What is the Bat!?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 05 Mar 2008 Posts: 10

So for a while I was under the understanding that the Bat! was an auto reply program for e-mail but now I am not sure. I am finding this in the e-mail header of my new Ukrainian love N4t45a. Any help? I did a search and came up empty.

Thanks

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:42 am

I am not an expert on TB!--most of the info here is pulled from a writeup from elsewhere.

The Bat! (also known as TB! And TB) is an e-mail client application marketed towards companies and individuals that need to manage large volumes of e-mail. It has been associated with both spamming and scamming – it is legitimate and is a valuable tool for many businesses; but the same features that make it effective and efficient for companies, are of benefit to scammers. There are two features that scammers find particularly useful.

1) It supports a macro programming language and a sophisticated ability to manage templates. These templates can be changed by a macro to respond to e-mails. This allows a technically competent person to create a scamming system that has a high degree of automation while at the same time allowing the scammer to add custom text in predefined areas within the template. The more people that the Scammer can correspond with, the more likely a victim can be found.

2) TB! is designed to work with multiple e-mail servers simultaneously. This makes it very easy for the scammer to use numerous "dummy" e-mail accounts. It also downloads and erases the e-mails from each e-mail server, making it harder for the scammer to be caught.

TB! is also very affordable at less than $60.00 – well within the means of the typical scammer.

So basically it allows the scammers to correspond with a whole slew of potential victims, while appearing to be corresponding with one or two.

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:39 am

Yes, that's exactly it

The Bat! is an email application just like Outlook or Thunderbird but as Dorothy correctly pointed out, it's aimed at allowing scripting and automation - for example, allowing a company to auto-respond to emails from their clients with a mail that is more tailored to what they asked than simply replying "We are dealing with your mail, we'll get back to you"

I have a couple of Russian friends who I've seen using it (working outside of Russia and definitely not running scams)

However what makes it great for companies also makes it very useful for scammers since they can create mail templates and scripts to handle a lot of the work they would have to do manually in other applications

It's not fair to say only scammers use The Bat! but it is safe to say that you will often see that scammers are using it so it's a guide to help you finger a scammer but not proof of scammer on its own

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:07 pm

Also, many who write saying they are using internet cafe but with TB in the header is a giveaway that they are scammers! Internet cafes do not use The Bat.