Fun New Game: Scam Baiting

Chris Hansen's show 'To Catch a Con Man' was on again last night. It was all about baiting email scammers and showed Hansen chasing various heavyset Nigerian dudes around the world in order to bust them in front of the cameras. This inspired me to try a little scam baiting myself.

The other day, I got an email from Dr. Suleman Bala (drsuleman11@sify.com) offering to give me $10 million. Then, as it was clearly my lucky day, I also got an email from Mr. Chen Guanyuan (luitai111@yahoo.com.hk) offering me $17.3 million. Hmm... what to do?

I thought I'd hook them up by replying to each email expressing interest but asking that they use my real name and email address for future correspondence. For Scammer A, I assumed the name and address of Scammer B, For Scammer B, I claimed to be Scammer A. An infinite scam loop... sweet!

Then I sat back and imagined the confusion in some Lagos internet cafe when these two scammers started emailing each other. Maybe one would just stand up and yell across to another table, "Hey, you emailed me. Not cool dude!"

Luckily, Dr. Suleman Bala had kept my real hotmail address on as a CC when he emailed Mr. Chen Guanyuan so I was able to see the ironic response he elicited in my inbox this morning: