Almost overwhelming at times...

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 12:48 am

I was wondering if any of you, especially some of the old farts (and I mean that in the most respectful sense), find yourself pausing from time to time just swamped by the sheer enormity of the 419 trade. Considering the math of it is just plain scary.

There are over 50,000 members here on Eater. If only 5%, or 2,500, are active (and I bet that number is low) and those are folks that dive in when they can (as opposed to being true ninjas), I would think that their experience would be similar to mine. I converse with somewhere around 2,000 lads in a year's time (thereabouts...it could be a little more or less). I'm pretty active because of my job, so let's go conservative and say that the average is 1/5 of that or 400 lads in a year. Considering the true hammer-throwers like "next victim" and other folks who type a lot faster than me, I bet that's a REALLY low guess.

So we get:
2,500 baiters X 400 lads = 1M lads

Holy shit.

Throw in the fact that I have NEVER hit the same lad twice (unless I did it on purpose 'cause he was dumb as a box of wood shavings) and I can't fathom just how MANY of these guys there are. Are there really hundreds and hundreds of thousands of petty (and not so petty) thieves pounding away at this?

It's staggering. And it must be working, because it's not like they're going out of business.

On top of that is the ridiculously short list of scripts AND the exact same responses over and over and over and over (I'm sure that is well noted by you...) and the whole thing just gets weirder. A 7-figure number of lads with probably less than a couple of dozen scams? And nearly every conversation, even when they're off script, is nearly identical?

What is there, a college degree in this crap? With a textbook and Cliff notes?

And of course there's no real data to show how many lads, how much money, etc. No policing body of any consequence, victims too embarrassed to speak up, an entire subculture built on victimization that appears to justify itself by insisting that they're the down-trodden and this is their only way to make living.

Makes my head spin just a little.

Okay...a lot.

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 1:12 am

Quote:

2,500, are active (and I bet that number is low)

I would be surprised if that number is not high....but I get surprised each day I wake up. Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 3:18 pm

There is indeed a plethora of the scum types out there and we're just talking about scammers here....

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 18 Oct 2012 Posts: 611

The important thing is that we're still doing what we do, we're still managing to distract and deter, and maybe to some degree eliminate scammers. Even if we only focus on one lad at a time, we're doing something, and even if it's not much, it's better than letting them run wild. If law enforcement cannot keep them from this, we must continue on.

It sickens me to think they're getting away with so much. I'll make sure they don't enjoy as it could.

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 10:37 am

One of the biggest aggrevations I get is from baiting the Darlings for a week only to get the same handful of repeat bank accounts from them.

We still have some banks that are not on our wagon when it comes to Scam reports. UBA, Society des Generals, & Bank Atlantique come to mind. In as much as I still call it a win because I get the Scammers profiles to post at the Warning site it would be so much more productive if I didn't have to report Leonard Em3ke, & B1nta D1allo's accounts over ten times each and still counting.

It is what it is and I'm trying something different to bring more attention to these dirt-bags. At this point why not try something to get the job done or at least make paying these clowns more of a hassle to the Banks that protect them?

(Steps off soap box)

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 11:12 am

In the same way, I sometimes I wonder how futile site killing is. We take down a site, and the lad starts an identical one the next day, or talks the hoster into bringing the original back up. The impunity with which they can operate is frustrating, especially when we see the same fake site registrants over and over again, using the same fake site templates over and over again.

The sheer number is astonishing too. Between all the site killers here and at AA419, we've probably taken down close to 4000 sites this year already, but I estimate that it is only 10% of the total number that exist, maybe even less. For the rest, either we haven't found them yet, or the hosters have taken them down already without our knowledge.

Despite this, I still kill as many sites as I can, because even though the lads create more, it still disrupts their operations to lose sites. And I like to think that at least one victim (who would have paid) has twigged due to each one of my kills. That makes it all worth it.

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 11:38 am

There's no doubt that what we do in our various activities helps Victims. I see evidence all the time. I'll post up the Banker & Lawyer details at the Warning site only to see it escalate in the number of views. To me that means there are a lot of potential Victims that are getting to the payment phase before Googling the Barrister, or Banker information and finding out it's a scam.

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 1:12 pm

During the multilingual puppy bait, I posted some responses I got from Caitlin/Emma, along with an explanation in Portuguese. That thread has been read 101 times. That may not seem like much, but I'm sure a lot of her targets twigged because her translations didn't make sense. Between us keeping her busy, her inept translations, and the posts on SW, she probably got no money from any Portuguese speaker.

Then there are the Bimbom-Bump sites. TMT has been finding lots of them and posting them on SW. The number of victims has gone down a lot, and we're keeping the gang busy moving nameservers and sites around.

Almost overwhelming at times...	View next topic View previous topic