The difference between African and Indian scammers.

First a note, but i guess you got that already:  With Indian scammers i mean scammers from India, not Native Americans.



The idea of this article was born a few months ago at the last public after party by Scambait Central. Here Mr Pricky told a story about prank callers talking to much and he said the trick is to let the scammers waste their own time with talking. But that is not how it work with Indian scammers.

I had plans to mention this in that after party but due to my arthrosis i have difficulties with small, precise and repetitive moves. And typing on the keyboard is all 3 of them. When there are a lot of people on the chat, i back off as i need so much time to write something that the part i wanted to answer on, or make a remark about, is long gone. So i decided to write it here. In dutch english....


I have not prank called or baited myself yet, however i have several years of experience with trollbaiting in the comment section on Youtube. But as a listener for several years now i noticed this difference.


Put effort in the scam:

African scammers are willingly to put time and afford in the scam. Sometimes even to a level they almost deserve some money for it. Indian scammers don't. They want it fast, they want it easy, and the easier the better. They quickly think "for you someone else"  and end the call.


Difference in culture:

This is an estimated guess form my side as i know some of both countries, but not all. Africa has no caste system but India does. In calls it is often clear that Indian scammers consider their victims a lower caste for them to rule and harass as they are pleased. And they do that often. I never heard such from African scammers. Indian scammers love to play with their victims, even if it wil result in a failed scam.


General stupidity:

I believe the type of person who scam in Africa is different then the ones in India. In general i consider Indian scammers way more stupid then African scammers. The African scammers are often more fluent in their talk. In several streams like the ones by DVR, Skelettonsyskey, Mistress Scambait, Joe Scambait and others if is often very clear they have troubles to wrestle through the script. You can hear them reading with use of the index finger like little children do. I never heard this form African scammers despite they like to repeat much. But i think this is mainly because Africans are more used to bad phone connections and of coarse when they got angry. It look like African scammers know the script way better and don't need to read it from a piece of paper.

Indian scammers do curse a lot and often straight away in the beginning of the call. They curse way more then African scammers. They do this in Hindi, of coarse. They are convinced that the victim will not understand. A straight out stupid thing to to if you mainly target the USA with their wide diversity of origin of the people, which include India. Sometimes it look like they are very keen to blow their cover while the African scammer want to keep up their cover.

It also look like Africans use more complex stories. It seems that the only American state a Indian scammer can come up with is Texas. And then only the south border of it. And apparently Boston is located there.  Also the only car they seems to know is a Toyota Corolla, often pronounced as Tooita Kroola. (22 pounds of coca caine included)

Generally spoken, the level of talking and behavior of an Indian scammer is elementary school level. The Africans give a way more educated impression. 


Difference in general characters:

Without even the slightest doubt, Indian scammers are by fare more aggressive, impatient, arrogant and short fused than any African scammer. African scammers try to keep up the story as long as they can. Even when you insult them, with some nice words they are quickly back on the scam again. This happen often at the Scambait Central streams. Pricky call them everything included rotten fish and in anger the scammer end the call. And within a minute Pricky call them back, being nice and everything continues like nothing ever happen. And i heard Pricky do that 3 times in less then half an hour with the same scammer. Do i need to explain the legendary Paul Andy? He took that abuse for almost 2 years now....

With the Indian scammers?, well forget it. They have an EGO you know. Written in capitals to match the importance of it.  And you can fit at least 100 African scammers in it. Their ego is so all mighty, so important, so god-like, so holy, that it goes above everything. The ego need to be restored on the spot, pronto and also period! If they blow their cover and with that the whole scam, they couldn't care less. The world has to know, without delay, how though they are. On the other hand, this also lead to a easy way to fire them up.


Google:

The Google silence is typical for Indian scammers. I never heard that with African scammers. But i have to say that most Indian scam scripts are computer related like the tech support scammers. Nevertheless, there is CCTV evidence of this. (having a criminal company specialized in stealing money and then have a CCTV...... face palm...) Far most Indian scammers Google everything the victim said. Names, adresses, states, streets, phone numbers, zip codes, everything. They even use Street View. This result in silence in the conversation which are about the average length of googling something.

It could be the different nature of the scam, but my impression is that an African scammer know a lot more about the world then his Indian counterpart.


Money:

I dont know about the African scammers, but Indian scammers firmly believe everyone in the west is a millionaire and don't miss the money. I heard this in serious conversations with scammers on streams of Joe Scambait, Modder Paul and DVR. I think African scammers have a better knowledge about the value of money.

Talking about money, i think African scammers work solitary. They can be in groups as pictures taken from laptop cameras proof, but i think they take the full amount of the scam and don't give it to an boss who then pay back their reward for the scam. So far i have not seen anything that point to an Indian set up. In India scamming has become India's largest source of income. They have entire scam companies with tens to hundreds of employees that working in complete furnished office buildings as hacked CCTV and in-screen cameras has proofed. The money is collected on the companies bank account and then moved to the big boss his account. Which, by the way, are just a few. Then the end boss who now has the money pay the employees who believe they make tens of thousands of dollars a month. Or will receive that in the future as promised years ago. They have not the slightest clue about money.

The funny thing is they got scammed by their own boss in multiple ways. They receive only a small part of the scam, but the way how it is set up in respect to the Indian law, they are legally 100% responsible if it goes wrong one day. And the end boss just stay way out of range of fire. With the millions of dollars the desk boys never seen. And never will see. So far i think the African scammers have the finances better under control. 


My conclusion:

Except for the money part, the rest of it combined make it a lot harder to play with and Indian scammer. A radio without a battery is very rare among Indian scammers. Sometimes they rant for 10 minutes against a soundboard of a ranting Indian lady speaking Hindi. Which is actually a record of an angry competitive scammer. And that's about the most you can get out of them. To keep them hooked up, the scambaiter / prank caller has to put in more afford by means of speaking into the scammer. Let the scammer do all his own baiting soon run into his massive ego, sorry, EGO, and all is lost. Indian scammers are not as stable as African scammers. They become suspicious with the smallest event outside the script.

With many live streams you see that most calls are just under a minute. The best are 2 or 3 hours if you have a stupid one and a good story with a lot of your own afford put into it. An example: Pricky's famous hello game. He can stretch that out for many minutes and even more if he start his famous rant: hello hello hello hello hello hello hello, annoying isn't it? hello hello hello hello... An Indian scammer would never take that, it would collide with his ego, sorry i do it again, EGO and will end the call. An African scammer can hallo on his own for 10 minutes to regain contact and continue the scam. An Indian scammer hello 3 or 4 times and end the call.

You have to play the perfect game in smooth talk, sound files and make believe to hook them up for hours. And months like Mr. Pricky often do is out of the question. At least, i never heard of it. A radio without a battery is impossible with an Indian scammer, let alone a Paul Andy who is connected directly to a nuclear power plant.

In short, an Indian scammer is an other instrument that need to be played in a other way.