Veitch - Dot Con: the art of scamming a scammer

I was sitting up in bed now, finger poised over DELETE on my iPhone when this question came quite unbidden: What would happen if I replied? The marooned friend is one of the best known scams, principally because its the one that dodges the spam filter most frequently. It comes from someone you know but, often, only tangentially. Its since becomehands downone of my favorite scams. The scammer is pretending to be someone whom you know; they dont know how you know them, though, which means you can just make it up as you go along. I pecked out a reply. What?????? Alex, but how on earth did this happen? And the game was afoot.

The correspondence lasted a day and forms the first section of this book. I had so much fun that it got me thinking: what would happen if I began replying to every scam email I received? And thats what Ive been doingfor the past few yearson your behalf. Ive been inducted into the FBI, won the Peruvian lottery (twice), been buttered up by kings, princes and pirates. I have offshore accounts, consignments of gold and a serious girlfriend in Moscow. Do try this at home; its the only defense we have. But set up a pseudonymous email account and use that to reply.

Initially, I was using my own account and, consequently, I think I was put on some sort of list of suckers. Id wake up to discover 400 new emails about penis enlargements, only one of which was a legitimate offer. Dont get me wrongI dont want to be mean to the scammers. There are lots of people online who do that. Im content merely having fun inventing and I figure any time theyre spending with me is time in which theyre not scamming vulnerable adults out of their savings. Incidentally, if you think you dont get spam, you do; you just have a very good spam filter.

If you want to see whats been netted pre-inbox, open your spam folderthere be dragons But also, I believe, opportunities. I think of the spam folder not as Pandoras box, but as a costume shop in which you can play and play at being whoever and whatever you wish. If only for a time. Last week, I was a bank robber, a pilot and the one-time confidant of a beautiful Arabian princessand that was just Monday. Its worth mentioning that for every one of the emails in the book, there were ten or twenty that didnt make the cut. Conversation would end abruptly when the scammer rumbled me as a time-waster, or an email would bounce, the scammers email address having been confiscated and destroyed by their provider.

More often than not, the scammer would refuse to go off-script, giving me just generic, pasted responses. But, on rare occasions, with enough coaxing well, youll see. James Veitch March 24, 2019 Manila, Philippines (stranded following an unexpected trip)