Honest dialog with a 419 scammer

Here's a refreshingly honest IM session between a 419 scammer and a savvy mark who's wise the game (This may be fake, don't care, still funny):

Mr Robert Dutu: Am Robert Dutu. I have very important business proposition for your consideration. Can we chat on it?

Mike Nash: Let me guess? You have millions of dollars you want to give me. But I won't get it. Instead, you will rip me off with advanced fee fraud.

MRD: You are right.

MN: Well, appreciate the honest.

MRD: You are welcome. Pleasure chatting with you.

MN: Good luck in finding an idiot.

MRD: Thanks man

Mr Robert Dutu (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

[#1 posted by kevin143, March 22, 2009 7:53 PM]

Here's the full conversation, it definitely seems authentic. http://onlinearmorpersonalfirewall.blogspot.com/2009/03/yes-16million-usd-but-we-will-have-to.html

[#2 posted by noen, March 22, 2009 8:40 PM]

The supply of idiots however is infinite.

[#3 posted by Ian Holmes, March 22, 2009 8:49 PM]

heh, I once chatted for an hour with a Czech guy who'd got into my linux box through an sshd buffer overflow. then i pulled the ethernet cable and reinstalled. good times

[#4 posted by MikeNash, March 22, 2009 8:59 PM]

It's definitely authentic. It was rather unfortunate for the guy to try and scam me :)

[#5 posted by dumase, March 22, 2009 9:04 PM]

i'm sure this is real. spammers are just regular people like you and me?

i remember at some point, i had such an altercation. He/she had left a random nonsense stringed keyword comment on my livejournal (shh) about Las Vegas. So i went to delete it. Next thing i know i had 4 more comment notifications being sent to me. So i deleted all of them, except one to which i replied "STOP SPAMMING ME ASS" not actually expecting an answer, but rather to amuse myself i suppose. But instead i got one more lj-notification replying "OK, Sorry!" A polite spammer, guys.

[#6 posted by hiroken, March 23, 2009 12:09 AM]

I used to do this playing Final Fantasy XI. Goldsellers would mine the area that I would mine, and we would end up competing. I would always try to strike up conversations with me to tell them about their life and jobs. A few talked to me and ended up being very honest and polite.

[#7 posted by gruben, March 23, 2009 1:46 AM]

I fucking LOVE the handshake emoticon.

[#8 posted by Keeper of the Lantern, March 23, 2009 2:43 AM]

Well, it helps too to realize that, at least with many of the African scammers, the level of poverty they live in would shock most of us living in our comfortably mostly western world.

A few years back I (in Conjunction with some of the Cypherpunks) devised a fairly elaborate scheme that could have trapped the very large wire transfers that are the backbone of all this. But I decided against it for various reason, though seeing a complicit Nigerian bank or two collapse was one of the things that didn't concern me too much (though perhaps I should have because that might have caused a lot of Nigerians some real financial hardship).

In the end you just have to wise up and stay away from anything that looks to good to be true.

[#9 posted by fatjim, March 23, 2009 2:46 AM]

Thanks for sharing this, I really can't believe there is such a spammer.

[#10 posted by Lilah, March 23, 2009 5:11 AM]

Here is a Facebook chat between a man and a scammer how hacked his friend's account. I thought this one was pretty refreshing:

http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/nigerian-scammers-still-roosting-on-facebook

[#11 posted by scaught, March 23, 2009 6:59 AM]

from #10's link:
"Evan: i am sorry, but due to the odd circumstances of our initial greeting, i must terminate this relationship. i hope you understand."

LOL.

These are even more entertaining than the documentations of people trying to get the scammers to do silly things

[#12 posted by Shannon, March 23, 2009 10:03 AM]

I recently had a conversation with a Nigerian scammer that tried to get money from me... This entry reminded me to post it:

http://www.zentastic.com/blog/2009/03/23/short-interview-with-a-419-scammer/

[#13 posted by Takuan, March 23, 2009 10:18 AM]

and now a new wave of scammers is discovering the "refreshingly honest" sob story approach is ALSO good for getting money out of the guiltily better off. "Here's a few bucks, now go clean yourself up and sin no more."

[#14 posted by Takuan, March 23, 2009 10:30 AM]

anyone up to the task of an update a la web-speak?

http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Farmer-MusaPedestris/the-oath-of-the-canting-crew.html

[#15 posted by kossmikman, March 23, 2009 1:09 PM]

It's a fake, I can see it by the pixels!