Debate about sending silly scripts

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Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 3:17 am

Let's lock 'er down folks! It probably should've been done two hours ago from the sounds of it. It would've saved us all a lot of trouble.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

No need to lock it. It will drop off the page and fall back once folks are finished saying things.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 3:27 am

^^^^Thanks for not locking it. I may still have some BS to spout a little later. Very Happy

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 9:28 am

Bait It Up wrote:

Personally, I don't see a problem with EITHER (assuming the ID is ridiculous), but it seems to be a double standard.

The problem is this:

You've got to put yourselves in the shoes of a victim not a baiter when looking at this subject and we can't classify scripts and IDs in the same category. As baiters, we use them for one purpose but to a lad or a vic, they're two totally different things.

A script is used to hook.
An ID is used to reinforce.

Because of that, their impacts and usages are different.

Here's my experience with the many victims I've dealt with who have received both:
A format tends to get read and dissected by a victim - it does it's job time and time again as the victim revisits it to read it.
An ID tends to get quickly scanned and then discarded - the victim gives it a quick glance and then passes on - it's done it's job.
A format is for easing the victim into the scam.
An ID is for *bang* quick use and vic is happy.

Because of this, an ID sent by a baiter has to be right out there, otherwise a vic is just going to miss it's purpose. And if it's right out there, then the chances are that the lad is going to spot it's a dud too. Hiding crap in the small print of the ID to make it pass the lad's inspection is not a good idea either - the thing with IDs is that vics tend to look at the heading on it, look at the photo and ignore the small print. What may stand out as glaringly obvious to you may not be so glaringly obvious to someone else who receives it.
There have been quite a few times that I've been given an ID by a victim. Immediately, I've noticed that it's got glaring inconsistencies and gone back to the vic to point them out only to be told that they never really looked at it deeply enough to notice. But I'm used to looking for those inconsistencies - a vic isn't.

With a script, there's a difference. Basically, the language barrier, the education of the lad and the cultural differences mean that more can slip past the lad than it would a victim. That's why we can sometimes get away with some of the ridiculous scripts that are sent.

But you've got to remember - if something can fool a lad, there is no reason whatsoever why it can't fool a victim.

Bait It Up wrote:

I look at it this way. The odds of a re-used ridiculous ID or Script fooling a victim are very slim, where as the odds of a ridiculous ID or Script tipping off a would be victim is much higher.

I can tell you that from my experiences on scamwarners.com, I have seen baiter IDs used on vics and that they have fallen for them.

dwatina wrote:

If it's an ID of Mr. Spock or Jed Clampett or even John Wayne (who's been dead for years). It would probably tip off a possible victim if they saw a passport with any of their pictures.

Again, if it can fool a lad it can fool a vic. Put yourself in the shoes of a victim living in Asia. Do you think that they've seen the Beverly Hillbillys or Star Trek? A helluva lot of the victims we deal with are non-Westerners. India, the Middle East and the Far East are coming online in a massive way (at least 20% of the victims I deal with are non-Western). The lads will even hit their own African compatriots and I've seen quite a few from Kenya, Ghana and South Africa fall to scams. That's a huge potential market that the lads have just begun to plug away at. What may be obvious to you as a Westerner is nowhere near as obvious to someone from over there.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 10:21 am

^^

We're not used to hear such wisdom from you SOOI Laughing

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 12:05 pm

I've got no problem with sending anything fake to a lad, but I always make sure that it can't possibly fool anyone else.

I think that's all we can do, honestly. What if some exceptionally bored scammer came up with a format based on WIMP? It's certainly possible ("send me $500 and I'll send you these 20 'live' MTCNs to be picked up in $CITY"), and there's probably some idiot out there who would believe it (lads do, why not others?). It's a matter of balancing how many lads will believe it with how likely he is to reuse it and how many victims will believe it.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 12:58 pm

It feels like I posted in response to this just yesterday so please forgive me if I dont sound quite so eloquent this time around.

I dare say that I have dealt with more victims than most of the people suggesting it is ok to send fake IDs, to give you a clue as to how many I have dealt with my location will give you a clue of some of them

<-------- somewhere there

As Slightly suggested, we do see many victims who have been fooled by fake IDs and I have never seen one fooled by a baiters script.

Perhaps some of the people here would like to respond to the next victim who is scammed by a baiter ID, I know I would certainly rather not but what I have chosen to do means that sometimes I do have do deal with them.

My effort and time are almost exclusively devoted to doing all I can in keeping as many people as I can from losing money to scammers and I would never suggest doing something I thought had a chance of making somebody a better scammer.

It may be argued that sending pictures to your lad is not a good idea either, I dont do it myself but each baiter is free to make that choice for themselves and so long as the pictures we send are one off and of unattractive people the chances of them being reused are not as great so I dont discourage that practice

I will however often send lads a doctored poem hoping they reuse it on victims which by definition is sending them scripts and which some people are suggesting is wrong and helpful to scammers, as mentioned above, a love victim will read a poem "written" to them over and over, they may even read it to their family and friends but a scammer would be unlikely to even skim through it. When the love vic reads the poem and realises that amonst other things the poem is addressed to both a male and female they should pick up that there is something wrong, if they dont, there are much better poems (from a scammer's point of view) to be found at one of the many sites they already know about and use.

It is simply not the same as sending a fake ID that (sorry to repeat Slightly again) will be skimmed over and not looked at again by a potential victim.

In my last post I posted proof that fake IDs do scam victims, if somebody can show me proof that a baiter's script is helping a scammer I would certainly be voicing my opinion on that as well but so far I have not seen it, nor seen evidence of it.

Discussion on these topics is a good thing, new members need to see why Eater has made some of the decisions we make, the experience of those who do deal with the other side of scams can and do share their knowledge on the subject just as I have done and it allows people to make an informed decision on their own baiting modalities.

If there is anybody who prefers not to believe the advice of those who have spent time dealing directly with scam victims, you may prefer to take a visit to http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/index.php where you can see for yourself.

I can even send you some of the emails I have had to deal with if you would like to PM an email address to me, baiting is fun, fish on heads and "Cockmaster" tattoos are a huge laugh, stunt lads who jump through hoops of fire and carve a keyboard are hilarious, just remember, there is another side to what many of us do, please take a moment to think of things from their perspective.

Edited to point to the right place

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 1:06 pm

I am neither a veteran, an old guard nor a mod.

The Eater forum is exactly that - a forum, where like minded people discuss strategy and ways to get back at the scum that scam and cause misery for ordinary people worldwide.

My work at various antiscam/warning/victim support sites does colour my thinking, however.

I therefore request/advise that baiters do consider victims/potential victims, who may very well be someone near and dear or not at all net/worldly-wise, when providing anything that helps a scammer scam more effectively.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 1:13 pm

Quote:

I am neither a veteran, an old guard nor a mod.

No, but you have dealt with a lot of victims also, you have seen the other side and made your choices based on your experience with dealing with victims of scams.

For those who do not have that experience, learn from those who have, its much easier.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 2:23 pm

I think the tension in this thread comes from some misconceptions about what our guidelines are all about. I stand by what I wrote here, but I'll add this:

Like any community, questions of conduct come up and often get discussed at length. The discussion we are having right now has come up a lot and has been debated thoroughly over the years. Most likely, it was the outcome of one of those debates that compelled Eater to place something in the guidelines to serve as a "quick start" guide for newer members who are interested in what the prevailing wisdom of the board is.

For most of the guidelines we have, I'm sure it's possible to come up with a scenario that doesn't fit well. If you are considering doing something that may contradict a guideline as-written, you can use your common sense to decide if your plan fits within the intent of the guideline. If you are having trouble making that determination, or if you don't understand the guideline and why we went to the trouble of making it available, we encourage you to post for additional input. You can then read all of the responses and decide what to do based on that. If you decide to go against the grain, you can probably expect some measure of disapproval from others here. That's only natural, and certainly not peculiar to Eater.

Let say you joined a Honda repair forum because you want to replace your 99 Civic's water pump with one you harvested off of a Range Rover you found in a junk yard. You post for advice, presumably because you want input and you don't know with absolute certainty that what you want to do is a good idea. People will probably give you lots of reasons not to do it. You may respond by saying the fittings are all the same and the Range Rover's water pump is much more sparkly so you think it will do a better job. Then people get irritated because it doesn't seem like you are paying attention to their solid reasoning that comes from good experience. But who cares about those pompous know-it-alls, so you go and do it anyway and one better, it works perfectly. Should that forum change their guideline recommending people use replacement parts that are certain to be compatible with their cars? Should the people who disagreed with you apologize because it turns out you are way smarter than them? Should the people who advised you against doing what you did answer the next person who comes along differently? Should you be offended when no one rewards your gloating follow-up post with little clappy hand emoticons? Maybe. But either way, the discussion could have been more constructive if you posted your questions and responses with an indication that you respect the opinions of the people you have approached for input and are willing to consider the comments you asked for.

I'm not necessarily saying that is what happened here, but you get the idea.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 2:44 pm

So you're saying this water pump:

Will fit in on a flange made to fit this one?

You're mad!

Some of these 'debates' soon denegenerate into flame wars and name calling though, without wanting to get all jackbooty I wish you'd all pack it in. There are pages of this stuff in the archives. Go read it (but don't necro it). We dont want to lock it and move on, but we do get weary of it all.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 3:00 pm

Clearly more sparkly.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 3:05 pm

Of course it will. You just need the adapter.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 3:37 pm

I hate engaging in these debates, so first and only time I post in either of these two debate threads. And I only have two things to say.

Who the hell is Lou Costello?

and I just put this pic

in front of my wife and asked who it was.

Her answer, "no flucking clue".
If your unsure why I'm mentioning these two things, please read the older posts in this thread. Then read the post from slightly. It explains everything very well.

Simply put, your culture is not my culture, the things you easily recognize, I don't so easily recognize, yes I hit google and now know who Lou Costello is, but doesnt mean every victim would do that.

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 3:40 pm

@ Luckey.

Quote:

Clearly more sparkly

Surely a conjecture is merely a proposition that is unproven but appears correct and has not been disproven.

Less jackbootiness and more diplo in future from you if you don't mind.

Wink

Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 10:52 pm

I must say that I have rethought my position on the ridiculous IDs and stuff after reading what the more experienced baiters have written and shown.

Thank you for the lesson. I appreciate it.

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