Dealing with IDs

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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 6:42 pm

Hi, guys. Been a fan of this site for years now and, after getting several of these annoying 419 scam e-mails a month, I decided to create a separate account to respond with them.

So far I'm just responding to 2 people, so I'm a total beginner. In reality, I live in Japan, but I've been saying I live in Stockholm, Sweden. Even made up a bogus Stockholm address that doesn't follow Swedish standards (of course, I'm not Swedish, I'm originally from the US. I'm not Latino or Spanish either, heh. I just picked a random name). Every scammer I've seen asks for ID. A scan of a passport or something. How do you deal with that?

I noticed that people on here oftentimes make fake passports, but I have no idea how to do that. I have an old version of Adobe Photoshop on my laptop from 2003 that I still have in my apartment, but not on my desktop, and likewise, I doubt I'm skilled enough to make a believable fake Swedish passport (believable to a scammer, I mean. Not believable to a normal human being. I'm not looking for perfection, obviously).

So what do you do? If you make a fake ID/passport, how do you do it? It would seem best to not send anything, but what kind of excuse do you use? Just started, so I have no idea how do deal with this.

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 6:52 pm

Do NOT send a lad a fake passport, or any kind of ID. He will reuse it on a victim--and no matter how obvious it is to you, there will be a victim out there who does not see the flaws.

Here's one of our more recent threads with suggestions on getting around ID.
http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=193883

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 6:59 pm

ID's are overrated - I once sent a lad a corrupted jpeg file when he asked for mine. Never heard anything about it though !

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:04 pm

Ahaaa. I never would have thought of that. The ridiculously huge unrelated file renamed as a JPEG sounds like a great idea. Thanks for the help.

The scammer is really unusual in that he's trying to specify a bank for ME to open up a bank account in for him to put the money in. I assume he's going to just give me some fake bank that he's in charge of. I mean, he's saying he's looking for a "cheap bank." As far as I know, banks are normally free. Confused

I just told him that I already have 6 separate bank accounts, any of them that should be fine. Haven't got a response on that yet. The dude completely ignores anything odd I say, but maybe he's just not paying attention yet.

Thanks for the advice!

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:08 pm

These banks are not free Sad

They cost money , but you do get a choice of 3 types Wink

There's a load of different suggestions about dealing with ID, have a search around. Smile

The bottom rule is:
Never give a scammer anything that could be used on a victim.

Stick to that rule and you'll do fine.

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:10 pm

You could find any old passport image on the web and run it through this:

http://www.glassgiant.com/ascii/

Then blame it on their computer for not being able to display it. Wink

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:13 pm

Haha. Thanks for all the great advice, guys. That thread was pure gold! I decided to go with the corrupted ZIP file with the passport.jpg file inside.