Just found this in my spam folder:
Let me guess, your “client” is a Nigerian prince.
There was a period of about two weeks in my life, roughly three months ago, where I couldn’t get enough of the YouTube subgenre of scambaiting videos. People would troll scammers on the phone, or share their exploits toying with them via email.
However, after a while all the rancor and anger got to be too much and I stopped watching them.
How is it “different”?
It’s been a long time since I’ve received a scam letter going through the whole song and dance about a Nigerian prince or whatnot. Now they tend to be minimalist, just saying they want to offer me a “partnership opportunity” or they a have a “special message.”
I think I received my first “Nigerian letter” by fax back in the early 1990s.
Even if this wasn’t a scam and was actually a real opportunity, “where these funds could exist outside his name.”, would still mean, ‘we’re going to make a ton of money and leave you owing more than you have in taxes, are you in?’.
I did too. That first one I got, I have to admit, I thought it was real. Granted I was probably 15 or 16 years old and someone told me it was fake a few seconds after I started reading it. I remember not being 100% convinced it was fake until I noticed the frequency with which they arrived (by fax).
Does anyone remember the American reporter who got Ebola while reporting on the 2014 outbreak, and was medevaced to the U.S. and recovered? I follow his Twitter feed, and in the meantime, he spent some time in Nigeria, mainly to report on their music scene. (A much lighter topic, for sure.) Anyway, a 419 scammer offered him US$10,000 a month, cash, to appear on Skype with him because people are much more likely to fall for it if they see a white person with an American or Canadian accent.
He declined.
I’ve even gotten a 419 scam email in Esperanto!
One wonders if anyone has translated that message into Pig Latin, or even Klingon.
I get them in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese, but nothing more exotic than that. And I’ve received them from (purportedly) dozens of different countries.
My favorite one was from Yasser Arafat’s widow just after he died.
First time I’ve seen one not claiming to represent a specific person, if only by a title. Nothing but a generic “client” here.
If anyone is interested in passing these 419 emails on to me, so I can bait them, they would be most gratefully received - just drop me a PM.
(In case you don’t know, I have a series of YouTube videos detailing my scambaiting fun - for example: Scam Bites - Meltdown In 25 Steps! - YouTube )
PM sent.
You’re Atomic Shrimp!!! STFU, I love your videos!!!
That be me! Thanks!
If he STFUs you don’t get no more videos, so no, he’s not to STFU!
Well technically he could still make videos…