The Master Baiter

There is a phenomenon on the internet that has been around for quite a long time. The term is called Phishing. The idea is a scammer sends out a mass of emails trying to obtain bank information, pose as official governments or organizations needing your help to release money, or deal offers that are too good to be true. It comes down to con games done over the internet. Trying to release you of your hard earned money. Often these scams take place over seas (A large chunk in Nigeria). Some of these scams look pretty legit, others are pretty blatant. I'm sure you've come across these scams in your inbox and most likely just pressed the delete button without thinking too much about it.

Well, there's also another phenomenon on the internet called Baiting. It's kinda like a sport for fellow geeks on the internet. The idea of Baiting (sometimes called ScamBaiting) is to respond to these Phishing emails with interest. Once hooked, you string along the Phisher, wasting their time and resources. Hopefully keeping them distracted enough to leave real potential victims alone. It can be rather amusing, because you can get the Phishers to do all kinds of crazy stuff in order to "prove" they are legit.

One site I visit several times a year is 419eater.com. This is a site where Baiters post their correspondences with Phishers for the amusement of others. It's really quite funny. You should check it out.

As I'm sure you know, there are a lot of scamming done on eBay. Here's a well documented article describing one guy's Baiting exploit. He was legitimately trying to sell a Powerbook computer on eBay and was approached by someone in London who was interested in buying it 'outside' of the eBay system (red flag). He said he wanted to use an escrow service he had an 'account' with. But things weren't measuring up and soon figured out it was a scam. So he asked his fellow geeks on www.somethingaweful.com message boards what he should do. They told him to turn the tables on this Phisher. Yup, and they helped him scam the scammer. It's a very funny article. Take time to read this. It's awesome! It's like a scene from Hackers.