"Bible Answers Live" talking about scambaiting!!!

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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:10 pm

Hey! On Sunday night (July 1st), I called the radio show "Bible Answers Live" hosted by SeventhDay Adventist pastor Doug Batchelor and asked for his take on scambaiting! He brought up a few interesting points. Anyways, I thought you guys might wanna hear it. You can find it here: http://www.amazingfacts.org/media/radio/program_archive.asp You can either download or simply open it up and play it. The show is, of course, the July 1st one. If you just want to hear me, skip to about 14 minutes into it, and they take my call around 14 mins 10 secs into it. I encourage you to listen to the whole program (if you want). Note, I am 18 but I sound ALOT different on the phone, and my accent it curiously strongly Southern on the phone! Very Happy

Anyways, please enjoy! God bless!

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:24 pm

Good question and a very interesting perspective indeed.
I'm not a believer myself and I'm not sure how serious you meant the question, but it was sure a way of some arguing from the pastor I rarely hear.
I thought initially you wanted to ask how God would look on the scammers that constantly use Jesus, God and bless in their scams.

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:22 pm

The Pastor takes your point -- using deception in the interests of helping others -- and takes it to the absurd extreme of 'committing murder to help other people'. Sometimes arguement ad absurdum helps us refine our logic, but often it puts us in a philosophical and moral straightjacket more suited to the reasoning ability of a 3 year old. And sometimes the absurd end is just plain silly.

You see his examples of using deception in the Bible, there are others. Not all of them are in 'times of war'. But why not go to the Apostle Paul primer on teaching moral principles without giving an exhaustive list of do's and dont's.

Besides the basic moral teachings of the Scripture, the prinicple for the Christian is 'all things are legal for me, but not all things are profitable'. That leaves certain questions of morality in your lap, for you and your conscience in prayer ti figure out.

But as has been said here many times -- you can get involved in this fight at a number of levels, and you should certainly be able to find something that you can do that does not violate your beliefs.

Any help is all good Smile

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:40 pm

Come on folks. No religious debates!

The OP posted something. No need to start out on a crusade, no matter what kind. (Keys in hand.)

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

I don't see how this thread can be anything other than, KD, but I'll give them a chance since you waved a yellow.

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:58 pm

Thing is, the pastor was never going to say "go ahead, bait these scumbags". If I were you and I wanted to start scambaiting, I would start scambaiting... (but of course, I'm not religious). Maybe just stay away from church baits..

Master Baiter Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 158

The bible says : An eye for an eye.

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:18 am

There are plenty of ways to cripple scammers without scambaiting. One of the best (and easiest on the conscience in my opinion) is shutting down fake websites scammers run to trick victims into thinking they are running legitimate enterprises. It takes the form of writing letters or sucking bandwidth with tools like Mugito and Lad Vampire. All of these allow one to be completely truthful in the entire process.

I don't bait, though I wanted to in the past (I lack the creativity and the lying does bother me somewhat - I'm Catholic if you'd like to throw in the religious angle as well) but I do run Mugito much of the time and feel very satisfied that I am doing something to stop scammers from doing their "work".

If you'd like more information, check out the "Fake Scammer Banks and Sites" section of the forums or aa419.org.

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:07 am

^^ That raises the point of how do you find these fake sites?
If you deliberately go out of your way to attract scamming emails, such as seeding guestbooks with email addresses set up in fake names etc, then surely you have already begun "Baiting". Deception is deception regardless of the amount of effort involved.

I ask myself the question "Can I sleep at night doing what I do?"

If I can answer yes then I have no problem baiting. If the answer is no then that bait gets dropped.

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:01 pm

^^^^
No need for a site killer to find their own fakes if they don't want to. Many baiters and site hunters turn up fakes that they post for others to kill. That said, there are ways to find fakes that involve no contact with the lads/vlads whatsoever.

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:07 pm

I appreciate everyone's replies so far! For the record, Im not trying to start a debate. I just thought everyone would like to hear Pastor Doug and I talking about scambaiting for a second.
Ive been seriously thinking about scambaiting those death threat scams because just this morning I was watching Fox News (the cable network) and they were talking about a woman who had gotten one of those emails (the standard "I have been paid to kill you, but Ill spare you if you pay me 8,000 dollars and Ill give you a tape...."). Thankfully, she had a feeling it was a scam and wasn't tricked, but I asked myself, "How many people really are and actually pay these scammers?".
Anyways, thank for the replies so far and God bless!

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:59 pm

XPS1710 wrote:

The bible says : An eye for an eye.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi

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

If the pope was going to be killed, and the pastor could make up a lie to save him, would he?

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:17 pm

Hi,

I am not religious in the classic sense, however I am spiritual in the sense that I think we are here on this earth to do more than eat, sleep, fuck, and die. I don't believe in a creator as such but I do believe in a purpose and I believe that purpose to be good (because why would life exist only to destroy itself?).

I'm not going to get on the moral high horse and say that I am baiting because I am a crusader in the fight between good and evil. I bait because I get a kick out of it, however I can justify what I do because it is stopping scammers from reaching as many real victims.

In your position I would not take too much notice of a guy on the radio who has 30 seconds to come up with a response to your question (I have always been suspicous of people taking religion to mass media - TV and radio is ALWAYS about the money). If your beliefs trouble you when it comes to baiting I would go and see the reverend of my local church, sit down and discuss it at length, explain to them the numerous examples of pain and suffering these asshole scammers cause, maybe print out a few baits to show them, and see what they have to say.

I don't think any shock jock radio show can answer the questions you are asking yourself.

Master Baiter Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 158

Mercury wrote:

XPS1710 wrote:

The bible says : An eye for an eye.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi

Indeed - however, as we are discussing what the big boss man would say about Baiting, I have learnt to read the bible in such a way that it wont make my head hurt ("Contradictions - false logistics - It doesnt make sense" - Firefly).

Now it says Dont lie, dont steal, dont kill (unless of course that ebil farmer has mixed his crops. Then feel free to stone him at dawn). However, I read it as it says - its ok, if they did it to you first (Unless of course they kill you first, then you are screwed). Basically, you can lie to them without divine intervention - because they lied to you first. Which they did!

Since they aren't poking out our eyes, I think we may be safe.

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:33 pm

Cooooool a yellow flag.

We didnt play soccer as kids, so that is my first Smile

I will be a good boy.

Cool

419Eater is my life Joined: 12 Jun 2005 Posts: 442

I agree on no religious debates in this forum. For me personally in real life, I am a believer - but well aware many here are not, so that's fine. We don't push each others beliefs on one another and everything is all cool from both sides.
I endorse scambaiting. It's least we can do to help others in an indirect way.

Master Baiter Joined: 28 May 2007 Posts: 144

Race wrote:

Cooooool a yellow flag.

We didnt play soccer as kids, so that is my first Smile

I will be a good boy.

Cool

psst...that would be a yellow card

oh, and its football Wink

PVJ wrote:

If I can answer yes then I have no problem baiting. If the answer is no then that bait gets dropped.

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 6:34 am

Quote:

The Pastor takes your point -- using deception in the interests of helping others -- and takes it to the absurd extreme of 'committing murder to help other people'.

When you consider scam victims have committed suicide after losing all to a lying thief, I'd say wasting the scammers' time and money and lying to them is a pretty mild method of combating them.

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:46 am

But it is not lying at all. It is role playing. And we do it ALL the time.

As a husband, a father, a boss, a subordinate, a co-passenger, a scambaiter, a driver, (that's the role my wife likes me best in!!) ...

The scammers play their roles and we play ours. Where's the deception in that? Deception and lying occur when one of the people play a role and the other doesn't - the scammer plays a role and we don't (and get cheated), or when the wife wants me to be a loving husband and take her shopping and I pretend to have a tummy ache because the race is about to start with Hamilton on pole (don't even ask what happens) ... THAT is deception.

Apologies to OP as this is rather off-topic.

419Eater is my life Joined: 12 Jun 2005 Posts: 442

Quote:

When you consider scam victims have committed suicide after losing all to a lying thief, I'd say wasting the scammers' time and money and lying to them is a pretty mild method of combating them.

WELL SAID!

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:34 pm

Quote:

psst...that would be a yellow card

oh, and its football Wink

Dammit!

Yellow flag -- is that NASCAR then? You can tell I am a real sportsman.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

I think the pastor makes some very good arguments, and doesn't shut the door entirely on the issue.

Whether or not you're a Christian (I'm not), or what sort of Christian you are, try this:

Imagine yourself standing before your maker on Judgement Day, and giving the best justification you possibly could. Then imagine that he sends you to Hell. If that would seem unfair and out of character for him to do, then scam-baiting is OK for you. If it would seem just and reasonable then maybe you shouldn't do it.

Personally I feel that if scambaiting was the worst thing I'd done in my life, then I'd have done OK.

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:51 am

@thud419
Thank you! Very Happy

Whether you are a Moslem, Christian, Jew, or any of a thousand other beliefs, or simply a Human without any religious standing; the Laws of Morality and the Scriptural Laws only apply when you are dealing with HUMANS! Mugu's are sub-humans who don't play by the rules of the Humane Race. They are PREDATORY ANIMALS (a step above the animals but a step below Humans). We as Humans have the Natural and Devine right to fight against danger and evil wherever it comes from or whomever they think they are! {where'z my pill nurse?} Razz

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