Scamming a Scammer

Filed in archive Fight! on March 15, 2008

We get them on a daily basis, sometimes even more. They promise us we've won a foreign lottery, offer us a high paying job, or promise us a huge reward if we'll just help them get their family fortune out of their war torn country-or perhaps they discovered a long lost relative left you millions and can't wait to help you collect it! Ah yes, the nigeria scams, probably the most annoying spam on the planet. They seem to get through even the toughest spam filters. I've got a server based solution and an ISP based solution and I still get them!

The San Francisco Chronicle has a great podcast about a man who turned the tables on these scammers. He went so far as to set up a fake bank account so he could play along, and created a fictitious person with a whole fake background. Why? Because he studies spam for a living and wanted to find out what makes the Nigeria spammers tick. To find out what happened, check out the podcast here!