Baiter to Victim Ratio?

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: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:50 pm

Hi there,

Any informed guesses as to what portion of the typical lad's clientele are baiters?

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 10:53 pm

I think that more important than the number of people who are victims or baiters is the amount of conversation lads have with victims or baiters. A baiter can have three or more baits going at the same time and may be baiting the same lad with two characters who don't know each other. A victim is probably talking with just one lad.

I'm pretty sure this is impossible to measure. It varies widely from lad to lad, depending on luck such as that the lad spammed a baiter's catcher account and the baiter posted the script for everyone to see.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 17 Jun 2017 Posts: 55

I can only assume there are more victims are there are baiters. Something like the pigin-hole principle.

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 7:59 pm

Yeah I suppose it's really quite hard to tell.
Most of the time it's pretty hard it is to get dropped- I suppose this might indicate either how quiet it is out there or how few jokers these lads come across...

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 8:37 pm

Part of the reason it is hard to tell is that so many victims never come forward. You can read in the newspaper a tragic story about the elderly woman who lost $50,000 in a romance scam - but for every one you hear about, I suspect that there are a hundred or more that you never hear about.

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:26 pm

If I look in my personal environment I know at least four different people that have been scammed online. Three of them actually knew about my hobby and were 'educated', so to speak. The total number of victims is far, far higher than you can possibly imagine, I'm afraid.. Sad

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 6:00 pm

It's very easy when you're on here to just think of these lads as ridiculous scoundrels- it's actually very sobering to think of how much success they have.

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 6:38 pm

The classic "prince in Nigeria" formats do sound ridiculous to most people, but you shouldn't forget that most victims are scammed for smaller amounts of money in much more realistic formats. The rental scammers, pet scams, fake sellers on second-hand selling websites,... they easily make hundreds of victims each month. Their formats also aren't interesting for baiters, as the bad guys only want to make a sale and move on immediately when someone is costing too much time. The vast majority of online scammers are outside the scope of the average scambaiter.

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 5:06 am

A mildly informed opinion, almost an almost imperceptible percentage....unfortunately....

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 9:48 am

Pet scammers and Craigslist scammers are baitable and should be baited. Money mule scammers aren't, because they'll try to send some real money to your fake bank account; about all we can do is post on SW and try to kill their sites. I don't know how to compare baiters' activity killing sites with money mules' activity.

Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:33 am

Starbuck5 wrote:

Any informed guesses

I think the "informed" part would require asking the question of lads. And if they knew, well, we wouldn't be playing our part well, would we?

I'd say a high number never meet a lad. The odds are against us. As long as ScamWarners gains new posts and Surplus here grows, the percentage being baited are low (although the odds of ones in either of those places are high).

Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2017 8:36 pm

None of us here are able to splurge definitive statistics regarding scamming.

Most people come here for the fun, some stay for the fun. Our job should be to increase the number of victims that receive help and refer them to sites like www.Scamwarners.com so they can be informed and educated, and are able to spread the word effectively to their loved ones and friends, and -hell even to their not-so friends.

That being said, don't stop pestering your Congressman/politician for information about these numbers. That goes for everyone in every country who reads this.