Are we committing fraud?

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419Eater is my life Joined: 01 Oct 2008 Posts: 349

I'm new at this and am currently running 3-4 scambaits. One of those has turned out pretty well. I’m at the point where I just made up fake British Airways flight confirmations from Philadelphia to London to meet these guys. I have to ask though, am I too committing fraud? indeed I have created a fraudulent instrument in the fake document...if I ever need to involve the Police by necessity (death threats) or by choice (set up a time and place to meet in London) could I be subject to prosecution?

Baiting Guru Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 2922

1) afaik-and i'm not a lawyer-what we do is not illegal.

2) If you are saying you wish to involve the police if you get a death threat, then i might suggest that you just straight bait lads and slowly fade away when the time comes-then they'll be minimal chance of a death threat. Most people on here see them as badges of honour and display them in their signature lines. Some people, myself included actively seek them as can be seen in the insulting mass bait thread in the 'publish your work' section. The first one is unnerving, but after that it's water off a ducks back.

3) If you choose to involve the police, they won't be interested, they have too much to do with too little resources. Internet scams iirc are not a crime until money has changed hands. As you're a baiter and won't be paying there will be no crime for the police to investigate.

Oh and lastly get your self a document scrubber to make sure you don't leave any hidden traces of yourself if you send your lad documents... If you want fakey air tickets try here http://omatic.musicairport.com/

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:56 am

Welcome emsjeep. Please don't be too alarmed about any death threats you may receive. They may seem intimidating but since your lad has no idea as to your real identity, personal details and location (right? Wink

) you can't possibly come to any harm, especially as you have no intention of actually travelling anywhere to meet him. Baiters receive death threats all the time and we regard them as a bonus because it means the lad is getting really rattled and shows the bait is having the desired effect.

As for getting your scammer arrested, unless you can give the police a huge amount of specific and correct detail about your scammer and since all the information the scammer has given you will be a pack of lies then unfortunately there isn't much that the police can do. That's why internet scammers are so successful unfortunately.

If you can get the scammer to hang around at London airport for hours waiting for a non-existant "victim" who never even got on a flight then congratulations!

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:50 am

emsjeep,

Basically, lying is not illegal if you are not trying to profit from it.

419Eater is my life Joined: 01 Oct 2008 Posts: 349

Oh, I'm not afraid of the threats, on the contrary, I look forward to them. When I disappear mysteriously and my family gets a phone call from a Nigerian freighter 50 miles off the coast of New Jersey asking for $2 Million at least they will know why...

I don't expect them to do anything, but I don't see how it would otherwise be a bad idea to submit it just for the sake of being officially recorded, just in case.

I hope that .jpeg wasn't tagged with an author's name...

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:42 am

Of course you are free to lodge a formal complaint with the police but they simply don't have the time, the resources or the jurisdiction to investigate a bunch of lads using fake names sitting in an anonymous internet cafe thousands of miles away in Lagos or wherever. Experience has shown that even if we are able to obtain a large amount of verifiable information about these crooks the realistic chances of having them caught, arrested, charged and brought to justice are Zero. That's why we fight back in other ways like wasting the scammers time and money by baiting them. It's a noble cause so enjoy inflicting as much pain as possible and bait safe!

Master Baiter Joined: 08 Sep 2008 Posts: 113

emsjeep wrote:

I hope that .jpeg wasn't tagged with an author's name...

There may be better out there, but I use Exif reader, found here to see what extra information is embedded in a picture file. (The page is initially in Japanese, but an English version is also available from the Exif link.)

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:11 pm

The worse that will happen is that your lad sets the F.B.I on you. They're a bunch of pussycats though in my experience and dealings with them. Wink

Weren't they going to make it an offense to impersonate someone or not give your real details using email in the U.S.?

I think commonsense prevailed and the proposal was quietly dropped in the end.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:19 pm

emsjeep wrote:

I have to ask though, am I too committing fraud? indeed I have created a fraudulent instrument in the fake document...

So do toy and gag company's. Monopoly prints "Money" and fake stock certificates can be had from various joke shops. As long as you are not trying to sell them as the real thing and make money.... its all good clean fun right, so have FUN, and bait safe.

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

This is where I come in.

I'm a licensed criminal defense attorney, so let's talk about what is and is not a crime. I'm going to speak to Federal American law here; your state law may be different, and you need to double check within your state. If you're not in the good ol' USA, then disregard this post entirely.

FORGERY

Code section link: LINK

This is one that's a little overlooked on these forums, but take a moment to look at 18 USC Sec. 1028. This one's a beast; basically, it involves using or possessing forged identification documents, and it makes it illegal. You can possess up to four of them, as long as you don't intend to use them for anything, but the moment you "produce" one (use it to identify yourself), you are committing a federal felony. Furthermore, if you have any programs or blank documents designed to allow you to create a false ID, then you are committing a federal felony.

What does this mean? It means DO NOT fake a passport, driver's license, social security card, etc. Whether or not you are doing it in order to get anything back from people does not matter. Producing a false ID is a felony, and it can get you some serious time.

FRAUD

Code Section link: LINK

Generally speaking, the above persons are right; in order to be a fraudster, you must be trying to get something from someone. There's some exceptions to this rule, though, with regard to e-mail that can be very, very important. This is under 18 USC Sec. 1037, and it prohibits and makes felonious the following:

"Whoever, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly -

(1) accesses a protected computer without authorization, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages from or through such computer,

(2) uses a protected computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial electronic mail messages, with the intent to deceive or mislead recipients, or any Internet access service, as to the origin of such messages,

(3) materially falsifies header information in multiple commercial electronic mail messages and intentionally initiates the transmission of such messages,

(4) registers, using information that materially falsifies the identity of the actual registrant, for five or more electronic mail accounts or online user accounts or two or more domain names, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages from any combination of such accounts or domain names, or

(5) falsely represents oneself to be the registrant or the legitimate successor in interest to the registrant of 5 or more Internet Protocol addresses, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages from such addresses"

The big one there, as I've highlited in bold, is faking commercial e-mails from five or more e-mail accounts. What does that mean? It means limit yourself to four baiter mail addies if you're doing commercial baits. Romance baits are not included in this; you can fake a name when having cyber all you want, but as soon as ANY transaction becomes commercial, you can't have five or more fake accounts. So if you've got four accounts you're running commercial baits out of, and one you're romance bainting out of....you're still committing a felony. It's any combination of addies, not at least one mail from each.

This is a federal fraud regardless of what you are actually doing; if the e-mails are commercial in nature, then you're committing a felony with five or more e-mail addys.

EXTORTION

Code Section link: LINK

18 USC Sec. 875(d) reads in full "Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Occasionally some of the baits I've seen in this forum do fall into this category (send me X and I will not report you to the EFCC). This is a touchy one, and it could lead to federal prosecution. The solution on this is to make sure that whatever slap you give your lad is not tied to your receiving something of value. As long as you never tie a threat to receiving anything, you're not committing extortion.

Remember that value in the law is a very broad concept; basically, if it's only worth the data it's encrypted on, it still has some value. The fact that you're baiting for a picture instead of cash does not mean what you're bainting for has no value.

These are the big federal issues you run into while baiting. As long as you know what's prohibited, you can bait and not commit a federal crime. AGAIN: Check the laws of your individual state, as this little post just highlites some of the federal issues that might come up and covers no state law at all (as yours truly is not licensed to cover state law save for one state). Bait within those restrictions, and you should be fine.

Edited to add code section links

MOD edit - converted butt long urls to links - RC

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:05 pm

^^^Those are some butt long linkies. I am not a fraudstar and I take a death threat as a compliment.

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

Connie L. Gus wrote:

^^^Those are some butt long linkies.

That's the feds for you.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:07 pm

Welcome Bobtheelephant!

How do they know who I am and why would I be under investigation in the first place? Smile

Edit: To answer your question, I'm not! Very Happy

THEY are another story! Laughing

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

Corona wrote:

How do they know who I am and why would I be under investigation in the first place? Smile

I was answering the initial question: "Is what we're doing illegal?" Your question is "How likely am I to get caught while committing this felony?"

One of my oaths as an attorney is to never encourage anyone to break the law. Answering that second question puts me in to very murky ethical ground, and by "ethical" I mean "Professional Rules of Ethics;" the things used to disbar attorneys.

That being said, remember that under the Bushies there's a pretty elaborate system regarding international communications. It's not surprising to find that most international e-mail is being warrantlessly collected and examined by federal investigators. Now, the official line is that they're looking for terrorists, not scambaiters, but if they happen to find someone committing a felony, then who knows?

It's much more likely to come up if you're busted for something else, and a search of your computer shows that you committed these felonies in addition to whatever you were busted for. Any federal prosecutor worth her salt will stack these on in order to pressure you into some form of a plea deal, or to add to your time in the "relevant conduct" slot of the sentencing guidelines.

EDIT: Also, the OP gives us another scenario; if for some reason you need law enforcement protection during the course of your bait (unlikely, but possible), or you want law enforcement to act against someone (still unlikely, but possible), then you have to be totally clean yourself before you can contact them.

Short answer: There's some stuff that's illegal, and the possibility exists that you could be prosecuted for it. Better safe than sorry.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:16 pm

Bobtheelephant
Thank you for going to the trouble of looking those up, I've seen this question asked on the forum a few times.

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

^^ No problem; I looked those up before I started baiting myself, so it wasn't too hard to just link em.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:30 pm

^^^I thank you also. Wink

Now, bait lads! Laughing

Baiting Guru Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 5727

Cool. An elephant attorney! I bet you never forget a case!

As to the part concerning email addresses, while I'm not an attorney, I would think that the part about "initiating" the exchange would make this on somewhat murky ground. I obviously have more than five characters, and more than five email addresses, however I never "initiate" the exchanges. I might respond to a scam sent to character X with character Y, but in all cases I am responding to an email sent by the lad, and not initiating the exchange.

Then again, what do I know, as I will obviously be sharing a cell with a lonely man known as "Big Bubba" in the future. Very Happy

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:12 pm

Donato wrote:

If you want fakey air tickets try here http://omatic.musicairport.com/

Neat site! If anyone wants air tickets for airlines not listed on there, and according to valid timetables, just let me know... I should be able to whip something up from my extensive collection of airline-related materials.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:16 pm

"and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages "
Baiters don't initiate email exchanges, they respond to scam emails. And no baiter thinks he's involved in a commercial transaction.

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

Jayhawk wrote:

As to the part concerning email addresses, while I'm not an attorney, I would think that the part about "initiating" the exchange would make this on somewhat murky ground. I obviously have more than five characters, and more than five email addresses, however I never "initiate" the exchanges.

But look at what needs to be initiated: it's not an exchange, it's a transmission. The fact that someone else is contacting you first doesn't matter; the phrase is "initiates the transmission." In other words, all you have to do to fit the bill is cause any commercial e-mail to be sent out. Hitting the "send" button is all it takes to fit that bill.

It doesn't get you off the hook that the transmission you are initiating is a response to another transmission. As long as you are hitting a send button, you're initiating a transmission.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:19 pm

I need to check my milk, I hear it going bad.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:21 pm

^ It would also be interesting to know what the corresponding laws say in Canada... also, do the Provinces set their own laws too like BobtheElephant says happens in the US, or does only Dominion law apply?

Baiting Guru Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 5727

Bob, (or is it "Barrister Elephant"?), what exactly constitutes a "commercial emai", and how is that different than a regular email?

419Eater is my life Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 381

Mr Tambourine Man wrote:

And no baiter thinks he's involved in a commercial transaction.

Again, not an issue. The question is whether the e-mail itself is commercial in nature, not whether either party intends it to be. It's an analysis conducted on the face of the document. So if your bait is "I've got an investment bank, and I'll pay you X for your investment" or some such (which, by the way, is my basic modality), then the fact that I never intend to complete the transaction really doesn't mean anything. The e-mail is commercial in nature, so that's enough.

TWAT, for instance, is a much safer modality; it's not a commercial enterprise, it's a church. So those emails wouldn't be commercial in nature. It all depends on the way you're baiting them.

EDIT: More full explanation of the term: 15 USC Sec. 7702(2)(A) reads:

"The term "commercial electronic mail message" means any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service (including content on an Internet website operated for a commercial purpose)."

LINK