Been playing around with some puppy scammers lately. I got a scam email asking me to take in someone's Maltese. I asked if it would be any good for Schutzhund or French Ring and of course they said it would be perfect for that.

I just answered saying I'd love to give it a good home. I hate puppy scams in particular because they take advantage of kind hearted people so I'm hoping to make this one suffer. I lost track of my last puppy scammer when their email address got closed. Hopefully this one will stay up. On scams like this it doesn't do anything at all when someone reports their email and gets it closed. The scammers just open a new email account and five minutes later they are back at it. The best way to hurt them is to waste a lot of their time. Internet cafe time is expensive over there. One hour internet cafe time is about a 1 day pay for a normal African family.

I expect them to start in with the shipping costs now but of course I'll drag it out as long as possible. it's from a Gmail account so I can't trace the origins of the scammer but they claim to be here in the US (most likely Nigeria or other WA country). Wherever they are based maybe I can get a few bank accounts closed.

The reply when I asked if the dog will be good for Schutzhund.

 Quote:

Hello

Thanks for the interest in my puppy ,there is no problem about using my puppy for the
schutzhund or the French ring sport,all i just need for my puppy is a person that will take care of my lovely and give her a best home ,so if you are u interested in my lovely maltese
kindly get back to me with your information so that we can proceed on the shippment processess

Awaiting to hear from you immediately

Thanks

My Schutzhund dog

Business has been a little slow lately so I have way too much time on my hands. I also posted this email at 419 Eater so hopefully this little pup will be getting lots of attention. The people over there hate puppy scams as much or more than I do.

Ok, this was funny! Scambaiting...LOL I like the Baiting Tips and Mentoring program.

Yeah, scambaiting is some of the best fun you can have with your clothes on for free.

The mentoring is important. The first rule of scambaiting is to bait safely. These are criminals who would think nothing of putting a knife into you if they thought it would net them some money and they do sometimes have accomplices in the US. As long as you bait safely however (meaning you take precautions to stay anonymous) it's pretty safe and a lot of fun. Also sometimes you can even get one arrested or get enough info to have a couple of their bank accounts closed. Look at some of the forum posts. Anyone with a gold badge in their signature has managed to get a scammer arrested. It's kind of the "Holy Grail" of scambaiting.

Look through the forum for a thread titled "Wicked Evil Safari". These folk lured a pair of scammers to Abuja Chad thinking they were going to rob a church for $250,000 and stranded them there for almost 6 months with no place to sleep except the street in one of the most dangerous places on the planet and indebted them to a driver for thousands of dollars. Taxi drivers over there don't mess around. With rebel forces running just about everything except the capital during daytime most taxi drivers employ armed guards and they don't take kindly to fares who don't pay up.