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.

Comments

google cache

[helfen]

this site need cache - http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:vyoLxQBww68J:sp l.haxial.net/nigerian-fraud/

Re:And there goes the servers...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I'm surprised this scam even works

[stratjakt]

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.

souvenirs for playing with scammers

[museumpeace]

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.