forged's Journal: Turning 419 schemes around to waste scammers' time and money

This person Brad Christensen has the best 419 page I have ever read till now.

I get a few pieces of 419 fraud myself every week, and I normally respond to them trying to be funny and informative (turning one against another for example, or asking the fraudster to ask my trusted CFO (whom I randomly pick from my list so far) for the bank details)... I thought I was clever, but this one has to be the best of all.

This person is basically social-engineering the senders into meeting him at various places for rendez-vous, lurking them and wasting their money and time (I assume that he wastes a substantial amount of his own time as well). Just read it, it's huge, it's funny, bold and subtle and always hilarious in a weird way.

On a related note, you can get this 419 t-shirt from The Register. (I have no affiliation with el.reg whatsoever)

I need to rethingk my old solution.

[GMontag]

Recently I got some Nigerian money scam e-mail on a Netscape account. Verified the headers just by a quick glance and responded that if they e-mailed me any more I would find them and kill them. Yes, they did stop immediately too, without my harming anybody (I realize on /. some may be confused).

That now looks like a not-so-smart response [wired.com].

snarf...

[daoine]

This guy is my new hero. I can't wait to get the next Nigerian Cash scam....

yeah, I'm too lazy to check but...

[mekkab]

Was this the one where he got them on amsterdam public internet cams? Something like that...

I heard a good one where some guy (in thailand?! details are fuzzy) actually got THEM to send HIM money via western union- about $1 or two.... THAT IS SICK!!!!

I love 419 scams... I really, really do.

here it is!

[mekkab]

Ah yes, this one was good... [haxial.com]

but this one has the reverse payment! [www-zeus.desy.de]
this was the first one (sorry, its the philipines) [scamorama.com] and the best, so read this one first!

Re:here it is!

[mekkab]

4. I FALL to my KNEES in THANKS that we have a SOLUTION! PLEASE HURRY as I want to get my $1.5 MILLION AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. I have MANY things to buy, not the least of which is a NEW ROLEX!!!! ...

There has been a MISTAKE by my secretary copying down the numbers from my cousin, because of a BAD PHONE CONNECTION. My cousin offers PROFUE APOLOGIES!!! He also says maybe you are at an ACCRA branch of Western Union in Agricultural Development Bank, and NOT the HOT TAMALE or BOLGATANGA, so you are having PROBLEMS. Like I always say. "Telephones, you can't live WITH THEM, you can't live WITHOUT THEM". What ever happened to much-ballyhooed G3 technology anyway??


Mental note: the next time I'm in the Philipines, I gotta find this guy and buy him a beer!

That was so funny.

[eugene ts wong]

Thanks for the link.

I'm tempted to set up a 1-900 number, to get these 419ers to call me, so that we can discuss their business plan. Heh heh heh...

FUnny FUnny

[mekkab]

If you like funny 419 scams...
this is the best one. No really, its the best. [scamorama.com]

very entertaining..

[andr0meda]

.. to read yes :)

still you'd have to pour a huge amount of time into setting up all that stuff and dealing appropriately with thos people.. it looks easy but I guess you don't want to bullshit them from the very first minute.. in any case it wastes the scammers some time and nerves, which should have a global effect :)

thanks for the link!