Baiting on behalf of a client?

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 2:56 am

Quote:

I have real degree in philosophy, from a real university. What you write does not appear to reflect a post secondary level of understanding of philosophy or ethics, let alone post graduate study thereof. I can't think of any contemporary philosophical position that would mesh with what you have said so far - some interpretations of Kant are very prescriptive with respect to lying - a point that is often cited by critics of Kantian thought involves the supposed inability of an adherent thereof to lie even if it were to mean saving someone's life. But no Kantian would suggest, as you did, that "The basic ethical principle is that everybody should only do what they feel is right". So that isn't where you are coming from. And although there are certainly those that take a relavistic approach to ethics, they generally aren't the sort (like a Kantian might) to oppose lying categorically but allow for a legalistic loophole. Please feel free to enlighten me on this.

Yeah, what he said, so there.

sorry I just wanted to say something that sounded smart

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 4:05 am

Having demonstrated a remarkable knowledge of the intracacies of scam baiting, and postulated a bizarre 'modality' to satisy your own personal, very rare ethical handicap preventing you from ever telling a lie, even to a criminal - you then state that the forum is defective in not covering this peculiar condition - BUT by coincidence, you are the man to solve this problem.

If what you say is true, then I would strongly urge you NOT to ever consider scam baiting. I think you'd find acting as my conduit for lies to a scammer, a thoroughly repellant experience and I would have concern for your safety if you ever felt compelled to hand out your own bank details, or worse - mine.

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 5:43 am

I really shouldn't bother with this, but what the hell...

4ehgfrsmul wrote:

To you, it all makes sense because you're immersed in it. But when you leave out certain explanations from the FAQs, a new visitor may not understand everything you do.

Sorry, but "everything you do" as regards Eater is a rather huge amount of information, not all of which can be covered in a FAQ. This isn't a static website, it is a community which changes constantly with the participation of its membership. The FAQs and stickies are there to give new folks a general overview and give them a place to get started, period.

The fact that understanding this community only comes with positive participation or prolonged observation shouldn't really come to you as a surprise, as its really no different from many other online communities. If it does, I suspect that you may be rather inexperienced when it comes to internet forums, particularly those which focus on a single subject. Plenty of new folks skip the intro/ dive right in, and most of them manage to find the information they need without having every little thing spelled out for them in a FAQ.

Quote:

For example, when aa419.com says "Every site reported to us is investigated" without immediately saying "and here's how you can help us <link>," they're missing an opportunity to communicate.

I'm getting rather sick of this. If one can't find the forum on aa419 on their own, they shouldn't get involved. If you look on aa419, both Meyer and I pointed you to the very obvious places to find the information you asked for. Amazingly enough, most new folks there manage to reason out that they will find information on fake banks and killing them in the forum titled "Fake Banks and Sites". The fact that you supposedly couldn't find any of the the working fora and relevant sticky threads without specific directions leads me to believe that LV made the right call. Someone who can't find his/her way around a really straightforward forum should NOT be attempting to write abuse complaints to a host. That said, if you found the info and are doing nothing more than criticizing the presentation, please take it up with the aa419 admins. I'm sure they will be happy to listen to your objective opinion of their site Laughing

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 6:03 am

IBTL

This makes no sense at all. Maybe he is baiting us?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 7:42 am

@ 4ehgfrsmul

If you feel that lying is bad, I welcome you to join the oder of the Opus Dai SS. We would welcome you.
The Opus Dai don't lie to mugus, the SS members always tell the truth.
Never the less to join you must perform a holy ritual

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 7:53 am

GeneralAbacha wrote:

But no Kantian would suggest, as you did, that "The basic ethical principle is that everybody should only do what they feel is right".

Kant? Kant is waaaay to complex. That sounds more like what a 13 y/o would say about Foucault, 20 years before they'd attempt to read him.

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 8:06 am

@ 4ehgfrsmul, Just keep your fingers crossed when typing lies to your lads.

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 10:15 am

@ B.A.Ware

Quote:

Maybe this would be a better forum for you: CLICKY

That was brutal, but bloody funny Very Happy

@ 4ehgfrsmul

You make it sound almost as though we are a group who practice the art of lying as a hobby Question

whatever we do it is to enable us to defeat the lads in what they are trying to do, SCAM,

There are no rules in love and war, you never heard that Question

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 11:47 am

Quote:

"The basic ethical principle is that everybody should only do what they feel is right".

Isn't that the same principle that people such as Hitler, Stalin, etc. used? Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 6:27 pm

Don wrote:

That sounds more like what a 13 y/o would say about Foucault, 20 years before they'd attempt to read him.

Yes!

Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 7:31 pm

Quote:

For example, when aa419.com says "Every site reported to us is investigated" without immediately saying "and here's how you can help us <link>," they're missing an opportunity to communicate.

From personal experience here and aa419 forums - If you spend the time and read, you will find most of the info you need. Some is not publicly posted - true. If you ain't serious enough to do the research to learn, then, you probably are not going to be serious enough in your later research.

IF, after searching, you ask for help, someone will advise you - even tho you might not agree with their advice.

And neither forum fails to understand, beginners make mistakes. They'll tell you their point of view on your mistake and usually why. Might be reasons you didn't know.

And I know every bank site listed at aa419 & here (at least in the past month) does get looked at! Maybe nothing seems to get done, but there are a lot more fakers than there are serious fakebank busters in the world.

ain't IS in the dictionary I use Razz

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 1:36 am

4ehgfrsmul wrote:

Yes, mr fife seems to understand what I'm saying.

Are you talking about me? I'm rather confused about your self-imposed dilemna actually. Here's some food for thought: Even cops are allowed to lie to people.

Even if you somehow find a way to absolve yourself of the guilt of lying to your scammers by using someone else as a front, what will happen as you go further into the "deal"? Are you going to follow all your scammer's instructions or tell him outright you won't to do anything he asks so you don't lie to him, or actually bait him? Hey, why don't you just tell him you are baiting him & get it over with? I'm more intrigued as to how you seem to have no qualms about giving the SCAMMER someone else's REAL info but you're in knots over lying to a criminal trying to steal "your client's" money. On top of that, you have no client, so that's a lie. "Client" implies someone who has paid money to retain your services...or are you going to charge people to let you use their name to bait scammers? You should at least accept all the potential consequences of the scammer having real info give them your own info & bait as yourself instead of freely giving out someone else's real info. I find it outrageously irresponsible, unethical, & wreckless that you would even consider possibly giving out some innocent 3rd party's real info to a scammer and equates you to being the scammers accomplice...but as long as your not lying I guess that's ok.

I've said it before & I'll say it again, it seems baiting is not for you. I would encourage you not to bait if you are going to put someone else in danger just so you can avoid lying.

Master Baiter Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 139

SNAP!

Great post the fife.

To be honest, I couldn't understand most of the OP's suggestions. What was going to happen when the mugu asks for $100,000 by Western Union? Is the OP planning on saying "no, I didn't send it because I have no intention of sending it and cannot lie"?

Oh! And I do lie for a hobby. It's fun. What am I to do? Rolling Eyes

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 3:38 am

Welcome to the army of bank killing knuckleheads, JJ! Laughing

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 5:32 am

Scam Patroller wrote:

Oh, you still here Rolling Eyes

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am SP's biggest fan Laughing

Forever n00b Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 432

Damn, what an enlightening thread. Now I have a dilemma. To lie or not to lie the next time my wife asks me if "these pants make my ass look fat". Being the highly ethical person that I am, I no longer feel I can lie to her. She's going to be heartbroken. Crying or Very sad

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 7:08 am

^^^^

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 7:16 am

Bustyn_Yuhrass wrote:

Being the highly ethical person that I am, I no longer feel I can lie to her.

Did you want the standard dozen roses and goat delivered to the funeral home? Laughing

Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 12:54 pm

@ BY & SF
LMAO Laughing

Master Baiter Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 143

I never lie...It's not the pants that make the ass look fat....the ass makes the ass look fat.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 22

thefife and others have made a good point. You're right, of course. I should never give out real information even if I'm not sure it's real and even after warning people not to give it to me. Just because I might not be lying doesn't mean it wouldn't be stupid. My mistake.

When mugus ask me about my WU payments, I've told them, "As soon as I send it, I'll let you know." Yes, I've abandoned some baits because I couldn't think of how to prolong them further without lying. But I've prolonged them a distance.

Some of my most formative forum experiences were at groklaw.net, and the eater forum does seem less friendly and cooperative, even though both are battling swindlers and liars.

Obviously I don't understand many things. I'm being asked a lot of questions about ethics, many of them rhetorical. Could somebody answer the rhetorical questions for me too?

Here are some statements/presuppositions that may be behind some of the heated responses I've been getting. I don't agree with these statements, but am I correctly summarizing what you're thinking?'

Quote:

1) A mugu deserves whatever a baiter does to him. It's all ethical. Just don't get caught doing anything illegal.

2) Lying and deceiving and helping others to deceive and allowing others (such as undercover police) to deceive on your behalf are all morally equivalent.

3) Saying (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) "I don't like lying" is equivalent to calling other people liars.

4) It's okay to deceive mugus. It's not okay to make ethical distinctions between various levels of deception.

5) This guy 4ehgfrsmul thinks he's better than the rest of us because he says he doesn't want to lie.

As I said, I don't particularly agree with those statements, but do they describe where people on this board are coming from? I just re-read The Ethics of Scam-Baiting, and I could see how these statements would fit in with that sticky.

I apologize if it sounded like I was saying, "The basis of all ethics is that everybody should only do what they feel is right." I simply mean that people shouldn't do what they don't think is right. I meant that I'm not condemning you because you do things I don't want to do. I may object to what other people do, but my first responsibility is to not do those things myself.

I think I catch a logical fallacy in some of these comments. "Everybody should only do what they feel is right" does not mean "Everybody should do everything they feel is right" or that "everything they feel is right" is necessarily right.

Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 1:41 pm

Oh great. An argument over semantics as well.

4ehgfrsmul. You make the big mistake of generalisation in your post. I'm afraid that it therefore shoots your whole theory down in flames.

Ethics cannot be generalised into being exclusive to either the community or the individual and then used to form an opinion of the whole. You cannot therefore judge by using either the words of a few posters here or from the site FAQ. One must discover the middle ground where both meet and, as that is nigh on impossible to do on a website, you are onto a loser.

And I noes dis coz I reads Platos Republic.

Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 1:52 pm

At the risk of unduly prolonging this thread (if it hasn't already gone on too long), my 2 cents for OP is pretty much in line with what many of the other folks have said: If you are baiting, you're lying, either implicitly or explicitly. Period. If you don't want to lie, then don't bait.
As for some of the generalizations about what we do here, if you hang around and read for a while and see some of the huge ethical discussions that happen here, you will see that we are a very diverse group with widely differing philosophies of what is acceptable, just as in any community. I think we all pretty much agree that wasting mugus time is what baiting is all about, and that their time cannot be wasted unless we lie to them. Again, even responding to their initial email is a lie since you are responding knowing that there ain't no $$ at the end of the rainbow for you. Philosophical discussions about "the truth" are fine, but maybe there are other online communities that might be more suited to that. Try beliefnet.com perhaps.

One other semantic note: for 4ehg . . . A rhetorical question is one for which no answer is to be expected, so by definition a rhetorical question can't really be answered, since answering it would thereby turn it into an actual question.

Onward and upward!

@ bustyn: Honesty is always the best policy when dealing with your wife, the taxman, your boss, that lovely young lady walking down the street with her enormous boyfriend, etc. You should always tell those people just what you're thinking. Nothing less than the unvarnished truth will do!

@slightlyoutofit: I didn't know that that cartoon dog had written a book! Wow!

Smile

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

4ehgfrsmul wrote:

Some of my most formative forum experiences were at groklaw.net, and the eater forum does seem less friendly and cooperative, even though both are battling swindlers and liars.

Wow. There is no comparison between Groklaw and 419eater. I spent two years on Groklaw before finding the eater, and I was about as active there as I am on here.

Groklaw does not bait. It is concerned with winnowing out the truth and putting it on public view. Nothing else. SCOG may feel baited, but that is not what is going on.

In my experience, this place is more friendly than Groklaw. For example, you don't get happy birthday threads on there. I can understand why your experience may be different, since every time you post something everybody jumps on you. It doesn't normally happen like that, and it seems to be that you and we have an unbridgable disjunction.

Baiters are liars; there is no getting away from it. You cannot bait successfully and safely without telling lies. You certainly cannot get any decent trophies, so the only thing you would be doing is wasting scammer's time and learning how the scams work. That is worthwhile, but it is equally worthwhile to kill fake banks or help victims, and in those activities absolute honesty is an advantage.

Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 3:23 pm

Analogy - for us simple folk.

If you join a swimming club - telling them you can't stand water isn't going to make them empty the pool for you, and they'll be less than impressed if you offer your services as a lifeguard.

Baiting on behalf of a client?	View next topic View previous topic