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: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.

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.