GhScamfighters.com?

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Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:06 pm

Every time I read of these wonderful sites that promise to be able to retrieve money I also notice 2 other things.

The site charges fees and there is never any proof of being able to retrieve anybody's money.

As a person who volunteers for a victim support site that does not charge any fees, I am quite disgusted at claims such as these that I have never seen proven.

I am only too happy to find information about others who are fighting internet crime, I find it quite disgusting however when I find that the true intention is to get even more of a victim's money through false pretenses.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 11:44 am

Hello, I'm Dana, Moderator and Mentor of Scambaiter-Deutschland (Germany). I'm involved in scambaiting for over 2 years. Some of you know me. First please excuse my weird english but it isn't my first language.

I know the admin of ghscamfighters.com for more than one year. And I can say with good conscience that he is not a scammer. He often helped me when I had questions about Ghana and ghanain scammer. He is not a scambaiter like we are but he is a scamfighter, means that he is aware of all the scam-mess that is going on in his country and he wants do to something against it.

You can imagine how difficult it is to throw stones while sitting in a glashouse. Not many people are involved in this fight. The admin lives in Ghana and his friend from Minnesota supports him. It is a two man show. The maker of this side doesn't earn much money out of this. He does researches and trys his best to find out informations. And he ask for donations. But even if he can help with informations then just a few people are willing to pay a little amount.

You can't compare life in Ghana with life in Europe. He set up this website and works on the reported scams at his tight leisure beside of his regular work. He trys to do his best but researches cost much time and of course he has to pay for phone calls and to get informations from third party. In Ghana you can't get any informations from people without "chicken change" means that the people want a favour from him for giving out the information (even the police).

I have got access to the website ghscamfighters.com. Means that I can edit and revise the website. I know that his website is not optimal and the possibilities are a little bit oversized posed but I'm sure it makes things not better or the site won't look more serious if I rework it in my bad english.

If you google for ghscamfighters.com then you come to this thread here on 419eater. The admin is tired to be called a scammer and he want to shut down his site and forget all about it. I try to stop him because this would be very sad because I know that he is a faithful young man with good intentions and who has a dream. You can't expect european or american professionalism from him. He just wanna do his part to make things a little bit better and that is not easy in the enviroment of Accra.

If we really want to stem 419scam from ghana then we need more people like him.

Thanks for listening.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:03 pm

Hi Dana.
I don't know what you expect us to do about it. It's not like we are 'name calling'. We appreciate the guys point of view and we are not out to get sites closed down or harass the innocent. This is just a healthy discussion and everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don't think there is anything slanderous written here or the moderator would have closed the post.
I printed your friends name and address as they were freely available on the Internet. He should know a bit more about protecting his own security before trying to advise other people.
All we are doing is preventing people from being scammed and giving scammers a hard time.
You just have to get the word around and link to other sites like this who will recommend your friend to people.
The onus is on your friend to be completely transparent as far as letting people know exactly what he does for them and what his success rate is.
I like how you differentiate between scambaiting and scam fighting.
It makes your friend sound like a bit of a super-hero.
Maybe he should wear a costume. Anyway, kidding aside, I for one have no bad opinion of your friend. But I cannot guarantee to anyone that he is 'not' a scammer. I tell everyone to be wary of people who say they can retrieve stolen monies from criminals. The only people who would be able to do that are law enforcement or people pretty close to the criminal fraternity. And it the latter that worries me.
Also just because you know someone well does not mean they are not up to something. It's not likely they are going to tell you are they. Some women are married to serial murderers for years without them knowing.
Your friend chose to fight on the front lines of a loosing battle. I'm sure his intentions are good, but nobody asked him do it, did they.
I think you need to communicate with other sites a bit more to get the word around about what you are doing, make some more friends in the community.
By the way, if you need help with the website, I'm a senior systems Administrator of over 20 years, would be happy to help with the English, for free.
Good luck

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:32 pm

wowwow wrote:

I like how you differentiate between scambaiting and scam fighting.

I can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with Dana here, but there is quite a difference. Scamwarners, for instance.

Dana_w wrote:

he wants do to something against it.

Good, and we're certainly not trying to get in the way of that.

I've got nothing against asking for donations, even. It takes money to run a site - $10 per year for a domain registration, plus $n for hosting, etc. We ask for donations here, too, and somewhat more aggressively than they do; I have never had the impression that Shiver/Rover/Lotta are scammers. I also do not feel that your friend is a scammer.

Sub-optimal English does not make someone a scammer, either. English is the official language of Ghana, but I understand there may be other languages/dialects spoken there and to judge someone based on their ability at speaking a certain dialect of an already horribly broken language is wrong.

My only problem with the site is its optimism toward recovering the money and arresting the scammer. They don't use their real names, pictures, or addresses. Not having any information pointing to a real person, I don't see how you can "track, verify someone's identity, do background checks and if we have enough evidence, [...] present your case to authorities for arrest of your scammer." Given a picture of the real scammer, you may be able to track them down Dusty the Cat style, but I don't see this being extremely plausible either.

Please, tell your friend to reconsider closing his site. Scam fighting is an honorable goal. I just think there are some places where he could be a bit more realistic and honest with his visitors.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:46 pm

I find it very courageous of him to even start scamfighting with what he has.
Seems he/they have a support system policy that we come across very often so it is natural that initial suspicions come up ("research for money"), because of the term "recovery scam".
This is still an ongoing and not really negative discussion for him and I´m glad for anyone helping to shed more light on this effort.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 1:05 pm

I am only too happy, thankful in fact that Ghana has a person who feels strongly enough about this cause to set up a site and spend his time to try to prevent people from being scammed.

I volunteer my time and use my own resources, even spend my own money to help people, while I do it without a thought of getting anything in return, I understand that others may not be in a position where they can afford to do the same as I do.

I dont begrudge him taking donations, I may even be swayed in acepting that he charges a small fee, but to give people false hope about money recovery and arrrests, I do have a problem.

If what he claims is true, then that is great, he should be proud of himself, but i would like to know the figures and statistics on how many people he has retrieved money for
what is his success rate, how many arrests has he gotten, can he get scammers from countries other than Ghana arrested as well.

Onto the even more pressing questions, has he had his life threatened? what precautions does he take in order to ensure his own safety?

I would presume if he is out there getting money back and having scammers arrested from his own local community then things must get a little dangerous for him.

I really dont mean to sound negative and I agree any effort to help prevent scam victims and raise awareness is noble, I just get very skeptical when I see mention of getting money back or scammers arrested.

Perhaps you could get that clarified for us Wink

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 1:22 pm

@ wowwow: I will tell him to buy a costume, so that every scammer is able to identify him and shot him down. For sure you want to see a proof. But I can't proof that I'm not a scammer either. Are you able to proof that you are not a scammer because you bait them? I don't think so. I think this is not possible. In this case only a good sense and empirical knowledge helps. And for sure I know about recovery scam and how they act.

@ foo 123: Yes, the site is too optimism. He has to change the passage immediately.

He wasn't able to recover money for victims yet. Only the police there can arrest scammer and then maybe maybe maybe there could be a little chance to get back some of the money. But the police wont do anything to stop this. They use their resources for scams involving the governement. If you tell them that you has been scammed about $ 700, they won't mind you.

What he can do is report to the police and report again and again. And it is possible to retrival items sended by DHL or Fedex when it isn't delivered yet, then he can inform the police and go with them to the parcel office to intercept the item. And he can tell people if they deal with a scammer or not when he has the picture and a phone number. He says it is easy to find out when he calls them because of their behave, talk, phone manners etc. And he is a native Ghanain so that he can talk with them in another way then we can do. So it is possible to get more informations about them.

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Dec 2009 Posts: 316

For me the judging of this site seems way over the line. A fresh member, not seen here since then, started with hmmm, .. looks fishy to me, (nobody knows about how experienced and objective this person is to judge scamfighter websites) others jumped on the wagon, and you can read a lot of negative wordings like ..

Quote:

In fact I'm so sure this guy is actually a lad, I've come up with a new scammer species for him ....
The Psuedo Baiter (Nulbaiterus tohellicum): Lad who claims to be a baiter, or claims to be able to resolve a former scam, ... or
I'm still saying this doesn't seem legitimate. It just smells of a double sting to me. Get scammed then ask other scammers to help, get scammed again... and also ..
If this is a legit site, then apologies, but most aren't.

I could understand if the author of the pages is somehow pissed about.

I do believe in the argumention of Dana_w and Emefa, and I think we are not here for blackmailing.
And would see it as a friendly gesture, if such a bit insulting passages in the text would be editet, so that they don't show up on 3rd place, if one googles ghscamfighters. We all do mistakes, sometimes.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 1:47 pm

Quote:

For sure you want to see a proof. But I can't proof that I'm not a scammer either. Are you able to proof that you are not a scammer because you bait them? I don't think so

No .. but I'm not asking victims of scammers for money to try to get their money/goods back and claiming to be a hero fighting scam when all I'm doing is pointing out the obvious to people. By your post you seemed to affirm that this website of your friends was a money making venture, a business if you like.
You have said it yourself, he has been unsuccessful so far. And the Ghana police aren't going to take anything seriously unless you throw them a bung, and then they are going to wait around balancing it on the edge to get another bung, I can hear them on the phone now. 'oh we've got somewhere on your case' but we have to pay so and so'.
Which is basically just your friend being a mug to the Ghana police I'm sorry to say. You are aware that in a lot of third world countries that corruption within the police force is rife (as it is in quite a few first world countries). The fact that you view it as acceptable to pay people extra to do their job and investigate petty crime, is not acceptable to me.
Also, if you are going to troll this forum banging people for expressing their own opinion then you are going to get more of it I'm afraid. I know you are just sticking up for your friend but again, I don't know what you want us to do. Stop talking about him?, remove the post? Do a little 'We're sorry he's not a scammer he's a jolly good bloke' dance? I don't know.

Question

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 1:55 pm

partysan wrote:

In fact I'm so sure this guy is actually a lad, I've come up with a new scammer species for him ....
The Psuedo Baiter (Nulbaiterus tohellicum): Lad who claims to be a baiter, or claims to be able to resolve a former scam, ... or
I'm still saying this doesn't seem legitimate. It just smells of a double sting to me. Get scammed then ask other scammers to help, get scammed again... and also ..
If this is a legit site, then apologies, but most aren't.

Which is pretty much all of what I said having had a good look at the site, the format, his facebook pages and the crap advice given out to people on the website guestbook and the up front request for payment.
If I were to put a 'scam site' and this guys site side by side, I would challenge you to spot which one was the scam one, really.
I stand by what I said.
This forum is for people who bait scammers. If we find a scammer we bait them. I was bothered to check this guy out and express my opinion on here. I didn't tell anyone to 'go bait this guy'.
And the scammer species is part of another 'jokey' post that I do, if you haven't read it yet, check it out.

Quote:

And would see it as a friendly gesture, if such a bit insulting passages in the text would be editet, so that they don't show up on 3rd place, if one googles ghscamfighters. We all do mistakes, sometimes.

Oh by the way, if you are going to ask to 'censor' my posts, then why don't you ask a moderator to do it as I won't. You should also petition your political representative on the abolition of free speech or move to North Korea while you are at it.
Oh by the way, that was me being sarcastic in case something gets lost in translation.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 2:25 pm

Oh and in the interest of doing what I can to help 'fight' scam.
I've added this to my above post where I said I was convinced he was a lad, just in case someone happens to Google his domain.

Quote:

*You will find out later in this post that the consensus of opinion is that this guy is 'not' a lad. But just has a very badly worded and amateurish website (in my opinion). You will also learn that the guys success rate in resolving any fraud cases is not very high so people were of the opinion he should re-word his lofty claims to retrieve any monies from the criminals

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

Quote:

Oh by the way, if you are going to ask to 'censor' my posts, then why don't you ask a moderator to do it as I won't. You should also petition your political representative on the abolition of free speech or move to North Korea while you are at it.
Oh by the way, that was me being sarcastic in case something gets lost in translation.

Censored and locked.

If one actually bothers to read the US Constitution they may be surprised to find that freedom of speech doesn't apply to internet forums or North Korea.

If one actually bothers to read Eater's Guidelines, they may find that we don't really like multiple posts when edits will do, nor do we appreciate sarcasm when directed at other members - that just drifts into the world of personal attacks and flaming, which we do avoid here.

Other members of staff have spoken with the OP - concerns about some of the claims on the site have been addressed, but continuing to question the OP, his motives, and just tossing the word 'scammer' about after several others have opined to the contrary isn't productive.

If you wish, you may continue discussing in PM with each other and/or address your complaints with me.

Thank you. Carry on.