Scambaiting is fun...

[SolidSurgeTT]

Ever try it? I've been fixated on it thanks to various YouTubers doing scambaiting ventures.

[The Tenth Doctor]

I like watching a guy named Jim Browning, he tries to stop scammers by messing with their computers. Sadly most get away but its still interesting to see their tricks.

[SolidSurgeTT]

Jim Browning is the maverick of the game. I also drop in on Pleasant Green and Atomic Shrimp.

Kitboga is also a major player.

[Blue Blood]

Atomic Shrimp is an absolute legend. I love the nature of his channel. It was the scambaiting that took me to his channel in the first place, but I ended up staying for the rest of the content too.

There's someone else I watch on YouTube called Emma Thorne. She does general political and religious commentary stuff that's quite entertaining. I originally found her for her anti host Earth content. But one time dipped her toes into scambaiting and the whole thing just had me laughing. 

It's funny stuff. 

[Tailikku]

Well I know of a few examples of doing such.

First is James Vietch with his Scamalot series where instead of deleting his scam emails, he decides to hit reply and get the scammers caught up in their web of lies. For instance, a scammer claiming to be from "China Jewelry Corp." asking for James to send specific documents in order to be qualified for the job of Regional Manager. James procrastinates sending the documents by hiring secretaries. First he hires "Thelma" who then questions about benefits. When CJC states that there's no dental insurance, Thelma starts complaining and refuses to send in the documents. James then hires "Louise" but she turns out to be a ditz as she forgets to do so. It culminates in James hiring his cousin Nigel as secretary, but this pisses off Thelma and Louise, making him question the idea of having a secretary in the first place, especially since Nigel hasn't hit puberty. The two ex-secretaries make a strike and go off on a crazy road trip. As the cut-out animation shows, James was setting up an overly prepaired pun of the gist of "Thelma and Louise" ending with the film's iconic car jump scene. James closes this scambait by tendering his resignation. In another one, James responds to a scammer who wants a certain ammount of money through Western Union, and decides to keep the transaction confidential by sending the wiring number in bits, stating that there are 32 digits in the number. James starts with it being just a single number: 1. The scammer getting desparate asks for the next two. He gets them 2 and 3 in that order. When asked for the next one, James states that it's 4. The frustrated scammer gives up.

The other one I have heard about was courtesy of a second-hand account by the Modern Rogue. As Brian Brushwood and Jason Murphy discuss the 419 scam, Brian brings up scambaiting with a story involving the "P-P-P-Powerbook!" and the craziness around it. According to the story, Jeff Harris was being harrassed by a troll based in London on eBay after he put up his 19-day old Apple G4 Powerbook for sale. The troll offered to buy it for $2100 with a response riddled with spelling and grammar errors. So Harris then took to Something Awful to figure out how to combat this troll. Together they figured out that the troll was also a scammer and decided to punish him by sending him a fake Powerbook. In reality it was a three ring binder with a hand drawn keyboard taped to the inside of the bottom flap, and a hand drawn screen taped to the inside of the top flap with details colored in crayon. Meanwhile one of the forum users went to the address given by the troll to try to investigate his actual location within London, picking up the fake Powerbook at a local FedEx to make the delivery himself. And then Harris emailed the troll saying that he was happy that the package arrived because he "thought [he] had lost [his] powerbook for good in some kind of scam." That's when the troll realized he was being used and proceeded to DDoS Harris' site and emailed him a W32.Beagle worm. In the video, Brian conflated it with the idea of sending 419 scammers rocks in lieu of sending money. Jason then followed up with a story that he experienced regarding being emailed by a 419 scammer about having an inheritance from a dead relative in London, with him saying that it was his non-existant cousin Dan who decided to set up a fish and chips shop in London.