So here’s a hypothetical. You drop in unexpectedly on your elderly grandma who informs you she has sent money to a Nigerian “businessman”. Half her life savings as a matter of fact. He’s showing up today for the other half. Doorbell rings and guess who?
I put a bullet through his head. There he is, asshole who just victimized my old grandma. Caught right as it’s happening. Just what he deserved. So why is it so different if some other scumbag(yes, these types are less than human), over the course of time is sent on a goosechase that gets him killed? Time does not diminish guilt.
And regarding those who have no sympathy for the victims. They are being intellectually attacked. What’s the difference from being physically attacked?
Oh, that 90 year old woman just couldn’t fight off her 20 year old assailant who wanted her SS check. She got what she deserved.:rolleyes:
But how do you know? When you send a guy off to a gnarly part of Chad, how do you make sure he doesn’t decide to take his kid sister? How do you know he hasn’t borrowed money from innocent people who don’t know the nature of the scam to finance this adventure? Sure the blame may be on him, but there is still a net bad in the world and you played a part of it.
A related question: Would it be ethical to send a letter to a random Nigerian, implying that they could get a great deal of money if they get involved in a scam, and then if they say yes send them to a dangerous place? Because that is basically what is happening with at least some of these relatives.
On the other hand, in Cameroon at least vigilante justice was pretty standard. Road bandits could expect to be dragged through town and shot by angry mobs- if they were lucky. There is just no other way to keep crime under control in a place where the police aren’t so useful.
Anyway, count in me in for “send funny photos” but out for “go to Chad.”
Whereas I call the cops and seek to have his assets seized.
That’s not an option of course in the real world, since the bad guy won’t be at Grandma’s door. So we are left with scambaiting. But sorry, just because you have homicidal fantasies, doesn’t imply that you’re going to get a pat on the back from me.
Bear in mind that I haven’t read the link. But Gozu claimed that the scam-crew was not headed towards a warzone.
I find it improbable that one of these clowns would take their kid sister on a) a criminal journey without b) knowledge of the baiter. After all, these criminals are generally professional whiners and liars besides: any burden, real or contrived, tends to be brought up. So where exactly is the harm? Wouldn’t you rather go on an awful road trip than spend 3 years in a third world prison? (This is an actual question, since again I don’t know the details of the Chad safari bait.)
Then again, during the safari to Darfur (some years back), there were third parties involved (a grown nephew and his associate actually did the traveling). That was another problem with that bait: it sentenced somebody who was probably criminal, but not necessarily beyond all reasonable doubt. But again, that’s the only bait I know of that I definitely had problems with.
I agree to many Americans and European non travellers Chad is an alien dangerous place,not so much for Adamu and I really would expect that when it genuinlly looked dangerous ahead(Ignoring histrionic sympathy fishing whether true or B.S.)he would stop or even turn back.
Being in a country at war does not necessarily mean that you are in the middle of people fighting each other.
I have been in many such areas over the years including one revolution(I wasn’t participating) where we spent most of the time drinking in bars and attended the beginning of the Spanish Saharan war (again not as one of the players)where you wouldn’t have known that there was a war on as their was no fighting in our particular area at that time.
So luring someone into an area generally at war is not quite the same as executing someone.
You might just as well say that walking through central south L.A. means that you will most likely get murdered.
If these scammers don’t have people foolish, greedy or, heaven forbid, suffering from Alzheimers enough to take their emails seriously, all they are doing is wasting their own personal time. If that is a crime worthy of a bullet in the head, shoot me.
How about ‘drug dealers’ who sell ‘fake’ drugs, ie. passing off non-toxic lookalike MDMA pills, or sherbert dip as Cocaine? Are they naughty? Or does the fact the buyers are dirty druggies make them fair game?
I lived about 15k from the border with Chad. Although your right that the whole place isn’t a huge shoot out all the time, it’s not a place where you want to be on your own- even if you were somewhat familiar with the area. An Anglophone who did not speak Arabic most certainly would stick out. Banditry is violent and routine and rebel flare ups aren’t uncommon.
And then there is the spirit of things. Although holding up a sign saying “Mohammad is a twat” wouldn’t get you anything more than confused looks in N’Djamena, the baiters made up that sign specifically because they thought it might cause people to be violent towards him. Some kind of vigilante justice by proxy.
Gosh! And how do you know he’s not a South American Nazi posing as a scammer from Nigeria to finance a diabolical plan to reanimate Hitler’s brain as leader of an unholy horde of zombie Nazis? By baiting him, you may be saving the world from the ZomNazi Fourth Reich! HOW DO YOU KNOW?! :rolleyes: (I mean, as long as we’re making up idiotic assertions to tug at people’s heartstrings, we might as well run with it. And mine doesn’t blame the victim.)
The only guilty party is the scammer. If he chooses to take his (imaginary) kid sister with him while engaged in a deliberate attempt to steal from someone, I feel (vaguely) bad for his (imaginary) kid-sister, but…gosh…maybe if he hadn’t tried to steal from people and then been so stupid and irresponsible as to take his (imaginary, apparently totally innocent and no-doubt saintly and virginal) kid sister into a war-zone, she (if she was real) wouldn’t have been in that desperate plight.
Would I be wrong in guessing that you’re one of those people who supports those “Stupid Criminal” lawsuits (where a burglar is standing on a skylight while breaking into a house, and when the skylight gives way, is crippled for life and then sues the homeowner for negligence)? Because this is a pretty close analogy. If not, what’s the difference?
Horseshit. Repeat after me “The victim isn’t responsible for what happens to the criminal”. Repeat it over and over until you understand this basic premise of ethics 101. A rape victim isn’t responsible for the police shooting a rapist, even if she dresses “sexy”. A mugging victim isn’t responsible for the mugger being shot with his own gun during an attempted mugging during a struggle for the gun. And a would-be scam victim isn’t responsible for anything bad that happens to a scammer while the scammer is engaged in his profession.
I also don’t shed tears for drunk drivers who die while driving drunk. But by your reasoning, the new mother, her infant, her toddler and her beloved grandfather (who was a multi-decorated hero in WWII and spends his days bringing puppies to orphans) who were in the car the drunk driver hit somehow “played a part” in the drunk plowing into them. (hey–making up heart-string tugging scenarios–like your “kid sister” one–to play on people’s emotions is FUN! No wonder you do it. )
100% of the responsibility is on the scammer.
This is an incredibly inapt analogy with a fun tinge of “blame the victim” thrown in.
In the real case, a criminal is trying to rob you and an innocent person gets caught up in THEIR crime. In your made-up version, you are trying to rob an innocent person and their relative gets caught up in YOUR crime.
An accurate parallel would be:
“Would it be ethical to try to cheat someone who tried to cheat you? Even if their relatives might be adversely affected, just as yours would have been, had you fallen for the scam?”
But given this bit
from your OP, you don’t seem to have a problem with feeling bad for criminal scum while ignoring their victims.
Heh-and “taking advantage of” a scammer by scamming him back? Can I take advantage of a mugger by fighting back too?
I used to read various 419 scambaits for s’n’gs, and the main impression I got was; they are not nice people. They will lie to you constantly to try and gain your sympathy (which is why so many begin with “I am in a hospital bed…”) and take your money. Disadvantaged people do not automatically resort to a life of crime to get by, and neither should scammers. That’s assuming that they’re even disadvantaged in the first place; I’ve seen plenty of photos where they look pretty well off (in order to give the illusion that they are successful and therefore legitimate businessmen), including one taken in front of a huge flat screen TV I sure couldn’t afford. In the majority of cases, I think they’ve just found that scamming stupid westerners out of their money is easy than finding a job.
I don’t have much sympathy for the gullible idiots on the other end, either. However, I’m all for wasting a scammer’s time (which would be otherwise spent scamming more people) and (scammed) money. If you humiliate them in the process, good job.
It crosses a moral threshold to send them out into warzones, however. They’re either doing it out of sheer desperation or just plain greed, so you’re not forcing them there, but I definately wouldn’t sleep easy if one of them was injured, or worse, because of something you’d told them to do. You’re essentially acting as judge, jury and executioner if you cross that line, and nothing give you that right.
Many of the gullible idiots are elderly and past their sharpest years. Other times they are facing bankruptcy.
But I should also note that these scams don’t operate primarily on one’s cognition. Rather they push the victim’s buttons so that he will suspend his better judgment. Those going through a difficult time in their lives can also become easy prey.
So you would rather spend three years in prison than go on a holiday in Chad? It seems to me that this sort of punishment is milder than that of any halfway decent judicial system.
And not to put a fine point on it, dirty looks and threats of violence are probably the worst that a bewildered sign holder is likely to receive.
I wouldn’t want anyone’s kid sister involved. But again, that’s a rather unlikely hypothetical.
All scam letters rely pretty much on the formula “Give us a bit of your money, get a lot of our money!” Meaning the victims are either desperate, greedy, or simple.
If you can’t figure out giving your financial details over the internet to a total stranger is a bit shifty, well…
An article at 419eater on the ethics of scambaiting is quite illuminating, particularly on the unpleasant nature of the scammers themselves.
Call me a hippy, but I try my best not to bring other people to harm. I think Jesus was on to something with that one. I’m not god and I’m not the police. These are the people we entrust to bring justice because they have the power to figure out what is really going on and make sure that only the guilty parties get punished.
Once again, the people I am talking about are actively trying to cause people in distant lands to fall to harm. I just don’t think they know enough about the situation to start putting people in positions where they can be hurt or killed. Nobody’s job is to sit behind a keyboard and rain down justice on people they don’t know.
Once again, I’m a bleeding heart, but I’d still feel like shit if someone got shot because I advised them- for any reason- to go someplace. I don’t want to bring more hurt and pain into this world. It’s not my job. If I want to make this world a better place there are a million better ways to do it than cross-continental vigilante justice.
How far does this go? Can I shoot a guy because I saw him slip some gum in his pocket at a grocery store? What if I just slip a bandana of a hated gang in his back pocket so that someone else shoots him?
Scam baiters aren’t victims. I never mentioned the victims at all, so I don’t see how I could be blaming them. This isn’t about some poor guy who lost everything seeking revenge. This is about people who actively seek out scam letters and bait people for laughs. There is a forum on 419 eaters specifically for people to post their “spare” letters so that everyone has a ready supply. This is their hobby. What they do for kicks.
If a guy breaks in to my house, I will shoot him. If I see a guy casing my house, I don’t think it’s my right to shoot him. I see a guy casing someone else’s house, I definitely shouldn’t shoot him. If I spend my night lurking on corners looking for people who are casing other people’s houses so that I can shoot them- well, that is kind of a sick hobby.
So if I change some signs around that a sober driver would obviously know is wrong, but a drunk driver would follow, and it leads them off a cliff, I shouldn’t feel bad if their family was in the car with them? Totally the drunk driver’s fault, right? I can just sit here behind my computer and laugh about it.
I confess, on my darker days I have been known to wish painful death on people walking slowly and blocking my way- all in my head and with no intention to act, of course. So hopefully most of the venom in this thread has been of that type.
I agree that I wouldn’t waste time feeling badly if something unfortunate happened to a scammer, but I think scambaiting reflects pretty poorly on the scambaiter. Basically they are entertained by being the cause of another person’s discomfort/humiliation, and probably enjoy the power trip of controlling someone else’s actions, and are justifying it by saying that they are helping protect others from the scammer. If you were primarily interested in protecting others there are no-casualty ways of doing it, like community education, to let the elderly or others that are frequently targeted know about the scams (while you’re at it, let them know about fake e-mails that lead you to false websites and steal passwords).
Having a whole website about it to allow people to cheer each other on will just escalate things, and makes people more likely to cross lines to try and out do each other. Mob justice is never good justice.
I know, I sound like a total prig. I agree that most times scambaiting results in a mild prank only. And pranks are fun…but pranks are also usually between friends, and you laugh about it together afterwards, and there is no malice meant. Again, I have no sympathy for scammers. I just wish people could be entertained without it being at the expense of someone else, even if ‘they deserve it’. There’s a lot of good TV on, you know? And bad TV, too!
But consider romance scams. Typical prey involves a person who has experienced a loss recently. They meet the perp at a dating site. Money may not even be mentioned for many months. Then the perp is struck with cancer – $300 would really help now. (Then $700, then $1200. Once you’re in, you’re in.)
The scammer is free to lay it on thick: after all, he really isn’t making the emotional investment.
Consider the ebay scam or Craigslist scam. Not everyone is aware that if the bank says your check is cleared, it doesn’t mean that they have received funds. Furthermore, it seems that bank telephone correspondents aren’t aware that international funds transfers can easily take 10 working days. Banks will often credit the account in 3 days as a “service”, then reverse themselves when the check bounces.
Then of course there are phishing and trojan horse attacks.
But yeah, desperation, greed, simplicity, emerging senility, wishful thinking and cognitive impairment can play a role as well.
Huh. Whereas I would call the cops in all three cases.
Community education is a great thing. If you have an effective plan, by all means go to it.
One method of community education involves TV news shows. Pranking scammers generates publicity and the sorts of news stories that can warn potential victims. 419eater has been around for years, but This American Life would only take notice if the bait had a harrowing or controversial aspect. Question for critics of baiting: What do you think of prison? Isn’t 3 years in jail a rather severe punishment? I’ve heard it’s pretty dangerous behind bars. Isn’t it counterproductive to warehouse someone for that long, removing him from the labor force, and leaving his family without a breadwinner? Couldn’t there somehow, some way, be a more appropriate punishment?
If only we could automate punishment – so that it followed directly from the illegal deed itself. If only we could focus the punishment on the criminal, while permitting him to keep gainful employment. There has to be a way. Think, think…
If critics of baiters were real humanitarians, they would spend their time advocating penal reform.
A final word. Scambaiting is economic development. Scamming is simply not a sustainable sector: for the young scammer it’s a crap shoot. It undermines honest businessmen from the home country. South Africa realized this and beefed up their security detail accordingly. But Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon et al are far too dysfunctional to undertake such a strategy.
There are a multitude of scams–the formula you describe above only being one of them.
What about the “Charity” scams? (“Little M’tumbe was injured in a rockfall and is in CONSTANT AGONY! Can’t you donate $5.00 (send us your information so we can bill your credit card) to help pay for medicine ease his pain and to help him walk again?”) just to pick one example.
Ever heard of “the pigeon drop”? It works because the scam victim is honest and gives money to “pay a lawyer” to try to find the real owner of a lost wallet.
Or the Widower’s Bible scam where a bereaved widow (or widower) is tricked into paying for a Bible that her recently dead husband allegedly put a down payment on for her?
And anyone can be scammed. Not by every type of scam, certainly. No-one here would ever taken in by a Nigerian e-mail scam, but there are thousands of scams and no-one’s immune to every one of them.
So–you’re against jail? You’d vote to aquit to let a murderer off because in jail, he’d certainly come to harm in jail? Even in the Fed, people are threatened, beaten and even killed. And you know that Jesus guy you mentioned? He had a quote (very famous–you might have heard it) “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” which, contrary to popular opinion, doesn’t just refer to taxes–it’s about earthly authority.) The whole “Turn the other cheek” thing doesn’t give you a “Don’t get my hands dirty by stopping a criminal” pass.
And the Nigerian police are so very responsive to complaints–I’m sure that they have an entire “Internet Fraud Investigation” division to trace IP addresses and lock up scammers.
What’s there to know? They tried a scam, had it turned around on them and hey, if you sow the wind, prepare to reap the whirlwind. (Hey! There’s that biblical stuff again that Jesus was so fond of)
How would you feel if the guy you DIDN’T advise to go someplace immediately turned around and scammed a blind widow of a World War Two hero who, upon realizing she was scammed, had a heart attack and died, leaving behind a grief-striken family? I mean, as long as we’re doing worst-case scenarios.
Then you are engaging in moral cowardice. Almost every moral or ethical choice you make hurts someone in some way. Consider the “jury” example again-by this statement (which I suspect is just hyperbole), you should NEVER vote to convict anyone for anything. The crime is done, and anything you do to the criminal will bring hurt and pain to him and his family.
Again, false analogy.
A better analogy is: You see a punk stealing from a store of an elderly couple and the store is their sole means of support–they’re that close to living off of dog-food. You tell this punk “Hey, if you wear this bandana, you won’t get reported even if you’re caught.” This works, because the choice is still up to the punk. Just like the scammer can choose to go to a war-zone or not.
And good for them. They’re making the world a slightly better place. One less scammer who’s been scammed back, hurt, injured, etc. is one less defrauded victim.
So…wait, you’re down with Jesus, except the whole “Love your neighbor as you would love yourself” thing? It’s ok to defend yourself, but th’ hell with your neighbor: let him/her be robbed, raped, murdered. It’s every man/woman for his/her self? Granted that meshes nicely with your “Just leave the scammers alone–unless they come after you, and even then, don’t stop them from trying on someone else” thing, but I’m not sure how “bleeding-heart” and biblical it is. I’m not even Christian, and I know this stuff.
Sure–far better to let them be robbed and murdered than dirty your hands. (Keeping in mind that to make this analogy work, there’s no police force at ALL. None. No-one will stop your neighbors from being robbed if you don’t. Remember, the Nigerian police doesn’t put international e-mail fraud high on their priority list.)
Most Nigerian (although they need not be from Nigeria, of course) scam formats I’ve seen seem to follow that scheme, although you’re right, there are many variations. I consider ‘charity’ scams less ‘scams’ and more ‘acts of Satan’. Another reason these mugus need to be humiliated as much as possible.
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