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The 419eater Community Pulls Some Legs

trusteR writes "Always in the pursuit to rid the world of 419 scams with new and often very entertaining strategies, the class of 419eater.com have set new records in making scambaiting an entertaining and funny artform. Shipping ANUS laptops, $$$, Death treats, Audio and lots of pictures." This beats the amusement value of a Captain Kirk passport; the scam-baiters here managed to get cash in the mail and get rid of some less-than-perfect hardware.

14 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. google cache by helfen · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Re:google cache by OverlordQ · · Score: 3, Informative
      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    2. Re:google cache by Kinetic · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Coral Cache version is now showing the Slashdotted "down for maintenance" page. No good. The mirrors at MirrorDot have the actual content.

      --
      ~Jay
  2. Re:just look for the urgency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You mean,
    If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is .

    -rylin

  3. Re:Great Stuff by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 3, Informative
    " They got this one guy to send a pic of himself holding up a sign that said "I take it up the arse.""

    See also: "I AMA DILDO" (source)

  4. Re:And there goes the servers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Also since I frequent there, and since slashdot killed the site(thanks a lot trusteR!) here are some more details.

    The scammer was trying to do a fake check scam, where they send you a fake check to pay for the goods. These scams count on people depositing the check, and thinking that the check cleared. They also tend to send some amount over what you requested, with them asking you to send the remainder to someone else(which is usually them or someone affiliated in the scam). Then when the bank figures out the checks a fraud, the victim is missing the goods that the scammer "bought," and owes the bank what ever money they gave back to the scammers.

    The computers got the name Anus because the scammer called them that.

    To continue the story, the scammer issued a threat about not receiving the computers, and only getting junk. The scammer then send a DHL shipper to pick the "real"(still more junk) package up. At this stage the package is not traceable, something is up with DHL. Both the scambater and the scammer don't know what is up at this point.

    Also some of the scambaters found the place where the packages were being shipped to, and visited what appears to be someplace in the UK the scammers drop their ill-gotten goods off. They posed as inspectors, got pictures of the supposed scammer/scam helper, and took what appears to be pictures of some remains of the scammer/helper's other scams.

    So that is all that is known at this point, and they tend to be frequent on updates when info comes in. Due to the slashdotting I doubt they will be updating this as frequent.

  5. Re:Fake passports and Homeland Security by zx75 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, but it is fraud if he purposely misrepresents said $200 bills as legal tender.

    --
    This is not a sig.
  6. Good idea! by ggvaidya · · Score: 3, Informative
    419eaters eating into your bottom line? Slashdot them into oblivia!

    $Superhero: Not so fast, evil scammers! This website has been mirrordotted!

    [Cue: spammers cringe in fear, as the stampede of the nerds is rendered harmless.]

  7. Re:I'm surprised this scam even works by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Informative

    A cheque written on anything is legal, you don't have to use the slips of paper the bank sends you.

    I could write "pay to the order of (whoever) 1200.00" on a kleenex, and it's still a cheque. All it needs is my account number and signature/stamp.

    Banks would (and of course, should) give you a hard time cashing it, they'd probably call my bank, and my bank would call me, but in the end, after much bitching, it's a legal cheque.

    All a cheque is is a written permission from whoever writes it for the bank to transfer the funds.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  8. souvenirs for playing with scammers by museumpeace · · Score: 4, Informative
    While we are waiting for that poor server to get back on its feet, let me tell you about a less common scam that has a higher percentage of success because it is more disarming to its victims. It is the "overpayment for a large purchase, to defray shipping costs" scheme. It goes roughly as follows.
    1. you advertise an expensive item on line..car, piano etc.
    2. an "agent" for an interested buyer responds, perhaps in an exchange of several emails to build your confidence...after all YOU initiated this transaction.
    3. if scammer is in a big hurry, he offers an extra few thousand $ "for shipping" and , sight-unseen sends you a cashiers check with sometimes complex instructions that the check should be cashed immediately and the excess mailed or wired to some 4th party who is the "shipper" and requires payment before he will pick up the goods.
    4. your bank honors the cashiers check
    5. you wire the money
    6. 3 days later the bank tells you the check was a forgery and debits its full amount from your account.
    7. and of course, no shipper ever arrives
    For me, the eagerness of the "agent" to pay full price for a piano they never saw set off alarms. My state's atty Gen. office had a web page exactly describing the scam. The headers on the email were hard to trace but I could not tell whether the buyer was supposedly in NY or London. When the FEDEX arrived with the check and the country code was NG, that was the last straw. I now have a totally phoney cashiers check , a good piece to study if you want to learn how to spot forgeries, framed in the den. We got one phone call [which I wish I knew how to trace...don't give out your phone number!] and several frantic e-mails from our scammer. When I offered to "save" him some money by waiting until the check cleared and sending him back the excess over what the shipping would really have cost, he protested that the buyer might soon change their mind about the purchase. When I subsequently gave him the URL for the AGO's website and accused him of fraud he acted hurt. I never told him about the typo in the fine-print stripe urging me to read the missing "Bank of America water mark".
    Uh, anybody want to by a piano?
    if you are going to play these games, you might want to bookmark the Fedex country codes page and set up one or more spam-hole email accounts.
    --
    SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
  9. Re:I'm surprised this scam even works by DutchSter · · Score: 2, Informative

    Many people don't realize how long it can take for a check to bounce. The standard method of clearing checks is still physically shipping little pieces of paper around the country. So for a California check to bounce in New York requires the physical check to travel across the country, sit on a manager's desk until he gets around to dealing with it, and physically travel back before you find out it's no good. This can take weeks. Overseas, longer.

    Just wait til tomorrow (the 28th). It'll be interesting to see how quickly checks start bouncing. Check 21 takes effect in the US. Quick version, it gives banks and merchants the option to move images of your original check electronically and destroy the original. I work a bank and the retail folks have been cautioning customers for a while now that float time (time it takes a check to clear your bank after you write it) can be reduced to almost nothing, and thus people should be more careful about what they write checks for. For example, did you know that Target Inc has their own bank? A check you write at Target can be posted against your account before you walk out the door, and processed as a check (not just an electronic debit as some places do now).

    It won't be a sudden transformation, but I'm guessing that within the next two years people will be asking "what the heck WAS float?" As another side effect, it will also cut down on check kiting schemes that rely on float.

  10. Re:Worse than 419 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not quite correct. Most of the 419 emails in my harvester accounts come from Nigeria, Ivory Coast or Benin. I usually do an IP check.

    Lottery scams usually come from Holland.

    Tiscali is used as they offer free email accounts.

  11. Re:Seems like a good plan by Idarubicin · · Score: 3, Informative
    After all, "escorting" is perfectly legal, and it was in neither party's interest to admit that sex took place

    Actually, exchanging money for sex is perfectly legal in Canada. The law forbids owning or operating a brothel, consequently a prostitute can't work in her own home. Pimping is right out. The law also forbids solicitation in any public place.

    Here's the relevant law (from the Canadian Criminal Code) if you want all the details:

    Section 210: Keeping a common bawdy house;
    Section 211: Transporting to a bawdy house;
    Section 212: Procuring;
    Section 213: Offence in relation to prostitution (soliciting).
    I'm afraid I don't have any references for the lawsuit itself, but I can well believe it took place.
    --
    ~Idarubicin
  12. Re:I'm surprised this scam even works by innocent_white_lamb · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check 21 [federalreserve.gov] takes effect in the US. Quick version, it gives banks and merchants the option to move images of your original check electronically and destroy the original.

    For about the past three months, my "bank" (actually a credit union) has been doing something like that. I don't know about the clearing/cashing end of things, but now instead of returning my actual cheques along with my statement they send me sheets of "mini-copies" of my cheques, 6 per 8.5x11 page. They say that Revenue Canada and the courts now accept these images as proof of payment, and if you need copies of your cheques they keep these images on file for 10 years.

    It makes my bank statements a lot lighter and easier to file, and I get the statement in the mail about a week faster than I did when they send the actual paper cheques back.

    --
    If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!