Post by Frazzle on Apr 29, 2020 23:11:00 GMT
I was baiting heavy for a while. Some challenges arose in a former baiting life and real life got in the way. Something had to give and well, baiting was easy to walk away from. I would suspect we all need a break from time to time...well I am obviously back and honestly looking forward to helping grow this new forum.
That being said I would suspect that we will attract lots of new folks and lots of folks new to baiting as we grow. They will have questions. One being does this really make a difference? Scams have been around since before the internet. The internet brought a new breed of scammer and as technology has continued to evolve so has scamming and so has scam baiting. So is scam baiting an exercise in futility? Well if we are being honest with ourselves the logical answer, the honest answer on some level is yes. Lets face it there are far more scammers than there are scam baiters. They learn and evolve we learn and evolve and it is a viscous circle.
What prompted me to put these thoughts together was a message I received earlier from a fellow baiter here. I have posted a lot of scammer activity on facebook the past couple of days. I was sent a link earlier today to a blog on scamming which had an associated facebook page. On that page was the post attached below....and it gave some numbers i found staggering.
So is scam baiting an exercise in futility. Well if your goal is to shut down scamming then yeah it is absolutely futile. But to be fair that is an unrealistic goal.
My story posted on here made mention of an elderly aquanitence that fell victim and that is what led me to learning about these scams and that led me to scambaiting. The fact that he still gets taken in by these scumbags...well that can make ones efforts feel a bit futile as well.
But then there is the bigger picture. For every bank account we get, we cause disruption. For every mule we report, on occasion that is an ITP (innocent third party) that does not know they are being scammed. We help shut that down. For every minute one of these scumbags is engaged with us, they are not engaged with a victim. And I know for a fact, that a few of my baits have resulted in innocent victims being educated and actually listening, unlike my elderly aquaintence.
Above all that...while the stories we will undoubtedly write here will be entertaining, while the trophies, and the phone calls will be entertaining, as we become a community and exchange ideas, and work together, forge some friendships, make no mistake; we are disruptive. We cause these scumbags frustration, emotional distress, we laugh at their antics. It is a form of stress relief for some. I mean who doesn't love it when a scumbag loses their shit on Mr Pricky or better yet when Mr Pricky loses his shit on a scammer.
But above all else, for every scumbag you engage, you are keeping them from focusing their efforts on a real victim. Which means you are saving at least one potential victim from a scam. Despite being outnumbered, if we can save one person from being victimized with our antics...that my friends is a win .and there is nothing futile about that.
Bait safe, bait often.
That being said I would suspect that we will attract lots of new folks and lots of folks new to baiting as we grow. They will have questions. One being does this really make a difference? Scams have been around since before the internet. The internet brought a new breed of scammer and as technology has continued to evolve so has scamming and so has scam baiting. So is scam baiting an exercise in futility? Well if we are being honest with ourselves the logical answer, the honest answer on some level is yes. Lets face it there are far more scammers than there are scam baiters. They learn and evolve we learn and evolve and it is a viscous circle.
What prompted me to put these thoughts together was a message I received earlier from a fellow baiter here. I have posted a lot of scammer activity on facebook the past couple of days. I was sent a link earlier today to a blog on scamming which had an associated facebook page. On that page was the post attached below....and it gave some numbers i found staggering.
So is scam baiting an exercise in futility. Well if your goal is to shut down scamming then yeah it is absolutely futile. But to be fair that is an unrealistic goal.
My story posted on here made mention of an elderly aquanitence that fell victim and that is what led me to learning about these scams and that led me to scambaiting. The fact that he still gets taken in by these scumbags...well that can make ones efforts feel a bit futile as well.
But then there is the bigger picture. For every bank account we get, we cause disruption. For every mule we report, on occasion that is an ITP (innocent third party) that does not know they are being scammed. We help shut that down. For every minute one of these scumbags is engaged with us, they are not engaged with a victim. And I know for a fact, that a few of my baits have resulted in innocent victims being educated and actually listening, unlike my elderly aquaintence.
Above all that...while the stories we will undoubtedly write here will be entertaining, while the trophies, and the phone calls will be entertaining, as we become a community and exchange ideas, and work together, forge some friendships, make no mistake; we are disruptive. We cause these scumbags frustration, emotional distress, we laugh at their antics. It is a form of stress relief for some. I mean who doesn't love it when a scumbag loses their shit on Mr Pricky or better yet when Mr Pricky loses his shit on a scammer.
But above all else, for every scumbag you engage, you are keeping them from focusing their efforts on a real victim. Which means you are saving at least one potential victim from a scam. Despite being outnumbered, if we can save one person from being victimized with our antics...that my friends is a win .and there is nothing futile about that.
Bait safe, bait often.
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