Fake addresses and ITPs

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Master Baiter Joined: 07 Oct 2008 Posts: 200 Location: UK

I've managed to avoid giving my scammers my "address" to date. But I am getting to the point where I need to come up with something. Clearly I am going to make up an address which is non existent. However, if that was me (and I have done this before), I would google earth it to see if it exists, what it is like etc.

How adept are the lads at google earthing? On the one hand I don't want to give an address that is close enough to a real address, on the other hand, I want it to be real enough to get picked up if they decide to check. Or are they just too stupid/lazy/arrogant?

Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 11:53 am

If you have a road which goes upto #35, you live at #37 or #39... damn hard to disprove from halfway around the world Wink

Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:21 pm

In the very unlikely event that a scammer calls you out for a fake address, there are numerous ways you can get around it. The main one is some variation on "I live in a new building/new street/new neighborhood" etc. Of course it will take some time for online resources to be updated with new information, and how dare the lad insult you by talking nonsense about your neighborhood.

Most of the time a fake address will be perfectly fine and draw no complaints from lads. (exceptions include cases where a lad is sending something to you - in which it may be useful to become a Premium member with access to a drop-box, rather than making up a fake address).

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Jan 2010 Posts: 329

For the past few years, I've used entirely fake addresses on several of Jupiter's moons. I've never had a problem.

I've often toyed with the idea of giving him the address of another mugu in the same city as him. It occured to me that this could lead to some lad-on-lad punch-ups when the payment isn't forthcoming. Do we have any ethics ruling on stuff like this?

Master Baiter Joined: 23 Apr 2010 Posts: 160

^^ Yes, I believe the rule is to have webcams present so we can have a laugh about it?

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Jan 2010 Posts: 329

It is funny enough to get a lad to waste his trip to the airport, but lads are known to kidnap and murder their victims. Not sure if getting them to meet up is such a good move after all.

Master Baiter Joined: 23 Apr 2010 Posts: 160

^^ yeah, but 2 lads having a go at eachother..? I know about ITP's, but these are GFP (Guilty First Parties)...

Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:23 pm

Getting Lads to meet up is not, in my opinion, an ethical issue. They are responsible for their own actions and reactions.

It would be need to be aimed for/achieved in a public place, however - not by sending them to each other's houses. Lads are extremely unlikely to give their true addresses. An address might be totally invented, or, if they are expecting you to send a phone or a laptop there, might be the address of an internet café, or the address of their uncle, or the address of their sister, or girlfriend. Even if the owner of the internet café, the uncle, the sister, the girlfriend are aware that the Lad is scamming, they are still innocent third parties, and we don't want to send other Lads, unknown criminals, to their homes or businesses.

Re. fake addresses: I choose a real town, and look at the street map for names of roads. And then change it slightly, eg instead of Main Street, my character lives at Main View; instead of at Park Lane, they live at Park Grove. And then I add a typing-error postcode/zip code. And then I test it in Google. I'm looking for it to bring up lots of results, none of which are identical of course, but which give the impression that 'my' address might be there amongst them on page 4 or page 6 or page 25. I have tested it in Maps too, but an arrow pointing vaguely to the town or region is good enough for me.

One Lad has told my character that he looked her address up on Google Maps, and he thought it must be lovely to live so close to the Lake. She agreed. I've no idea what he was looking at; I never imagined her close to a lake. But he was happy with what he thought he found. He's the only one who has ever commented on addresses though.

Master Baiter Joined: 23 Apr 2010 Posts: 160

^

For my first bait I actually invented a country name (a province that supposedly separated recently) where I picked an existing town name, but a street name from a different town, combined with another streetname, everything was totally fabricated and never existed in real life. My lad didn't ask questions nor commented on any of it.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 09 Jun 2010 Posts: 53

Well I know that I've invented a whole network of soldiers currently serving overseas in the army of a fictional country, so I just give them the address for Baghdad international airport.

Otherwise usually I look for public monuments, e.g. my current dude lives in Scotland, so I gave him the address of a castle/museum. Does that count as an ITP?

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Jan 2010 Posts: 329

^^As of a few years ago, it didn't -the scambaiting tips on this website mentions using the address of some public buildings. Unless you are expecting the lad to send you something, it's unlikely the museum is likely to encounter anything from the lads.

Perhaps I will get my next two to meet up somewhere. I'll contact each one as the maga and arrange to meet in a club or bar somewhere in Lagos. Then I'll just forward each one's description to the other and tell them to meet at the same time. If both are looking for the maga, there's not much chance of a kidnapping, but they should both get pretty pissed off.

Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 2:49 pm

I always bait from the bucolic community of Upper Mendac1ty, which is either located in the UK, or in Vermont, depending on my mood. My residence is 222-B Prevar1cation Lane.

No mugu has EVER questioned me about it.

Bruin

Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 2:51 pm

Current best practice is to not use the address of a museum, etc. The museum would still have to handle mail they receive, which is unfair when they waste time trying to work out what to do with fake cheques, etc.

Use a totally duff address, the post office (depending on your country) will probably just destroy undeliverable mail (they do in the UK, no more opening it and trying to find the sender - uneconomical - official policy is to destroy it).

419Eater is my life Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 366

@@@Cathy2008

There is another approach. Canada has rural routes that can cover several hundred square miles. These can almost be made up at will. Rural route numbers start at 1 and rarily ever are more than 2 or 3 actual rural routes to a town.

ie

John Smith
RR #4
Jane Lake, NL
Canada

p.

Wannabe Baiter Joined: 06 Feb 2005 Posts: 80

Coming from Ireland, I use

4.1.9. w.a.n.k.o.f.f. a.v.e.n.u.e.
b.a.l.l.y.t.i.t.s
i.r.e.l.a.n.d

I use various name, including v.i.l.e. s.m.e.g.m.a (luckily they never look it up) Twisted Evil

also

m.y. d.i.c.k. s.m.e.l.l.s (and one of them sent back a photo of himself holding a sign with my "name" on it:
http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=153049
)

and, being Irish I sometime sign myself p.a.d.d.y. o'.w.h.a.c.k.e.r.y Razz

no complaints from the lads yet Laughing

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 10:17 pm

Cathy look for a dead/abandoned town somewhere close to you, if you're in Canada there are plenty of them. My favorite M4l3b, it is on every road map, look it up it's thee, it has its own postal code and anything you can imagine you might need for a bait Wink

Of course you live a bit out of town on a dirt road so even if.... they'll never find out what or where.
Or:
And then since when did we blow the act on privacy up? I'm not telling you where until you're going to mail me something or want to visit. I have to trust you and you don't trust me! What should I think about that? You better apologize and send me something nice if you ever get my home address.
and come back with:
What is your address, your mothers name and your social security number?
See that makes you think twice too.
Lets finish this business and forget about nit picking on small details that are just confusunary for the deal. Laughing