sympathy from a scammer - likely or unlikely?

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Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:46 am

i have been lurking for a few weeks so i think i know the basics of baiting safely.

i would like to try baiting some love scammers so i have a question about whether to include experiences from my personal life when baiting the evil scammers. i think it's safe to do this as long as there is no contact info or identifying info. i was in an accident recently (hence the smallcaps - sorry about that) and i could include details of the accident and my recovery in the bait. my idea is to make them sympathise with me and see how many will still try to scam me and how many will back off.

added: i also have a more basic question - how to get love scammers to write to me. if anyone has email addresses from spare love scammers, please send them to me.

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 10:07 am

Hi r2d2

Sympathy from a scammer, no way, any sign of weakness on your part will be exploited, albeit with the right noises.

Make up your 'character' develop a whole life history for him/her overact as much as you like. Give vent to your imagination and ENJOY.

Just remember it is NOT YOU that is being scammed, and do not get personally involved in the story.

By the way it is good idea to get a mentor.

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:05 am

@ R2

Any preferences? Males, Females*, lads, vlads?

* More than likely to be males in reality.

If you need some send me a PM.

Also recommend this guide on romance baiting. click here

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:14 am

Cathartic Kate wrote:

Any preferences? Males, Females*, lads, vlads?

i have a feeling that vlads are more likely to pretend to be females looking for males, and lads are more likely to be males looking for females. is that accurate, or is my perception wrong?

and what if i was gay or transexual?

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 12:46 pm

The reality is that whomever they pretend to be, they more likely to be male.

As a baiter feel free to be anything you wish your character to be.

I have baited as both bi and lesbian to the lads (assumed) genders.

I like experimenting and enjoy trying novel and fresh approaches.

It amuses me often, as a female, pretending to fall in love as a male with the scammer, (usually) male pretending to be a female.

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 12:59 pm

Welcome R2D2

Vlads dont often play the part of men scamming women although it does happen, I dont reecall a case of this myself but have heard of it.

Vlads are sometimes actually female though and from my experience it is more common than female lads although realistically perhaps only 1 or 2 % of them, this is evidenced by the pictures you see of women holding signs to prove their love, most are Russians

As for including real things in your bait, I do it constantly, I will not tell them where i went exactly but if i spent a day out with family I will tell them, I dont disclose anything useful of course and in fact sometimes spread mis information doing it

I enjoy putting things into my baits for the enjoyment or education of others, you can see some examples of that and me telling lads the truth often in the spooner baits, the problem is sorting truth from fantasy, but I know and sometimes others do too

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 3:33 pm

I would imagine that, regarding accidents, a scammer would be more interested in whether you received any compensation payment, and/or are able to continue working and making spare money (to send them), than offering anything more than fake and superficial sympathy. Therefore, if your own accident was in any way traumatic, or caused any life changes, you could find that their dismissive attitude and lack of caring actually hurts the real you a bit - or a lot.

Same as with being a gay character. Most West African countries are anti-gay, so if you are gay yourself, or you have friends or relatives who are gay, or just have strong politics about the subject, then their attitudes could become more personal than you intended.

I do use my real life as a springboard to writing to Lads, but only the mundane. My characters cook and eat whatever I am cooking and eating; defrost the fridge when I am defrosting the fridge; grow the same plants (I'm sure they love their daily update on how the sage has grown another half a centimetre); love and hate the same weather conditions. But I'm wary of ever writing anything that really matters to me in real life. My latest mistake was to give one of my characters a dog to write boring chapters about. I like dogs. I'm now receiving endless mails talking right back about dogs. It's not that I want to ostrich myself about the subject, but, really, the bad treatment and poor conditions for dogs in various African countries is not really the sort of thing that is heartening to have early-morning coffee over.

So I'd say, in areas where it matters, leave one step of detachment between your character's passions and beliefs and concerns and politics and your own. So it doesn't get too personally draining or turn into a one-baiter-crusade for your real life ideals.

I have a small Love Lad source (mostly West African, occasionally Indian, Pakistani, other) which, in return for one to two week's patience, a female character can obtain those who are not flighty at any excuse, and - moreover - never suggest using Yahoo Instant Messenger. It is a genuine (no scammer ads - I've only spotted one in three years) penpal site, but it is harvested. Lots of millionaire refugees, but also maybe six to eight patient/potentially long-term Love Lads per advert posted. I repeat: it is a genuine site, and it is also moderated, and your advert will need to be personally approved (hence the delay in publishing), so one needs to be careful in using it as a baiting profile. However, I've successfully had three baiting characters advertise there, and have only once received a genuine reply (which I hard-heartedly deleted immediately, telling myself it was my character doing this - not nice ole me). If anyone is interested, and believes that they truly can put a penpal advert together which will not attract real correspondents nor bring the site itself into any distrust/disrepute (I uphold the site!), PM me and I'll give further information.

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 3:52 pm

Here's an excellent post on the subject of scammers and the sympathy they feel for their victims, from Cachuma...

Quote:

I actually love baiting hitman lads. My hitman-baiting character is an unemployed single mother with a 5-yr-old son who has cancer. I tell the hitman that the money he wants me to send to him is all the money I have to pay for my son's cancer treatment, and if I have to send it to him, my son will surely die.

Almost invariably, they demand that I send them the money anyway. I like to save up these responses to use in ethics threads, to give lad-huggers a little dose of reality.

Only once has a hitman lad actually caved when I told him about my "sick son". There was this really pathetic hitman lad last year that a bunch of us baited. The moment I trotted out my cancer-son story, he fell apart and actually told me he was a Nigerian scammer and wasn't going to hurt me. Not that he was reformed in any way - I started baiting from another email addy, and he got right back on script.

If you want to read the whole thread, it's here...
http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=161129

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:10 pm

I use my personal daily life to bore them to tears ... as I'm a 40 year old woman with 2 almost grown kinds in real life, and I'm a 30 year old widow in my persona ... I use my kid's names but make them my neighbors kids who come and visit with me occasionally to get out of their house (I'm the cool neighbor)...

my real life husband is a character called Lou (not his real name) and we have a friend mike (his real name) and they are constantly over fixing things on the house or car...even though the lad's know there is no romantic overtones, it still makes them twinge with worry over losing their victim...

I do things for them, like drive lou once a week to his doctor's appointment (he doesn't have a car)...so I will go into fake details about his health...

hubby's kids come over on weekends, so I use his wife's name (connie) and just say she has to work a lot of weekends so I watch her kids for her...and I just call the kids "the kids"...

I got into 2 real life car accidents in 2 weeks (one my fault, the larger one not my fault) so I have 3 insurance checks coming in, but the insurance company wants me to pay a 500 deductible (false) on the wreck I caused and they want it NOW or they're going to sue me...so no money for them...but a hint of money in the future...

as for sympathy - they have none - their problems are end of the world catastrophes that they can't get through without YOUR money, but your problems will all be ok...

they will listen and make the appropriate "so sorry dear" and such, and it's a good time waster to go into detail on everything, but don't expect real emotion from them...until you have been chatting for months they really won't remember any of the details (so you can tell them again and again)...

I play a character who stretched my pay to buy a nice house to raise a family in - but my bills take almost every dime of my money - I always figured I'd have a husband to help bring in a second income that could be used for the more fun things in life...so I eat beans a lot to make ends meet...when they ask for money, I tell them I'm eating beans again and really can't help...

you'd think that would make them go away - but they are always asking for 50$...and they've hung in there since mid-october, early november...just over 50$...and I've wasted countless hours with them on YIM chatting about the mundane...

of course, I threw in the IRS tax refund money coming in to make them smell money - which of course all had to go to past due bills (sorry no money again)...

Due to the insurance check, I might have enough money to buy them a round trip ticket (required to get a visitors visa) to come here and then get married - I have 2 weddings on valentine's day next year...so they can get their green card (it really doesn't work that way but they are pretty uneducated about how the visa programs work)...

but again - don't expect sympathy - they will use it to their advantage if they can -- telling them you are expecting a settlement is a good idea, just tell them that the lawyers said it would take awhile to settle, like from 6 months to a year...that would keep them hanging in there Wink

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:37 pm

thanks for the replies people - i will cautiously include non-identifying details of my experiences in my bait.

my accident was a car accident, and quite a bad one. i was in a coma for several weeks, and i'm going to be stuck in bed for several months while various bits of me mend. so recovery is going to take a while, hence the reason why i'm taking a year out and have time on my hands for hobbies like baiting.

about insurance payouts, that's going to take many months or even years to sort out in real life. but i could tell the lads i'm expecting a payout very very soon, which should keep them interested. Smile

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 5:01 pm

Oh - sorry for the double post - but where to find scammers...I am doing lads and not vlads at this point, so this is from that perspective ...

There is a surplus section in one of the other forums, you just find a love scammer & send them an e-mail saying you were sorry you didn't answer sooner, but you were talking with someone else (who didn't work out) and you only chat with one man at a time...

I set up a profile at www.4ppl.com - all fake of course - I did a search for "female portfolios" to find a series of pictures of attractive, but sort of normal looking people (having 3 - 4 pictures is a good thing, just don't give them all out at once)...

at 4ppl you just log on so your profile shows as "who's online now" and you get browsed - don't make it too attractive for a real person to get caught up ... I personally don't use their chat - I make them send me a letter - then browse their profile, look for ones that have very little in the "about me" section ... and what is there uses bad engligh/grammer...

Some of them are honest and will say they are in ghana or nigeria or where ever (I've seen a profile that said "looking for a woman to take care of me") I tend to leave those alone - I look for people who say they are in the US or UK and just don't have the grammer skills to really be from there...

From the 4ppl mail, I ask them to e-mail me (to my catcher account) with more information (tell them I don't log into 4ppl that much)...that way you can check the IP headers to see where they're really coming from and you don't have a "real" person...

Then I'll switch to chatting on YIM - but some people prefer to just use e-mail to chat...

Of the ones I "catch" some will never answer, or will go away after a couple chats -- that's normal (not something you're doing wrong)...the ones who stick around will usually stick around for awhile no matter how many times or how hard you slap them...

Hope that helps a little Smile

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:45 am

Quote:

could tell the lads i'm expecting a payout very very soon, which should keep them interested.

Most lads will stay interested as long as they believe that you are from a western style nation as all westerners have loads of money. There is no need to over do things. Lads don't understand baiting but they do know about jokers so try at first to be very ordinary even downright unattractive.

Let your story develop slowly and naturally. I find it best if I keep everthing fake so I don't develop any sort of emotional attachment. They are nothing but a bug that I'm experimenting on.

As said before 4ppl is an excellent source of lads.

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