How to spot a scamming "ring" or sydicate?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 04 Apr 2013 Posts: 16

Hi,

I've noticed some mention of scamming rings, or whatever you call them, and I was wondering how common it was to get a syndicate or ring. Are they predominate in the world of scammers, or are independent scammers most common?

I have a lad that I've been playing with for all of today, and out of everything I've sent him (corrupted documents, desktop files turned into images, and one copy of Mclovin's photo ID. I didn't see the sticky until after, sorry about that.) He hasn't called me on anything. With this guy, I could probably send him an image of *DELETED* and he would thank me for my photo and compliment my haircut.

So I was wondering, perhaps this guy is just the lackey, and once he thinks I believe him he will transfer me to someone else.

How would I go about spotting these syndicates or rings as opposed to a lone or inexperienced scammers? Is there any way?

Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 3:31 am

You can help find scammer rings by reporting their bank accounts. If you get two bank accounts from one lad, they belong to the same ring. If another lad gives someone one of those accounts and a third, the two lads and the three bank accounts all belong to the ring. When Alan has enough reported bank accounts, he can connect the dots and draw the ring. You probably won't find out what ring the lad belongs to, though.

The other way to find them is to kill their domains. Two big gangs, with lots of sites, are the Grafton-Riggs gang and the Bimbom-Bump gang. I and Toomuchtime know both of them at sight. There are also the Design gang, or whatever we call them, and the fairly new (to us at least) Vourna gang.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

What vonpaso xlura is explaining is that after a while of doing this, you start to see patterns with fake sites, repeated bank account info, and other details/aspects of the scams and scammers. This is especially true when you re-bait the same lads.

You can also often tell when you get passed to another lad rather than the same lad playing the banker because the language use changes quite a bit. You can check IPs, too, and see that while the widow who spoke poor English had an IP that traced to Nigeria, the banker with better English traces to the UK.

There are a whole lot of pieces that start to fit together. Of course, you won't know the details of how they connect, but you'll know you've got lads working together, and often where they are by IP traces.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 04 Apr 2013 Posts: 16

Thanks for your replys! they have been helpful. Actually, I think I just got a real bank account already that I should report.

I guess I should take all this info about the scammers (their IP addresses, etc) and put it into maltego. I may be able to find something I would have otherwise missed.

Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 8:51 am

Reporting a bank account is something that really hurts a lad.
Do it and earn your first Closed lad accounts

Welcome to Eater Cool

Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 11:31 am

Been spending a lot of time baiting the Dakar Darlings. Recently I received two different bank account numbers under the name N. Smart Joshua from something like 5 different lads. I figured I was baiting half the cafe. LOL. Rolling Eyes

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21158

^^^That is a pretty good sign and I have seen that with Vlads too on the translators. I can sometimes see changes in the language and even get a few that mail me fast and furiously. One from a computer, the other from a phone. They both type differently.

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

Imprive wrote:

I've noticed some mention of scamming rings, or whatever you call them, and I was wondering how common it was to get a syndicate or ring. Are they predominate in the world of scammers, or are independent scammers most common?

From the literature I have read I am inclined to believe it is the norm for scammers to work as part of a cell. They also seem to network and make links with other scam groups whenever they need access to a particular service i.e. a 419 cell in Nigeria might need a contact in London to pick up a payment from a difficult victim and if they don't have one they will ask around for help from another group for a percentage of the pay off (etc).

However, I think there seems to have been an increase in 'wannabe scammers' in recent years working independently. It is more common these days to see more of the 'small time' scams in which a very small payment is asked for in the initial mail. When I first started baiting you very rarely saw such scripts but now they seem a lot more commonplace. It is probably the case that these types of scam that usually ask for between $25-100 right away are probably run by individuals who may use scamming as a way to supplement their income.

Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2013 5:11 pm

That's true. I just had a vlad refuse to give me a price for translation and did not object to a$100 Westy payment. Seemed like a lot of work for a small amount even multiplied by victims.

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 11:22 am

I don't think a small first payment is a good indicator of anything. The big payoff for many lads (regardless of whether or not they are operating independently) comes from getting their victim to make a lot of small payments, not a few large ones. It is a lot easier to convince somebody to spend $100 than $1,000. Once the victim has made that initial small "investment" it is much easier to convince them to make another small "investment" - always with the promise that this is the "last" fee before the vic gets their big payday. Of course, the fees never end until the vic runs out of money or gives up.

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