Introduction from new but very experienced member

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 05 Aug 2015 Posts: 2

Hi everyone

I thought for years that I was the only one that did this!

I am a web designer and as such, live on the internet and email. As such, I have had well over a million 419 emails over the last decade or so. I started off in the old days getting 419 snail mail...

About 8 years ago I had enough and decided to target them back to waste their time and money, so using my skills I set up a bank website, a bait website, a university and a few forums full of bogus information. I was careful to make sure they were never indexed by yahoo or google and you could only access them if you knew he exact url.

My favourite bait was my persona Michael Littoris, Managing Director of Littoris and Manhood Exhibitions (LAME). We were the largest art exhibitor in Europe for West African produced art. We also provided $120,000 USD scholarships to attend the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Victoria Art School in London (which also had a website, prospectus, etc online).

In order to get your work exhibited in our totally-real-and-honestly-not-made-up gallery located on the corner of the busiest art quarter of London, Oxford Street and Buckingham Palace Mews, you had to send in a painting, or more often than not, a sculpture of a subject we "randomly" provided. Mostly these "random" items were in fact paintings or sculptures my wife had done, or something I just fancied a model of.

Whenever I did get an item sent, it was always at their expense and always to my drop box at a mail forwarder I used to work for.

Wouldn't you know it, but every one of the artists who submitted work was lucky enough to be offered a scholarship! Amazing I know! They all got sent a welcome letter, details of where they would be living, a form for their bank account information so the "university" could send their scholarship payment and a whole host of other things I have now forgotten.

They were all told their scholarships would take 28 days to arrive in their accounts which had been opened at the university bank. I said we were having problems sending funds to western union accounts and overseas bank accounts so they had to use the university bank. Their next letter from the university had their university bank username and password so they could see their funds online.

The best bit about their university bank account is that if they wanted to move money themselves, all they had to do was pay a $25 USD fee via western union. Most of the time I claimed the WU money had not been received, but as I was always cashing it at the local WU office, I knew when they had and had not. Occasionally I upped their balance in the online bank by the amount they paid to make it look even more genuine (well only if you were a complete idiot anyway).

I do a lot of work with the local homeless shelter so all the WU money they sent went there. I didn't keep a penny.

I deliberately structured the whole thing to contradict itself, to use locations that did not exist or were nowhere near each other and that would waste as much time and money as possible. I made the names I used obvious fakes (ffs Mike Littoris... Littoris and Manhood Exhibitions and the fact it spelled LAME...the fact everything was in USD even though we were wholly located in the UK..) everyone that fell for it was fair game as far as I was concerned. Even the google map I used on the LAME contact page pointed to the Statue of Liberty, not London. The map on the bank pointed to Fort Knox and the map on the university pointed at Belmarsh Prison. 5 seconds of due diligence would have shown these idiots it was all a lie but I knew none of them were intelligent enough to work it out.

Over the years I got hundreds of 419ers wasting their time and money, but only got around 20 to follow it through all the way. I had photos, physical pieces of art and sculpture, actual bank account numbers and western union details, home addresses, emails, the lot. One guy even phoned me claiming he was in London but could not find us on Oxford Street so could I please give him directions. I remember telling him to get on the underground and go to a station that was the end of the line, then giving him completely random walking directions from there. We had moved from the Oxford Street location just a few days before for some fanciful reason I cant remember now. I remember there were a few back and forth emails between the university and him about being scammed into coming ot the UK when the university didn't exist at the locations given, and me ending it by telling him that if he could not even follow simple directions, he was not the sort of person the University wanted on their course so the offer was withdrawn. I left the bank account page active for a few weeks but took all the "money" out leaving him with a negative balance, then sent a few debt collection letters to his home address threatening him the way people think debt collectors do, just to make it worse.

I shut everything down a few years ago, but got bored this afternoon and decided to see if anyone else had ever done what I spent an enjoyable time doing, and found your forum. I must say, very well done to all of you! I have been laughing my head off at some of the things you guys were getting them to do!

I think I will resurrect LAME, the University and the bank too if I can find the original html files. If not, I might just create it again from scratch.

I guess the short version is "Hello, I am new here but have many years experience - don't hesitate to ask my advice or let me know if you need any fake websites making - no charge to fellow baiters"!

Peace

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 5:39 pm

Welcome here. Please do not resurrect the bank. Odds are good that one of our site killers will find it ad just have it shut down.

Also, we do not "cash bait." By this, I mean requesting money of them. It is illegal and would make us no better than them. Read some more, especially the Stickies.

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:01 pm

bware419ers wrote:

Odds are good that one of our site killers will find it ad just have it shut down.

Or it could end up being reported to the authorities as fraudulent and you could have a lot of explaining to do about why you are running an unregulated bank.

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:09 pm

Relating to what the crewmates above said, you'll soon notice one thing in here: while what you were doing was morally justified, we take it a step further. We are the good guys, not only in speeches but literally as well. Bware and B8er have both pointed out why we couldn't accept your methods and still claim that title.

We're also a tightly knit team. No offense, but I believe you may not yet fully realize how organized and effective we are. We've had over 10 years of practice in doing this, so we know quite well what we are doing: we've come a long way from the days of just sending emails to the scammers and generally goofing around (although we still do that because it's fun). Bware's advice was good: read more, check the community out and settle in. I reckon you can also learn a thing or two from us, despite of your experience.

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:11 pm

B8er wrote:

running an unregulated bank.

That's a crime in itself even without fraudulent activity so that could result in criminal charges.

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:12 pm

Welcome you in the right place and when i see how you set them up with only your imaginations and web skills i can imagine the lads gone get hurt.On here we follow some rules for good reasons.Know that the founder of the site did cash baiting and donated the funds to charity's also.

read this sticky...and more

https://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32877

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:48 pm

Pluribus,

I really like your name by the way.

Anyway, this is ancient history (2004), but here is a news account of the fictitious "Bedrock Bank" in Colorado. Federal regulators shut it down. I don't think they caught the perpetrator, but it would not have been pleasant for him if they had.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/phony-bedrock-bank-shut-down/

Great to see you here, and I hope to read of your activities soon. Very Happy

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 8:04 pm

Welcome to Eater!

I think.

While I want to be welcoming and encourage you to bait safe, read the stickies and get a mentor (and drop the cash baiting and banking)...I just feel like there's something fishy going on here. If I'm wrong, you have my apologies, but here's the thing; from what I can tell, you say you thought you were the only one doing this kind of thing and that you didn't know there was a community like this on the web. And yet the baiting tactics you describe above mirrors Shivers (founder of the site) methods almost point for point.

Have you read the book "Greetings in Jesus Name!" and used that as inspiration for your baits? The book was written by Shiver.

I do t know, maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I have a hard time believing someone unconnected to eater would come up with the same art-charity bait format. Even down to the silly names, scholarships, drop box, fake website etc. The art bait is rather specific, and not overly intuitive.

The coincidence seems......unlikely.

If I'm wrong, you have my honest apologies, and Welcome to Eater!

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 3876

hello and welcome to eater.

your experience is quite impressive. and that you use several websites. as the others already said, having a fake bank isn't a good idea. however, fake parcel services are something needed.

some great baits relied on them.

basically, a parcel service page consists of 2 websites. the lads/customers interface and the baiters interface. the lad can log into the customer interface, easing confirmations of safaris, and watch his parcel travelling from the sender through several logistics centers to him... and then it never shows up.

if the parcel-website has a top level domain, it is even possible to give baiters customer-service mail addresses. the lads fully trust them, and the baiter can play victim and customer-service, and we all know that customer service can be highly annoying... Very Happy

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 8:31 pm

Welcome Pluribus! The cause here can always use people with your skills.

Read the stickies and see how we play the game. There are reasons behind all of our methods.

I'm sure you'll be able to find a nitch or two where you can contribute while having lots of fun!

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 577

I think he's reading the stickies.

Or the squirrel got him.

Master Baiter Joined: 11 Jul 2011 Posts: 229

You could have sent it to this site

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 05 Aug 2015 Posts: 2

Hi

Been reading all the "stickies" and as much info about the way you do things here and understand a bit more about your methods.

I hope I can contribute to the baiting community!

Peace

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 577

Welcome.

Glad the squirrel didn't get you.

Another baiter here - Jojobean has been on hiatus for the past seven years and just returned.

He's a little rusty - but don't tell him that.

Just a word to the wise.

Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:03 pm

Welcome To Eater,

You certainly sound experienced but remember baiting safe is the key to having fun and making the lads feel pain.

As others have said, cash baiting and what not is a no-no. The goal is just to waste the laddies time and resources.

Happy Baiting

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