419 Scammer Gets Scammed

johnduffell writes "There's a lot of awareness of 419 scams at the moment, including a report from the BBC of a baiter who managed to get $80 and a birthday card by courier! He did this by convincing the scammer that he was in the Church of the Painted Breast and there's even a photo of the scammer with his breast painted! Presumably the scammers are hoping that the scammees are as stupid as they are."

Comments

Pit Nicking

[Em Adespoton]

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right!

[dcocos]

A I learned from the book "50 Things You Aren't Supposed to Know" and the Fully Informed Jury Association. Juries, while using the law as a guide, they may choose not convict even though the person may be guilty by the letter and even the spirit of the law. Jury nullification would be well warrented. (Now the people mentioned in the article are British and I am not familiar with British law, though I believe this right was developed based on the model laid out in the Magna Carta.)

http://www.fija.org/

Re:There's no way they could really press charges.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Didn't they arrest 500 people last month for running these scams? Ah, yes, here's the link:

Scammers arrested.

Re:Where do I join?

[Gunfighter]

You can join at the 419 Eater website.

Re:Not All Nigerians are Scammers

[cherokee158]

That's true, but Nigeria is alsoa country where people will deliberately block your car while a grease monkey crawls under it and wrecks your transmission...coincidently just a block down the street from a repair shop. (Source: The World's Most Dangerous Places)

Nigeria is a cesspool of lawlessness and violence. Stereotyping isn't always fair, but it may just save your life.

Re:Artists Against 419

[nkh]

This site has already been shown on /. before.

Clean hands

[Idarubicin]

For all the folks that are wondering aloud about whether or not the scambaiters are vulnerable to a lawsuit for taking the scammers' $80, you can rest easy.

A court will not award damages to a party that has 'unclean hands'. The scammers are attempting to negotiate a contract by which they have no itention of abiding--indeed, by which they cannot abide (they don't have eighteen billion dollars, now do they?)--and which would be illegal even if they could carry through their promises. Loosely speaking, the terms: Scammer gives Baiter $80, Baiter gives Scammer $18000, Scammer gives Baiter $millions.

Consequently, the doctrine of clean hands (Link, Link) would tend to preclude successful legal action by the scammers. No court would enforce the contract, and trying to get the original $80 back would expose the scammer to far more costs and probably criminal prosecution.