Nigerian Scammers Scammed

sbinning writes "At least one Nigerian scammer has had the tables turned. A website admin retaliates against the fraudsters, with hilarious results." From The Age article: "When he found a willing victim, his anti-scam unfolded in much the same way as a typical 419 scam, promising payment only after a substantial investment had been laid down — in this case the receipt of a series of commissioned wooden carvings from a local artist. With some creative photo editing, Shiver Metimbers was able to string along his quarry with claims that the two carvings sent had mysteriously been damaged enroute, the first through a mysterious shrinking process, and the second by a rogue African hamster."

Comments

Impersonating an officer

[whereverjustice]

Anyone notice that, toward the end of the scam, he writes an e-mail as a police officer? Impersonating an officer is, I believe, illegal in most western jurisdictions.

One illegal act deserves another ?

[craznar]

I'm not sure about everywhere else ... but isn't pretending to be or impersonating a police officer somewhat illegal.

Now whilst the rest of it was entertaining, doesn't this really compare to fighting spam by spamming the author ?

Anyway - was entertaining reading, if somewhat on morally dubious grounds.

Re:Amazing

[A1rmanCha1rman]

What's generally unrecognised in the world at large is the VERY REAL fact that several foreign entrepreneurs return from very dicey investment forays into Nigeria with up to 100 times their initial investment! The multitudes of successful freebooters include barely literate working-class type adventurers like laundrymen and gardeners returning home with the wherewithal to buy yachts and luxury homes, and attracting a lot of local attention due to their meteoric rise in lifestyle (which, due to their lowly beginnings, they hardly disguise). They also pass along by word of mouth exaggerated tales of a bottomless pit of largesse for the taking out there... This, rather than simple gullibility and greed, coupled with the no-questions-asked-if-you pay-a-bribe policy of the Nigerian authorities is what serves as an irresistible magnet for the "greedy and stupid people" osgeek refers to. I cannot imagine coming to the USA or Australia with a million dollars and leaving with 100 million without being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Inland Revenue or similar authority in those countries, but that's contemporary Nigeria for you... There is a personal account from an undercover FBI agent assigned to investigate the scams which actually describes how he could feel himself being slowly drawn into the hope that there really was money at the end of the undertaking!!! The only reason these scams endure is that there is really a lot of dirty money to be made out of a country blessed with the "unaided bounty of nature - Crude Oil" and cursed with institutionalised corruption that allows its wealth to be drained by unscrupulous forces within and without its borders.

Re:unwise and unethical

[Dimensio]

It's unwise because these people are criminals that may come after you to hurt you.

This would require that the criminal have a means of tracking the individual. In many cases, scam baiters use proxies when receiving deliveries, and only then if they actually accept any deliveries from the scammer.

And it's unwise because you may be breaking the law yourself.

To what law do you refer?

Finally, just because someone did something bad to you doesn't make it right for you to do the same to them.

The purpose of scam baiting is not to do something "bad" to the criminal. It is to waste the time and resources that would otherwise be used to victimize someone.

Re:The morality here is dubious

[SirSlud]

> It appears this 419 scammer has just learnt a lesson that he should already well know, that unchecked greed will make people do the stupidist things.

Thats a pretty blanket statement, which dosn't take into account the level of weath greedy people have in the first place, nor any kind of assesment of whether greedy people often do the 'right' thing, which increases their wealth.

This is obviously one complex story in a gazillion, but its hard to condone anti-scamming, for these reasons:

a) the people who actually do get ripped off by scams dont benifit from anti-scamming, unless you believe anti-scamming cuts down on the amount of scams in the first place

b) that anti-scamming isn't basically being a better scammer .. how can you condone scamming somebody, just because 'they tried to scam first' .. its awfully grade 3, throwing stones from glass houses, to me

If you ask me, anti-scammers are into the scamming business for worse reasons than nigerian scammers are.

The Register

[tres3]

Yeah, it made TheRegister last week. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/30/419_plonke r/

Here's an Argument I had with a Nigerian Scammer

[LunarStudio]

Not to steal anyone's thunder, but here's a link from an old post of mine (Nov. 2004): http://www.lunarlog.com/archives/000114.php A little follow-up: http://www.lunarlog.com/archives/000117.php And yes - the website is in serious need of a redesign/update.

Re:oh, bullcrap

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a scambaiter at 419eater and can tell you that your assumptions are quite incorrect - they have connections abroad. I know cases in which Nigerian scammers showed up in Houston, London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Bangkok and Madrid (we get them on webcams by agreeing to "meet them" on a specific location). The ones that e-mail you are the lowest level idiots in Internet cafes but once they think they have a victim on the hook they pass you on higher up in the gang and you notice a significant improvement in their English.