Well, mostly fun. I have been scam baiting for years - for decades - and I still find it fulfilling. What I only learned recently was so many other people are scam baiting that there are entire websites promoting this pastime.

What is scam baiting? As one website, TheScamBaiter.com puts it, “Our mission is simple: To aggravate and humiliate scammers worldwide.” It’s more serious than that, actually. Scam baiting wastes the time and resources of scammers, reducing their effectiveness and thereby saving some potential victims.

Like TheScamBaiter, 419eater.com also focuses largely on the “419 Advanced Fee Fraud,” also known as the “Nigerian 419 Scam.” “419″ refers to the Nigerian penal code against fraud schemes.

We’ve all received these emails. One version goes like this: The widow of some foreign dictator wants to sneak their life savings out of Nigeria by transferring tens of millions of dollars into your bank account. You would then transfer it into a safe US account for them and - for your generous help - you can keep several million for yourself.

Yeah, right.

Most of us (hopefully!) hit the “delete” key. But now that you are entering the wonderful world of scam baiting, let’s see what you can do…

Answer the email and say sure, you could use a few million extra dollars. What do I do? Then they get all excited They’ll ask for bank account numbers (let your cat walk across the number pad on your keyboard to make up a bogus set), blank letterheads (type it up in Word and hit “print”), and may even send you a cool-looking-but-totally-fake money order.

They may want you to scan-and-email, or to fax, but claim technical difficulties and get a mailing address. It takes them longer to process everything that way. If they want to use the phone, tell them you’re deaf. If you have to fill out their forms, play idiot and do it all wrong. Ask for more detailed instructions. Make mistakes, as long as it makes them repeat themselves. Never use your real personal data, in the one-in-six-billion chance you ever meet them face to face.

They’ll mail all kinds of bogus documents and eventually ask you to pay some advance legal fees and taxes. Now you can start writing back asking them to advance part of your final fee to cover these costs. They’ll do a song and dance about why they can’t, or they’ll send a bogus check and push for a fast completion of the transaction.

You jerk their chain more by telling them you are waiting for your CDs or bonds to mature so you can cash them and use them for this transaction, or that their check bounced or never arrived, and can they send another. They’ll get all urgent that you need to do this now, because they know damn well that time is their enemy.

You’ll notice that they always send you a bogus bank check, but they always insist that you send money to them via Western Union. So send them a fake Western Union Money Transfer. This is a fun hobby where you can legally create and send fake documents to criminals.

Tell the would-be scammer you’re on the way to Nigeria with a suitcase full of money to meet them. Send a bogus flight confirmation (to a real flight). Insist they book a fancy hotel room for you. See how they like losing money.

I kept one guy (based in England) begging for three months before it got boring and I told him off. For him, I used Google Maps and Images and actually located a street-level photo of his apartment building, claiming that my brother - who coincidentally worked in England as a bouncer - took the picture and would be over with a few friends to complete the deal in his own way. He stopped writing.

Check out these sites for detailed tips on scam baiting. They’ll even show how you can attract more scammers. This can be a dangerous hobby, but fun once you learn the ropes.

TheScamBaiter.com
419eater.com
419baiter.com
ScamoRama.com
EbolaMonkeyMan.com
ScamBaits.net

(P.S. If you think there’s anything racist in these sites, calm down and grow up. The scammers in question happen to be Nigerians, and are treated as the criminals they are by these sites. Nothing more.)

Scrud Kelley

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