Music 2 My Ears - Wickedest Evil Safari

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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:14 pm

Since all the newbies are gravitating to this thread, I thought I would post a few hints/thoughts to help them get started:

(A) Seek a mentor. There is a mentor thread on the bulletin board. (I think you have probably already heard about this one).

(B) Never ever reveal personal information about yourself. Use an e-mail provider that hides your IP address (hushmail, fastmail, or gmail) and totally bogus information.

(C) Never involve innocent third parties! I.E. don't give our the local police department's phone number, your ex-spouse's address etc. Use totally fictitious info. Be creative! You really are Gomer Pyle from Mayberry, NC, and you work as a deckhand on a tour boat called "The Minnow".

(D) Never send documents (ID, passports, driver's licenses) to a scammer - even fakes. A scammer will recycle anything you send him and use it on innocent victims. Instead, here are a few alternatives:
(a) It is attached to this e-mail (don't attach anything).
(b) My dog ate my passport.
(c) It is encrypted. (Send a COPY of a dll file from your computer, renamed as passport.jpg. provide detailed instructions on how to decode it.
(d) Here is is. (send another copy of a dll file - renamed as passport.jpg. He cannot open it.)
(e) I don't have a scanner (or, alternatively, I don't have a passport). Solicit advice from the mugu about how to acquire a scanner,a passport or both.
(f) Homeland security has forms that have to be filled out before sending passports over the internet. Attach a form. Insist he complete it. There are several awesome forms available on this board or create your own! Be sure to include essay questions.
(g) Gomerpyle has several totally useless passports linked to his siggy material that you can use.

(E) Read up on Skype and K7 on the bulletin board if you want to receive calls.

(F) To get started, either go to the surplus forum of this board, o go to 419baiter.com and "harvest" a number of the recent addresses there. Send them a very short e-mail using your bogus e-mail account that says something like "I just got your e-mail. Please tell me more". It is unnecessary to write an essay.

Use the BCC function on your e-mail to copy a number of recipients - mail the original back to your own bogus e-mail account.

By cutting and pasting, one can send hundreds of mails in a short time.

(G) Bait straight at first. It is fun to get the amusing trophy or send your mugu on the safari to some wretched destination. But for the first few occasions, play it straight until you get more experience.

(H) Ask lots of questions. Not only on the board, but also when you are corresponding with a mugu. Questions are a good way to get him off script.

(I) Try to "de-educate" your mugu. This means don't correct his mistakes (which might make him more convincing to a real victim). But do object when he does something right! Teaching him how to misspell a word, use a totally made up word, etc. might tip off a real victim somewhere in the future! The same goes for his documents and ID - if they are good, find fault with them! If they are crappy - be impressed!

(J) If the mugu will provide you with bank account information - forward it to Alan. Alan is a somewhat mysterious member of this board who has the ability to get bank accounts shut down. Here is a link for how to report material to Alan:

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=145589

(K) If you ever receive information about real victims (such as a cc on a letter from your mugu which provides information on real victims), contact the moderators on this board immediately. They have contacts who can deal with this sort of situation.

Good luck!

Bruin

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1269

(l) Bookmark (and browse) the Eater University forum: http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=51 It's got over a dozen wonderful tutorials that explain exactly how to go about a variety of baiting tricks.
(m) http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=12 This is the baiting helps and hints forum. Go back over the last 4-5 days worth of threads, and read the ones that look interesting to you.
(n) If your pet sends you a website that you think might be fake, post it here: http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=23 If it's fake, somebody will kill it for you.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:17 pm

Thanks JoJo,

Thanks to BRUIN and Special_K too, for the links.

D

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 17 Sep 2008 Posts: 1

I was at work with my headphones on and I was laughing so loud! Everyone was asking me what I was listening to. Eventually everyone in the factory had This American Life tuned in. We were all laughing and cheering as you read the emails on the air. From The Driver's threats,Brothers broken leg and the dead mom. All of it was hilarious!!! I think you guys are doing great work. Keep it up. Let me know if you need me to place a call to a target. I do voice work.

Your newest fan

B. Very Happy

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:50 pm

Welcome to the facility! Wink

Baiting Guru Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 5727

Welcome Bridwyguy! You didn't even get some of the best parts. Be sure and go through the thread and listen to some of the calls.

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1269

Tell all your coworkers to sign up and join the party. Cool

Thanks for the offer-you will probably start getting PM's about it. Smile

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:19 pm

Welcome Bridwyguy Very Happy

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:47 pm

Update on Famous...

Tomorrow should be his THIRD safari. This time, from Accra to Cape Coast.

On the Godspower front... he is home. Back in Ghana. It was a nice run. From around July 15. About two solid months.

The Miracle Network is still there.

edit: He is meeting with the kidnapper. I found this pic:

Looks just like Anita. He even agreed it was her.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:26 pm

Yet another newbie here, courtesy of NPR and Ira Glass. I loved the interview & story. I didn't think you came guys came off like a**holes - just pragmatic

Thanks everyone for the epic journey. I am in awe of your skill and deviousness! I doubt I could ever attain your level, but it is something to aspire towards.

Thanks also for the tips Bruin and Special_K. That will help us newbies get off on the right foot.

Looking forward to further tales of these lads....

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 17 Sep 2008 Posts: 4

Yet another newb here. Smile

Actually I've been following this site and and the scamorama site for a while, but was inspired to actually JOIN after the NPR piece.

Keep up the good work!

I've gotten into some "baits" before (usually horse sale scams- "pay the difference to my shipper") but never anything that actually worked, so it's amazing to me to see how far some of these guys will go! Hats off to you!

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:53 pm

Welcome!

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:07 pm

jojobean wrote:

Update on Famous...

Tomorrow should be his THIRD safari. This time, from Accra to Cape Coast.

On the Godspower front... he is home. Back in Ghana. It was a nice run. From around July 15. About two solid months.

The Miracle Network is still there.

edit: He is meeting with the kidnapper. I found this pic:

Looks just like Anita. He even agreed it was her.

Oh the things they do for 'love.' Mr. Green

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:27 pm

Welcome to all of the new members, and thanks for all of the kind words. As previously mentioned, flattery will get you everywhere with us. Laughing

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 16 Sep 2008 Posts: 7

@Jojo Where the hell did you get that pic? Or rather... what kind of sites are you on when you're not on eater?

I love that it says "Pic of the day" like you would see above a photo of a Halloween decoration or kids jumping around a sprinkler. It really does look like the same woman. *Very* impressive.

Famous really is so heroic. When he said he'd do *anything* for love, I thought that just meant beating off with his guy friends on camera, but here his is, spending his time and money trying to rescue his 15-year-old soulmate.

I'm glad that while she's tied up in that trunk she can at least take some small comfort in the fact that there's a closeted gay sexual predator internet con artist coming to her rescue!

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:53 pm

curious just how many new sign ons since the airing of TAL show? Question

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:12 pm

ohmystarsandgarters wrote:

@Jojo Where the hell did you get that pic? Or rather... what kind of sites are you on when you're not on eater?

Just went to Google images and typed in kidnapped or something.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:30 pm

[Warning: Long post. Probably inappropriate for a first-time poster. If I offend you, I apologize. But if you've got the time, I think it may be worth the read.]

Jojo, Prof, Whatever and all of you who have devoted so much time to this,

I caught the first 15 minutes of the original on-air "Enforcers" broadcast and was hooked. I read the thread up until Adamu got home before I downloaded the radio show and listened to the full segment. After hearing the show, I've read the rest of the thread. Simply Amazing...wow. I feel compelled to join the forum simply so that I can post a few comments.

Thank you thank you thank you for this entire thread and bait! It's taken all of my spare time over the last four days--and a lot of time that I really should have been spending elsewhere--to read all 133+ pages (to date) of this thread and the few pages on the thread devoted to the TAL broadcast and the "who's more of a ..." poll.

I have not laughed this hard in a long time. And I have never had this many gut-busting laughs about something I've read on the internet. Ever. I can't count the number of times I had to rewind one of the many phone conversations because I just couldn't take it. Every time one of you guys started chuckling, I was gone. Seriously, how on earth do you guys keep a straight face (er, voice) during those conversations?!

At times, I had to wonder if this entire thread was itself some great conspiracy, some huge act. Even if so, it's so completely worth it. The compromising Famous pictures, however, have removed all reasonable doubt from me, and I'm going to believe this to be true even if everyone involved eventually confesses to some insanely outrageous hoax.

I'm too darn old to know if it's proper forum-etiquette to ramble on at length in your first post (as if you have the right to make comments to the veterans about their own area of expertise). I'm also too old to care, so here are some thoughts that I haven't seen addressed before, at least not in my particular way. Maybe someone is interested. Your mileage may vary.

First, this whole situation--scammers, victims, baiters, the works--is like a big ecosystem. When ethics are discussed, the primary characterization of you baiters is "you're just like them." Wrong. If the victims are like creatures, the scammers are like parasitic bacteria: the parasites get everything they can out of each creature that hosts them until it either fights off the infection or dies. The proper analogy for baiters is not another type of bacteria, it is: baiters are bacteriophages. You are the viruses that infect the bacteria, thus--at least occasionally--save a creature from infection.

All human economies are based on trust. Sure, we have codified it a bit with laws and all, but those just reinforce a basic instinct. Call it a sense of justice. Why do we find it so very satisfying when the lads get their "just desserts"? Why do so many of you (I wish I could say "us", but like I said...I'm old) invest huge amounts of time in distracting the lads from preying on people whom you've never met and almost certainly never will meet?

Answer: Because if we didn't find justice so satisfying, then cheaters (parasites, scammers, etc.) would long ago have come to dominate human relationships. And since the real power of humans is the ability to work together, we as a species would be nothing without our innate sense of justice. All other primates (and many other social species) act and react similarly. It's basic human instinct and it's necessary. Without it, civilization at any level just isn't possible.

You baiters deserve respect and gratitude for the amount of your own valuable time you are willing to put into this cause. Not just in doing it, but in making the considerable effort to document and publish your exploits so that you can motivate others and let those of without the skills or time live vicariously. Bravo! Thank you and I hope you keep it up!

Lad-huggers have good hearts, but they are simply not well-enough informed. They don't see the full picture. If the parasites go away, so do the phages. It's a self-limiting problem. Yes, there are other ways that the parasites could be dealt with--enforcement of international regulations forbidding this type of blatant exploitation--but until such solutions become workable, you have to go with what you've got.

Second point (much less philosophical): Whatever, Jojo and Professor...in my (somewhat humble) opinion, I think you have been utterly misjudged by those who criticize the (brilliant) decision to tell Adamu that his mother died. I think a strong case can be made that this news literally saved his life!
Here's how I see it: Adamu and Leg have nothing. They're living in hell. They have no plan, no prospects and really no chance of ever even getting a plan. They believe they are in contact the only people who could possibly help them or even care, but because you control those lines of communication, there is less than nothing for them there. They are living at the "pleasure" of someone or some group whose willingness to even tolerate the two of them has got to be monotonically decreasing with every passing day.

Eventually, they are going to die. Literally. They will burn through all possible good favor with everyone in this stressed-out town and he will succumb to disease or just starve to death or, perhaps in some effort to avoid that fate, get themselves arrested simply shot. (I presume arrest here would be a reasonably quick death sentence.) Or maybe rebels are going to overrun the town and either kill him outright or conscript them. Whatever...they're doomed.

Then, out of absolutely nowhere comes news that Adamu's dear mother has passed on. (Yet another great phone call, btw!) Now, if Adamu himself had concocted this story--maybe he even tried?--his 'driver' is no longer going to believe a single word that passes through his godforsaken lips. But this message has come from outside, from on high, from the "great voice of TWAT", ie, the only shred of hope that this guy could possibly have. Not only that, but the message is delivered not to Adamu, but directly to the driver, so it can't be just another of Adamu's usual bullsh!t fabrications. This enables Adamu to scrounge up one last bit of goodwill to make a final phone call back to home--bypassing the compromised email channel--and finally realize his true situation.

Boom. Adamu and the leg are saved. Someone cares enough about him to provide him a way out. How that could possibly happen is difficult to imagine. I can't even conceive of the possibility that anyone would have the means to get them out of there, or even care enough to try, but there's human compassion and ingenuity for you. Maybe we're all just extremely lucky this guy isn't showing up at our doors trying to sell us vacuums and tupperware.

[/old-timer's rambling rant]

If you've read this all, thanks for the attention. It's nothing compared to the utter joy I've received from reading this thread and knowing that there exist the means, the opportunity and the willpower for these kinds of operations. Fantastic read.

I had no idea that baiting was occuring and would not have guessed it possible. But having found it, my faith in humanity has grown some reasonable amount. I listen to a fair bit of public radio, but this is easily one of the most enjoyable stories that listening has ever led me to.

And if I ever get the chance, then God help me I'm going to try eating a durian.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:33 pm

What a great first post, Durian. Welcome to eater Very Happy

ps
Try the Durian....it's absolutely delicious once you get passed the smell.

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:36 pm

I like you Durian. and I like your long post. I think you'd make a great baiter, much better than a wuss like me.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

@Durian:

Excellent post, well said. Welcome to Eater! Very Happy

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:41 pm

Durian,

Wow. That was about as well thought out a post as I have ever read on here. Welcome to the Eater. We hope that you stick around.

Respect

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:25 pm

@Durian - Welcome to the Eater.
I think you just became a popular member with your first post......... clapping

Baiting Guru Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 5727

Durian, I can assure you that you didn't offend anyone. Stick around. Very few of the folks here bite, and those that do have had their shots. Very Happy

Mad Respect!

(Topping Yeawhatever's simple "respect")

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:40 pm

My God...very well put, start to finish. Wink

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