5 ms·

How to Trick an Online Scammer Into Carving a Computer Out of Wood

40 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

smoody 16y ago
the danger here is, of course, that the person coaxing the wood sculptures might be doing more harm than good. who knows what circumstances led to the sculptures... could they have been done at gun point or other threat? if riches are at stake, then i believe the answer is 'yes.'
- mahmud 16y ago
  It's not organized crime, more like a national past-time in certain geographic regions. I used to frequent the same internet cafes where these guys stay up late; they look a lot like problem gamblers. Tens of men huddled over CRTs, chain smoking and no one talking to each other. You can see people bringing in "evidence", photos in USBs to send over to marks, multi-tasking in IMs and chats and romancing webcam girls on the side. I haven't seen any money while there. Whoever comes there spends their disposable cash to surf, most of the day they just play games or facebook. I found the scammers to be pretty polite and "brotherly". There is a lot of empty bragging and people will pretend to be big-shot mafiosi, but it's all a con aimed at you. The programmer in me wanted to inquire about bot-nets: everyone claimed to have "one", but the responses were confused at best. In cities where bonafide scammers are present, there will also be the "runners". But just like in border towns or trafficking areas, it's best to walk out of the venue when in comes a guy followed by a crowd. A solitary quiet man, behind whom walks a group: biggest tell-tale of a made man, and if you look foreign or moneyed, it's best to get up and walk away without making eye contact, but while also not looking scared or nerved. (The one time I came very close to this I put my beers next to the computer and yelled to the attendant "I will be back for this". Never did.) The one guy who I know makes a decent living at this plays the big leagues. He is in the scrap-metal business and has a physical office. Former diplomat from a central Africa country. His business, however, is strictly document forgery, insurance fraud and shipment theft. He was a real gentleman, an avid tennis and muay thai fan, but the people competing for his attention were thugs and would do anything for him. TL;DR, the guys who pull out guns have more at stake; usually drug money, or theft of their stolen properties. 419ers are bored nerds; natural born Office jockeys who would have been employed in administrative positions if there were jobs available to them.
geophile 16y ago
419 scammers are pests, but scamming the scammers can go to far: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/363/Enforcers http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/363/E.... This story is interesting to listen to because you start off with the predictable reaction -- those scammers are getting what they deserve. But then it takes a left turn -- they get quite a bit more than they deserve. You end up feeling sorry for the scammers. Listen to the piece and see what you think.
- BrandonM 16y ago
  The sad thing is that because of the conditions they have grown up in, scamming is one of the only ways for them to improve their lives. Now this man has actually produced some very good works of art, and instead of receiving the recognition and compensation he deserves, he is being ridiculed. This would have been a great opportunity to pull someone out of his current condition and encourage him to make and sell art, improving his life and the lives of others. Instead, he's pretty much guaranteed to continue scamming.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    I doubt this man spent time to produce the sculpture -- remember his full time job is scamming, there is probably not much time left for sculpture. Scamming is quite profitable and labor in Nigeria is probably fairly cheap, so if I had to guess, he probably payed someone else to do the work.
    - kgermino 16y ago
      Or, as smoody pointed out below, force someone to do it at gunpoint.
  - bugsy 16y ago
    I tend to agree with you. What strikes me about these cases is that the people readily jump on opportunities to earn income through honest work such as carving, transcribing and other things they are asked to do by the baiters. That they are eager to do quality work for pay does not indicate to me that they are scamming because they are bad people who don't like to work. It indicates they are scamming because it is the only source of income they have discovered. A pity too since their country is rich in resources, most of which are being ransacked by western companies for the benefit of europeans and americans.
CrazedGeek 16y ago
Alternatively, the (classic) how to trick an online scammer into buying a fake laptop: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/ http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/ (I know it's only tangentially related, but I love that story.)
- brc 16y ago
  A good read, and interesting on the retaliation by the scammer. Interestingly, someone I know asked me to look at an ebay purchase they were going to make, which I immediately suspected was a scam. They pulled out (hadn't actually put on a bid) and the retaliation was a succession of viruses and phishing emails, all of which (sort of) looked like ebay dispute resolution emails. I'm guessing the scammers have their message boards as well, and the standard retaliation response is to try and send viruses and/or phish out a credit card for fraud.
onan_barbarian 16y ago
A lot of this scam-bait stuff is going way too far, and I can't help but wonder about the ire on behalf of all those 'innocent victims' out there. In the classic 419 scam (and yes, there are other variants that don't imply quit the same level of corruption in the scammed): the offer is clearly drawn from money that some dictator has supposedly stolen from his own country. Trying to take part in this theft doesn't make you 'innocent', it makes you a smaller-scale, dumber, would-be crook.
- wyclif 16y ago
  I tried to work up some sympathy for 419 spammers after reading this article. Nope, didn't work.
- Tichy 16y ago
  Again I feel reminded of this quote: you can't con an honest man.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    Sure you can. While classic scams do appeal to greed, more modern ones appeal to altruism. They focus on advance fee scams, but there are plenty of fake charities and whatnot out there.
awongh 16y ago
this is epic. I think you could make a business of this and sell these wood artifacts on ebay.
janj 16y ago
Reminds me of when I used to mess with telemarketers. My goal was to see how long I could get them to stay on the phone, thinking that the more of their time I wasted the less profitable telemarketing would be (how much of an affect could one person really have though?). I was very successful with a variety of techniques and it turned into a fun game. I almost regret having changed my number, no longer getting these calls now. One good one was when I had this lady first describe her work environment, finding out she was working with her fiance. I had her describe him and their relationship and somehow got her talking about her willingness to engage in a threesome. After almost 15 minutes she politely told me that she had to go, being at work and all. Maybe 10 minutes later her supposed fiance called me back asking why I was talking 'rubbish' to his girlfriend. I talked with him for a while and got him to tell me about their relationship, that they had been engaged for 5 years, got engaged when she was 15! He started describing her physically but finally hung up when I tried to get him to tell me how much she weighed (I was really curious after he told me she was 5'4"). That one was during work and by the end of the conversation I had the entire office sitting around listening. Another time I was walking home when I received a free satellite tv installation offer (during the recorded intro to these calls, before pressing '1' to speak to someone, is the best time to prepare what you're going to say). When the guy came on the line I got him to describe in as much detail as he was willing the contents of each of the porn channels that was included in the service. It's fun to imagine what their going through on their end of the call (sometimes I would get them to yell into the phone claiming I could barely hear them). I think it's really entertaining when they get mad at me for wasting their time! This usually happens when it's a get-out-of-debt scammer. I answer all their questions and they get excited when they hear my monthly credit card bill (never bothering to find out that I pay off the entire balance each month) but then get real upset when I try to convince them that I'm not in need of their 'services'. Half the time they don't believe me, trying to 'comfort' me by telling me that it's ok to be in financial distress, everyone is in debt and are experiencing tough times right now. I tried to think of ways to promote this kind of behavior, figuring if one in ten of their calls were to people like me then telemarketing would be much less profitable, but I never tried to follow through with anything. Now that I don't get these calls anymore I kind of miss it. Over the years I became much more comfortable, confident and competent dealing with telemarketers in this way.
brc 16y ago
The original, linked article is the better read, although towards the end the author descends into a mess of racism accusations and uncertain direction. He completely misunderstands the use of the term 'owned', and somehow thinks it's a colonial throwback to slavery rather than common internet speak for a complete win over an opponent. The writer of the original piece needs to stop worrying about the scammers for two seconds and see that this movement, ultimately, has a good chance of putting scammers out of business. Because I can see more people getting in on the anti-scam game than people falling for the scams. And once the numbers on a prospective scammer turn up to be 3:1 that it's a fake acceptance, they are going to start giving up on it.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Hmm, The wood-carving thing actually makes me think they aren't "in business" in the conventional sense. Rather, they seem like desperately poor people grasping at whatever opportunity appears. I suspect that most of their efforts are utterly unsuccessful and it's more of a matter of doing it because they have nothing better to do.
  - brc 16y ago
    Your points are all valid but they are still knowingly engaged in crime. It's unlikely this guy carved the thing himself, rather he would have commissioned it from a local carver. It's sad that they are poor, to me, still not an excuse to start stealing from people. There's a lot of poor people in the world that are still honest. I'd much rather see compassion shown towards them.
    - djhworld 16y ago
      They're engaging with crime but when you've got a family to feed and a bunch of bosses who threaten to kill your kids, you can't help but feel they are largely desperate
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
      My point had nothing to do with compassion or lack-of compassion. My point was only that, in regards to the original poster's idea, you aren't going to "put them out of business" by providing them with lots of frustration. They slog through an immense amount of futile activity already and are quite willing to do more. Judge them however you want...

40 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

the danger here is, of course, that the person coaxing the wood sculptures might be doing more harm than good. who knows what circumstances led to the sculptures... could they have been done at gun point or other threat? if riches are at stake, then i believe the answer is 'yes.'

mahmud 16y ago
It's not organized crime, more like a national past-time in certain geographic regions. I used to frequent the same internet cafes where these guys stay up late; they look a lot like problem gamblers. Tens of men huddled over CRTs, chain smoking and no one talking to each other. You can see people bringing in "evidence", photos in USBs to send over to marks, multi-tasking in IMs and chats and romancing webcam girls on the side. I haven't seen any money while there. Whoever comes there spends their disposable cash to surf, most of the day they just play games or facebook. I found the scammers to be pretty polite and "brotherly". There is a lot of empty bragging and people will pretend to be big-shot mafiosi, but it's all a con aimed at you. The programmer in me wanted to inquire about bot-nets: everyone claimed to have "one", but the responses were confused at best. In cities where bonafide scammers are present, there will also be the "runners". But just like in border towns or trafficking areas, it's best to walk out of the venue when in comes a guy followed by a crowd. A solitary quiet man, behind whom walks a group: biggest tell-tale of a made man, and if you look foreign or moneyed, it's best to get up and walk away without making eye contact, but while also not looking scared or nerved. (The one time I came very close to this I put my beers next to the computer and yelled to the attendant "I will be back for this". Never did.) The one guy who I know makes a decent living at this plays the big leagues. He is in the scrap-metal business and has a physical office. Former diplomat from a central Africa country. His business, however, is strictly document forgery, insurance fraud and shipment theft. He was a real gentleman, an avid tennis and muay thai fan, but the people competing for his attention were thugs and would do anything for him. TL;DR, the guys who pull out guns have more at stake; usually drug money, or theft of their stolen properties. 419ers are bored nerds; natural born Office jockeys who would have been employed in administrative positions if there were jobs available to them.

geophile 16y ago

419 scammers are pests, but scamming the scammers can go to far: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/363/Enforcers http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/363/E.... This story is interesting to listen to because you start off with the predictable reaction -- those scammers are getting what they deserve. But then it takes a left turn -- they get quite a bit more than they deserve. You end up feeling sorry for the scammers. Listen to the piece and see what you think.

BrandonM 16y ago
The sad thing is that because of the conditions they have grown up in, scamming is one of the only ways for them to improve their lives. Now this man has actually produced some very good works of art, and instead of receiving the recognition and compensation he deserves, he is being ridiculed. This would have been a great opportunity to pull someone out of his current condition and encourage him to make and sell art, improving his life and the lives of others. Instead, he's pretty much guaranteed to continue scamming.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  I doubt this man spent time to produce the sculpture -- remember his full time job is scamming, there is probably not much time left for sculpture. Scamming is quite profitable and labor in Nigeria is probably fairly cheap, so if I had to guess, he probably payed someone else to do the work.
  - kgermino 16y ago
    Or, as smoody pointed out below, force someone to do it at gunpoint.
- bugsy 16y ago
  I tend to agree with you. What strikes me about these cases is that the people readily jump on opportunities to earn income through honest work such as carving, transcribing and other things they are asked to do by the baiters. That they are eager to do quality work for pay does not indicate to me that they are scamming because they are bad people who don't like to work. It indicates they are scamming because it is the only source of income they have discovered. A pity too since their country is rich in resources, most of which are being ransacked by western companies for the benefit of europeans and americans.

CrazedGeek 16y ago

Alternatively, the (classic) how to trick an online scammer into buying a fake laptop: http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/ http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/ (I know it's only tangentially related, but I love that story.)

brc 16y ago
A good read, and interesting on the retaliation by the scammer. Interestingly, someone I know asked me to look at an ebay purchase they were going to make, which I immediately suspected was a scam. They pulled out (hadn't actually put on a bid) and the retaliation was a succession of viruses and phishing emails, all of which (sort of) looked like ebay dispute resolution emails. I'm guessing the scammers have their message boards as well, and the standard retaliation response is to try and send viruses and/or phish out a credit card for fraud.

onan_barbarian 16y ago

A lot of this scam-bait stuff is going way too far, and I can't help but wonder about the ire on behalf of all those 'innocent victims' out there. In the classic 419 scam (and yes, there are other variants that don't imply quit the same level of corruption in the scammed): the offer is clearly drawn from money that some dictator has supposedly stolen from his own country. Trying to take part in this theft doesn't make you 'innocent', it makes you a smaller-scale, dumber, would-be crook.

wyclif 16y ago
I tried to work up some sympathy for 419 spammers after reading this article. Nope, didn't work.
Tichy 16y ago
Again I feel reminded of this quote: you can't con an honest man.
- Natsu 16y ago
  Sure you can. While classic scams do appeal to greed, more modern ones appeal to altruism. They focus on advance fee scams, but there are plenty of fake charities and whatnot out there.

awongh 16y ago

this is epic. I think you could make a business of this and sell these wood artifacts on ebay.

janj 16y ago

Reminds me of when I used to mess with telemarketers. My goal was to see how long I could get them to stay on the phone, thinking that the more of their time I wasted the less profitable telemarketing would be (how much of an affect could one person really have though?). I was very successful with a variety of techniques and it turned into a fun game. I almost regret having changed my number, no longer getting these calls now. One good one was when I had this lady first describe her work environment, finding out she was working with her fiance. I had her describe him and their relationship and somehow got her talking about her willingness to engage in a threesome. After almost 15 minutes she politely told me that she had to go, being at work and all. Maybe 10 minutes later her supposed fiance called me back asking why I was talking 'rubbish' to his girlfriend. I talked with him for a while and got him to tell me about their relationship, that they had been engaged for 5 years, got engaged when she was 15! He started describing her physically but finally hung up when I tried to get him to tell me how much she weighed (I was really curious after he told me she was 5'4"). That one was during work and by the end of the conversation I had the entire office sitting around listening. Another time I was walking home when I received a free satellite tv installation offer (during the recorded intro to these calls, before pressing '1' to speak to someone, is the best time to prepare what you're going to say). When the guy came on the line I got him to describe in as much detail as he was willing the contents of each of the porn channels that was included in the service. It's fun to imagine what their going through on their end of the call (sometimes I would get them to yell into the phone claiming I could barely hear them). I think it's really entertaining when they get mad at me for wasting their time! This usually happens when it's a get-out-of-debt scammer. I answer all their questions and they get excited when they hear my monthly credit card bill (never bothering to find out that I pay off the entire balance each month) but then get real upset when I try to convince them that I'm not in need of their 'services'. Half the time they don't believe me, trying to 'comfort' me by telling me that it's ok to be in financial distress, everyone is in debt and are experiencing tough times right now. I tried to think of ways to promote this kind of behavior, figuring if one in ten of their calls were to people like me then telemarketing would be much less profitable, but I never tried to follow through with anything. Now that I don't get these calls anymore I kind of miss it. Over the years I became much more comfortable, confident and competent dealing with telemarketers in this way.

brc 16y ago

The original, linked article is the better read, although towards the end the author descends into a mess of racism accusations and uncertain direction. He completely misunderstands the use of the term 'owned', and somehow thinks it's a colonial throwback to slavery rather than common internet speak for a complete win over an opponent. The writer of the original piece needs to stop worrying about the scammers for two seconds and see that this movement, ultimately, has a good chance of putting scammers out of business. Because I can see more people getting in on the anti-scam game than people falling for the scams. And once the numbers on a prospective scammer turn up to be 3:1 that it's a fake acceptance, they are going to start giving up on it.

joe_the_user 16y ago
Hmm, The wood-carving thing actually makes me think they aren't "in business" in the conventional sense. Rather, they seem like desperately poor people grasping at whatever opportunity appears. I suspect that most of their efforts are utterly unsuccessful and it's more of a matter of doing it because they have nothing better to do.
- brc 16y ago
  Your points are all valid but they are still knowingly engaged in crime. It's unlikely this guy carved the thing himself, rather he would have commissioned it from a local carver. It's sad that they are poor, to me, still not an excuse to start stealing from people. There's a lot of poor people in the world that are still honest. I'd much rather see compassion shown towards them.
  - djhworld 16y ago
    They're engaging with crime but when you've got a family to feed and a bunch of bosses who threaten to kill your kids, you can't help but feel they are largely desperate
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    My point had nothing to do with compassion or lack-of compassion. My point was only that, in regards to the original poster's idea, you aren't going to "put them out of business" by providing them with lots of frustration. They slog through an immense amount of futile activity already and are quite willing to do more. Judge them however you want...