What does 'lads' mean?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 11 Aug 2013 Posts: 3

As per the title really.

Thanks in advance.

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 7:45 pm

Lad is the term we use for scammers.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 11 Aug 2013 Posts: 3

No need to quote the post right above yours -- JMR

Thanks for that.

Why lad?

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 7:59 pm

As I understand it after doing a lot of reading this past week, it's short for the term "Lagos lad" as a high percentage of the scams originate from that area.

Although someone who has been here longer may want to correct me Embarassed

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 12:58 am

I remember coming across a bait account years ago more or less at random on some website or another. In it, the baiter had a reverend character who managed to get the boss scammer or "oga" in west african terms to send a couple of his underlings across the desert, into warzones and elsewhere trying repeatedly (and failing, of course) to meet up with the reverend and collect the usual cash, laptops, etc.

The "oga" kept writing and calling the reverend complaining that "the lads" were in this or that dire circumstance, and the baiter masterfully kept them going and going. If I remember correctly, the baiter kept increasing the amount of money and number of valuable items to 'compensate' for their hardships, disappointments and frustrations and this really seemed to work. He eventually also started referring to the unlucky scammers on the road as "the lads" and in describing other baits I believe he had done. That was really a funny and well-done bait and I wish I could find it again.

Of course, it may have been a coincidence that a scammer was calling his fellow scumbags "lads" in the bait I read, and it already could have been in common use, but that's my best understanding of the term.

Also, from what I understand, "lads" are technically African-based scammers. There are "vlads" in eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc nations and "phlads" in the Phillipines.

EDIT: Nope, I imagined the scammers calling each other "lads" thing. My memory sucks, but this is embarassing. It was "boys" and the bait is only from 2006. I even found it archived here at Eater!: http://www.419eater.com/html/RoadToChadDarfur/index.html

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21155

I always think of the movie RANSOM.

Lying Arsed Dog, but I know the term was here before that movie.

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:48 am

Comes from: 'Lads of Lagos'

It was first coined by someone in one of their baits on this site: http://www.scamorama.com/ if my memory serves me right??

A lot of Eater's original members came here from that place eons ago.

Blimey, I've been here a long time if I know that. Confused

Master Baiter Joined: 16 Sep 2009 Posts: 229

"Lad" is the way scammers refer to each other afaik.

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:07 am

^ Have to correct you there.

They call each other: guy, wiseguy, bro, bros. Yahoo, in the past but seems to have gone out of fashion because of the bad connotations now associated with the term 'yahoo yahoo' from the old days. Guyman was used as well, and also to stake their claim on any guestbooks they landed on to harvest potential mugu/maga emails. 'Keep off!!!! Guyman dei land here.' which is why you can google that phrase to locate seedable guestbooks.

Baiters, started using the term lad or pet to refer to scammers. If you ever hear a lad refer to himself as such, you're probably baiting a baiter. Wink

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:38 am

The term "lads" predates the launch of 419eater, in fact it's used in the very first thread in the Main Scambaiting forum. It was definitely popularised by scamorama.com, I think from even the earliest days of that site (~1999) it had the subtitle "Lads from Lagos". This is a nice alliterative expression that could be nicely abbreviated to "Lads" while still making it clear that we were talking specifically about advance fee fraudsters rather than whatever other kind of scam/spam artists were out there.

(ack - beaten to the drop by Cap'n ---- I had to do some googling to see if I could find anything on usenet predating the launch of scamorama. Wouldn't be surprised if it was coined by someone involved with scamorama - the style matches well with early scamorama tone. And yes, I was part of the gang who came here thanks in large part to scamorama).

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 11:02 am

^ Ebola Monkey Man got in first maybe? Your memory is usually better than mine on such things. Laughing

Re: 'lads on lads.'

I do remember someone getting kicked off the site for making wild claims about their wonderful baiting prowess, only to have all the older members sniggering via PM because he was claiming his lad was referring to all his cybercafe chums as lads. Laughing

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 11:17 am

Ahhh, good times. Scamorama was a year or two before Ebola man launched as I recall. But there were also a few message boards (Alexander Kerensky is the only one I remember) plus scattered discussion around some usenet groups.

In fact, *blush* I stumbled across a bait report I made long ago - baited and posted with my real name, just three messages and then taunting the lad that I had been baiting him. Oh the shame.

* if you are reading this, Scamorama is still very much worth reading! You may see some familiar baiting characters over there....

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:03 pm

^ Until the palmwine kicked in, and it was plane sailing from then on.

I must confess, I miss the wild-west, anything goes attitude of baiting from those golden times. But don't miss any of the bigheads we had to put up with.

When I get the time, I'm going to revisit some of the classic baits that got me hooked. Razz

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 3:32 pm

Maybe a few meanings
Lazy and dumb
Lagos and Dutse
Legless after drinking

Smile

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:05 pm

+1 for 'Lads from Lagos' from Scamorama - that site got me into scambaiting, after staying up all night reading the whole archive in fits of giggles.

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:36 am

I always thought it was TheRegister.co.uk that coined the phrase, but I may be wrong. "the lads from Lagos" featured in their articles many years ago.

Edit: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/11/419ers_get_god_distribute_millions/ - Feb 2004 Smile