I think someone was trying to scam me....

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Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 May 2011 Posts: 21

Of course they would never get one penny out of me, but just the THOUGHT that they thought they would, irks me to the extreme.

So I struck up a conversation with a random person on Twitter (don't ask), and come to find out he's Nigerian. Okay, no big deal, people are people. We're chatting on Yahoo messenger and not five minutes into the conversation he asks me about past relationships and "Would you do anything for love?" Confused

I found that an odd question to ask someone you just started talking to! Then he says he wants to talk on the phone. Of course I'm not paying a dollar a minute to talk to some stranger I met on the internet! I told him, "it's expensive to call Nigeria" and he started going on about how things are hard there, and "you should have no reservations for love!" LOL. I replied, "we just started talking." He cut out pretty soon after that--probably figured out I wasn't worth the time. Rolling Eyes

edited to add-I would bait him (goodness knows I've had NO luck with baiting in emails), but unfortunately my real name is on my Twitter account. Sad

Ohh well.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

Those starry-eyed lads certainly do fall in love easily.

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 6:22 pm

Quote:

goodness knows I've had NO luck with baiting in emails

This would be a good topic to discuss with your mentor. If you don't have a mentor, I would encourage you to sign up for one. Perhaps there is something in your approach that can be modified so you have more success. Maybe you are asking the lad for too much, too soon?

Or, perhaps it is just a question of volume. A significant number of lads will disappear in the early stages of a bait. There are lots of possible reasons this might happen. When I'm trying to start a new bait, I will reply to 10 or more scam emails and see how they develop. Usually a few of my replies bounce immediately because someone got the lads email shut down. A couple of others never reply. A couple of more will probably be slow responders so I drop them. But usually, out of the initial 10 or so, I will get 2 or 3 that will play along for at least a month or two.

The really successful baits that you see reported here at eater are very much the exception, not the rule, and these are almost always developed with considerable time and patience.

Perhaps, Yoruba, if you can describe what you have tried in your baiting attempts, we can offer some advice.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 May 2011 Posts: 21

Raga Man wrote:

Quote:

goodness knows I've had NO luck with baiting in emails

This would be a good topic to discuss with your mentor. If you don't have a mentor, I would encourage you to sign up for one. Perhaps there is something in your approach that can be modified so you have more success. Maybe you are asking the lad for too much, too soon?

Or, perhaps it is just a question of volume. A significant number of lads will disappear in the early stages of a bait. There are lots of possible reasons this might happen. When I'm trying to start a new bait, I will reply to 10 or more scam emails and see how they develop. Usually a few of my replies bounce immediately because someone got the lads email shut down. A couple of others never reply. A couple of more will probably be slow responders so I drop them. But usually, out of the initial 10 or so, I will get 2 or 3 that will play along for at least a month or two.

The really successful baits that you see reported here at eater are very much the exception, not the rule, and these are almost always developed with considerable time and patience.

Perhaps, Yoruba, if you can describe what you have tried in your baiting attempts, we can offer some advice.

In my case, I've never gotten a single reply back from any of them. I was thinking it was my Hushmail account that put them off, but several people on here said they haven't caught on it (I personally find it hard to believe that they never research forums like this one, but okay.) I am not going to use my real email address in the highly unlikely event that they could track me down-it just isn't a risk worth taking for me.

I always say basically the same thing every time- "I'm interested in your proposal, please tell me more." I'd say I've done this about 10 times; one or two bounced back, but the rest went through and I never heard from them. I do have a mentor, and he basically said "keep trying"-so that's what I'm doing.. but if anyone has any other suggestions, I would love to hear them. I dream of one day posting an epic bait on here, and maybe even joining the Todger club... Cool

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:11 am

^^^ You're doing all the right things, so I think you can write it down to bad luck. You mentor is absolutely right - just keep it up, and you'll soon be overwhelmed by responses. You can also set up a catcher account if you want more targets to fire at. Wink

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 11:49 am

I agree with TheDane. 10 emails is not that many. It is a little surprising that you haven't received any replies though. Where are you getting your scam emails from? Emails in the Surplus forum here at eater can be a bit stale sometimes.

If you set up a catcher account as TD suggested you can respond to some scam emails a few hours after they arrive. I think a little fresh meat might do you a world of good. Very Happy

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