Scambaiting the Scammers

This just takes screwing with peoples' heads to an entirely new level! (this will take some time to read, be forewarned)

I didn't even know there were people out there scamming the scammers. I've heard anecdotes of people having fun with telemarketers, but this is so far beyond that, it's like Van Gogh compared to a 5 year old's drawing!

I must admit, I did have some twinges of sympathy for the poor guy, and if the scambaiter hadn't reminded me several times during the whole transcript, I probably would've forgotten that this guy was originally a scammer using a poor dying man's photos to garner sympathy (and hard cash). But I definitely give props to this scambaiter for following through with this, over a period of about 10 months, I believe! That's commitment!

Given all the money these guys have probably squeezed out of the unfortunate gullible, this is just a drop on the bucket, a few hundred dollars and some time costs for all the email exchanges. But that time spent writing email, creating the wooden head, the video, and so on is less time the scammer has to take grandma's life savings.

I'm also amazed that there are still people who fall for that Nigerian money scam. Hasn't it been thoroughly outed already? Besides which, even if it were the real thing, who would actually send their bank account information over email? That's one of the cardinal rules of the internet and identity security, not to provide personal details.