After trying my hand at a some amateur scam baiting the other day, I was much impressed with the good work they're doing at 419eater.com. The site is dedicated to leading on scammers' and tricking them into doing ridiculous sh*t (see picture) just to see how far they'll go in the hopes of getting your cash.
But apparently, those 419ers ain't so dumb after all. According to a Dutch investigation firm that has been monitoring email scammers since 1996, victims lost almost 50 percent more money in 2009 than 2008. Says Ars Technica:
"According to the firm, which analyzed 8,503 cases across 152 countries in 2009, victims lost $9.3 billion in the last year alone, compared to $6.3 billion in 2008."
Jeez... are there really that many stupid people on the planet???
For anyone who prefers their information translated into wildly irrelevant comparisons, the amount of money paid out by rubes every year to email scammers is twice the GDP of Zimbabwe, or equal to a stack of one dollar bills 47.3 miles high.
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I love 419eater. I try to check it out every couple months to see what's new in the trophy room. They have some master scambaiters on there. Inspiring.
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