Pwn3d
Follow-up to my earlier post about the 419 scammers invading Craigslist…
In this month’s Atlantic Monthly, there is an hilarious article about so-called “scam-baiters”: vigilantees who counterattack the 419′ers by trying to get 419′ers to do stupid things.
Over the past few years, Berry says, he’s induced scammers to write out entire novels by hand, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy and most of the Harry Potter series; persuaded them to get tattoos (including one of the logo of the Holy Church of the Tattooed Saint); duped them into booking international flights and expensive hotel rooms to meet with his no-show personae; had them listen over the phone as Berry—who was supposedly just about to deliver that much-promised, many-times-delayed money transfer—faked his own death; and, mercilessly, made one of the scammers fall in love with Berry in his online guise as the actress Gillian Anderson.
I asked Berry how he managed to persuade a scammer to write out a Harry Potter novel.
“Well,” Berry said, “he first wrote me with the usual Swiss-bank-account scam letter, and I then told him that I worked for a firm that did handwriting analysis, and we were looking for people to write out samples of their handwriting, and that we paid $30 per page. Needless to say, he was eager to maximize his profit, and I suggested Harry Potter might be a good source. It must have kept him busy for a while.”
And check out this photo posted on the “scam-baiting” Wikipedia entry:
hilarious. that’s a pretty nice carving. i woudln’t be surprised if someone else would actually pay real money for it.
i’d be curious to find out who is actually doing the actual carving of the computer or writing out the book. i can imagine a situation where some poor kids are locked in a room and are forced to perform the task. (”and your english homework tonight is for each of you to copy one chaper of Harry Potter. and you’ll do it even if fingers bleed!”) it would be very unfortunate if that tat was faked” by forcing some poor soul to have the message done on their back because of some horrible threat.
this dog and cat one is actually pretty cool. i wonder how much it’d cost to get me some custom wood carvings. we could get a set of figurines of all of us in different poses.
