I'm building a hotel in Antartica

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Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:35 pm

The Cast

Sir Thompson B played by the Lad
Mike Hunt played by me

This one arrived in my church catcher account and as I was intrigued at what his angle would be, I decided to bait him as a business man rather than a church.

Day 1
The initial scam email

Quote:

Dear Friend,
Am interested in setting a five star hotel in your country, but I do not know how this is done in your country, so I will want you to help me in this regard. My preference is any good location or site suitable for building a five star hotel.
Am proposing to invest the sum of Eighteen Million Dollars ($18,000.000.00) for this. I do not know if you can be of help to me.

Before I go further, I like to introduce myself briefly, am Sir Thompson B, I am 65 years old with a wife and two lovely children. The proprietor of Aberdeen Northern Hotel, Aberdeen City, United Kingdom. Am also the sole proprietor of Rosario Hotel in Argentina, South America.

I will want you to help me look for at least one hectare of land for the project, and do note, my need for setting up this project is very urgent as I will not hesitate to send half amount of the money to you as soon as any suitable site is found for purchase so as to commence work on site immediately. I also need your total honesty, commitment and trustwardeness in this business relationship.

I will need your phone and fax numbers for easier communication with you incase am unable to access my emails. Please contact me through the below email address:
[email protected]

Best Regards

Sir, Thompson B.

Mike likes the idea

Quote:

Dear Sir,

I think that your idea is a very good one. There are very few 5 star hotels in Antartica, so I think that we could corner the market.

What would I get out of this venture?

Day 3
The scammer replies

Quote:

Dear Mike,
Complement of the season to you. I and my family wish to appreciate your profound willingness to assist me in this project. Well the kind of help I demand from you in this business relationship is that you should help me look for a suitable site or plot for purchase in your country where I can built a five star hotel. The reason why I am contacting you is because I don’t know how this is done in your country, so in this case I want you to look for a land, bargain the price with the owner and procure all the necessary documents related to the purchase, as I will not hesitate to send you the money for purchase and commencement of work on site immediately.

Now that I have accepted you as my business partner, I demand you total honesty, seriousness and confidentiality as far as this business relationship is concern, as this is the motto of my businesses.

Waiting for your swift response.

Best regards,

Sir, Thompson B.

As luck would have it, Mike knows of just the place

Quote:

Dear Sir Thompson,

Top of the morning to you and your good family.

I think that we might be in luck, I have heard through the gropevine that there is a substancial parcel of land coming up for sale on Berkner Island.

This would prove to be an ideal location, as it is close to the Antartica International Airport (but not too close to suffer from noise) and also has the most amazing views of the continental ice shelf.

Let me know how you want to go about this transaction.

Mike

Day 5
The scammer responds positively

Quote:

Dear Mike,
Complement of the season to you and your entire family. First and foremost I like to appreciate your effort so far, on behalf of my family.

Responding to your mail and the content therein, please I want you to swing into action, value the land and the amount for purchase as well as the location of the plot hence you stated that is in island I think that is a very good location. Furnish me with the necessary information regarding the purchase amount and the procurement of the documents therein; I will not hesitate to send you the money.

Waiting for your developmental feedback.

Best regards,

Sir, Thompson B.
Tel: +447031860862
Fax: 0044870496708

Mike replies with good news

Quote:

Dear Sir Thompson,

I have spoken to the owner of the land and he is willing to sell 55 acres for the price of $4,500,000. Does that sound reasonable to you? Is that a suitable size plot for the type of hotel that you are thinking of building?

The rules in this country are quite strict on the purchase of land by non-residents, but there are ways around that. We can discuss those in more detail later.

Regards

Mike

Day 7
The scammer replies and needs a lot more land. I'm not that good on areas, but I don't think there are 10000 acres in a hectare!

Quote:

Dear Mike,
Complement of the season to you. In this regard, I will like to praise your meaningful effort so far. I got your mail and the content therein. Though the price for purchase of the parcel of land is reasonable, but 55 acres of land is not enough for the kind of business we want to setup. We should realize that 10000 acres of land make one hectare which I requested for. On this note, please still help me look for more acres even if it is not up to the required one hectare, the money for purchase of the land will not be problem as I have made all necessary arrangement to send you the money provided it is in a very good location.

Once again I appreciate your partnership as far as this business relationship is concern .
Waiting to hear from you soonest.

Best regards,

Sir, Thompson B.
Tel: +447031860862
Fax: 0044870496708

Don't want to educate him, so we'll go along with his measurements

Quote:

Dear Sir Thompson,

OK I understand where the confusion has arisen. The man selling the land is a native and he used the local measurements.

The original parcel of land was in fact 5500 Acres (about half a hectare). I have asked him about extending the size of the land and he would be willing to sell 9500 Acres for the price of $8,000,000, but can't provide the full 10000.

Is this more suitable for your needs?

Mike

Day 8
Scammer replies, and it looks like he wants to courier me some money (bet there will be fees involved). So that's his angle, it's just a straight 419.

Quote:

Dear Mike,
With great delight I receive your mail which suits my demand. I so appreciate your effort as far as this business relationship is concern. The 9500 Acres and the price which is ($8,000,000) is affordable for us to start our project. I have already consulted my financial consultant and my legal attorney has sign the release of five hundred thousand America dollars ($500,000.00) both for the purchase of the parcel of land and commencing of work on site immediately. So I have contact one of the notable delivery companies in United Kingdom (deluxe delivery service worldwide) www.deluxeworldwide.es.tl who can deliver such a huge amount like this to your door step without any hitch or hindrance by their special delivery personnel.

If this process of sending you the money is convenient by you, please send me your full contact details, your full names, your correct contact home address, your correct contact phone numbers as they will contact you as soon as they arrived in your country.

Waiting to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Sir, Thompson B.
Tel: +447031860862
Fax: 0044870496708

Mike replies and there's no point the scammer sending the cash yet, as he's got a lot of work to do before we can start building

Quote:

Dear Sir Thompson,

Hold on a sec there, you're getting a bit ahead of things. Before we even consider buying the land, we need to get planning permission sown up.

I've had an initial chat with the local planning people, and they are keen to promote tourism in the area. So, a hotel is likely to get a favorable response, but it has to be the right type of hotel. There is also the problem of the bloody environmentalists, who oppose every new development in this area. But I think that we can get round them by blackmail and threats of violence against their families.

The first thing that I will need from you is a set of plans for the hotel building, car parking and eny external features such as golf courses and swimming pools. If you can get those to me then I can set about applying for initial planning permission.

Regards

Mike

Day 9
Reply from the scammer, and at first I wasn't sure what he was going on about insanity. Then it occurred to me that he was probably picking up on the mental in environmental

Quote:

Dear mike,
Complement of the season to you once again, though your mail is well noted, but the second paragraph pose some misunderstanding to me. Kindly make me clear about the environmental situation as I will not like to invest in any environment where there is insanity of any kind. Please guide me in this situation.

Waiting for your feedback.

Best regards,
Sir, Thompson B.

Mike replies, explaining things

Quote:

Dear Sir Thompson,

You do not need to worry about the environmentalists. There is no insanity (well they are a bit loopy, but not insane).

The situation here is that the area is designated as an 'Area of Outstanding Beauty' and therefore, the planning requirements are quite strict. Unfortunately, there are a lot of narrow-minded individuals who think that the environment is more important than money. As Businessmen, you and I can see the benefits that a hotel complex will bring to Antartica, but all these sad individual care about is what happens to the yellow spotted dodo.

Do not worry, for a relatively small sum of money we can bribe the planning board to approve your plans and there will be nothing that Bill Oddie and his weak minded friends can do about it.

What I need from you now are an initial draft of the plans for the hotel complex, so that I can start to approach the planning board. I would also like your agreement to offer a sum of $250,000 to the board to 'grease the wheels of industry' so to speak.

Regards

Mike

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:43 am

is this him

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/10/24/north_east_s14_w7_bobbythompson_feature.shtml

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 27 Apr 2009 Posts: 7

Thanks, B8er... it was very funny to read this conversation of yours.
Hotels and turism in Antarctica, LOL... to the next 'investor' try to sugest Atlantida Very Happy

Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 8:27 am

wattaman wrote:

to the next 'investor' try to sugest Atlantida Very Happy

I often suggest Brobdingnagg, Laputa and Balnibarbi!!!!!
Wonderful, thinking about the bloody environmentalists of Antarctica...
I laughed so much when he started getting concerned about the "insanity"!!!!!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 54

Great Job!

I can't wait to see what transpires from here. I have tried several baits and I have been unable to get any of them to respond after their initial emails. I've tried several approaches... from cursing at them, all the way to honest business like this one. I guess I will just have to enjoy reading others' baits and keep posting mine in the surplus letters.

Keep us updated with this bait. I really enjoy reading the new ones.

~~mike~~

Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 5:47 am

Unfortunately, it didnt get any further. I didn't hear back from him and when I gave him a prod the email address was dead.

Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 11:34 am

-419-MIKE wrote:

I have tried several baits and I have been unable to get any of them to respond after their initial emails.

Why lads are often so reluctant to reply, it is still a mystery to me, even after one year of professional baiting and so many successful baits on my records. At first, I explained it to myself with my scarce experience, as the golden rule to start a bait is “keep it simple”, start with a standard mail “I’m interested tell me more”, just play the innocent victim, don’t be verbose or try to adopt some complicated delay tactic, otherwise it will discourage the lad or made him smelling a “joker”, making drop you at the very first stages.
But it still happens, and due to the low rate of replies for thousands of scam-letters, the number of lads that doesn’t even react to my attempts puzzles me.
Don’t become discouraged at your turn, ask your mentor, read and stick to the baiting ethics and guidelines, and finally your trophies will come.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 54

Thanks for the encouragement. I just got a bite on one. I have published my work so far in this thread:

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1364854#1364854

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