I know that by now you may be thinking that this blog has wandered far from its original purpose of examining not-good-choices of my past and how they have affected my life. But, no, I’m still on track. It’s just that I’m now examining not-good-choices that I am making in my present life. This hobby of mine (baiting online scammers) is certainly not a good idea, because it takes up a lot of my attention that I could be devoting to other projects. And it may have succeeded in getting a voodoo curse placed on my head (I promise I’ll get to that story.) I continue with it, though, for a few reasons. Yes, it’s fun. Yes, it’s a little vigilante justice. But it’s also a bit of a creative outlet that allows me to clear my head as I move among the various other projects that I have going on.
When I get into a scam to harass the scammer, I have a couple different methods, depending on how the scammer plays. My over all purpose, though, is just to waste his time. Any time and energy that he devotes to me is time and energy that he’s not devoting to a target who might actually give in. If he is especially keen or foolish or interesting in some way, then there is more fun to be had, like with the voodoo guy. (He was a doozy…it’s probably going to take a couple of posts to do him justice.) But that’s why I’ll sound very tolerant and patient with most of my responses — I’m not answering like a real person. I just want to keep him on the line so that he thinks I’m worth his time.
Anyway, as promised last time, here is most of a conversation that I had with one of my more persistent scammers. Unfortunately, the thing ended “not with a bang but a whimper” in that I eventually got caught up in another conversation and just stopped writing back, but I did have a little fun along the way. Especially since this guy was so…not good at his job. Firstly, we had some language difficulties. Secondly, most scammers will try to be charming, and if they can’t quite achieve charming, they will err on the side of fawning. They’ll call their targets “dear” and “love” and “honey” and say how beautiful and sweet the women are. This guy had trouble with that.
I especially like how the “Dear” was such an afterthought that it got its own message. Also, as he moved through the “getting to know you” portion of the script, he really couldn’t have cared less how I answered. He was just going to proceed to the next question, regardless of what I said. In that sense, I suppose, he was quite similar to some actual dates I’ve been on.
My response below, though, did throw him a curve-ball. It took him five and a half hours to come up with his favorite color once I blew his scripted answer out of the water:
You can see why I tired of playing with this one to the point of just not typing back to him. It didn’t even register with him when I told him my favorite hobby:
Yeah. He was good for a couple days’ entertainment. But the next scammer was in a category all his own. From making a spectacular mistake at the beginning of our conversation to falling head-over-heels for my counter-scam, he will go down in my hall of fame. Next time: A Blessing All My Own.
Carmen Contra 