Sometimes they DO read!

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Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

I got the usual crap:

Quote:

From:The Manager, International Commercial Bank (ICB).Eastern Region Branch. Dear Friend, I got your contact during my search for a reliable,trust worthy and honest person to introduce this transfer project with.

My name is Mr, Jeffrey Mains. I am the manager of International Commercial Bank Eastern Region Branch, Ghana.I am a Ghanaian married with two kids. blah blah blah (I guess they think mentioning their spawn makes them sound more trustworthy.)

So just for fun, I replied:

Quote:

I would absolutely love to help with this but I'm unreliable untrustworthy and dishonest.

Surprisingly, I then got this:

Quote:

Thank you for your message but why did you have to disclose to me that you are unreliable untrustworthy and dishonest? i did not mean what i said in my proposal

In spite of this he's still willing to transfer money to my account ("Something told me in my mind that you are the right person that can actualize this transaction with me,") but he does sound so disappointed I feel quite bad even though he admits his proposal is BS. Apparently he doesn't mind how dishonest someone is, he just doesn't want to know about it.

Poor Jeffrey.

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:21 pm

Good/Bad to see that one of my favourite/detested myths is still as strong as ever!
That is, "Lads don't read your replies."
No! Back in... whenever it was, several years now... I counted how many replies I got and how many noticed what I had written. The results (can't recall exact number) were that, on the whole, a lad will read your reply.
But to state that "Lads never read your replies"? No. The closest you can get to such a statement is "Some will, some won't." Any more is just guessing and confirmation bias.

See, if I were a mod, I'd make a sticky thread going over this in intricate detail, with bar charts and numbers and everything.
Probably a good thing I'm not a moderator...

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:27 pm

^^^
Have to agree, they do read but they rather stick to they script.
If you write something like that you're dishonest, and they stick to the script as well - it's greed what fuels them. Simply, they just want to try theirs 'luck' anyways.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

Well, maybe they just don't read MY replies. One of many examples:

I got "You're a winner" lottery email, and I replied in very large and bold letters:

Quote:

I already won 80 million United State dollar this week so give my prize to the many orphans of the murdered cocoa magnets.

Remain bless!

What I got back:

Quote:

DEAR WINNER,

I GOT YOUR EMAIL YOU SENT TO ME I WANT TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR MAIL ISONE OF THE 8 EMAILS IN INTERNET THAT WON THE AUSTRALIAN LOTTERYPROMOTION. SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATIONS FOR THE TRANSFER.

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:53 pm

I think the correct assumption should be they do not read your long script if you send it right off the bat. If you send short replies I think you get a much better read rate. Just like sending out ASEM if you keep it short and simple you get a lot more replies then a 4 paragraph email.

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:02 pm

ScammedOut wrote:

I got "You're a winner" lottery email, and I replied in very large and bold letters ...

There was nothing in your reply for him to respond to.

Remember, he's only after one thing: Your money.

If there's even the smallest chance that you'll end up handing some of it over to him, he's going to chance his luck, as Mortal pointed out.

And, to be honest, if I were a scammer, I wouldn't have the first idea what to write in reply to your response---and I've got a good imagination and not the slightest fear of writing long emails! Your character has lots of money according to your response, so why shouldn't I (in the place of a hypothetical scammer) just send the next bit of the script and wait for payday? There really wasn't anything he needed to address, it's that simple why he didn't go offscript.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

When I sent the first reply, about being untrustworthy, I was not expecting an answer at all! I just meant it as a sort of "Piss off scammer."

So I wrote back to Jeffr3y, apologizing (sort of)

Quote:

Dear Jeffrey

I'm sorry you're disappointed but I thought it best to be honest about my dishonesty and unreliablity. If you still want to do a transaction I'm willing but can give no guarantees. I think 30% for me is very unfair considering the risk I"m taking in all this. If you'll try and be more fair with the split I will try harder to be more trustworthy.

You may think this is 100% risky free for me but I assure you it is not since such a large sum entering my account will draw unwanted attention. Thus, I feel 60% for me and 40% for you is much more fair.
Please give your feelings on this.

Even that did not deter him, although he did want to argue about how we'll split the imaginary money, which is something I'll never understand.

Quote:

Thank you very much for your understand and interest in this transaction but as it stand now for both us to have agreed on the percentage of the fund and as the brain behind this transaction (O RLY?) i will advice that the fund should be shared 50/50 to avoid distrust in this transaction

Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:16 am

I would be tempted to reply back 51/49 take it or leave it!

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2003 Posts: 4747

They don’t like reading, and if they have to think about their replies it will drive them nuts. I always demand that all my questions be answered, no mater how stupid they are.

Questions like what is the official language of Africa?

Or if they claim to be from the UK, I say I understand London can have really thick frogs. What kind are they? Why are they thick?

These types of questions drive them nuts.

Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 7:25 am

In my experience it depends on the kind of lad who you're baiting. Senegal orphan lads are the worst for not reading mails IMHO. Some of you might have seen my experiment here: [url]http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=196904 [/url] where I not only explicitly told them I was a 3249 year old dragon but I even sent them a couple of pictures.

As an experiment I picked 10 Senegal orphan lads and 10 Nigeria based lotto / dying widow lads. 9 of the Senegal lads replied with the next part of their script whilst only 3 of the others did.

Hardly scientific but interesting.