Poop Shute

You've Got Scams

You may remember some months ago I posted that I had created a fictitious character for a humor blog and I had even opened up an email address in "her" name. This character was called "Advice Girl" and she was basically me and GURG.

She ended up receiving one of those email scams that goes a little something like this:

Dearest Mr MOORE,

I am the widow of a diplomat from [insert name of developing African nation here]. My husband was murdered for [insert political motivations here]. At the time of his death he was in posession of [insert obscenely large amount of money here] and I just need you to give me your account number so I can steal all your money.


Okay, so they don't tell you they want to steal your money. That would be letting the cat out of the bag, wouldn't it?

But dear lord, don't the con artists know that once EVERYBODY is doing the same con game then the world tends to catch on by and large? Especially when the game utilizes such a widespread medium. To this day I get a couple of this exact scam per week.

At this point I've started to find humor in it. I mean, I realize that these people have to read ALL the replies they get on the off chance that one of the people they hear from was sucker enough to pony up the account number. So, with this piece of info in mind I have started writing responses. One I just sent off went a little something like this:


Dearest Scam Artist,

I hope you burn in whatever hell you happen to believe in. I personally am an atheist, but a small part of me kind of hopes that the Christians are right. Just for your sake.

With regards,
Someone Smarter Than You


This next one is a little different. It was in response to one of those that claims you've won some big foreign lottery for some inexplicable reason, and as usual, they need your account to give you the money:


Dearest Con Artist,

Oh, I just love what you've done here. I've seen this exact same scam (word for word, except the specific names and places were different) a dozen times or more, but you've breathed new life into it. I've seen it set in various African and European countries, but I had not seen it set in Canada. It makes so much sense! I mean Canadians are so nice, who would mistrust a Canadian? And with plain-sounding white-people names too, like Susan Davies. Nice touch.

I might not need a full frontal lobotamy to believe this one. Maybe just a partial.

Yeah. A partial. Definitely.

With Regards,
Pointing and Laughing


I try to change it up so I don't get bored. After all, I do this strictly for my own entertainment. Some responses are better than others. Like this little nugget of joy:


Dearest Future Inmate,

It's a funny coincidence that you happen to send your little con game to me of all people. I've been surveiling you for weeks. I'm the white, unmarked van at the end of the block. If you're reading this, we're probably at your front door right now.

I know what you're thinking. Is he kidding?

Well? Am I?

With Deepest Regards,
A Spook


Even if I just raise the hairs up on the back of their neck for just a second, the little bit of my time was worth it. I can only imagine his face.

Comments:

Well done, Joe. And if you want to throw a little more scare into them, you should send them a declaration of love from that amorous ungulate, Advice Girl.
Guillermo 10.27.05 - 4:19 pm

I hope for your sake that you don't get so worked up about these automated scam emails to the point of actually responding to them.
David DoBell 10.28.05 - 3:36 am

...David, these three responses in this post were actually sent back to the scammers. I thought that was clear.

And I'm not "worked up" about it. I'm having fun at their expense. They send out their scams in hopes of getting account numbers in response, so that means they read all the responses. Mine are designed to irritate them a little which entertains me greatly.
Me 10.28.05 - 3:09 pm

Actually, they'd just use a parser to grab key pieces of text out of your email and put them in an appropriate place in a database. The process of sending out email and extracting account numbers from emails sent back is most likely completely automated as well. At the end of the day, whoever is running this scam probably just does an sql query and pipes out an excel spreadsheet of all the avaialable account numbers, ssn's, etc...
David DoBell 10.28.05 - 6:45 pm

If they had that kind of knowledge and technology behind them why would they be wasting it on such a stupid scam?

I could be wrong, but I feel like if they knew how to do all that they would be better at separating people from their money than this idiot's game they are playing.

Or even have ligitimate jobs...

in India.
Joey 10.28.05 - 7:40 pm

Well there's a reason for that. Once an automated system is put in place, the cost of running it is practically nothing.

This allows the scammer to play a game of numbers quite easily. He/she can collect more information than he/she ever could sending, receiving, emails, on his/her own. The potential amount of money the scammer needs to make off of just one scam more than makes up for any costs.

But most likely the scammer themselves did not create this and instead bought a canned piece of blackmarket software that does everything. It wouldn't surprise me at all if a programmer wanted to supplement his income by writing software like this and selling it to potential scam artist as a means to supplement his/her income.
David DoBell 10.28.05 - 8:25 pm

I agree with David.

Your responses likely aren't being read by anyone.
Edward Carter 10.29.05 - 8:56 am

You know there's always That Guy at the party. You know which guy I mean. Somebody tells a joke that might have some "suspension of disbelief" in it, and there's That Guy to say

"actually..."

Whether or not they really read these things, they are funny if you just relax and enjoy them.

Don't be That Guy.
Joey 10.31.05 - 6:43 pm

Joey, Gilberto scolded me for calling your Halloween costume "Economical" because he felt it insinuated it was cheap. Just to clarify, I thought your Halloween costume was cute and clever, and not cheap, so I hope you understood what I intended, and not whatever crazy Gilberto thinks.
Ben Siemon 10.31.05 - 10:43 pm

Haha.

Firstly, I didn't even notice that you called it economical, but second even now that I know that, I am not offended. I am not cheap, I know I am not cheap, so even if you meant that, I couldn't care less.

What I AM is poor. The difference is simple. A cheap man doesn't spend money because he doesn't want to part with it, but a poor man doesn't spend money because he doesn't have it.

No harm, no foul.
Joey 11.01.05 - 4:25 am

And being late to the party.

They have software that send all the messages out.

HOWEVER, they do read the responses that come back. They may send out 2 million message, but the likely hood that anyone responds is virtually nill. So the very few responses that come back they do respond personally. Through my old job we were kept well informed of the various nigerian scams and all of their protocol.

This may have changed, but the system they have is not that sophisticated, and takes quite a bit of manual labor.
Brian Y. 11.02.05 - 2:18 am

I did make an assumption about someone using a parser to grab important information from an email only because to me that would seem like the most logical and economical course of action to take when running a scam such as this.

Perhaps I should go into the business of making email scams. :^

The responses are in fact funny, but I worry that good comedy might be going to waste.
David Dobell 11.02.05 - 2:50 am

Don't worry, be happy.

Wow. Who knew that Bobby McFerrin would be so timeless.
Joey 11.02.05 - 4:30 am