlargement spam to the perpetrators, signing them up for various loans, and otherwise innocently trying to fill up their mailboxes.
This is much better. I wish I had nerve to try it.
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
http://lazyeights.net/Avion/oduobi_tokunbo2.jpg
http://home.lazyeights.net/Avion/oduobi_tokunbo2.
Have a 2.5 GB limit on the first account, and I am unsure when Roadrunner will cut off my Business account on the secon address.
Without Nigerian scam artists The Spam Letters would just not be the same. Keeping the above in mind, please reconsider your revenge. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
..how do you know the photos really are the scammer, and not just another scam?
Well laid out and commented - with a different set of links.
They link to a site that lets you make your own nigerian spam! Heres how mine turned out:
t ml
site at: http://www.southwesternhell.com/perl/weblibs.pl
From sanusiabiola_311@mail.com Tue Oct 1 21:01:34 2002
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 21:34:23 -0500
From: sanusi abiola
To: [ Deleted ]
Subject: URGENT BUSINESS
Dear Sir,
I am Dr. Bob Dole, the personal Assistance to the late Nigerian
Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of the Federal Chief
George Bush, who was murdered on 23rd of December 2001 by unknown Gold Bars.
Before he became the minister of Justice and the Attorney General of the
Federation, he was once the Minister of United States Govenment. During his time
as a Minister of United States Govenment, the Federal Government of Nigeria
gave to his ministry the sum of US$376 , which is to be used
for the completion of the Ajaokuta Steel Industry and the purchasing
of Dimonds and able for the Nigerian Electric Power
Authority (NEPA). Then this jobs and the supply of the Dimonds
were done, but of low Quality standard and the Dimonds he
imported were of red quality standard and of stupid power capacity.
Because of the low quality standard of this jobs, the sum of US$19373456
was realized of which he deposited US$3.14159265357 to a security company
abroad and was looking for a reliable person or company whom he will
transact business with before he meet his un-timely death on the 23rd
of December, 2001. He informed the security company about his foreign
partner who will be coming to pick the Penguin although no company's name
was given to the security company before he died it was only I and the
late Chief George Bush knows about the Penguin.
Therefore, if you can be trusted in fairness to your honesty to safe
keep that Penguin pending when I will be coming to meet you in your
country. Please, if you are not interested with this business,kindly
inform me As soon as you received this proposals. At the same time, if
you are interested, kindly send me as a matter of urgency:your company's
name and address, your private Train and Helecopter.
This will be used to send to you the Plane which you
will use to claim the Penguin from the Security company.
I am awaiting to hear from you.
Best regard.
Dr. Bob Dole
NB: You can find more informations about the death of cheif George Bush
on the
following weblink:
http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/spotlight/ige.h
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
...doesn't mean their dumb.
From what I know (and can tell from the pictures), the people on the pictures are just puppets. Some really literally poor petty crime sobs draw into this to pose for some drug and weapon running band of Uberthugs that will kill you on the spot if they don't like your face. Don't think that anyone of the Nigirian Mafia or whoever is pulling these stunts, would be as dumb as to pose for such a photo. The people behing these scams have contacts to higher bank interns and whatnot, they shure as hell also have the infantry to take care of the 'paperwork'.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
WHOIS
Encourage international business. Most of the spammers will provide you with convenient contact details such as phone and fax numbers. When you receive other spam, reply and pass these details on as your own. I get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking about the Lagos criminals who are now busy sending faxes to a chinese car part manufacturer.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
In the Soviet Union, Nigerians are spammed by you!
Oh, wait... D'oh!
Maybe reversed?
In the Soviet Union, Nigerians spam you!
huh?
My head hurts...
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
But you won't see any of it because it's been down for a few months now, sob!
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Has anyone ever considered sending them forged checks/money orders or bearer bonds/stock certificates that would immediately be recognized as fraudulent when they attempt to cash them? It seems to me that this would be great fun and the results should cause some serious problems for the scammers.
I suppose that using counterfiet money would be out though as that is a federal offense just to make it. To bad, having a legitamate reason to crank out a few thou in fake money would be cool (I wonder if the would allow you to do that as a cooperative sting operation... hmmm).
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
XML causes global warming.
The whole exchange is here.
They are slightly smarter than they look, but they are no foxen.
This sig no verb.
Rather than just delete the email, I'd sure like to spend thousands of tax dollars to import, house, and feed a foreign nuisance to society. Our jails and prisons are so over populated as it is, sure... why not just take on the burden of the entire WORLD's criminals?
sheesh.
no comment
Hard core? They run a computer program, and take trips to the local Western Union when suckers send them their money. Hard core over there is same as it is here. Shooting, raping, home invasion, carjacking, robbery...
If that's hard core- lesse, I run computer programs of all sorts and kinds all day, and I stop at the ATM+bank all the time. Egad, I must be Hannibal Lechter then!
Please help metamoderate.
Does anyone know the format of Western Union numbers and the like? I've wanted to toy with these bastards, and want to make them waste their time going to W.U.
You FAIL IT you fucking gimp.
Two wrongs don't make a right, people.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
They might have stopped some of the Nigerian spam problems and announcing it might help others find out who is responsible fro the scam.
/.'d is one of em.
But other problems crop up too..... like 404 errors after being
Now if we could just get them to transfer 13.1 billion (or proportion thereof) out of their bank accounts we could knock em out of business for good...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Of course they do, everybody knows this.
Thanks to the Wayback machine, you can still get a look at buddyweiserman.com
Wouldn't it be "low-lives"?
Paizurishitetai desu ka?
Are you bored with conventional Trolling ?
... Troll them today
Do you need that real-time feel ?
Then I got the place for you !!
irc.squeaknet.net #beowulf WANTS YOU
Don't let your country down
Well because Americans are not inherently more evil than the rest of the world, you're already housing a million innocent people ... Doesn't seem like they'd mind.
I suppose this is a little funny, but the important thing to remember is that it takes just a few moments to reply to someone's email bluff, or get someone off the street to pose with a silly sign. The cost to them of doing all of this is minimal.
For the amount of money they might make, why wouldn't they do it? Why do they care if it's a rude word? Or if it's the real William Shatner they're replying to? The money they might make would be just as sweet.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
Just here. They have managed to pull some pretty funny cons on those people, but I personally don't like the way they finish them. Check out yourselves and judge. They even have a guy who supposedly works for the scammers telling his story (in pretty bad English, but oh well...)
R.they get excited when they spam (like internet trolls do) or get excited over doing the things they do..
his hand is in an interesting position.
... but three lefts do.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
The funniest Nigeria 419 scam of all time ?!
This was featured on slashdot a while back by another user on Slashdot Sunny Dubey
It's good to see these people who cause so much stress and irritation for others being harrased themselves. Might make them re-think what they're doing. =P
If the google cache let's you down there is always archive.org
b uddyweiserman.com/index.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20011012045712/http://
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
I regularly respond to spam. Then when they come calling I ask all sorts of sensible questions just like I was really interested. I try to lead them along for as long a period of time as possible.
Then just when they think they have me, I say: "This is great. I think I am going to have to get one of these. Unfortunately, I am going to buy one from [competitor] instead." They of course, ask why and I tell them I don't do business with spammers and I've just been stringing them along.
Boy do they get pissed. The responses are just classic. (Wish I had recorded them.)
The only way to beat spam is to make it unprofitable. Filtering it out will not work since there is always a percentage of people without filters and spam basically costs the spammers nothing. But by stringing them along such as this, it costs them time and money -- it makes spam unprofitable. Just think -- if 1/2 of 1% of the people that spammer's spammed wasted 10 minutes of a spammer's time and the spammer sent out 30 million e-mails, that would equate to 1,500,000 wasted minutes the spammer would have to spend.
It is awfully hard to waste 1,500,000 minutes and stay in business.
Better to just body-grab the scammer when he arrives, and collect a ransom from his gang ;-)
If they don't want to pay up, sell the scammer off for parts. What are kidneys going for these days?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In the past i had simply deleted all these 419 scams. But then, while accidently finding the site www.whatsthebloodypoint.com I got inspired by that idea, to waste the time of these suckers.
So i started registering a few "dynip"-domains to my home-run linux machine and started replying to those guys using a obiously silly name. Since the scammers always want to phone one up, i gave them one of these free voice2mail service numbers and belive me, i had about 2 or 3 voice mails in my letterbox. It is really nice to know, that these criminals had to spend money for these long distance calls.
Whats bad about folling these assholes is, that you definately can waste time of these criminals, usually you are able to send most of the mails to many of them and just exchange the names. If you are good, you manage to exchange up to 20 mails with them, provide them with fake Western Union numbers and make them go to the loal western union office and feel like idiots if they are told, that the number was fake. Also make them fax you all the "important" documents to you, always they will have to pay for a long distance call.
Unfortunately there are more of these scammers than people like me have time, in the end, i get more 419 mails than i can reply to and so the rest of my time i contact abuse departments and make them shut down the mailboxes of the scammers.
People, please set up fake accounts and reply to these bastards and tell them after a few mails how much you hate them and how they give their country (usually Nigeria, South Africa) a bad name!.
Contrary to usual spammers their reply addresses have to exist, so go and spam their boxes or waste their time!
If anyones interested, i have a few pictures the scammers sent to me and some voicemessages uploaded. Oh how i hate these bastards. Here you find an unsorted collection of pics and voice messages:
lordazrael.no-ip.com/419/
Lord "not Gargamel's Cat!" Azrael
Grim on iamcal recently imitated Mr. T to gain the confidence of a Liberian scamster, plus his exceptionally dodgy "lawyer" friend. Worth a look for shits and giggles.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
I just read one that actually resulted in the bad guy sending ten euros as a "show of faith".
How about, anybody who wants to try these reverse scams, explicitly go into it aiming for some small amount of money like this, but instead of having them Western Union the mone to a fake name, have them send the money via regular mail to that same fake name, but with the address of your favorite charity?
Apparently the guy from 419eaters did just that... it really is a nicely put together site, and links directly to this.
http://saveie6.com/
I mean, they're ALL the same format, just little details change. No imagination whatsoever.
Sigh. I yearn for more interesting UCE.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Reading over these scams and their replies, I got a big kick out of some of the names. So c'mon all you sub-genius /.'ers out there, let's get together and give our knights in shining armor some creatively fun names for them to use in their ongoing conquests of the 419 scams.
Kareem Incolon (almost sounds like lincoln)
Juan Falacio (Has that zesty spanish feel to it)
Alotta Fagina (Yes I know, Austin Powers)
Barbera Cracklinbush(For the holidays! Chesnuts roasting on an open Cracklinbush)
Celine Doush (Saline Douche)
Ok I got 5, 4 originals. Lets see what the rest of the crowd can come up with.
Quite possibly funniest 419 image ever.
I just got an email _today_ from a Chinese bank executive that has a similar predicament. I forwarded the email to the FTC, and replied back that I had contacted the FTC, forwarded them his address, and maybe they could help him.
There is no risk at all as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done by the attorney and with my position as the credit officer guarantees the successful execution of this transaction.If you are interested,please reply immediately.You may reply to my email box, wangqin1954@netscape.net
Upon your response, I shall then provide you with more details and relevant documents that will help you understand the transaction.
DAMN THESE PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS!!!!
But the other day, I walked by our fax machine to find a nigerian scam fax. *sigh*.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
http://www.scamorama.com/lordkenneth-ekpontu.html Very fun. Of course, it ended ubruptly, because I got into the little fuck's hotmail account by getting his password question's answer right, then e-mailing people he was conning. :)
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
(use appears twice)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Nonsense, if yu read this story. Note that the scammer edited the picture and pasted some unknown's head on there. If these people would be using puppets all the time, they would not care for this.
or perhaps they're bored of ignorant American teenagers?
Have you ever taken crack? Perhaps you should find another word.
So these docs have been sent to you by the scammers?
The are faked so badly, i wonder how people can belive this!
Yes, this is all stuff they sent to me to "proove", that their claims are true, i.e., that i am the next kin of somebody or that they really have some 50 millions of dollars deposited at some company where i just have to pick it up (after paying $X Dollars to get it)
There are quite a few scanned passports they have sent me, i wonder, if these are the real passports, or stolen from other people, or by deceased people.
Lord "not Gargamel's Cat!" Azrael
PLEASE HELP ME KEEP MY EX-WIFE FROM STEALING ALL OF MY MONEY
I came home from my job as an executive of a large American bank today to suprize my wife for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. Boy was I surprized.
I walked in and found her having intimate relations with the mailman.
She told me that I'm a lousy lover and my tiny dick could never satisfy her. She said that Gilligan, the mailman, had more manhood than I could ever dream of getting from all of those online penile enhancements.
That bitch. I bought her diamonds, two BMWs (NOT ONE, TWO), and took her on trips around the world.
It was on one of these trips that I discvovered the wonderful people of Nigeria. I have fond memories of the time we spent there, and I think someone from Nigeria could help with the problems I'm facing now.
You see, I have very substantial assets. I don't want that money grubbing whore to take any of my money.
She just discovered that I have invested a substantial portion of our money in building cities in Mexico. I need someone to help me hide $100 million Pesos before my wife finds it.
I was given your name from a trusted associate of mine and he says that you are a community leader in Nigeria and are a man of inferior moral quality. He thinks you can help me.
Here is what I want to do.
I will send you $100 million Pesos for safe keeping while my divorce is completed. I will give you 50 percent of that money for your efforts so long as you keep it hidden from my ex-wife.
She is still watching my creidt cards and other spending, so I will need further assistance from you in covering the initial expenses. This is the only way we can keep her from finding out what is happening.
Please resond with your telephone and fax number so we can get this process started.
Thurston Howell III
How come it so easy to mess with these scammers, yet it is so supposedly hard to arrest these criminals?
I have seen 100+ threads where would-be victims turn the tables (some even able to get the scammers to send in pictures) vs. the TWO stories that I have read where these scammers have been caught.
So, is THAT what we're calling Ashcroft this week?
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
I can't believe someone actually signed this :)
Guess people are just used to weird religions.
Written at this Slackers Guild article.
Shameless plug, but I'm proud.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
They actually seem to have got one guy to believe Gillian Anderson was flying in, shell out for a room at the Sheraton, then wait at Lagos airport with a sign saying "I love fags"..
I almost feel sorry for them..
http://www.419eater.com/html/john_ademola.htm
Maybe the best cure for spam, big groups that bombard them with fake orders, cheques etc? I mean if the police cant get their arse into gear..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
They're gonna keep get'in paid and we're gonna keep not get'in laid --- that's Slashdot, alright. What's your point?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
This one is better (or at least prettier).
I propose a revised version of the Turing Test designed to wipe out Nigerian scammers.
A program (preferrably written in Perl) will parse the Nigerian scammers letter, and automatically generate a response, leading the scammer into a web that will eventually entagle him and send him to the slammer.
Since the average Nigerian scammer seems a bit dumb to begin with, this might be a suitable stepping stone for the artificial intelligence community to consider.
i helped him out and i made a bundle! with the money, i bought a great house with a fantastic mortgage. then i married a beautiful russian bride, and i pleasure her with my surgically enlarged, viagra driven member. During sex, I take photos and print up hundreds of copies, but hey no problem - I have an excellent source of toner....
http://www.southwesternhell.com/perl/weblibs.pl
I just realised that SCO learned their entire new business approach from a Nigerian e-mail!
It is fun to respond to the 419ers, but lately I've been responding simply to get the email they use to spam you with, then visiting other spammer's sites and filling out forms useing the 419er's email address. I'm just waiting to see the pay-per-view throwdown battle of the scammers vs the spammers.
So "Shiver Metimbers" feels he's wasting the scammers' time so they can scam fewer real victims. I wonder how he would feel if he eventually ran across a real murderer/scammer who decided that since he couldn't physically track him down, he might kill one or two of his mext real victims and email pictures of the process back to "Shiver Metimbers" as a special thanks for wasting his time?
This is the stupidest idea I've seen today.
I hope that dood doesn't forget to hook up the doll.
Read my Sig.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I imagine that organs and body parts from African donors, particularly 'underworld type' individuals, are considered highly likely to be AIDS tainted.
A Good Intro to NetBS
I see a bunch of uneducated third worlders, who are rather pathetic and sad, but what's the excuse of Americans who give them money? So much for civilization.
What, is Guantanamo Bay full already?
by telling them we're flying in, and if we can get them to hold up a sign, can't we get someone in Nigeria to arrest them? If we can't, how about pestering our representatives in whatever country we're in to pass the "419 Responsibility Act", which will "encourage" any country that passes a threshold of 419 activity to arrest scammers. Or annoy their local embassy. Or how about this one - I'd send $10 by PayPal to someone I knew by reputation on the net to hire a local private investigator (I'd like to hear how we know the LPI isn't yet another scam artist) to do something that would have real-world consequences for the scammers. If word gets out that a few of the scammers are now in jail, it might reduce the motivation of the rest of them.
On this sitethe spammers are baited with surreal humour. I love the one about offering the spammer a stoat.
With the amount of information that's online these days, it's not that many more steps to reverse-engineer your identity from there.
/.er to "reverse-engineer" a fake Yahoo mail account, unless he wants to fake a subpoena, and then you'd still need a US presence.
/.ers...
First off, I'll defy any
And I doubt that these Nigerians, gullible enough to be duped by their dupes, are as smart as our average
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
It's not the cleverness of the scheme, it's the greed of the victim. Nice to see that works in both directions.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
In the tips section, it reads:
... but that depends entirely where you live. I've seen way too much of this lately, from /.'ers referring to "the other side of the pond" without specifying which side is their own, to journalists saying that the North of England is a long way to go, without considering that for a number of their readers, it won't be.
Well, Africa - which for the most part is where most of this stuff originates from - is a long, long way away.
Man, get with the program
In SOVIET RUSSIA, Nigerians send bank account information to YOU!
[sig]you really dont want the answers, trust me[/sig]
Its amusing to anti-spam these guys. However, organized crime is still that, no matter what name you call it. Money attracts violence. Be careful how you play the game.
The oldest and easiest way to track the IP address of where your mails are being read is to send an HTML coded e-mail with an image in it that is stored on a server where you have access to the logs. That might help a bit when they claim to be in Canada, Europe or where ever.
I hate how people who are intelligent to read this forum would actually believe this crap.
What are you? Valenti's personal sychophant?
NO really, are you?
You have to be to be this stupid. In 1998, after the big media paid off the Clinton administration to allow the FOX, Viacom, AOL/TW mergers, they got their sweetheart law: the DMCA.
BEFORE 1998, it was perfectly legal and moral to share copies of copyrighted works between family and friends for noncommercial use. Its called FAIR USE.
On the issue of morality: FSCK YOU! What the hell is wrong with you? It is not moral to buy a law that turns millions of law abiding people - YOUR CUSTOMERS - into criminals simply because you want to increase profit.
So, If you are going to throw around "morality", you should grow some first. Asshole.
Why does this just ring of a setup for a comedy movie starring Eddie Murphy?
The plot --and the jokes... write themselves.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
THIS IS SERIOUS you dillhole.
PEOPLE ARE GOING TO JAIL OVER THIS ISSUE, RIGHT NOW.
Again - this is a guide for very stupid people:
When you go to a record store, and put a CD in your pocket and leave without paying for it: THAT'S STEALING.
When you download a song from an album, encoded in a lossy format: THAT'S FAIR USE.
When you download a song from an album, like it, and buy the album: THAT'S MARKETING AT WORK.
When you download an album, because you have an old LP or cassette, or your CD was lost/stolen/destroyed: YOU ARE IN YOUR RIGHTS, YOU HAVE A VALID LICENSE FOR THAT MUSIC.
The music industry can't have it both ways. They can't use Big Champagne to track downloads to help them market new music in specific markets, and cry thief when someone downloads that music. They can't tell you that you don't actually own the music, only a license to it, and then deny you replacement copies when your's is lost/stolen/destroyed. But they do! They use file sharing networks as much as request line data to help them track interest in a band, to help increase airplay or target singles out of an album. Let's face it: Singles were always a loss-leader to sell Albums. No one ever got rich selling singles. They are a marketing tool. Just like downloads from the internet, they help sell records.
But all of these issues should be academic. Everyone knows that record companies screw over their artists, and everyone knows that from the producer down to the sound board engineer, only gets the smallest cut from record sales. The money goes to greedy scumbags firmly in the middle of the supply chain. The internet scares them (ohhh! the internet, ohh scary) because it threatens to remove them from the picture. Just like brokers in discount stock trading companies, they are unnecessary in the internet age.
But instead of talking about the hypocrisy of their "licenses", or how Big Media is using Limewire/et al as a marketing tool, idiots (like "Mr. Its not Moral") will say its "Stealing", or better yet, that its "Pirating".
Arrrghhh... If I am going to be called a pirate, I think I should be one. How about we form a boarding party and hijack a container ship filled with CD's? Hell, if you are going to be called a pirate, you might as well wear an eye patch.
I mentioned this for the last story about Nigerian scam spammers, but amazingly my friend's adventures with a Nigerian scam artist are more ontopic than last time. It's a bit long, but a gut-busting read if you take the time.
:
Throughout his correspondence with the 419er he pretended to be an interested business partner with "tourettes syndrom", and the scam artist seemed to fall for it hook line and sinker. How a supposedly savvy criminal could've been hooked by prose like
Is there nothing to understand? My tone has turned from blue to joyful yellow with the arrivalling of your offer of most generous. I am tickled pink, and my nether regions throb with joy at the prospects of meeting your family, especially your lovely mother, Catarina, and your nubile son. I think your father's name is with only one "n", however. I have many, many bank account, and also, my chest remains hairy, with sweat.
...is absolutely beyond me! But he had him going for a good long time!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Trying to sell a used car on Autotraded website (shrug) I received a poorly worded response and request for more info. I followed up the inquiry and got the following response
From: "zack orji"
Date: recently
To: me
Subject: sorry for long response (mode of payment..)
Hello,
thanks for the mail and the price is okay by me now i will now instruct my client who is owing the sum of $10,000 and his ready to pay it out in cashier check to issue it to you and while you recieve the check of $10,000 then you will deduct your own special amount and send the remaing balance to my shipping agent company whowill be coming to your location for the picking up so if you are okay with this procedure i will like youto get back to me with your contact details of wherethe check will be send to like this,
full name
full address
city
state
zip code
country
home phone
cell phone
hope to see your contact details so that payment can be made out to you
on time and plz am entrusting you with my balance, also try and send the picture along so that i can veiw
it,my regards to you and your family,
Zack.......
I ended up getting maybe 9 or 10 inquiries from differenet emails, all of which were very similair in wording and poor grammar. Anyone else seen this scam?
So, you *test* them, silly!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Mister `STFU' `be polite'.
this or this one.
Come on, guys...let's be reasonable here. We're talking about hardened criminals that live halfway across the world. Consider the fact they've turned to this life of crime because they lack cash in the first place, and travelling across the world is both expensive and time-consuming. Heck, most of us here make more in a year than any of these mugus could hope to make in a lifetime in their life of crime, and I know I won't have neither the time nor the money for a while yet for any intercontenintial travel. Consider that even if they set aside their ammunition and drug money for air fare to your country, they're out of their element once they get here and they know it. How are they going to survive while they track you down? I think you'd have to do more than humiliate a man to get him to make such a commitment in the name of revenge. Rather, your actions will probably cause them to take out their frustrations on the next poor sap they decide to mug. I'm surprised that nobody has tried to mail these criminals some monopoly money laced with anthrax in an attempt to wipe them out.
There was a case in Redding, CT recently where a woman strung a scammer along for months, and got one of the middle men to come down to CT from Canada. She was in cahoots with the local PD and FBI. They nabbed him when he showed up.
It's a great idea - IF you have the time to do it. Unless there's a wad of cash involved in it for me, I won't do it.
You are right, screw morals!
Now will you tell us where you live so that we can have "FAIR USE" with your property and work?
No, I'm just calling attention to the risks of amateurs playing games with professionals. It is NOT a fair contest. The motivations are different, and so are the results. The pros are NOT playing fun and games. They are in it for the money, and they are going to persist and try to find out new ways to get the money. That also gives them the edge on experience--they'll keep wrinking the scams until they find new fits.
Bear in mind that the 419 scammers are NOT looking for wise people. Wise people would never fall for the original 419 scams, and they won't fall for any new variations (like the "you pretend to be a relative" scam). They are looking for certain categories of fools. They have shown quite a bit of flexibility in their methods of suckering those fools. For example, all sorts of imaginary transfer fees have appeared. In some cases, there have been reports of ransom and some mysterious disappearances. The amount of money involved is reportedly quite substantial--at one time 419 scams were reported as the third largest "industry" in Nigeria. (By the way, the scam has expanded well beyond Nigeria. Moving to nicer neighborhoods? A recent 419 arrest was in Australia.)
Some people might think it is clever and amusing to play games with dangerous people, especially if encouraged to "play the game". I say otherwise. If you play it carefully, you might well safely get some "clever" pictures the first time. Then that motivates a second attempt for greater cleverness. Goes well, let's play again. At some point you slip up, give them a hint how to find you. Or maybe you use a trick they've already seen. Or maybe they just get lucky and catch you unawares as you wait for your "victim". Your game could end quite badly.
Another closely related example right now is the spam wars. The anti-spammers are mostly just dedicated amateurs pitted against professional scammers, and the results have been rather predictable.Heard about the DDoS attacks? The amateurs have been getting burned.
You (theLOUDroom) actually started by saying your spam filter worked quite well, though you didn't relate it to the actual topic. If you are "wise" enough to ignore them before they ever reach you, that's perfectly fine with them--you aren't the kind of fool they're looking for. But if you decide to go looking for trouble... Well, now they may be able to offer you a deal. One of those deals you can't refuse.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You are truly an idiot. "Intellectual property" is not the same as real property! It's a fiction invented by those in power to screw over those who aren't. But then I guess you're too stupid to figure that out.
The spammer will collect up to $50 for every time someone reponds to it, even if someone didn't refinanced? If so, tell me where to sign up to become a "loan lead solicitor", or any of these other programs. While I certainly have no intention on becoming a spammer, but with dynamic IPs and dialup, I could be making a quick $200 a day by responding myself to these offers (and collecting the respond fee).