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Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

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Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#91

Post by danparsonson »

roryokane wrote: post #6

More records of people baiting Nigerian scammers: http://419eater.com/html/letters.htm . People on http://www.419eater.com/ lead these “4-1-9” scammers on wild goose chases deliberately to waste their time, in the hopes of distracting them from attacking other people and also just having fun.

Not to defend or in any way condone the actions of the scammers (which I certainly don't), but I wonder how many of the counter-scammers do so out of high-mindedness, and how many are just looking for a chance to humiliate a relatively easy target - particularly after seeing some of the photos in the 'Trophy Room'.

I also wonder how many of those initiating the scams are actually the vicious, heartless criminals that the site insists they are - for example, one of the exchanges [1] results in the scammer sending about 9 hours of (ostensibly) himself reading Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy on the promise of earning some money for it. Career criminal, or having trouble finding work? Of course, some are genuinely dangerous people but it seems to me that there is probably a spectrum.

As I said, I'm not trying to defend those who seek to profit at the expense of others, but the level of grandstanding present on that site leaves me thinking that some of the counter-scammers themselves are doing exactly that.

[1] www.419eater.com/html/booked.htm

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#92

Post by enraged_camel »

RegEx wrote: post #78
enraged_camel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Blaming the victim is not some brave, heroic concept. Blaming the victim is bad only if you believe that blame is a zero sum game. Unfortunately, it is not. If you walk down a dark alleyway in New York at night alone and get mugged, the mugger is guilty of mugging you, but you're also guilty of being a silly goose. You don't gain immunity to blame simply because you were the victim.

You're expanding on my point exactly. The Internet does not have such an obvious dark alley. You can copy HTML/CSS, have anchors with a different href than shown, and a lot of sly things. I hate using anologies when talking to hackers, so I didn't use the alleyway example even though I was thinking it.

>>You're expanding on my point exactly. The Internet does not have such an obvious dark alley.

Not literally, no. But most Internet scams can actually be avoided using common sense, which dictates that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#93

Post by DrStalker »

graue wrote: post #61
astral303 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Plenty of people in the US have a subpar grasp of English (and yet are not retarded). For example, my dad was not born in the US, but has a Masters in Electrical Engineering and used to work on power grid systems. He's a smart guy. However, it took him a good amount of time to recognize phishing e-mails, some of it requiring my guidance. For example, it's not easy to identify Misused Capitalizations, or to pick u…

I'd still think paying $100 more than the asking price (with no explanation as to why) would be a strong clue something is amiss in this case. But you're probably right that the use of English and the FBI enforcement letter are obvious only to a subset of people who grew up in a Western, Anglophone culture.

I only skimmed the article; I'd assumed that was part of the scam (forward the extra $100 on via western union, or paypal it back to me on this different account, etc)

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#95

Post by adetayo »

While I enjoyed your story, it's quite ignorant to ask people to be wary of "Nigerians in general". NOT every Nigerian is a scammer so making such a statement is unnecessary. There are many hard working Nigerians around the world.

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#96

Post by jaylevitt »

klodolph wrote: post #90
dredmorbius wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, wasting the scammers' time (at a minimal cost to you) is actually one of the better ways to combat this scam. The entire scheme is based on the scammers avoiding baiting people who will catch on to the scheme (hence the obvious signs of scammage -- they're a reverse intelligence task), while snaring people who are likely to fall prey. http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/study--obvious-nigeri... This redu…

I deal with telemarketers the same way. I try to keep them on the line as long as possible, to ruin the caller's stats. (They always hang up first.)

If you haven't already, you should pick up Tom Mabe's CD, where he does some serious improv comedy with the telemarketers.

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#97

Post by jaylevitt »

outworlder wrote: post #67
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

This can go badly of course, taunting crooks is never the safe policy no matter how tempting it can be. The thing is, they are crooks, so they have already decided that they are willing to break the rules, what you don't know is how many they are willing to break.

It is said that the p-p-p-powerbook guy disappeared some time after, but I could never verify it. Overall though, I think the danger is pretty low, assuming you do not reveal your identity at any point.

He's at @mynameisjeff... looks pretty safe and alive to me.

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#98

Post by vm »

haberman wrote: post #87
CrazedGeek wrote: post #8

Very (probably unintentionally) similar to: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/

That was a great read, but the end is a tad scary! "Finally, and most disturbingly, [the victim] Jeff was not heard from again." http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index04.html

I found that disturbing too, so I looked up Jeff. His twitter account is active with recent tweets: http://twitter.com/MyNameIsJeff

Probably doing fine!

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#99

Post by jlgreco »

RegEx wrote: post #78
enraged_camel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Blaming the victim is not some brave, heroic concept. Blaming the victim is bad only if you believe that blame is a zero sum game. Unfortunately, it is not. If you walk down a dark alleyway in New York at night alone and get mugged, the mugger is guilty of mugging you, but you're also guilty of being a silly goose. You don't gain immunity to blame simply because you were the victim.

You're expanding on my point exactly. The Internet does not have such an obvious dark alley. You can copy HTML/CSS, have anchors with a different href than shown, and a lot of sly things. I hate using anologies when talking to hackers, so I didn't use the alleyway example even though I was thinking it.

> The Internet does not have such an obvious dark alley.

http://p3n1zp1llz.48djkhcd.com.shadyurl.info/freemoneyz.exe

;)

Edit: Forgot about this site, but perhaps it could be used as a training tool for family members you feel are not quite as savy as they should be: http://www.shadyurl.com/

Make a page that just says "Grandma, don't click links like that!", convert it to a "shady" url with shadyurl.com, then email it to your grandmother.

Re: Nigerian scammer gets a laptop from me

#100

Post by sliverstorm »

jlgreco wrote: post #73
sliverstorm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How 'bout if you just moved to New York from backcountry Idaho?

I would say that a criminal is equally guilty if they commit a crime in a dark alley NYC or if they commit a crime in backcountry Idaho. If I replace my bicycle u-lock with a nice hefty rope and start lashing my bike to whatever object seems solid at the time (this is a concept that actually appeals to me), then I should receive some blame when my bike gets inevitably stolen. However the bicycle thief is no more nor…

I was talking about the guy who got mugged. What if he had never lived in the city.
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