419 Scam Blow-by-Blow

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Posted by michael on Friday July 9, 2004 @05:49AM from the school-of-hard-knocks dept.

timbos writes "Check out this six-page dissection of a 419 scam at The Register. In particular, the fake banking site that the fraudsters set up is interesting..."

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How to scam the scammers by suso · 2004-07-09 05:58 · Score: 4, Informative

Just in case nobody else posts it:

http://www.419eater.com/
Re:1-419-COM-CAST. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-09 06:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Moderators please note: this was an attempt at humor.
If you have to mention it, your attempt failed.
Scam-o-rama... by abborren · 2004-07-09 06:09 · Score: 4, Informative

...is as interesting site found when researching these scams, Scam-o-rama. It contains lots of e-mail conversations with scammers and also some funny pictures. They also have an interesting case when somebody actually scammed the scammers (see the stories marked in red)

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Re:419 is Ohio by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-09 06:11 · Score: 5, Informative

Yes! There several things that are out there to help promote knowledge about these types of scams. There are a couple of websites this:
1) http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml : website from the Secret Service providing info about the 419 scam

2)www.419eater.com : this website is dedicated to scambaiting and information about 419. Includes a forum. "scambaiting" is a term used often to describe when someone pretends to be interested in a scam, but tries to waste as much of the scammer's time and resources as possible, in an attempt to keep him busy on the scambaiter, rather then on a potential victim

3) Scamorama.com : similar to 419eater.com. Includes news on 419 scams, forum as well.

4) aa419.org : this is dedicated to attacking 419 scammers with websites. It does this by stealing bandwidth from scammer websites, fake banks, etc. For example, the one listed in this article, www.umicb.com, is a fake bank. This site does it by taking images from the fakebank's websites, and then reloading its webpage, thus stealing bandwidth. At the first of every month, there is a 419 "Flash mob", where about a dozen or so fake bank sites' images are loaded to a specific page, and then many, many people go to these sites, in an attempt to shut down as many sites as possible.

5) if you do a search on google for "419 scam", there are also lots of sites.
Re:Just plain stupid by timholman · 2004-07-09 07:17 · Score: 4, Informative

I love those "Cashless ATMs" and "Internet Terminal" schemes they offer on TV. Basically, they do all the the work and you just collect the profits each week! Ha! My favorite line is, "Millions have joined up, but the best locations are still available!" I wonder if those "millions" of people who signed up see those commercials and go, "WTF?! People are getting better locations than me?"

Anyone who is curious about those movie/phone/internet kiosk commercials you're always seeing on the SciFi channel ought to check out kioskscams.com. According to this site (set up by one of the victims) they're all shell companies being run by the same group of criminals operating in Florida.

These guys collect the money under a shell corporation, declare bankruptcy, then move on to a new set of victims under a new corporate name. Neither the state of Florida nor the U.S. government has moved against them yet. At $20K (or more) per victim, the kiosk scammers make 419 scammers look like petty thieves by comparison.