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My Ethical Baiting 101 file:

If you want to bait, we want to keep you safe.

My Ethical Baiting 101 file:

Unread postby Big Al » Sun Feb 20, 2022 3:15 pm

I started this because I was asked to Mentor some new baiters. I hope it helps any new baiters out there and you are welcome to contact me at my E-mail address which is at the bottom of every post I make here at ScamSurvivors if you have any further questions.

1. The very first thing is to learn how to "Bait Safely". That means
everything that you use to bait the scammers or work in the Anti-scam community has no connection to your real life identity.

2. I use G-mail to bait with because it strips my IP address and I can
tell the scammers I am anywhere in the world. I wouldn't suggest
your baiting character(s) be in your real country especially if you plan
to be baiting scammers from your home country. Open an E-mail
address using none of your real life information. G-mail might require a
phone number to open an account. It used to be that if they did you could
wait a few days and try opening an account again later and they wouldn't
require one. They also ask for a linking E-mail address. I interlink all
my baiting accounts so none of them lead to my Real life information.
Another thing I do is add a draft E-mail: "FYI this account" The body of the draft E-mail is:
"To Whom it may concern,
This is an anti Advanced Fee Fraud Ethical Baiting account. I use it to collect and report the information of internet scammers. Any information in this account may be used by any authorities to protect Consumers. Please contact me with any questions or concerns before closing this account.
Thank you!!!"

3. One problem will be that most scammers ask for a phone number and of
course the number has to fit the country that you tell the scammer that
you are in. I use four USA burner telephone numbers. To set them up I took
out enough cash to buy a cheap tracfone and a card to keep it turned on
for a year. I paid cash for them both so the phone could not be traced
back to me. My first year for a burner was about $130.00 US and cost about $100 per
year to keep it going. I rarely if ever answer those phones.
Note: In some countries it is illegal to have a burner phone. In such places I would tell the scammer that I don't want to give out my phone number because I don't want my (Boyfriend, Husband, Girlfriend, Wife, Parent Etc) to answer the phone by mistake.

4. Create a fake character. You can make one up yourself or use a fake
name generator like the one here:
https://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
Be a bit careful though as one of my fake characters turns out to have a real person with the same name.
Be sure to double check. Of course this person is in a different country but still we do not want to bring any harm to a real person because of our activities.
I create my own fake addresses by going into Google and using a street
name I know. I keep upping the street number until it's off the end of the
street by as much as a mile. (One resolves to the middle of a corn field
that is a mile from the end of the street.) Part of creating your fake
character is that they need a job. I generally use blue-collar job titles
but also some odd ones. ( Factory supervisor for the auto industry, Short
flight cargo Pilot, School teacher that will be retiring soon, You just
need to create a back-story.)
Added note 10/3/22: Seems like any name I've made up or gotten from the generator gets hits to real people sooner or later.

5. Never give a scammer something he can re-use on another victim. That
means no fake ID's, Passports, or other photo identification. I'll tell
you how I work around those later when the need arises. Here is a prime example:
viewtopic.php?p=217344
Some baiter more than likely created this fake ID of the fictional character Fox Mulder from the tv show The X-files. But now this scammer has recycled the fake ID and is using it against real victims.
Here is another case showing why we as Ethical Baiters do not send the scammers fake ID's:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=63156&p=272136#p272136
I would bet the fake FBI ID was created by a stupid baiter and now it has been recycled and being used by the scammer against real victims as well as my fake victim.

6. Don't educate the scammers. This one is always a fine line. I don't let
the scammers know if I really have a holiday weekend but I will wish them
a happy holiday if they bring it up themselves. I don't tell them how long
or short it really takes for a payment to arrive to them from the USA.
They probably know better than I do. The guidelines I use are 3 - 5
business days. You will need to create your own fake bank account
information too. I can help you with that later.

7. You are going to make mistakes at first. 100% guaranteed that you are
going to do something wrong that will either make the scammer drop you or
realize he's being baited. I have a lot of scammers that will drop me
rather than send me a bank account information. But my part of the game
and goal is to get the accounts or make them give up trying to scam me.
They might do the same to a real victim who insists on paying by bank to
bank transfer.

8. You can't let personal feelings into what you are doing. Just like the
scammer cares nothing for their victims but only care about the money you
have to not care if the scammer ends up living under a bridge by trying to
scam you but you also need to be mechanical about your baiting. You have
to fight the feeling of telling the scammer to die a horrible death or to
believe the lies they tell if they say they are poor and really just need
the money. To me I care not one bit what excuse they have for scamming. To
me there is none.

9. You should create an Anti-scam / Baiter name for yourself which is also un-related to your real name. Don't use one name for both. It will cause some problems if you go from strictly baiting to other things like Victim Warning and support.

10. The scammers are working from a script in most cases. You need to get to the end of that before you can get any more information from them. My normal operating procedure is to just play their game. If they ask me to contact someone. I do it. If they want my Personal & banking information (All fake of course) I send it to them. I need to be a willing victim all the way until they ask for me to send them money.

11. The scam character that asks for money is the one that will send you bank accounts in almost every case.

12. Prolonging a bait can be done by sending only one E-mail per day to each scam character. Usually if I'm doing that there is a reason why I want to lengthen the bait. My reasons can vary. If I already have two bank accounts from that particular scammer then I'm not usually caring if the bait continues but in your case you'll need to figure out ways to keep them going.

13. The thing you want to do is give the scammer time to become emotionally invested in the victim (You). He has to believe that the money is coming soon.

14. So back to how I start a bait. Take a look at this link:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=67030
My initial E-mail was sent to debt.settlementspresidency@hotmail.com and the subject line of my E-mail was FROM DEBT SETTLEMENT AND MANAGEMENT OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCY. Then I copied the entire message posted there starting with "Attn:Sir". I then put in a comment like "How do I claim the money?" and put in my fake personal information. As you can see I have a reply from this scammer already. In this particular case I told the scammer that I didn't give anyone permission to claim any money on my behalf.
Basically fooling the Lad into thinking he had really sent me his script.

15. ID / Passport. I tell the scammer that I do not have one but I can apply for one if it is truly required. Then if the Lad comes back stating one is required I tell them I will go and apply for one tomorrow. (I use tomorrow a lot with the scammers) Then the next day I tell the scammer that I applied for a passport and it will arrive in 2 - 3 weeks. The scammer has to make a choice then. Drop me, Continue to try the scam without my passport, or they will sometimes wait 2 - 3 weeks and come back asking if I have my passport yet.
If they do that I tell them my passport was denied because I have a criminal record.
Another thing the scammers ask for to confirm your identity is to require a copy of your electric bill or other utility bill. I tell them that all of my utilities are part of my rent which is taken out of my bank account monthly and that I never really get any paper bill.

16. Learn how to say the same thing using different words. If you use the exact same excuse over and over the scammers will learn it after a while and know that their being baited. Some Examples:

I cannot come to the U.K. in person because I do not have a passport.
I will not be able to come to the U.K. in person because I have to be at work and cannot get vacation.
Due to Covid restrictions, I am not allowed to leave the country.

In most cases, the scammer is hoping that the intended victim will not be able to make it to the meeting because they need them to work with their fake banker or lawyer (Or both) as part of the scam and will accept any reason you cannot go to wherever they ask you to go. There are some exceptions. I have had scammers that seemed to only be interested in meeting the victim (me) face to face. We have learned over the years that some of those victims were robbed or kidnapped or worse.

17. Multiple baiting accounts. I personally find it easier to bait using multiple baiting accounts. I find it easier to keep track of the scam if my character is only baiting 5 scammers and their 4 profiles (20 Characters) rather than trying to keep 10 separate scammers with 4 scammer profiles (40 Characters) straight in my mind. So I use multiple baiting accounts and a smaller number of cases in each one. One pitfall I fell into was having baiting characters that use the same first letter of the alphabet for their first name. If the first names of your baiting characters are Mike, Mary, Marie, & Manny, you will get confused as to which baiting account you are using. ( Yes, I have both Male and Female baiting accounts )

18. Baiting and reporting scammer information in real time: Many Baiters will bait a scammer and never report the information they have gained about the scammer. We feel that is a total waste of otherwise good information. Other Baiters wait until they are done baiting a scammer and then post the scammer details because they are afraid the scammer will find their information online and be warned that they are being baited. I bait and report the scammer information in real time. Yes, from time to time the scammers find out they are being baited but over the years I've been doing this I would only say maybe a dozen or so have found out about it. It is also sometimes a chance to get a really good rant from a scammer.

19. Funny Baiting as opposed to Straight Baiting: Many if not most baiters started doing this because they read a funny bait or heard a funny video of a baiter making a fool of a scammer. I may send a funny response to a scammer sometimes just because constantly doing straight baiting can become monotonous. The truth of the matter though is that you can do a lot more damage to a scammer by playing it straight and getting information like fake websites, phone numbers, and bank accounts to be reported and hopefully closed. Ruining their infrastructure costs them money out of pocket, ways to move (Launder) the money, and victims.

20. Bank accounts and other sensitive information: If you are a victim of a scam and reporting the scammers details or if you are a baiter reporting scammers details, please post the complete bank account, western union, & other information in your posts. We will copy it to a private area before redacting it in the public forum. We do this in order to conform to the GDPR guidelines. The information isn't lost, its just put somewhere out of the public eye. I'm known for having a knack for getting bank accounts from the scammers. It took me three months to get my first reportable bank account though. Back then I was friends with another baiter who was really good at getting bank accounts from scammers. I asked one time how they were getting so many bank accounts from the scammers. The answer was: "I simply give them no other choice". That is what I now do and even to the point of telling some scammers to cancel the deal because I will not send them my money any other way.

21. Images: Please post images of any Fake documents, ID's or photos the scammer has sent to you. We will add them to our gallery so they are watermarked in hopes the scammers will not use them against real victims. We have seen cases where our watermarked images were copied and sent to other baiters. Also, keep it clean. We do not post nudes (Male or Female).

22. Do nothing illegal: Never do any of the following: Hack into a scammers account or computer, Send the scammer a virus or malware, Go into a scammers inbox by asking for their password, or ask the scammer to send you money (aka Cashbaiting ). All of these activities are illegal and any information gained is not useable in court. Therefore it is worthless to us and just gives us a bad name where we are often thought of as vigilantes who are "Scamming the scammer". (We hate that phrase)

23. Attrition / Burnout: Many new baiters come into the community believing that what we do is easy. All they have to do is ask a scammer to do a video holding a fish in their mouth and getting milk poured over their head and they'll do it. Once they find out such things take a lot of time and effort to accomplish they leave. What we do is not for everyone. Some of us have been doing this for over 10 years. We have our days when we feel the need to take a break or even leave altogether. As I stated above, spending day after day straight-baiting can become monotonous. We've seen hundreds if not thousands of baiters come and go. We find that doing it for the right reasons and keeping your baiting life separate from your real life helps. Also, baiting different kinds of scams can take different levels of tolerance. Baiting scams like Next of kin, Lottery, & Pet Scams are pretty benign. Scams like Dying Widow, & Romance scams can involve getting some pretty disgusting images sent to you that you can't un-see afterwards.

24. Different scammers Different Tactics?
I had a discussion with Firefly today (4/29/22) and I had to think about using different tactics on different scammers. When I first started baiting South African and ATM scammers I didn't seem to get very far with them. After a while I started to get better and better at them even though in my mind I do not feel I ever changed my tactics and I often still use "Scripts" I've used since I was baiting mostly Refugee scammers. Did I change my tactics or did the scammers become more accepting of my replys?

25. Tools and toys:
(7/9/22) We use many of the tools and toys that scammers do and some that they don't. I'm not going to elaborate on any of those here because the scammers are always listening and watching for more things they can use to better their scams with. It's a part of never educating a scammer.

26. Information Storage:
9/25/22 Inside my g-mail accounts I merely archive the E-mails I've received and only keep the active baits in my inbox. Scammers are always sending Photos and fake documents that I post here on the website. I store them on a USB chip by having a folder for each of my Baiting characters. Inside each baiting characters folders I open another folder in the name of the scammer that I received the photo or document from. I do not download the images and docs but I open them in G-mail and use Snipping tool to copy them and save them inside the folder. I also created an "Old Cases" folder that I dump all the old information into so I don't have to look through 300 folders to find the one I'm looking for. Something else about Vlad folders, in case you haven't heard the term before that is the term we use for Russian romance scammers. When I'm working in these cases i soon had 35 Ekaterina's 75 Olga's etc. So when trying to store those in my dump folder I would get an error because of the repeat names. So I name the folder with the scammers name and I add the present date as part of the folder's name: EX: Olga 9-25-22 So why is this important? I've done baiting projects and archived all the information. 6 months later a Law Enforcement entity will contact me asking for the entire bait. I can go back and pull up all the E-mails and copy them to a DOC file and send it to them. Then they have an exact record of what was said between the scammer and myself. Which brings me back to bullet point #22 above. How embarrassing would it be to have to tell Law Enforcement that you gained the scammer's information by hacking or inbox diving? End result, case dismissed. Another thing I find useful about storing the information on a USB chip is I can merely un-plug it and take it with me when I travel. So I can use it here on my PC or use it on the road with my laptop.

27. Ranting at a scammer:
10/11/22 Sometimes I will get a nice rant from a scammer telling me that I'm lying to them about not trying to send the money. Rants are nice to get but they can also be an opportunity to get more information. The basic rule is to deny any accusations by the scammer of wrong doing and turn the blame back onto the scammer for not being able to complete the transaction. Doing that will sometimes get more information and other times just make the scammer drop you. Sometimes ranting right back at the scammer will make them angry and send another rant or simply make them more determined to scam you. Don't be afraid to try it.

28. Scripted replies:
I use a lot of scripted replies in my baiting. I put them on a word document and a lot of times copy and paste them to my responses. There is a problem with that. When you copy from a word document and paste it into a g-mail response the formatting is retained. I do not know of any way to see that formatting so I highlight the response and use the G-mail "Remove Formatting" to get rid of any possible inconsistencies in my responses. This is important because I often copy and paste from a word document and also add typed information into my messages. If the format is not consistent the scammer might notice the difference and get spooked.

29. POF in the sea 8/5/23
When you first start baiting the first everything is kinda exciting. I remember printing out the first document I received from a scammer and thinking it was a great accomplishment. They hand them out like candy in some cases. Likewise, at the beginning, every bait was important and worth going through great effort to keep it going. Get over that. There are thousands and thousands of scammers to bait. I find that if a scammer is asking for less than $250 and asking for the money to be sent by bitcoin or Steam Cards etc. it's not worth my time.

Added on 9/23/23:
If the information above makes you:
A safer Baiter.
A better Baiter.
An ethical Baiter.

Then it was worth every word.
"Look for the lies."
Being Blackmailed? Go here and do this first: https://blackmailscams.com/
The information you supply can help others from becoming Victims.
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Big Al
"Little pee nut" admin.
 
Posts: 84973
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:48 pm

Re: My Ethical Baiting 101 file:

Unread postby Ducky » Fri Feb 10, 2023 2:38 am

#23. Burnout.

As a baiter from 'way back' I can tell you for sure you can get burned out. I did. It's harder than it seems. When you're having fun it seems great. But you had to stay up a lost and lose some sleep to make it work.

They're boring until they aren't, it might take a lot of days and weeks out of your life, sometimes more than that, before the money grab comes. The beginner scammers will probably get to their point sooner, you can probably put the money grab off for a bit.

If you have some of the available tools, the energy, and perhaps 'helpers' it's fun to carry on further. But there's nothing wrong with stringing a scammer along then block him. You DID your job, you wasted a whole lot of their time then you ghosted them. All the time you spent with them they couldn't be with a real target. And they wonder what THEY did wrong. And you won't tell.

I say this because I was a baiter a number of years ago. I didn't get enough sleep. I burned out. Take time for yourself, a new scammer will be waiting to be baited by you. And his friend. And their friend too. :D
Ducky
Junior survivor
 
Posts: 63
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2023 12:20 am


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