Scammer becomes scammee

I’ll take a good laugh whenever it comes my way, especially these days. When my friend Vinny told me about the 419eater.com website I immediately knew it had the potential to offer up some good guffaws. And boy did it.

While I can’t vouch for authenticity, the mere thought of suckering scammers as they ply their "trade" is incentive enough to at least visit the site. The site is rife with tales of "victims" getting back at scammers by dangling imminent payoffs (in the form of bank account numbers, cash advances, artists grants, reimbursements, etc.). Not only can the criminals often be persuaded to send photos (all be they photo-shopped ones), but they’ll go so far as to send carved wooden sculptures as per a "customer’s" specifications. One Brit, posing as a fine arts dealer and scholarship granter ensnared a scammer into a counter scheme for weeks with emails back and forth. He further secured the suckering of the scammer by speaking with him via telephone (you can hear it with link provided at the site). In the end that scammer finally grasped that he’d been had and I was left with a satisfied feeling. It’s when I sit back and think about all the innocent people who’ve fallen victim to these types of scams that I get angry.

Sure, lots of "victims" are actually greedy types who are just looking for easy money and in a certain sense "deserve" to be taken advantage of. It’s the naive people who are talked into supposedly helping others that get my sympathy. Or even those who perhaps have a bit of disposable income who are promised good returns on even small investments. Many have lost life savings, not to mention the trust and security of family and their independence to these types of swindles. At least at 419eater.com you get to see that sometimes the good guys win and you’ll have a good laugh, to boot.