Would this be illegal?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 12

Lots of companies make money from obtaining lists of working emails and then selling them to advertisers so they can sell there porn etc.

As everyone here on 419 gets a lot of lads emails can we not group them all together once we are done with them sell them to these spammers and make some money for the upkeep of the forum.

It would also have the added bonus that the lads in boxes would now become full of junk emails and overloaded giving them more hassle as they would have to spend time sorting through all this in order to find there scams?

Would it be illegal to make money like this?

Emma

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:24 pm

So we do help spammers to fleece real victims so we can upkeep our antiscammer-forum? Did I get you right there? I have a better idea, why don't we scam ourselves and make some money to cover server costs?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:25 pm

Legal or not, I wouldn't be part of any community that actively supports spam.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:25 pm

You want to cooperate with spammers?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:27 pm

Can't see why it would be illegal. . . Some people might find it imoral and unethical.

Also, that might make all the lads close down their accounts, due to the volume of crap hitting them each day, thus, they would start again!

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:30 pm

^^^
That would be just as effective as reporting them to the email provider and having their account closed, i.e. not very effective in most cases, since they'd just open another account and carry on.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:40 pm

The word 'scammer' and 'spammer' are similar for a reason... they are both scum from the same pond, one just got a little more technologically advanced. Nice thought, but it is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Not a good idea. And the chances of someone's address who is not a scammer getting thrown into the mess is extremely high, so I say 'no' for a number of reasons.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 1:15 pm

Since one of the ways the lads could be inconvenienced is to flood their inbox with hundreds of spam messages it's not a bad idea.

In practice however any public webmail service, hotmail, yahoo Etc will have spam filters in place so the inconvenience will be minimal at best.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 7103 Location: Yes

It doesn't really inconvenience them for long. It's hardly worth the effort. They end up shutting down their boxes which then kills any active baits (no need to delve into that conversation yet again) -- and importantly, you can lose track of a lad who might have otherwise given you fake bank account information or other useful information.

There's a fine line here at Eater between making the lads miserable and playing vigilante. The point is that Eater encourages the former and actively discourages the latter. No doubt many people try these and other devices to "get back" at the lads, but these tactics are much less effective than people would think.

A creative baiter can dash the dreams of a lad and have a long-lasting effect -- do you know how many lads have counted their yet-to-arrive thousands of dollars, boasted to their friends of the dumb magas, and otherwise felt like they were top-of-the-line gangsters only to have their hopes and expectations destroyed when, yet again, the "victim" failed to come through for them, and now they're saying I have to fill out yet another form to get the money? Just imagine being in their shoes as they go to explain to their oga how once again they have failed to come through with the promised money.

Now compare that to receiving a few dozen porn emails.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 2:04 pm

hold your horses here kids.

The OP wasn't talking about spamming anyone. She was talking about selling a large list of spammers addresses back to spammers.

It's a lovely thought, but it wouldn't work though - sorry.

The spammers would recognise the style of their own addresses and know that someone was dicking them around.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 4:28 pm

I'd agree that it's a not very good idea. For all the reasons outlined above. It may be legal, but to my mind it is highly immoral to take money from criminals.

But I do like Don's idea though. We have plenty of experience at that, plenty of fake documents that we've received and we have got the skills to set up some lads to take the blame.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 4:36 pm

Angry lads have signed up a couple of my baiting accounts for tons of spam. I emptied the Roy's Rolls one earlier in the week, there are now 220 (mainly obscene) new spam mails in it.

Luckily Gmail has a good filter, and it all stays in the 'spam' folder.

It hasn't stopped me, why should it stop the lads?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 5:31 pm

Jeez Roy! You must think that we are all stupid. Fancy blaming lads for the contents of your inbox Rolling Eyes

*** BANNED *** Joined: 02 Jan 2006 Posts: 2021

Well done Battery who actually read the OP properly.......Selling them would just be a pain but to accidentally send a few lads a few thousand lad addies wouldn,t be a crime

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 7:32 pm

Emma wrote:

... sell them to these spammers ...

I've read some pretty stupid ideas in the last three years, but this is just about the stupidest.

You can't be serious. Confused

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:43 pm

There are lists of spammers and scammers email addresses already posted online (dont remember where) that I found when looking up some email addresses somewheres. So someone has probably sent them in & probably more than once.

Why spoil the baiting of currently active lads as that is more likely to make the lad's investments pay out better (for our purposes anyways) & wastes far more of their time than just hitting delete would.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 8:42 am

I don't want the OP, or any noobs reading to think that it's a bad idea to pour great/stupid ideas into the general section.

I had some absolutely awful ideas when I first arrived. In fact I'd say that for every zillion or so ideas I have, which don't suck I have one idea, which may be potentially feasible.

Selling their own addresses to them definitely won't work, but don't throw away the drawing board. Ideas are definitely welcome and as you can see from the above comments - the community will let you know in their gentle and non-discouraging ways when you pull out a crap one. Laughing

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:18 am

Some great replies from people who never bothered to read Emma's post properly. I hope you don't walk away Emma. You had an idea, some people have no idea. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:29 am

Jeff wrote:

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Bullsh*t.

http://www.sarcasmsociety.com/howtobesarcastic/

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:35 am

I wasn't being sarcastic at all!

I was trying to be all sort of nice and cuddly and encouraging, like.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 10:45 am

I quite like the idea of playing the scammers and spammers off against each other. They could then spend their fake cheques and credit cards on dodgy porn and "herbal" viagra, whilst leaving the rest of us in peace.

However, I'm pretty sure it'd fall down on the logistics. The spammers don't just want thousands of addresses, they want millions and it'd be hard to find enough scammers to keep them happy for long. Also, scammer addresses often have very short shelf-lives as they're constantly moving on and/or getting closed down.

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 10:51 am

@Jeff: I second you.

Emma's idea should be understood as brainstorming. I am a newb myself and I think people here should feel they can post their ideas on baiting without having to think too much about whether they will make themselves look like idiots.

After all, baiting is a creative process and that always involves going from the craziest and "stupidest" ideas to the good ones.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 12

Thank you everyone who replied. (even the one who were nasty to me Crying or Very sad

)

Yes it does appear to have been a stupid Idea which is why I bounced it of here first. better that than go ahead and do an idea and then ruin it for everyone.

Thank you for those who were concerned for me. i havn't been scared off. if Im gonna get scared by a few nasty replies Im entering the wrong hobby. (hoping to get some death threats and nasty letters in the furture from a few lads Very Happy

)

So thank you all again and watch this space for the future stupid ideas I come up with.

Emma

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:54 pm

^^^^ Well done Emma, that's the way to handle it. I just don't post anything then I don't get nasty replies, besides, I made a very nice hat out of aluminum foil (thanks, google, for the recycle tip)

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2005 Posts: 3551

Emma, what Benjaminbunny said. Very Happy