419 Scammer Gets Scammed

johnduffell writes "There's a lot of awareness of 419 scams at the moment, including a report from the BBC of a baiter who managed to get $80 and a birthday card by courier! He did this by convincing the scammer that he was in the Church of the Painted Breast and there's even a photo of the scammer with his breast painted! Presumably the scammers are hoping that the scammees are as stupid as they are."

simi-dupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was on the page 419eater.com, which was linked by an artical about 419 scams step by step or something.

Little Old

[slashrogue]

The story about the whole Church of the Painted Breast thing has been on 419eater.com for quite some time now. It's long, but certainly amusing.

Re:You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the first time one of these smarmy nerds gets his ass handed to him by a pissed-off criminal, I'll definitely be feeling the urge to laugh a bit...

From all the way over in Nigeria? Must have really long arms...?

Pit Nicking

[Em Adespoton]

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right!

[dcocos]

A I learned from the book "50 Things You Aren't Supposed to Know" and the Fully Informed Jury Association. Juries, while using the law as a guide, they may choose not convict even though the person may be guilty by the letter and even the spirit of the law. Jury nullification would be well warrented. (Now the people mentioned in the article are British and I am not familiar with British law, though I believe this right was developed based on the model laid out in the Magna Carta.)

http://www.fija.org/

Re:There's no way they could really press charges.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Didn't they arrest 500 people last month for running these scams? Ah, yes, here's the link:

Scammers arrested. [news.com.au]

Re:Where do I join?

[Gunfighter]

You can join at the 419 Eater website [419eater.com].

nigerian criminals have murdered over this scam.

[bani]

they have _murdered_ poor saps who came to nigeria to "collect" on their "deals".

they even hired mafia to carry out a murder in north america, related to the scam.

Re:Not All Nigerians are Scammers

[cherokee158]

That's true, but Nigeria is alsoa country where people will deliberately block your car while a grease monkey crawls under it and wrecks your transmission...coincidently just a block down the street from a repair shop. (Source: The World's Most Dangerous Places)

Nigeria is a cesspool of lawlessness and violence. Stereotyping isn't always fair, but it may just save your life.

Re:Artists Against 419

[nkh]

This site has already been shown on /. before [slashdot.org].

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right!

[sploo22]

IANAL but this is how I understand it:

A legal contract is defined by one party making an offer, including "consideration" - i.e. what each person agrees to do for the other - and the other party accepting it. As long as all parties are capable of making the transaction and the actions themselves are not illegal, both are legally bound to carry out their side of the agreement.

Situation: the scammer asks you for your back account number. You say: "OK, but it will cost you $80." You've just made an offer which the scammer accepts by giving you the money. If you don't then give them your account number, they could sue you for breach of contract and get back at least their $80.

On the other hand, a "bare promise" by one person is not a contract and not legally enforceable. In the scenario you gave, however, there was compensation by both sides.

Bear in mind that this is how it's done in the Caribbean (and probably Britain), the system may be slightly different in the U.S.

I really don't care

[ACNiel]

Anyone that falls for these scams deserves what they get (ok, not all the scams, but most of them). The basic premise of these scams is that someone wants you to participate in a scam. Why doesn't anyone focus on this fact. These people are asked to help move money, merchandise, or something else, for larges sums of money, and none of them could even for a moment appear to be legitimate. No matter who gets taken for what, if they were trying to help somone spirit money away from the countrymen that it was stolen from, they deserve to lose it all. What about an 80 year old woman on a fixed income? Sure, she should lose it all, she should no better, but in her greed, she was blinded. If you get blinded to basic ethical living by a couple of dollar signs, you deserve to suffer.

The law is an ass, but lawyers are reptiles

[abb3w]

I know the governments in the U.S. and UK might actually prosecute

True. However, at least in the US, the Bill of Rights [slashdot.org], Article 6 says we have the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against" us. Which means not only do you have to find a prosecutor asinine enough to press charges against the counterscammer, but the original scammer has to SHOW UP in court to testify... and risk being arrested and charged in turn.

Furthermore, I suspect (though IANAL) that $80 would not be enough to bring you to the felony level, but that the attempt at scamming $18,000 by the 419 fellow would be. And most prosecutors are quite willing to make deals with small time crooks in exchange for testimony to catch bigger ones.

Plus, of course, "No jury would ever convict me!"

No, the real risk here is that the big 419 crook finds the counterscammer's real name and address, and has connections enough to do something dreadfully violent.

Clean hands

[Idarubicin]

For all the folks that are wondering aloud about whether or not the scambaiters are vulnerable to a lawsuit for taking the scammers' $80, you can rest easy.

A court will not award damages to a party that has 'unclean hands'. The scammers are attempting to negotiate a contract by which they have no itention of abiding--indeed, by which they cannot abide (they don't have eighteen billion dollars, now do they?)--and which would be illegal even if they could carry through their promises. Loosely speaking, the terms: Scammer gives Baiter $80, Baiter gives Scammer $18000, Scammer gives Baiter $millions.

Consequently, the doctrine of clean hands (Link [law.com], Link [lectlaw.com]) would tend to preclude successful legal action by the scammers. No court would enforce the contract, and trying to get the original $80 back would expose the scammer to far more costs and probably criminal prosecution.