Have the mugos become organized or lazy?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 11 Jun 2009 Posts: 1

Hi.
I really not enjoy forums that much so I just registered in hope to get some smart answers from you guys. Would really appreciate it.

I used to bait a few years back (inspired by this site). I did not really have any problems in my baits. They weren’t brilliant in any ways, and I didn’t get any trophies. (Awful for publishing in other words). But I enjoyed doing it.

A mounth ago I thought I should give it a go again. And I must have had like 50 total failures since. I just can’t get them of script. No matter what... They don’t even take time to answer questions related to their own script…

“Before” it was (more or less) just to dangle easy money, and they went for that instead of their original scam. Now I can basically say: “No I don’t care about your dead clients deposited money. But I do wanna donate a million USD to your church. Where do you want me to wire it?”. Still, they just keep sending a document to forward to the bank… Zzzz…

This got me thinking. Have they changed their tactics, you think?

I kind of have this idea that before, every scammer was more on there own. If they saw a new opportunity to scam, that was different from their original, they just went for that instead. As long as it seemed promising. There was no boss to tell them otherwise.

Now I picture that the internet-cafés are filled with 13-years-old boys.
After, let’s say, five standard letters and five reply’s from the potential victim. They sell the “prospect” to there Oga. If the potential victim have acted serious, showed an ID and a valid address and a phone-number. They get paid 10 cent or something.

But a baiter can’t tempt these 13-year old boys to go of script by dangle big cash, because these boys wouldn’t be able to carry out the scam by them self anyway. They are just after the 10 cent that they might get from their Oga.

The Oga, on his hand, do more control of the potential victim. If the victim is willing to send a very small fee, or call them or something else that involves spending money. Then this Oga sell the prospect further up in the hierarchy. And so on. And so on.

Do you think this can be a new tactic? Or do you think they still work the same way, but just have become more carful?

Maybe I have just become an awful baiter, or have had bad luck and just picked up the laziest of the lads. That is of course, also a possibility…

Anyway. My questions are.

Do you think it make any sense at all that they have changed their way of organizing their scams? Do you think the way I picture it might be correct? Any good advice to get them of script?

Thanks, and keep up the good work you all do!

Hellish Taskmaster Joined: 31 Dec 2008 Posts: 537

Keep on sending fake payment slips until they get very angry.

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:22 am

Some are highly organized and very smart, some are loners and some are just dumb. Just keep plugging away until you find a moron.

However, your guess about leads sounds very plausible.

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 7:37 am

This isn't a smart answer. In fact it's a mostly unknowledgeable answer, based on guesswork.

But I guess that if a Lad has a nice little Lad Kit of script letters and documents, suitable email addresses, and a plan, he isn't going to want to give that up to venture into territory he knows nothing about, and has no support-images and support-characters to accompany. Laziness? Maybe. Or possibly a lack of imagination, or a disbelief of the alternative offer he is receiving.

If, to date, he has only successfully parted real victims from small amounts of money with a great deal of persuasion, and has some idea of the value of dollars in the USA, he might just think that this offer is someone messing around with him.

He might actually, rather than being a 13 year old boy, be a 33 year old man, with a few years' experience by now, and his experience has taught him the same thing that we know: 'If something sounds too good to be true: it probably isn't true.'

Pung, I share with you a love of getting a Lad far away from their original script. But I've only managed to do it quickly with one experimental character, who also lost maybe 15 or 20 other Lads within two mails in the attempt. I don't bother with that tactic now, but instead go along with their script for as long as they want, while, at the same time, dropping into my mails very small hints that I could be lured into a different (and more profitable) direction.

For example, if I wanted to turn a Next-of-Kin into the receipient of a church donation, like you mentioned, my first mails would still just be about the Next-of-Kin proposal. Once they had answered all my questions about it, and I was trusting it was true and legal, then I'd mention how wonderful it would be to be able to have more money to give away to churches. Just that. But a couple of letters later, I'd apologise for my late reply, and explain that I'd been attending to a donation to a church in, say, India, and add a couple of lines about our fund-raising organisation. A couple of mails later, I'd find an excuse to mention a little bit more about it. While still talking mainly about the Next-of-Kin stuff.

If, by now, the Lad seemed particularly lazy, or rather stupid, or not really very trusting of me, I'd just drop it all again, and carry on Next-of-Kin baiting. But if he wrote fairly decent emails, answered questions well, gave evidence of having more than one brain cell, then I'd find myself having more and more problems with this Next-of-Kin situation (a friend told me it was illegal; I was worried about explaining to the tax office where the money came from; I'd had a new religious conviction and wanted to take a Vow of Poverty) while getting more and more enthusiastic about my church donating, especially as a rich widow in the village had just left a couple of million in her will to be donated to a small struggling church in Africa (if that is where the Lad is), and, by the way, did he know of any small church I could donate to? Maybe one that didn't have its own special building?

But I would let him make the suggestion that he could receive the donation. Lads like to feel they are in control.

Would it work? I wouldn't expect a high success rate. I would expect, most of the time, to continue with the original scam modality. Personally, it is only one Lad in twenty that I have turned to my script from his. And, in all but one case, the original scam has still simmered away in the background, and he tries, albeit gently, to steer me back to that as well.

419Eater is my life Joined: 08 Aug 2008 Posts: 475

hi, i myself am engaged with baiting since ~half a year, so this is not a answer from an experienced one, but I am talking about own experience, mixed with observations and intuition.
and the point you mention with the script-kiddies, working for cheap for oga in background, sounds applying to me.

sure, there is not one single scheme which could describe our clientel, and the palette will reach from the lonesome small yahoo boi in hot cafe on a dusty road in nowhereland to a smart bisnismen residing in a capital-city in western world,

but this your theory (?) sound logical to me.
the question is, anyway, how big is the market-share of scams, carried out in division of labor, compared with the freelancers, compared with ... other forms of loosely organised and non-organised scammers. compared their absolut number mails to the inboxes of the world with the sum of earnings out of it.

and, sure again, we have to adapt our strategies from time to time to new circumstances and technologies. just like in RL.
---
^^@branwen - I guess, your method would not be called speed-baiting ?

Quote:

Just that. But a couple of letters later, I'd apologise for my late reply, and explain ...

-edit typo

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 8:50 am

Slow-motion baiting.

So slow it never seems to get anywhere the Lad wants it to go.

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:40 am

sir scam alot wrote:

Just keep plugging away until you find a moron.

I'm hoping mine is a moron, however, on another forum I post on there are many - I may have to post something in GC. They'd give some of the lads a run for their money in dumbness.

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:35 pm

Baiting is part art form, part psychology.

You could offer a Lad a real job with a salary of £100,000 and he'd probably turn it down, because it's not what he's expecting in the same way that if you try to fish for a shark using a can of tuna. You have to fish (bait) with something that a Lad understands and will interpret as being of value to him.

I've had failures with standard baits that have succeeded when I've come up with outrageous propositions. Lads are reassured if you are elderly, stupid, greedy, unsophisticated or appear to need help. In other words show some vulnerability.

It's not enough to say 'I am.........'. Slowly draw the picture of your character and introduce him to your bait gradually. Make him your friend. You use the same tactics that he uses to trap victims, but you use them to confound and frustrate him.

It isn't always easy, and takes some skill, but that's the fun of the challenge.