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So, I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist, and ran into someone who's obviously a scammer. They want me to wire them a bunch of money to some Western Union box in the Philippines. I haven't and don't plan on sending them anything, but I'm wondering if there's any good way to report them or goad them into doing something stupid on their end? Anyone have any experience with scamming scammers? Any negative consequences from this, aside from wasted time. FYI, when I asked for proof that they owned the property, they sent me this very official-looking deed. So, I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist, and ran into someone who's obviously a scammer. They want me to wire them a bunch of money to some Western Union box in the Philippines. I haven't and don't plan on sending them anything, but I'm wondering if there's any good way to report them or goad them into doing something stupid on their end? Anyone have any experience with scamming scammers? Any negative consequences from this, aside from wasted time. http://imgur.com/4KzAPUA
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Jul 23, 2014 15:09
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| # ? May 2, 2024 03:32 |
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Last Buffalo posted:So, I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist, and ran into someone who's obviously a scammer. They want me to wire them a bunch of money to some Western Union box in the Philippines. I haven't and don't plan on sending them anything, but I'm wondering if there's any good way to report them or goad them into doing something stupid on their end? Anyone have any experience with scamming scammers? Any negative consequences from this, aside from wasted time. Sounds legit Sounds legit fake edit: Why are you of the opinion that "Certificate" is a "very official-looking deed"? It doesn't even have the word "deed" on it for christ's sake. This is just some poor kid from the Philippines trying to avoid a life of prostitution. Leave them alone.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:24
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TheWordOfTheDayIs posted:fake edit: Why are you of the opinion that "Certificate" is a "very official-looking deed"? It doesn't even have the word "deed" on it for christ's sake.  Don't waste your time with these guys, just move on with your life.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:26
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The (good?) people over at 419 Eater devote large portions of their lives to making scammers waste large portions of their lives on pointless tasks and other wastes of time. Here are their tips: http://www.419eater.com/html/baiting.htm If you really get the guy on the other end on the hook, you can even get them to make audio recordings of popular works of fiction, like this Nigerian guy reading out The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy I think another scammer was supposedly sent on a quest to get some non-existent fee from a non-existent priest somewhere in the middle of a probably quite real war zone.
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Jul 23, 2014 19:37
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Antifreeze Head posted:
That is amazing in a way that very few things are. I've just spent a good hour or so browsing through their forum. They're definitely a force for good. When they waste scammers time, they are making it so that some old biddie isn't being scammed out her pension.
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Aug 3, 2014 23:23
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Contact the internet police at ip.gov .
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Aug 3, 2014 23:49
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Sorry, forgot to update the thread. I led the scammer on for a while, pretending I didn't know how to use western union and had them got to the western union office four times to pick up money I never sent. I don't know if I made much of a difference, but the scammer got password enough to accuse me of not being a good Christian. Nothing terribly dramatic.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:55
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When those scammers call about the "virus on your computer" I like to see how long I can keep them on the phone before they give up. It's always an incredibly long time, way longer than you would suspect. I think they equate "not being good with computers" to being an easier target so they always tough it out.
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Aug 4, 2014 14:51
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This is the worst thread I've ever read. Congrats
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Aug 4, 2014 15:55
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JiimyPopAli posted:When those scammers call about the "virus on your computer" I like to see how long I can keep them on the phone before they give up. It's always an incredibly long time, way longer than you would suspect. I think they equate "not being good with computers" to being an easier target so they always tough it out. Everyone in my family has had this about ten times. Except me. I've been wanting to take one of these assholes on the ride of their life for ages.
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Aug 4, 2014 17:03
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Kill two birds with one stone. Give them the contact information for the local tea party, Republican party, Democratic party, old boss etc. and tell them to call and be adamant that they need to ask for you repeatedly as the secretary will screen calls for you and they need to keep trying repeatedly to actually get through to you.
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Aug 4, 2014 19:58
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JiimyPopAli posted:When those scammers call about the "virus on your computer" I like to see how long I can keep them on the phone before they give up. It's always an incredibly long time, way longer than you would suspect. I think they equate "not being good with computers" to being an easier target so they always tough it out. I got them to give me three call backs each one lasting about 20 minutes before I told them I knew they were scammers because my husband is actually a Microsoft Certified technician and had done a piece in the local paper about the dangers of falling for the scam. They accused me of lying and hung up.
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Aug 4, 2014 20:06
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I just tell them no and hang up, because I have better things to do with my time than gently caress around with a scammer.
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Aug 4, 2014 20:47
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I had a scammer contact the business I worked at a few months ago. My boss wanted me to process the order, but I took one look at it and saw red flags. After a bit of googling I learned how the scam works. Basically, they'll target small businesses. They ask for a quote for roughly $4,000 worth of product. Then they'll say they need it shipped overseas and that they are going to pay you an extra ~$1,000 for the shipping company to do so. Sounds like a sweet deal for a small business right? Hard to turn down $5,000 cash upfront. So if you go along, they GIVE you $5,000 then you pay $1,000 to a 3rd party shipping company to come pick it up. Well, they use stolen credit cards. The product never gets picked up and after a few months the credit card company calls you up and says "Hey, you owe us $5,000" but you only have $4,000 because you paid the fake shipping company that was the scammer all along. So after learning all this I decided to bait them. First off, I got the IP address of the scammer from the e-mail he sent my boss, which was traced to San Jose California. Then I wrote back to the scammers to call me at the office # to discuss coming to pick up the product. They called me about an hour later and I traced the number to Houston, Texas. Well, that confirms what I'd figured that they were using a proxy. Also I found out the number was through a Voice over IP service so they had proxies for both e-mail & phone. poo poo. I ended up using photoshop to create a fake Pick-up form. I hosted it on our website at something like business.com/Forms/PickUpForm.jpeg except on the PickUpForms.jpeg, I also put a php script to IP trace any visitors. I wrote back to the scammers a bogus e-mail to please print and fax back the pickup form on our website and linked them to it. About 40 minutes later and I had one hit. From Ghana, Africa. And that's where the story ends. Back to the question of how to report an online scammer, the answer is that you usually can't. While its pretty easy to trace an IP address and get the location and service provider, the police in Ghana are not going to do dick about an online scammer except maybe show up to his house and ask for a bribe. Had the scammers IP address been traced to the USA then I could have called the local police department and say "Hey IP address x.x.x.x with service provider Comcast/Verizon/whoever at date/time is running a scam" and then they MIGHT follow up with the internet service provider...but probably not.
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Aug 5, 2014 21:36
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JiimyPopAli posted:When those scammers call about the "virus on your computer" I like to see how long I can keep them on the phone before they give up. It's always an incredibly long time, way longer than you would suspect. I think they equate "not being good with computers" to being an easier target so they always tough it out. I've had several of these calls. The first time they called they really pissed me off because I directly told them "Hey, I know this is a scam and I'm not falling for it, gently caress off" and they immediately called back after I hung up repeatedly until I called Comcast customer support and put the phone down to tie up the line. The next time they called a few weeks later I had really graphic one-way gay phone sex. The guy was a trooper, he kept asking me to do something on the computer. After about 10 minutes of talking about rimjobs and fisting I was running out of ideas, so I straight-up told him I was intentionally loving with him just to waste his time, AND HE KEPT AT IT FOR 5 MORE MINUTES BEFORE GIVING UP! The next time they called I pretended to have horrible English skills and asked him to explain everything slowly and repeatedly. That call lasted 20 minutes. The next time they called I pretended that I was oblivious about the Internet not working on my PC because I forgot the password to my wireless router, so the guy ended up doing tech support to try to resolve the issue instead. That call lasted 25 minutes. Ideas for next time: I have a Mac. I am recovering from a massive stroke. I am in the middle of an argument with my wife. I am driving on the freeway with the laptop next to me and end up getting pulled over.
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Aug 18, 2014 13:50
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| # ? May 2, 2024 03:32 |
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JiimyPopAli posted:When those scammers call about the "virus on your computer" I like to see how long I can keep them on the phone before they give up. It's always an incredibly long time, way longer than you would suspect. I think they equate "not being good with computers" to being an easier target so they always tough it out. There's a Canadian airline called WestJet that does a variation on this. For some reason, scammers from outside the country (so our law enforcement can't do anything) like to call everyone and impersonate them, claiming you've won a billion miles or whatever. Apparently they have a running competition in all their offices to see how long they can keep one of the scammers on the line, the record being over an hour last time I checked.
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Aug 18, 2014 15:32
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