David's World

February 27, 2005

Scamming the scammers

"I am Alan McAidan and I'm interested in your Canon EOS300D Digital camera for sale.Please aquiant me with your last offer and the pictures too."

Judging from the langauge, it's not surprising that this somewhat old-fashioned query reached me from a former British colony - and not from Belgium, as the guy pretended. It was one of many scam-emails that I have received.

Of course, Alan McAiden is just a fake name, trimmed to be a little Irish - after all, I had put up an ad on the Irish website Buy&Sell: I was selling a digital camera. That was the ad that "Alan" replied to. Unfortunately, Alan used a different name in the email address, Leonard Mupettre. A glance at the technical gibberish in the e-mail headers revealed that it was actually sent from the Vic Biz Cyber Café located in Benin City. This didn't sound like a promising deal. I played along, and, as expected, I was asked to receive a cheque over some $5000, cash it and return the change to some obscure 'business partner'. Of course, the cheque would have been fake, and I would have lost a nice chunk of money.

What happens if you go all the way? I just found someone who likes to scam the scammers. I loved the story about Frank Kabongo, a nigerian scam-artist, as he loses some $220, when his seemingly innocent victim turns the tables on him... and tricks him into sending a "guarantee free". It's complete with recordings of phone conversations and letters - highly enjoyable. Another one is here - the 'victim' even puts on a fake Irish accent (hilarious!).

Hey - I have a moped up for sale on the internet for €1350. I received the draft today for €5600...... same story I was to wire him the balance. But I knew it was a fake draft by looking at it. I'm working with the bank now and hopefully they'll be able to do something about it. But if this guy is in nigeria - I'm not holding out much hope!!!!!