I'm so proud

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Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:36 pm

I have told my boyfriend about baiting before, but it's just not really something that interests him and I dont think he really knew what the hell I was talking about. But, I actually was around an Internet connection last night with him with me and I logged on and showed him the Trophy Room and the Hall of Shame and he was laughing his a$$ off!!!
But, when I showed him my avatar and was pointing to my flags, I said "Each one of these stands for a fraudulent bank that I've helped bring down." and he said "That is so neat, I'm really proud of you!!!" and he went on and on about how is was so great that I was using my freetime to do something good for society. Embarassed

Well, my day was just made.

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:38 pm

Finally, something men and women can do together ... besides have sex.

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:39 pm

Quite right too Susiefaye, it is a very good feeling knowing that for every flag, there could be innocent people out there NOT losing their money. Proud? Damn straight!

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:47 pm

@ Everyone: ah...not to spoil the high-five session or anything guys. Shutting down fake bank sites and reporting to I.S.P's or having email accounts closed,ect...ect..., is great and all. But, that just annoys the hard core professional con artist's. They'll simply slap up another website or sign up for another email account and be back in business within a few hours tops. The ONLY way to stop 419 fraud is like any other type of fraudulent activity...education. You've got to teach people that they can't send away their money based upon an email or a few phone calls and then somehow be shocked that the invisible millions never appear on their bank statements. Just my "humble" opinion of course, but it's one that I'm comfortable with. Now..give me a high-five ! Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:51 pm

No Peter, shutting down fake banks more than just inconvinience the scammers. It will cost them a substantial amount everytime they have to set up and register a new site. While education of course is the long term solution, bank killing is the single baiting activity that actually has hurt them most financially.

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:05 pm

@ SolitaryMan: Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue with you at all. But, the competition among web hosting companies is fierce, they're practically giving away the service to sign people up lately. And like any good business person, a professional con artist will have a complete copy of his website backed up and ready to up-load, because he knows that being shut down is a fact of life in his business. Like I said, I'm not trying to burst anyones bubble or argue anything, but the only way to really hurt a mugu is to remove their profit. And the only way to remove their profit is to make people stop sending away their hard earned money chasing invisible millions. Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:12 pm

I've heard a figure of $1,200 per fake site
Plus they could lose any scams that were based on the site

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:58 pm

@ Zen: $1,200 bucks you say ?, guess they'll have to send out another email and recoup that loss. Smile

@ Everyone: Please don't get me wrong o.k.. All that I'm trying to say is that we can't throw personal responsibility out of the window for this or any other kind of fraud. If you buy some "miracle cream" and rub it on your head for a week and you're STILL bald, should I really feel sorry about the $29.95 that you lost ?....If you take the entire bottle of "miracle diet pills", but still lay around on your fat ass eating candy bars and watching t.v. all day and yet somehow remain 300 pounds over-weight..should I really feel sorry that you wasted $39.95 ?...If you forego the services of a professional electrician and re-wire your own home, should I really feel sorry for you when it burns to the ground??
If you then decide....who needs years of education and hard work , I can become instantly wealthy by sending Barrister Magubu $1,000.00 on Western Union and the money will hit my account by Friday !....should I really feel sorry for YOU ??...That's all I'm saying guys, let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the 419 thieves are any different than the thieves that preceded them throughout history, they simply lie to you to get your money...the only difference now is, they use email to spin their tales of deceit. Has anyone ever visited the "trophy room" of a scam baiter ? Are those the actions of a rocket scientist or a "super-criminal" ?? Of course not, so please forgive me if I don't shed many tears for the "victims" of this new type of "high-tech" crime, it's the same old game with different tools, that's all. Like the old saying goes "You don't get something for nothing"....end of speech....have a smiley. Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:12 pm

I'm afraid you've lost me there Peter. What or who are you against and why?

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:21 pm

Peter Long wrote:

@ Zen: $1,200 bucks you say ?, guess they'll have to send out another email and recoup that loss. Smile

Look at Zen's sig. That's $250.000. And that's just Zen.

I'm off to send out some more mails to hosts....

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:35 pm

@ SolitaryMan: R.O.F.L...you mean that you ain't keeping up with my insane ramblings !....Just kidding, I'm not against anything or anybody per say. I'm FOR the idea of personal responsibility and education when it comes to a person and their money. I'm just a teeny tiny bit irritated at what seems like this overwhelming sympathy for the "victim" of the 419 scam artist. I think that it would be a good idea to start a website called " Don't be an idiot . com " . We could use it to educate people about 419 crime and all the other " I can make your life perfect....if you simply send me ( x ) amount of dollars. " ...crimes that are out there waiting to separate you from your money. That's all.
People have lied to each other to get things from the dawn of time and they will continue to do so until they learn that it just isn't "cool".
So, the only way to effectively "stop" them, is to be aware of them and not fall for their lies, whatever the form they take or the method used to deliver them ( telephone, t.v., radio, email, ect... ). That's all, just simple, old fashioned, common sense.

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:43 pm

@ Everyone: I could just edit my other post, but I'm shooting for 1,000 today. Smile

Seriously though, please DON'T take my posting to mean that you should stop shutting down their websites or
email accounts o.k., what I mean to get across in my lengthy ramblings, is that we can't STOP there or rely on that entirely to end this type of scamming activity. We also have to beat the fact into peoples collective heads, that they have to watch out for these things in life themselves as well, that's all....sorry I didn't mention that earlier.

EDIT: DAMN IT !, I didn't get credit for another post. Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:00 pm

Someone must have woke up this morning with a lot of karma to burn off.

Rickey Singh · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:51 pm

@Peter: So you are saying that we shouldn't feel sorry for the victims because they were greedy?

Explain that to this TSUNAMI (yup, no money in it for her, just trying to help out by donating) victim:

Quote:

Mr. Ryan,
Sorry if I sound a bit confused...If indeed you are correct, then is my life
in danger as well? Contacting my city PD will be of no help. This man,
--Brooks, as well as a Mr Patrick Jones-- if this man actually exsists, has
all of my personal info, as I sincerely believed him. He has my name, SS
number, phone number, address, bank info, where I work, and much more...all
of it! And cash that was mailed out to him.

Tell me what to do from here, for my confusion is based only upon your
emails coming to my junk folder as oppossed to my inbox as his did.
I will do nothing further with Walker or Jones.....But please contact me
further, as now I am extremely worried to say the least. I have 4 small
kids, a mother who needs constant care, and a disabled child living here
that I am trying to help. --If in fact he is a scam, he has every bit of
information on me to find me, or anything else he may try!

I feel incredibly niave, as well as stupid to fall for it. It's just that
since I too, work in a church, and things are so tough, it seemed like a
real solution, not one that could jepordize my entire life!

I will be anxioulsy awaiting a response from you, and I WILL NOT let on that
I have recieved this.

And I'm not the only one receiving those reply's...

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:04 pm

@ Far_Cry: Of course a certain amount of sympathy is in order for that instance, but charity fraud is nothing new either. How many times have people been told to fully investigate a charity BEFORE sending money ? Again, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but hey guys...it's a big, bad world out there, full of very mean people that will hurt you if you give them the opportunity. You have got to learn to look out for yourself. Don't place all of your faith in the police, your minister or similar religious leader, don't rely on the numerous laws that are already in place, ect..ect..., YOU have got to learn to be responsible for YOURSELF in this life, that's all. If YOU aren't interested in looking out for yourself, then WHO do you think is going to be ??? I'm not the bad guy here, I'm just telling you that the bad guys are out there and they're not going away anytime soon, so people may as well wake up and start paying attention to their lives or get used to being ripped off...now, have another smiley...they're STILL free. Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:09 pm

Other than taking the law in your own hands this site seems to be doing everything they can. Education sounds good but you said it yourself how many times have people been told about checking things out. Not everyone is going to get educated on this. So we do what we can to slow down the criminals and divert their attention away from those who aren't educated.

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:21 pm

Don't be an idiot.com, good idea. Let's widen the audience though. People who have had their houses burgled, it's their own fault because they didn't have high tech security systems, people who have been mugged, what idiots they were walking in that street where the muggers were, women who have been raped, who could blame the rapist when their victim was wearing a short skirt. In fact why blame the criminals at all, they wouldn't be criminals if they didn't have the opportunity to commit crime and that, surely, is the fault of the victim. What a twisted logic you have.

Scammers are criminals who prey on the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people. Have you read the Monica scam? A single mother who suddenly was offered an opportunity to improve the life of her and her child. Ended up in debt to her friends, her boss, her rent not paid and her kid's cot and push chair sold to satisfy the greed of her scammer. That scam was what got me into scambaiting. Or the many, as Far Cry has pointed out, decent honest people who fall for charity baits, not for greed but because they are decent and honest and want to help but end up bankrupt. Or the elderly and often confused who are taken for every penny because the scammers groom them like paedophiles groom children. 'Trust me' they say as they rip off everything the victim spent a lifetime building up.

Yes there are the stupid and the greedy. But does the fact that they are stupid and greedy mean these arseholes are justified in stealing from them?

Scammers are criminals, law enforcement, with one obvious exception, does not seem to be doing much about them so it's down to us. Closing down fake banks, wasting their time by baiting, wasting money by making them pay to get stupid photos done is how we do it. If you think this is all a waste of time why are you here?

@ Susie...sorry the thread has been hijacked. Nothing better than someone you care for feeling proud of you. Thumbs up

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:53 pm

@ sillietillie: I agree 100% with you, everyone will not learn and that's truly sad. For those people, there will always be someone willing to sell them their dream for a bargain, that's just a part of life. And as for slowing them down and diverting them, I agree 100% with that as well, that's one reason that I enjoy my scambaiting, it's just my little contribution to the cause, it's not much, but every little bit helps.

@ Fungus: I think you might've mis-understood me, the examples that you mentioned are of course correct. The homeowner took the necessary precautions and was still robbed, that's life and that's why we have homeowners insurance. The rape victim is never to blame for something like that happening to them, and anyone who suggests otherwise should be shot ( personal opinion ). I am not NOW nor have I EVER, intended to justify, condone or otherwise make excuses for any sort of criminal behavior. My only point is that shortly after we have the pity party for the victims of a FRAUD, whatever the fraud may be, we need to gently take them in the other room and educate them as to what they can do in order to prevent it from happening to them again. And as for "why am I here?", Well, if you mean the scambaiting board, because it's a hobby that I share with a few other people and thought I might share some funny stories. If you mean the planet, that's something that you'll have to take up with the Gods...you see Fungus, they haven't told ME yet ! Smile

* Got them smileys people, 2 for one today...get 'em while they last.

419Eater is my life Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 290

Zen wrote:

I've heard a figure of $1,200 per fake site

Do you happen to know what that estimate is based on?

I didn't think obtaining a new domain and new hosting using fake credit card info would cost that much.

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 10:36 pm

@ Undefined Shadow: it depends on what you need; storage capacity, bandwidth usage, ect. The average conman would probably go for the cheapest and easiest one they can find. Here's a good place to start shopping:
http://www.10-cheapwebhosting.com/

Baiting Guru Joined: 06 May 2004 Posts: 4012

Undefined Shadow wrote:

Do you happen to know what that estimate is based on?

I didn't think obtaining a new domain and new hosting using fake credit card info would cost that much.

Material from reliable sources that was sent to the artists against 419 suggests the average cost of 1200 Dollar per fake bank as well. Some banks are much cheaper, others more expensive, that depends on the quality.

The most expensive part is the webdesign. The reason is that there is a lot of money to be made with a fake bank, and the webdesigner knows that he is not creating a legit bank website. You cannot call a normal webdesign company and ask them whether they would create a fake bank for you.

I believe that this one here for example is a goldmine: http://www.iivb.com/

Not all fake banks are crappy. The lads responsible for www.iivb.com even purchased a real (!) SSL security certificate, and that costs quite a lot of money.

There is another reason why we need to shut down as many fake banks as possible: It is an excellent way to warn victims. Every week victims of recently shut down fake banks contact the artists against 419 to ask why they cannot access the website of their bank anymore...

Here at 419eater.com systematic fake bank killing started last summer, and the lads do feel the pain. They have become much more careful with giving out the url of their bank, and many fake banks are now password protected, to protect these websites from us.

Our fake bank killing campaign is sabotaging their activities a lot.

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:51 pm

i don't have any flags on my siggie...though I'm responsible for a few banks, I really didn't keep track, and it would be a pain in the as for me to search all my stuff and keep an accurate count, and I'm lazy, and sometimes i write run on sentences, and i'm hungry right now, and maybe one day i'll add some.

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 12:05 am

meyer wrote:

Here at 419eater.com systematic fake bank killing started last summer, and the lads do feel the pain

I totally agree with Meyer. This is an area where 419eater is on the attack and lads are on the defensive. We do not wait for banks to be reported any more - we go out and find them, and in many cases we close them days after they open. We are being SERIOUSLY successful in this area - in fact the main constraint is the effort available to draft complaints. So, if anyone wants to try their hand at Fake Bank killing, call in at the Fake bank forum - we have a regular supply of targets waiting to be killed, and we'll help you with the modalities, which are very straightforward.

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:18 am

It really feels good when you find a domain that has been registered just a few days ago, they probably haven't had time to use the bank yet. Very Happy

One really fascinating thing is the links between banks. You find one fake bank, Google some phrases, look where it loads images from or which domain is used for email as suddenly you have a bunch of fakers. Or the real bank they copied the design from.

Guest

</rant mode on>

Quote:

Of course not, so please forgive me if I don't shed many tears for the "victims" of this new type of "high-tech" crime, it's the same old game with different tools, that's all.

I find your attitude towards victims of this (and other) crime quite disturbing, personally. Let's hope that you never have an off day and get caught out by something you didn't know existed.

There's a lot of people out there in the world who want to believe. That's how they get scammed, pure and simple. It's not a crime to hope for better things, or even to have some faith in your fellow humans that they would act in a decent way towards you and not try to rob you of your money.

Quote:

The homeowner took the necessary precautions and was still robbed, that's life and that's why we have homeowners insurance.

That's life? So that makes it ok? What if they don't have insurance? It's good to see someone completely lacking in compassion for others. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that is how I see your attitude. And FYI, I used to work at an insurance company processing claims, and I used to get those people on the telephone. It's not about what you've lost, it is the feeling of being violated, of someone having been in your space, of waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night a couple of weeks later remembering something else you had and rushing to see if it is still there only to find it is gone. Regardless of the insurance, there is a greater loss that may never be recovered.

What about the 84 year old man whose son I had on the phone, his elderly father had just set fire to the stove while trying to cook a meal for his wife who lived in a nursing home down the road. Do we blame the Father, for wanting to cook for his wife? Do we blame the Wife, for having Alzheimers and needing to be taken care of by professionals? Do we blame the son, for not being there 24/7 to supervise him? Do we blame the gas company, for supplying the gas to the house that resulted in the fire? Or maybe we should blame the manufacturer of the stove, for making a product that meant a fire was possible.

No, we don't do any of these things. We thank God <or any other deity you choose> it wasn't more serious and nobody got injured or killed, we clean up the mess, and we get on with life, as best we can.

Education is great, but it won't get anywhere if we don't look at why people fall for these things, and if we are too busy "blaming" the victim, we have no hope of ever working that out.

Quote:

You've got to teach people that they can't send away their money based upon an email or a few phone calls and then somehow be shocked that the invisible millions never appear on their bank statements. Just my "humble" opinion of course, but it's one that I'm comfortable with.

There's so much more you have to educate them on. Fake cheques, fake banks, being a "business partner" and receiving funds into their accounts which they pass on to their "partner", receiving packages and shipping them on, phishing, the list could go on and on. Let's face it, there are people on the internet who still fall for viruses and open attachments that come to them as a surprise, and there's been a lot of media publicity on that. How do we get that level of media and still have people falling for it? Do these people live in caves? Have they shut their ears to everything and just focus on themselves? NO. They have lives, and they are trying to live them, and they're busy people, and there's so many messages coming to them on a daily basis they can never process everything.

So what do we do. Send an email to everyone on the internet and let them know about it? There will still be people who don't read it. Make a big fuss and make it be headline news on every tv channel? There's still people who don't watch the news. Send out a flyer to every household? There will still be people who don't read it, who throw it away as junk mail.

I just don't see how we can smugly sit there and say to a victim "Well, you should have known better, you have a personal responsibility, Suck it up, dude, I'm not shedding any tears for you".

Quote:

I'm just a teeny tiny bit irritated at what seems like this overwhelming sympathy for the "victim" of the 419 scam artist.

Well, you can take it that I am just a teeny tiny bit irritated at the apparent lack of empathy (read empathy, not *sympathy* as these are two different things) for your fellow humans - victims of scams - or house break ins, or fires. It must be really nice to never ache at someone else's misfortune. I know that some days I watch the news and feel for the people I see on it, because I can easily put myself in their shoes and think how I would feel if it were me.

</rant mode off>