Your biggest mistakes

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Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:00 am

Sorry if this has been posted before. I searched but didn't see anything.

Just wondering if you would share one or a few of the biggest mistakes you've made during a bait, what you learned from it, and how it effected the bait.

For me it's always patience. I have a nice plot worked out and struggle to let time pass instead of buying time and building trust. I've learned to semi-script my replies and set approx times to initiate the next step. I lost quite a few of my first lads due to pushing to fast and far.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:23 am

I get bored and quit answering the lad, he try's to re-scam me, but if they're just no fun their no fun.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:26 am

-Asking for a trophy picture on my first email
-Forgetting which email account I'm on and signing off in the wrong name although it is easy enough to recover from if they even notice it.
-Wasting more of my time filling in or creating forms or photo shopping things (they never open them anyway or you can find pretty much anything you need on the net)
-Sending them material which they can recycle and use on real victims
-Replying with anything longer then a paragraph.
-Not asking my mentor enough questions
-Forgetting to keep trace of international time zones which helps in prolonging the bait http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
-Not understanding the scam before getting involved.
-being a trophy whore
-Thinking I must reply straight away
-Forgetting that I have a real life and it is good to turn a computer off

[/list]

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:50 am

Like the lads, some of my baits run on scripts. Well, I end up sending the wrong scripts to the wrong lads. Lads were not very happy. Laughing

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:37 am

I'm Miss Perfect therefore I make no baiting mistakes. Laughing

Except one time, due to jet lag from a transatlantic flight (yes, that's right, it's the plane's fault) I meant to forward an email from the incomparable Pastor Ramesh to my mentor, but hit reply by accident. It was full of all kinds of stuff the mugu should not have read too. The mugu had mailed me 3 thick envelopes of stuff, which he was explicitly told not to do. Of course, they were all returned to him saying the address didn't exist (go figure) so he was confused, naturally. So after seriously freaking out, not able to reach my mentor & not getting any other help from anyone Crying or Very sad

I had the Archbishop & the church's security team write emails to undisclosed recipients (mugu & some of my other characters who were interested in the situation Laughing

) about how we were hacked, by TWAT I believe, and all emails were to be disregarded and forwarded to the church for further investigation. If I remember correctly, I even sent him a little newspaper clipping of the unfortunate incident. Laughing

I also gave him a call, which he was most appreciative of. He assured me he was still utterly devoted to me & the church & we all lived happily ever after. Sure, he is still awaiting the arrival of his bicycle (& rickshaw attachment which will be a total surprise for him), but let's not split hairs.

The end.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:13 am

I got two lads' barristers mixed up, actually worked out pretty well.

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

Us noobs really appreciate threads like this. Thanks for sharing your embarrassments all.

I'm having patience issues myself right now.

Baiting Guru Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 2531 Location: AU

I am no expert but here is a little of my opinion
I am getting better but you begin to learn what to say to get their attn and what not to say.
I am really starting to see why you need a good plan(and experience) to stick to, so you can shepheard your lad into the required pen.
I tend to go a little stupid with them sometimes. but u lose lads that way if they are only hooked in the lip.
It just takes time to get some knowledge on how they work

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:25 am

Quote:

-Forgetting which email account I'm on and signing off in the wrong name although it is easy enough to recover from if they even notice it.

Me too.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 6:09 am

I think atallman's excellent list pretty much covers the most common mistakes. In a nutshell, don't try to run before you can walk. I would add don't assume it's easy just because the experts make it appear that way. A lot of baiting involves just chipping away at your lad and if you are lucky you will strike gold.

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

Coming off holiday and forgetting which lad is linked with which barrister/bank. Write out a 100 times I must make a list before I go.

When I don't bait as an American and foget to delete my K7 number from my signature line.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:43 am

Forgetting to mask or initialize crazy characters´ names (once only is enough for google to find it) Evil or Very Mad

Vide here and here and here

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:54 am

... Baiters don't make mistakes. It's always the lad's fault.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 8:59 am

Got lazy, waited too much to answer and the lad had lost interest in me and did not want to continue. Though he had already begun to send me cool trophies...

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 10:14 am

i have my initial asem as my signature in gmail.

i had a good bait going and accidently hit reply, sending the asem to a lad that i had going for ages.

i was worried, but it was all good, he didnt even notice it.

Master Baiter Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 114

A while back I accidentally sent a picture of a man having sex with a goat to my favourite pet. Fortunately I realised soon after this and emailed him from a new account to say that the previous account had been hacked. I still have him hooked now 5 months later.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:14 am

I was with FrumpyBB there and we learned a lot from that bait. Wink

irish was helping me with that bait, I did the cc thingy and scammer knew that I was forwarding all his mail to someone else. Embarassed

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:19 am

I think I've made more mistakes on this forum then in baiting. Laughing

A few baiting ones are:

Rushing and not thinking clearly before emailing.
Messing up with BCC and CC a few times.
Putting the wrong name when emailing scripts out
etc.

Most can easily be fixed with a quick excuse or blaming the lad. Wink

Not quite a Newb Joined: 16 Aug 2008 Posts: 49

Mistake I made at first was being too eager in sending my replies. The one time I didn't bother for 24 hours, I had a desperate paranoid email from my "fiance". She and the barrister still expect to hear from me daily.

Next bait, I will definitely be more patient and try to lead the pace more.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:55 am

Well i only started my very first bait last night. He didnt reply very soon so i thought describing my poodle's "motions" Laughing

in vivid detail may have put him off... but i got a reply today.

I'm baiting as Mrs Brady Old Lady (though with a different name) out of Viz. And i suspect my poor poodle's bottom troubles (not to mention constant references to my dead husband stanley, and how things where better in the war) may take precedence in future emails over sending the lad anything he actually wants to read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Brady_the_Old_Lady

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:09 pm

I have made loads and loads of mistakes over the years. here are some of my favourites and how they affected the bait:

* Signing an email with my real name (more than once, unfortunately)
- I killed the bait immediately, too risky since there are many mugus in my area. Now I try to put myself in the baiting character mentality first, and I don't use the same free mail services for any of my personal mail (visual cues help remind me that I'm baiting, not myself).

* Getting baits crossed (any number of times): signing the wrong baiting character name, or calling a mugu by the wrong name, or referring to the details of another deal.
- Kept right on going - almost all of these are easy to cover up. Actually referring to the wrong deal can be an advantage, you can actually reveal to one mugu that you have another deal working with another one. this can get you some really great "expose" about how the other deal is a scam. From this I learned that it can be fun to drop hints that I'm involved in some other scam deal, even if I'm not.

* Baiting character knows too much:
- any number of times I've tried to anticipate a scammer's moves, but often this leads to problems. for example, mentioning anything about fees to be paid before the scammer brings it up. Fees should come as a surprise to most baiting characters.

* Having a scammer call some silly phone number:
- in my very early days I did this a lot, either just give him a random number from a big corporation, or an organization that I thought deserved some abuse. I learned this is a dead end to most baits - it serves no purpose and causes all kinds of problems for keeping the bait going.

* Taking a photo of a scammer:
- again in my very early days: i went to a large tourist destination where many people are regularly taking photos, to take pictures of a scammer who was meeting some other baiter's character. I vaguely knew that meetings often include "minders" but did not realize that this particular meeting included two very burly, serious looking gentlemen, each lurking near one of the two main exits. I managed to take one or two long distance blurry photos (of something else with the mugu in the "background") but then noticed one of the minders watching people very closely. Including me. Never again!!

Oh, i forgot:
* Putting too much info in one email
- a classic problem with new baiters - telling your life story in the first email when a simple "I'm interested" type email will do the same job. This applies not only to the initial emails, but also any other time in a bait unless your lad has been taught to read every little thing. Most of the time now I try to follow a simple rule I created myself about the info I include in any reply: 1. thank him for his previous message. 2. apology for something. 3. compliant statement. 4. specific question or problem. 5. another compliant statement. (6, optional: one off-topic bit of conversation).
I've also learned that there is nothing wrong with writing big long emails to the lads, in fact sometimes I do this anyway just for my own amusement. See also "using funny names".

* planning the plot in advance
- Some baiters are very good at setting up specific milestones or plans for baits, so this might not be considered "a mistake". It is for me, because I am just no good at long term planning..... my long term plans seem doomed to fail. I'm much better at playing along and not worrying too much about where things are heading (except for certain things, like setting up legitimate reasons why i can't use the phone, or why I am away from the computer for weeks at a time, that sort of thing).

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:11 pm

master said:

Quote:

I am really starting to see why you need a good plan(and experience) to stick to, so you can shepheard your lad into the required pen.

What a good analogy! Very true, too.

I've done a lot of the same things as the other people have said here. One thing I did (and only realized it recently) is that my voice mail on my anonymous phone has my main character's name in the message. All my lads from all my characters have been calling that number. It's kind of funny that none of them have asked why a different name is in the recording.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:14 pm

Twice I've sent the wrong document to a Lad; once I managed to wriggle out, but the other time I killed off a promising bait.

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:16 pm

I have VERY serious patience issues. My baits will go on for 3-4weeks, and then I'll get bored with them and call the lads out. I think the general consensus here is to never burn a lad, but I do it all the time. I have issues. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:49 pm

atallman wrote:

-Asking for a trophy picture on my first email....... Replying with anything longer then a paragraph....Thinking I must reply straight away....

Yep, I've done all three of those when I started. And occasionally I still do the last one.

Additionally I get bored and wander off halfway through a bait to start a different one.