Snoskred – Life in the Country

Being a female scambaiter is not easy at the best of times but when you’re a strong person who has strong opinions the difficulty level shoots up a few thousand levels. I’ve gone through a lot during my time as a scambaiter. I’ve written about it a few times here on the blog. The worst part about me is I was capable of getting a lot done in a short amount of time. Ask Sephy, he’ll tell you I can be positively frightening when there’s something to be done and I want to get it done five minutes ago.

Strong is ok on its own. Opinionated is ok on its own. Capable is ok on its own. Female is ok on its own. Add these together and some people literally quake at the knees. They fear you are going to make them look bad. When you get so much done so quickly some people fear that it makes their efforts look pathetic.

The truth is, generally those kinds of people are too busy gossiping and badmouthing others to get much done at all. One of the biggest mouths in the business who loves badmouthing and gossiping hasn’t scambaited a scammer in *years*. It makes me wonder why they call themselves a scambaiter!

My journey as a scambaiter has taught me some of the most important and valuable lessons in my life. The one I consider the most important of all is to stop worrying what other people are saying about you. It is something I have struggled with since high school.

I used to feel an insane need to get the truth out there, to make sure people knew what was being said was wrong, to show them that I wasn’t the person they said I was. I used to yell and scream about it. I used to sometimes force my truth down other peoples throats when it wouldn’t have mattered if I had video camera footage of my truth, they would still not have believed it. There are some people who just want to believe the worst. That is their loss, not mine.

The people I value are those who would hear the story and then come to me and ask me for my version. I would give it to them plain and simple. They would then make up their own minds. They would base it not just on what I told them but on having the full story from both sides, and knowing the past behaviour of both myself and the other side.

So what is the secret to letting the gossip go when everyone around you is determined to tell you all about it? And believe me, everyone was determined to let me know who said what about me. They’d even send me emails or text chats they’d had with people where I was the main topic of conversation.

I soon found the best thing to do was cut them off quickly, and focus on what is important. What person one said to person two about you is probably the least important thing in the world, when you take into account the things in the world. Instead of worrying about that, worry about doing what you do do best. That is one way I get so much done. They can say what they want while you go out there and get shiznit done!

This post was a Hump Day Hmmm – you can take part too! The topic this week was The Gossip Game. All you need to do is write a post on the topic, and drop over to Julie Pippert’s blog and follow the instructions.

I notice there’s a lot of new readers on the feed, and also a lot of new visitors to the site. Welcome to Life In The Country – please feel free to comment and de-lurk and let me know where I can find your blog to check you out.

Those of you new to the blog probably won’t be aware of this but for the past month I have been a part of a campaign run by a small group of scambaiters to collect scammer bank account information which is then passed along to the police. You can read more about the campaign if you like – A Journey Along The Road To Stopping Online Scammers – so far we have collected thousands of bank accounts many of which have already been passed along to the authorities.

Once we send them the initial email the scammers are baited by the *computer for as long as the scammer will keep sending emails, which can be a lot of emails. We don’t have to worry about what they’re saying, and any bank account information is automatically put aside by the computer. Yep, it’s a smart computer!

Today one of the baiters responsible for passing the bank account information on to the police contacted me on Skype. He let me know he was baiting one of the scammers manually now, after seeing an email the scammer had been sending to us because it was quite well written and he thought the scammer might turn out to be a fun bait. The email went like this -

I sent this directly to you via The Curse Of The Wicked Soul. Cradling the powers of the Orunmila to Wizard Of Ingoni, I have unleashed an army of seventy-two spirits and demons. The Eiye Efe will gaze from above as the summons of the spirits appear before your eyes.

My cosmic powers have grown from the fears of deception and will reek havoc and spill the blood of the guilt. I have carved marks of evil into your conscience and your spiritual blindness will direct you to fall into the hands of proper authorities. The curse will begin when I attach this written segment of your soul “hope you are Christian, in the name of the almight God. help me thanks”.

For you have only made me wiser. Money is just paper in which I used to buy your soul. If you would like it returned unharmed, you must make ammends to the deception you have brought amongst yourself. If you do not, you will live for eternity in the firey pits of hell and in fear of Bytor, Light of Darkness,
Centurion Of Evil, Devil’s Prince.

The Police and the FBI will be on this case if the funds are not sent back to my friend who gave us loan by today. Did you think you’ll eat somebody’s money? and walk away with it.
“Wizard” Waskowiak Owner of Your Soul

One wonders – if he has “the powers of the Orunmila to Wizard Of Ingoni” and he has “unleashed an army of seventy-two spirits and demons” then precisely why does he need the Police and the FBI?

However, a visit to Scroogle later and the truth was revealed – this scammer stole this threat from somewhere else and just modified it to suit his purpose.

I checked to see if he had written any more emails to the computer and it turns out he did send one more -
Hello,
You have to listen carefully,i am not here to play with you if you don’t send the pay slip to show my bank as an evidence that you have made the transfer to the account then i promise you that my actions will start today if you do not harken to my voice, So be it.To aviod the wrath that will follow suit you have to go immediately to the bank to collect the pay slip, scan and send it to my email, so that all these botherings will stop

It seems he’s not quite as literary with his threats when he has to make them up on his own rather than steal them from elsewhere.

It’s funny because I haven’t noticed any botherings but now that my soul is owned and my conscience is smarting from the carving of marks of evil into it, perhaps I just didn’t notice the botherings?

I already had a fair idea I would be spending eternity in the firey pits of hell. It’s nice to have it confirmed for sure though – because there is no way I am sending him any money!

Sometimes as a baiter you will get these scammers frothing at the mouth and threatening all kinds of unusual things. It is champagne comedy. However it is even more fun when you get them on the telephone. I don’t know if this lad sent a phone number but if he did I’ve got some Skype credit burning a hole in my pocket. I might give him a call. If you wanted to listen to a couple of calls I’ve done in the past, here’s a couple of my favourites, one of which has no nasty language, one which has some mild swearing.

Snoskred’s baiting character Anukah calls an offshore bank. Click here to listen.

Snoskred’s baiting character Beyonce (Yes, the real one, well not quite the real one! Complete with US accent) has a discussion with a scammer about tax. Listen to his shock, surprise and dismay when Beyonce tells him she has a way to get out of paying the $240,000 tax he says she has to pay – consequently meaning he doesn’t get any money! The scammer tries to explain why she *should* pay the tax, but Beyonce is unthrilled. I love the despair at around 8:40 into the call, it is classic! There is an F word or two, so be aware of that, don’t listen if the F word offends you. Click here to listen.

*Note – these aren’t computer tools that regular humans can get access to – this is something only long time scambaiters can use. So if you want to use it, get into baiting – when the time is right you’ll be given access.

One of my scambaiting characters is a model who is just starting to be successful. She just received this email.

GOD DAY

I HAVE SEE YOUR PICTURE YOU ARE OKEY BUT YOU HAVE TO PAY THE MONEY SO THAT THE MONEY CAN BE TRANSFER IN TO YOUR ACCOUNT BEFORE WILL THINK ANYING ABOUT SEX
THANKS

This scammer is certainly very focused on his scamming. The photo he saw was this one.
It happens to be a picture of Heidi Klum, of whom I am a huge fan after Project Runway. I have a whole series of photographs of her which the scammers receive. No wonder so many of them forget all about the scam and write of love because she was then – and is now – absolutely gorgeous not just “okey”, in my opinion.

Like this lad.. here’s a couple of the back and forth emails.. He writes -

Dear, I love you please take it easy, I will send the photo today they are almost ready, and I hope to meet with so soon, I love and will keep on loving, I can’t wait to be on your arm and suck those nice boobs of yours, and make a real love to you. Call me please I miss you and will like to talk with you.

She Replies -

You didn’t reply my last question to you or any other questions I ever asked you.I think you call me but I just miss answer the phone, it go messages. Was that you? You leave message but it was very hard to understand for me.

bank man is all ready as soon as I say the word, so send me your shotts today ja?

You ever did sex on plane? If yes tell me about it, i like to hear of it. I had a little dream about you want me tell you what it was

Don’t you have a spouse? If you could be fond of someone famous, who would you like to decide on and where would you meet? Isn’t it shocking of you not to be feeling debauched? Do you like cats? Why are you being stupid? Does clothing have any effect on your masturbation habits?

He writes -

Dear Thanks for your mail, well I taught that I would have answered your question by phone call, and that is why I called you, if you can’t pick my call then call me.I have never hard any sex in flight, and am not stupid at all, I am a diplomat, I love your pics that was sent to meet and I waiting for an occassion to meet with you, well as you can see I will be glad to work with you and make sure that we becaome good friends and who knows.

actual I like all animals, I had spouse before but now not with her any more. like you said about famous lady, i like you as person and I love to meet you in first class flight, who knows mean be we will consumate it there.Thanks for your question please feel free to ask me more question, and try to pick your calls, I will send my pics I am trying to get some erotic and exotic ones.

Oh, he’s a diplomat.. that clears it all up then!

As you can see they do not know they are corresponding with a computer and not a real person.. I wrote this particular baiting script over a year ago, and since then it has emailed thousands of scammers. They all get slightly different variations with the wording and the questions the computer asks them and what the emails say to them.

Note – these aren’t tools that regular humans can get access to – this is something only long time scambaiters can use. So if you want to use it, get into baiting – when the time is right you’ll be given access.

There’s been a recent rash of question asking and answering around the blogosphere. I put up my hand to be interviewed by Emily from Wheels On The Bus, and I got these questions. I changed the order around a bit, sorry Emily!

1) How did you meet the Other Half?

Online, oddly enough. This was many years ago in the beginning of the internet. I got into online gaming – playing Quake. I went to a network game party one night. For those who don’t know network gaming requires you to take your computer along and they all get plugged into each other and then you play games against each other.

Back in those days the internet was too slow to play games over it, like people do these days. And there was my other half, who I knew virtually right away was my other half, strangely enough.

2) You read a lot of blogs regularly. How do you choose which ones to read, which ones to comment on, which ones to link to, etc.?

I read probably 95% of blog posts which arrive in my reader.

I would link to every blog post I read, if it was humanly possible. Sephy will tell you, I’m forever pasting links to blog posts to him in Skype. I have to make do with linking to every blog that I read in the sidebar, and then I have to be very picky about the posts I choose for the weekly wrap up, otherwise there would be 500 links and none would get clicked on.

So the bottom line for me with those weekly wrap up posts is – a post has to stand out, touch me in a major way, make me think, make me want to share it with other people, make me go “Oh, what a great idea” or “I’m going to do that” or “That’s brilliant!”.

Commenting is difficult these days. I don’t have as much time as I used to for it and I hate that, because I want to comment on probably 95% of the posts in my reader.

3) I (and I bet a lot of your readers) know nothing about NSW. What are five things someone who has never visited would be surprised to know about your home?

a. New South Wales = NSW

b. The capital of New South Wales is Sydney, which might be the most famous city in Australia, however it is not the *capital* city of Australia. The capital city of Australia is Canberra – which is completely surrounded by New South Wales. Nobody knows why or how this odd arrangement came to be. Well probably some people do but I’m not one of them.

c. I live on the South Coast of New South Wales. There is also a North Coast. All of these coasts are located on the East Coast of Australia. Yes, it is quite confusing!

d. New South Wales is home to the Funnel Web spider, which mostly lives within a 20km radius of Sydney itself. These spiders are able to stay alive underwater for up to 30 hours by trapping air under their hairs, or something. So I was told, but it was on a documentary tv channel so I am assuming it is true.

e. You can probably tell, I don’t know much about NSW. That is because I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. That’s about a 15-17 hour drive from here.

4) For those of us unfamiliar with Scambaiting, can you tell us how it works? And how are you able to get compensated for all your scambaiting efforts?

Scambaiting is really pretty simple. You email a scammer (from a safe email address like gmail which does not show your location to the scammer) pretending to be a real victim. You play along with their scam, pretending you are going to do what they want you to do.

You ask a lot of questions, you make a lot of promises, you let them begin to dream of the money you’re supposedly going to pay them. If you have the means you use Skype to receive calls from them, which costs them time and money. I don’t talk to them on the phone much anymore but they call me constantly.

When they’re hooked on the dream, you keep stringing them along as long as you can. I’ve known scammers who have been strung along for well over 12 months. You’re always just about to pay them the money – but there’s an emergency, there’s a problem, there’s another question they need to answer.

I like to make them fall in love with my characters – usually using photographs of models like Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks. As those characters I pretend to be a virginal, extremely rich, naive girl who is looking for her perfect man. My character might be a model just starting out, she might be a singer, she might be a minor celebrity, or she might have family money. The scammers think everyone in the USA is a millionaire, so they believe it.

When they have fallen in love, I like to take their heart and crush it into tiny little pieces, like they do to their victims. The girl might find out he is a scammer. She might find a man closer to home. She might be on her way to meeting them at the airport in their country and the plane somehow falls out of the sky. I make newspaper clippings (it’s easy and simple to do) which support the story. If my character dies, it turns out my character has left them money – and they have to jump through hoops to get it, fill in forms, take photographs, etc.

There is no compensation for it, sadly. It is like any hobby, you have to put a little money into it. I pay 30 euros a year for my Skype In number, I pay around $80AUD a year for my post office box. Both of those cause a lot of anger and frustration to the scammers, so to me it is worth it.

5) How did you get into scambaiting?

A scammer was silly enough to send me an email asking to borrow my bank account, I googled and found one of the scambaiting websites and began to bait them. Soon after I started I found my “first husband” and within a month I was “engaged” to six scammers. It was sometimes difficult to keep the stories straight, and tell them apart when they called. Strangely, none of these relationships worked out!

Thanks for asking me the questions. If anyone wants to be interviewed by me, just leave a comment and ye shall receive 5 questions of various goodness.

Emily is hosting the Hump Day Hmmm this week as well – the topic is – something you experienced that affected and affects you. Feel free to join in the Hump Days, they are an excellent way to blog, I find.