Worthwhile or waste of time?

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Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 7:12 pm

Ok. Please don't bite my head off if this has been discussed numerous times before (search isn't my friend at the moment I'm afraid - have tried and found nothing).

Comments and advice on the following appreciated:

- I receive a standard opening letter.

- I use the tools suggested in the forums to check the IP header information.

- I see the IP Address returns, for example, Afrinic.

- I contact their abuse address giving full header information, list of IP addresses being used, email addresses being used, original email.

Questions:

1. Am I wasting my time?
2. Are these the right people to contact? Should I also contact the email service provider?
3. Am I giving the correct information?

Obviously I choose a few select ones for a bit of fun but I'm getting more than I can keep up with - suprising what a plant on a lottery winners guest book can do for your baiter inbox p.s. am aware of surplus forum.

I don't like to think the lads I have to ignore are happily getting on with it unchallenged by anyone (present company accepted of course Very Happy

)

Just looking to do my bit as effectively as poss.

Cheers.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Yes, you are wasting your time, please don't kill lad email accounts, the lad can open a new email account in less than 2 minutes anyway, they also save all their victims details to word or whatever, so it's not a problem for them, also, numerous baiters may well be baiting that scammer and you will mess a lot of baits up, if you want to kill email accounts, go to the phonelads area of the forum, it is very worthwhile killing their email addresses, because they have spammed them all over the internet, so it wastes a lot of their time and prevents victims from buying from them!

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2005 Posts: 3551

No, don't report them. Only the phone lads are reported, and that is only after we get enough information about them.

If you shut down an e-mail account of a scammer, you can possibly keep him from being arrested. And you don't want to spoil the efforts of other baiters.

SP, you are way fast.

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 7:31 pm

@SP

Quote:

it is very worthwhile killing their email addrsses, because they have spammed them all over the internet,

That's the first time I've seen it explained so conciesly why we go after closing down Phone Lads Emails but not 'regular' lads - Thanks.

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 8:11 pm

Gilbert-Ratchet wrote:

... why we go after closing down Phone Lads Emails but not 'regular' lads - Thanks.

The last post in this thread explains it quite succinctly I think...

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97648&highlight=closing+phone+lads+accounts

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 8:35 pm

Thanks for the replies folks. Haven't reported anything just sounding out the general consensus of opinion.

Read the useful phonelads thread (thanks) but it did give me a thought about the Surplus forum. I've added a couple recently but am not convinced they're being picked up - a few views but nothing to say "I'm on the case". Looks like a lot of members don't pick these up assuming (possibly very wrongly) they've already been taken up by numerous baiters.

A quick acknowledgement reply from those picking up the bait would certainly help. Might also encourage a bit of beneficial collusion and increase the community spirit (even further!).

Just a thought.

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 9:13 pm

Most people here have their own scam mail catcher accounts, and unless there is something particularly unusual there I would use my own, but I believe that a minority of people don't have catcher accounts and appreciate a selection to look over.

Though I am pretty busy with baits just now, I always keep an eye out in case there is something new I can hand out for someone else to use, or maybe a bank site to squish.

I think it's customary to make a comment if you pick one up - but I don't believe it's mandatory, as it would not be surprising to be multi baiting a mugu as many of us get the same scam mails in our catcher accounts.

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:02 pm

@cahuna: No reflection on you, because I don't know if you do this or not. I use the surplus letters frequently to initiate baits, but only if the posting includes full headers. Why? I want to know where the letters are coming from. And in some cases you can't tell where the reply email is to be sent without seeing the headers. Replying to the spamming address frequently gets you ignored because the mugu never sees the reply.

And I hasten to say that I admire those who post large numbers of surplus letters. It's got to be quite a bit of work. But the headers are important to some of us. Better a few with headers than many without.

And I've never found cause yet to post that I was going to use a letter. Perhaps I should, but I haven't. Bad pilgrim!

So to anyone posting surplus letters: I suggest including full headers.

Cheers.

419Eater is my life Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 356

Ah, I snagged one from the Surplus forum without mentioning it too, since it didn't occur to me that I might need to say something... I'll make sure to do that next time.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

There isn't a requirement to state which surplus mails you're baiting, folks.

I personally would discourage that, actually- it could make newer members think that they can't bait the same lad.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:19 am

I've never understood this fascination with headers..For one it's a Lad..His location is more or less a given..A smelly cafe somewhere..

If need be and it's vital to check the headers one can when and if the lad replies to ones.."sure I'm interested mail"..I just don't see the point if I'm posting 30 lad mails, I simply haven't got the time nor patience to click show original..copy n paste and edit out addys and blow out length lines..For that 30 lads..Just because people like to do IP searches..

Most mails from lads have a "private mail" in the body of script to contact also..usually at the bottom..Plus in normal headers the reply to is present..So all the full headers seem to be needed for is to satisfy a pointless need for IP searching..

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:33 am

Headers can be brilliant because they contain information the lad doesn't know he's sent. For example I was speaking to a lady on another forum who didn't know if the guy she was talking to was real or a scammer. I showed her how to read headers and she saw that even though he'd said he was originally from the USA but went to Nigeria to work, his IP address was the same through the whole thing and showed he was in Nigeria the whole time. When you talk to a Russian woman, looking at the headers for The Bat! and Mari El is a 99% surefire way of telling if it's a vlad or a real Russian lady looking for love. But of course some people will never need to look at them because they deal with the more standard 419 scammers. It's horses for courses.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:12 am

I think what Fanny meant was that there's no need to include headers when posting in the surplus forum because it's a waste of time. Only a fraction of letters posted there will be baited by someone and only a fraction of those baited will have their account still open and reply. I'm not sure about the numbers but for every 10 headers posted there might be 1 or 2 baits. I think if you absolutely need to check headers (and of course I agree this header thing has become an obsession here on Eater lately) you can still do that once they've replied - would save people posting surplus lads a lot of time.

Just a personal opinion, we don't give out rules for everything.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:19 am

As Don says: �Only a fraction of letters posted there will be baited by someone�

How do we know only a fraction are being baited? Gut feel? Certainly that's my gut feel.

A few thoughts:

1.If only a fraction of the letters posted in the surplus forum are being baited by someone, then there�s a lot of lads out there getting on with it quite happily without anyone making life remotely difficult for them

2. Why not introduce as �good practice� replying when you�ve taken a bait on - anyone can quickly see which one�s are going begging. And state just because a bait�s been taken doesn�t mean it�s a no go area! More the merrier.

3. By doing this, at the very least, we�ll have some sort of visible metric to answer our questions on whether or not these surplus emails are actually being acted upon

4. Also, if they�ve gone begging for a period of time with no takers, what�s wrong with getting the email address closed down? Better than doing nothing surely and just letting them simply get on with it? (and yes as for the odd one that is being baited at the time and has to change his address � great � it is good to watch them squirm and try and regain your confidence�by whatever means you request...)

If we�re not careful, we�re in danger of having the surplus forum act as a safe house for the lads � get your scam in that forum and chances are you won�t be touched. It needs a simple bit of management. Adding a tag to a bait you�ve taken on will be a starter for 10.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:09 am

I can see your point cahuna but to be honest I doubt many people will be willing to do a daily check on who's baiting who. It's bad enough keeping track of our 'own' various lads. You are quite right that there are WAY more scammers than baiters out there - that's kinda the whole point of why we try to do what we do? Having said that, it can't do any harm to flag a Surplus Letter that you intend to take on but I don't think many people are going to check if it's 'taken' or not. Just my opinion.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

cahuna wrote:

4. Also, if they’ve gone begging for a period of time with no takers, what’s wrong with getting the email address closed down?

What you have to remember is, just because someone has not posted in surplus saying they are going to bait a particular scammer, it does not mean the scammer is not being baited, chances are, that a lot of baiters received that same email from the scammer in their inboxes and are baiting them from there, so there would be no need for them to take it from surplus or mark that they are baiting them, it is pointless killing anything other than phonelad accounts!

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:50 am

If I had a �/$ for every time a noobie asks how do I get a lad?, I'd start my own religion. The answer is easy.....The Surplus Letters Forum.

Personally, I try and post the most interesting/funny ones on there when I receive them, in the hope that they will be picked up. But for every one of those there are sadly numerous others which get deleted from my Inbox, usually wealthy cocoa merchants from West Africa. Yawn!

Lottery lads are a classic example. I win a lottery every other hour of the day. They are buggers to bait because of their rigid adherence to their scripts. No fun. Bait them straight or don't bait at all. I'm becoming a great believer of killing lottery lads addys (not that I do -yet) because 1) they are so boring and 2) I never won a lottery I didn't enter and 3) I hate their form filling obsession and 4) Put them out of their misery before they bore us all to death (see 1) above. As for killing anybody else's baits, that has to be weighed up against the chance perhaps of of saving some sucker from paying their 'administration fees'.

I bet there are people who peruse the SL Forum picking out the posts with the most comic potential. Guilty as charged.

It would be interested to see if we all posted all the offers we receive in one day the SL forum would grind to a halt. Shocked

So many lads, so little bandwith.

All the above said, if it makes sense, I think the SL forum has its place, but I would like to see more people taking a few minutes out every day baiting to make their own contributions. Then we can really get an idea of the scale of the problem.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 12:13 pm

Tommo Shanter wrote:

If I had a �/$ for every time a noobie asks how do I get a lad?, I'd start my own religion. The answer is easy.....The Surplus Letters Forum.

Personally, I try and post the most interesting/funny ones on there when I receive them, in the hope that they will be picked up.

Amen to that. I also try to bait the most interesting/funny ones.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:16 pm

I agree with what SP said. (I never thought I'd ever write anything like that.) The Surplus Forum is where people who don't have other resources can grab a quick lad to play with. I never bait people from there and I post there maybe twice a year. So you cannot regard the Surplus section as a statistically relevant resource for lad letters.

Chances are those lads are being baited even if only very few members ever look at this place (have a look at the views of any individual scam letter posted there; typically 5-12 views) Then there's baiters who aren't even related to 419Eater.

So basically I think there's no need to change anything there because only a tiny fraction of baiters will ever look at those posts.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:52 pm

Don wrote:

....So basically I think there's no need to change anything there because only a tiny fraction of baiters will ever look at those posts.

So basically anybody who posts their surplus there is wasting their time? In which case please let me know and I will focus my energies elsewhere were they can be more effectively used. Don't laugh! Laughing

The surplus forum seems to be kept going by a dedicated few regular posters, me included. It saves others having to waste time searching for, and seeding, guest books. Anyway guest books are soooo last century.

RIP Surplus Letters Forum. In repose with the Mugu Mail forum which died of spite, killed by the few that always spoil it for the majority.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:59 pm

@TS: Please don't stop posting. Seeding guestbooks is a crapshoot. I was on the shuttle, and got quite a few lad solicitations in my catcher box, but I also used that box as an autobaiter, and someone or something killed it. So now I (and I'm sure others) depend on the Surplus Letters forum as the highest quality source of lad solicitations. I can only speak for myself, but I truly appreciate the effort involved. Thumbs up

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:00 pm

Tommo Shanter wrote:

So basically anybody who posts their surplus there is wasting their time?

I never said that, feel free to re-read my post. I said only a tiny fraction of baiters will see a scam letter there. So wile there's no use using this forum as a point of reference about who's being baited or not it's main purpose is to give people a lad to bait. Nothing more and nothing less.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:01 pm

Thanks for that Tommo.

Actually, the Surpluss letters are very important.

Many of the readers of these letters are potential victims who have found the content in the search engines. It's a worthwhile cause without any question of doubt.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:09 pm

The spin off for the Surplus Letters Forum is that (I think) it is picked up by most of the search engines.

Most of the surplus letters are only a day or two old and if a potential victim was to Google the scammers address they could be directed to this site, which should give them a pretty good idea of what's going on. ...... so that's one reason I always make sure that I expose the "reply to" addie in any surplus letters I post (even though it's not shown in the body text) ,,,,,, as well as the "from" addie

EDIT ..... thank's Leccy Smile

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:27 pm

@Don.

Sorry. I really must read the posts more carefully before piling in.
Shocked

A fraction reading and acting on the SL forum is better than none, I suppose.

I will still continue to post any I receive. Boring or otherwise, they are all scammers and deserve the same attention. The choice is up to the baiter.

Without the post there is no bait. It only takes a couple of minutes to share the misery. You know it makes sense.

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