Wow, I didn't think it would work!

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Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 2:42 pm

I took 419eater's tip somewhat seriously about signing guestbooks. Well, I did some of the obvious searches, "guestbook mugu", "guestbook guymen", "nigerian guestbook", "nigeria guestbook", "african guestbook."

All of them returned a good amount of results. After reading a few sites from the results, I proceeded to sign the guestbook ensuring to leave my email address. No, I did not spam the guestbook, I actually left a, "review." I must have signed about 10-15 guestbooks varying between horses and geography.

Now I was excited, the bait was set. All I had to do was wait for the scammers to come to me. 12 hours into the wait, nothing, all was calm. I must say, I was somewhat disappointed. Aren't these people always on the prowl? So I went to bed somewhat disappointed, thinking of how I could lay more bait.

The next morning I awoke and checked my bait's email account. Boy am I glad I didn't lay any more bait. 22 hours after laying the bait, 7 emails arrived. All of them originating from Nigeria. Only 5 were actual scam emails, but hey... For me that's a lot.

This is going to be fun.

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 3:15 pm

Hi Scam-dum-doo, Welcome to eater! That's a lot of guest books and you will probably be swamped with emails. Make sure you check the Spam bucket too. If you are using Gmail a lot of the scam emails get dumped into Spam.

On another note, there are plenty of emails posted in Surplus every day. You can always pop in there to pick up some lads to play with.

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 3:31 pm

Yeah, what HarvestMoon said...I think I only seeded my catcher in 2 or 3 and I get about 15 - 30 emails a day now. The trickle of scams always starts slow but soon turns into a river. I bet you'll be getting well over 100 a day in a few weeks with that many guestbooks.

Have fun, and just pick the ones you think will be the best. You can just ignore the others or post a few in surplus if you get bored. I just tend to ignore the ones I don't have time for.

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 3:46 pm

Yes, all of the emails have appeared in the Spam folder. So I am definitely keeping an eye on it. I figured I might get swamped later down the road. However, I wanted to make an early start and figured it would be possible if I "advertised" in a few places.

I was quite aware of the Surplus forum, I simply wanted the scammers to contact me, not me initiate the conversation with them.

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 10:56 pm

Ya, I feel if they swing first, then its ALL on them, and its game on...

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 11:45 pm

But if you respond to any letter in Surplus, it is the same thing: they have initiated the contact, not you.

OK, so they initiated with someone else, but they won't know that.

So you can respond in exactly the same way as if they landed in your own Spam folder.

Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 5:36 am

So I actually tend to ignore the ones that wind up in the spam folder of my catcher account (unless they are particularly egregious) because I feel like a victim will be less likely to notice a scam that arrives in their spam folder, and more likely to trust one that lands in their inbox.

Of course, the counterpoint is that pulling them from the spam box delays the time it will take a scammer to realize that their address isn't in the hands of potential victims any more.

Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 6:58 am

^^ different email services use their own spam filters.
just because your service flags a message as spam does not mean the same is true of another service

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 3:52 am

^^^^^^

*feels stupid*

I should have known that...

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 7:04 am

^^ nah, feel like you learned something interesting - it's a nicer feeling Wink

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 2:30 pm

@Carlisle

The only "stupid" thing I ever witness is when someone doesn't has a question and doesn't feel as though they can ask it. Wink

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