Stranded Relative Scam

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Sep 2012 Posts: 3

Received a stranded relative e-mail today. I engaged as if I was very concerned and my mountain of money was at their disposal to get them out of their mess. Got a reply saying to hurry. I replied saying my accountant with a plausible but phonetically sounding name that means "to string along" was dealing with this and stalled for time by asking for details on this mugging in Abidjan.

Correspondence is in French.

I never sought out to scambait, but now they came to me. Anyone want to help this newbie?

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21158

Welcome to the board! It's good to see you jump right in but this appears to be something that involves an innocent person. Most of these are from a hacked account of some sort that can actually cause problems for the owner.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Sep 2012 Posts: 3

The owner of the e-mail account is aware of her e-mail contacts hijacking and all were advised she is safe and sound at home.

As for myself, I'm not exactly "jumping right in". I've lurked for a long time for the laughs and even had an account that I used to post a bit but have since forgot my original username. As I said, I never sought to scambait but now one of them has found me and I'm willing to string it along for as long as it is safe to do so.

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 3:27 am

It's not safe to bait this. There is a baiter who has set up a scheme to bait this scam safely, but my baiting character hasn't yet received any mail purporting to come from the stranded character.

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:13 am

@banana splits: If the scammer realizes he is being played with, he will connect t he "jokers" with the person whose box he has taken over--and he may choose to retaliate against her. While he is not physically going to hurt her, he can cause her some real headaches--how big depends on what was in her mail box.

That's why we can't consider responding to be baiting safely.

As NV has indicated, I have an anonymous, baiter-loaded box that I keep "accidentally" handing out to phishers as I encounter them. It's really the only way to safely get this kind of lad for baiting. Still waiting for the right scammer to come along and jump in. If your friend gets her box back and can find the original phishing email she responded to, we may be able to get him that way.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Sep 2012 Posts: 3

*sigh* I understand. Thank you for the advice.

Oh well, if I can find out the info you need to bait this scammer safely, I'll certainly pass it along.

Thanks again.