Stringing the Scammers
 

(This article was syndicated in my local rag today.)

David Lazarus describes how the strung some internet scammers along, toying with them for months, before finally tiring of the game. The scam started with a letter (remember "letters"), then moved to emails and telephone calls. It's quite a tale.

http://www.latimes.com/business/laza...810-story.html

First time you've heard of "scam baiting"?

^ Indeed.

i can't see the article because some americans are about to wet their pants about "new" (*) european data protection laws.

generally, i love David Veitch's contributions to the genre.

(*) it's not really new, at least 2 decades old, just improved.

Nope, not the first time I've heard of the scam. Or many other similar scams. Hack, 90% of the phone calls to our landline are questionable. These days, it seems that every other body is a scammer.

Me, I hang up on them or toss their letters. I just got a kick over how Lazurus strung them along for so long.

may be of interest

https://www.419eater.com/html/links.htm

^ i think this site has an article about the history of scamming, with the first known version of what later became the "nigerian" scam, dating back to the 18th or 19th century, and a movie that was made about it.
and the movie wasn't half bad.
a green dot from me if you can find it, i'm pretty sure it's buried in that very site, but cannot find it now.

Well, there's this
https://www.nigerianspam.com/history-419-scam.htm

and this
https://www.antifraudnews.com/419-scam/

neither from the above as far as I know.

idk; i don't remember it too well.
but "spanish prisoner" was the keyword i was looking for i guess, because that was also the name of the film.
so here, take your rep!
the scam's history is described in much detail in the film.
recommended.