While it fell a bit out of fashion, many of you have heard about Scam-baiting where you reply to scammer and drive them nuts. In the 00’s the 419eater.com website was pretty popular.

I would expect that many of you on the fediverse have the skill and time to drive scammer crazy, so did some of you tried to reply to the Nicole Scam ?

  • Sergio@slrpnk.net
    3·
    5 hours ago

    I don’t know who’s running the Nicole scam, but in some centers:

    Scam center operators lure foreign nationals to scam hubs, where they are forced into modern slavery, to scam internet users around the world into fraudulently buying cryptocurrencies or withdrawing cash via social media and online dating apps.[1] A typical scam is known as “pig butchering”. Trafficked victims’ passports are confiscated, and they are threatened with organ harvesting and forced prostitution if they do not successfully scam sufficiently.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam_center

    So there’s always the chance that you’re not scambaiting a willing scammer, but an enslaved person who’s just scared of being forced into prostitution.

  • Vanth@reddthat.comEnglish
    6·
    12 hours ago

    I don’t scambait in general. One, I have so many options for entertainment that give me more joy than responding to scammers. Two, I assume much like robo phone calls, the initial communication itself isn’t the scam, it’s to see who responds so their contact info can be put on a list for further targeting.