The 419eater Community Pulls Some Legs 219
trusteR writes "Always in the pursuit to rid the world of
419 scams with new and often very entertaining strategies, the class of 419eater.com
have set new records in making scambaiting an entertaining and funny artform. Shipping ANUS laptops, $$$, Death treats, Audio and lots of pictures." This beats the amusement value of a Captain Kirk passport; the scam-baiters here managed to get cash in the mail and get rid of some less-than-perfect hardware.
google cache (Score:5, Informative)
Re:just look for the urgency (Score:1, Informative)
If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is
-rylin
Re:Great Stuff (Score:4, Informative)
See also: "I AMA DILDO" [scamorama.com] (source [scamorama.com])
Re:And there goes the servers... (Score:5, Informative)
The scammer was trying to do a fake check scam, where they send you a fake check to pay for the goods. These scams count on people depositing the check, and thinking that the check cleared. They also tend to send some amount over what you requested, with them asking you to send the remainder to someone else(which is usually them or someone affiliated in the scam). Then when the bank figures out the checks a fraud, the victim is missing the goods that the scammer "bought," and owes the bank what ever money they gave back to the scammers.
The computers got the name Anus because the scammer called them that.
To continue the story, the scammer issued a threat about not receiving the computers, and only getting junk. The scammer then send a DHL shipper to pick the "real"(still more junk) package up. At this stage the package is not traceable, something is up with DHL. Both the scambater and the scammer don't know what is up at this point.
Also some of the scambaters found the place where the packages were being shipped to, and visited what appears to be someplace in the UK the scammers drop their ill-gotten goods off. They posed as inspectors, got pictures of the supposed scammer/scam helper, and took what appears to be pictures of some remains of the scammer/helper's other scams.
So that is all that is known at this point, and they tend to be frequent on updates when info comes in. Due to the slashdotting I doubt they will be updating this as frequent.
Re:Fake passports and Homeland Security (Score:4, Informative)
Good idea! (Score:3, Informative)
$Superhero: Not so fast, evil scammers! This website has been mirrordotted [mirrordot.org]!
[Cue: spammers cringe in fear, as the stampede of the nerds is rendered harmless.]
Re:I'm surprised this scam even works (Score:5, Informative)
I could write "pay to the order of (whoever) 1200.00" on a kleenex, and it's still a cheque. All it needs is my account number and signature/stamp.
Banks would (and of course, should) give you a hard time cashing it, they'd probably call my bank, and my bank would call me, but in the end, after much bitching, it's a legal cheque.
All a cheque is is a written permission from whoever writes it for the bank to transfer the funds.
Re:google cache (Score:4, Informative)
Re:google cache (Score:2, Informative)
souvenirs for playing with scammers (Score:5, Informative)
- you advertise an expensive item on line..car, piano etc.
- an "agent" for an interested buyer responds, perhaps in an exchange of several emails to build
your confidence...after all YOU initiated this transaction.
- if scammer is in a big hurry, he offers an extra few thousand $ "for shipping" and , sight-unseen sends you a cashiers check with sometimes complex instructions that the check should be cashed immediately and the excess mailed or wired to some 4th party who is the "shipper" and requires payment before he will pick up the goods.
- your bank honors the cashiers check
- you wire the money
- 3 days later the bank tells you the check was a forgery and debits its full amount from your account.
- and of course, no shipper ever arrives
For me, the eagerness of the "agent" to pay full price for a piano they never saw set off alarms. My state's atty Gen. office had a web page exactly describing the scam. The headers on the email were hard to trace but I could not tell whether the buyer was supposedly in NY or London. When the FEDEX arrived with the check and the country code was NG, that was the last straw. I now have a totally phoney cashiers check , a good piece to study if you want to learn how to spot forgeries, framed in the den. We got one phone call [which I wish I knew how to trace...don't give out your phone number!] and several frantic e-mails from our scammer. When I offered to "save" him some money by waiting until the check cleared and sending him back the excess over what the shipping would really have cost, he protested that the buyer might soon change their mind about the purchase. When I subsequently gave him the URL for the AGO's website and accused him of fraud he acted hurt. I never told him about the typo in the fine-print stripe urging me to read the missing "Bank of America water mark".Uh, anybody want to by a piano?
if you are going to play these games, you might want to bookmark the Fedex country codes page [fedex.com] and set up one or more spam-hole email accounts.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Worse than 419 (Score:2, Informative)
Lottery scams usually come from Holland.
Tiscali is used as they offer free email accounts.
Re:Seems like a good plan (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, exchanging money for sex is perfectly legal in Canada. The law forbids owning or operating a brothel, consequently a prostitute can't work in her own home. Pimping is right out. The law also forbids solicitation in any public place.
Here's the relevant law (from the Canadian Criminal Code) if you want all the details:
I'm afraid I don't have any references for the lawsuit itself, but I can well believe it took place.Re:I'm surprised this scam even works (Score:2, Informative)
For about the past three months, my "bank" (actually a credit union) has been doing something like that. I don't know about the clearing/cashing end of things, but now instead of returning my actual cheques along with my statement they send me sheets of "mini-copies" of my cheques, 6 per 8.5x11 page. They say that Revenue Canada and the courts now accept these images as proof of payment, and if you need copies of your cheques they keep these images on file for 10 years.
It makes my bank statements a lot lighter and easier to file, and I get the statement in the mail about a week faster than I did when they send the actual paper cheques back.