
A Day With an E-mail Scammer - dave1619
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/a-day-with-an-e-mail-scammer/#more-3355
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pavel_lishin
This probably wasted maybe 20 minutes out of their day. I was hoping to see
them get counter-scammed, like has happened a few times.

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timmaah
And wasted 3 out of mine. Why is this remotely interesting to The Times?

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fbea
Why does it have to be remotely interesting to the Times? It's remotely
interesting to me and that's what the Times cares about.

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acangiano
Wasting e-mail scammers' time is a hobby for many: <http://www.419eater.com/>

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jamii
I don't have as much spare time as some, so I automated it: <http://scattered-
thoughts.net/one/1274/311469/319933>

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acangiano
Way to go. Google should make something like this available as a Gmail lab
add-on.

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gregschlom
And then scammers will ask you to solve a CAPTCHA before they engage in
further discussion. :)

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jamii
Thats fine. Their victims generally aren't tech savvy so the more hoops the
scammers require them to jump through the more will get confused and give up.
Even asking potential victims to reply to a different address than the
originator of the email will affect the conversion rates.

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Luyt
David Pogue joining the ranks of <http://www.419eater.com/> ? Love it!

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bl4k
and to think, if the scammer had just bothered to write a poem he may have
gotten the $2000

