What Happens When You Scam Back the E-Mail Scammers
We're sure you've seen them in your e-mail inbox before, those messages from someone in Africa offering you millions of dollars in questionably legal funds in exchange for your assistance and -- naturally -- a few thousand dollars of your own funds. They call them 419 scams, for the article in the Nigerian criminal code that covers this particular brand of fraud.
There is very little that one can do to find and stop these fraudsters, but what you can do is waste their time. This is called scam baiting, and it involves replying to the scammers without ever giving them what they want. The idea is the more time they're talking to you, the less time they're talking to other people who might fall for the scam. It's also kind of a hoot when you see the lengths to which some spammer scammers will go to maintain their fraudster identities.
The folks at Cracked, who often entertain us, have posted the e-mail exchanges between John Cheese of Juvenile Humor and one such scammer who called himself/herself Stella Tricia Colling. We won't ruin the surprises, but rest assured this e-huckster was quite confused and derailed after getting some "real" responses to his/her initial spam e-mail. [Source: Cracked]
Filed under: Computers
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ecco6t9 @ May 6th 2008 2:44AM
That was so ****** funny.
John Doe @ May 23rd 2008 10:17AM
Im from another planet and Im trying to get the rest of my family here,
but it cost so much money in fuel, 3 billion miles from earth, so if half of this planet would donate at least $ 25.00 per person in cash I may be able to make it their and back.
I have to be carefull of the Governent here, they want to deport me back
so I can't return so Im asking everyone to not tell anybody that works at
Ralph's grocery about me otherwise the whole world will know about me.
ooga meopp tantum