Scambaiting

Subject: Scambaiting
Author: Pippa's Ghost
Posted on: 2015-08-08 08:45:00 UTC

Does anyone here enjoy reading about scambaiting (or 419baiting or scambusting or whatever you want to call it)?

You could say it's a sort of Extreme Sporking^(TM) that's similar to the PPC in many ways: the good guys create eccentric characters to tell a funny story that pokes fun at the flaws in the bad guys' stories. The main difference is the bad guys aren't whiny fanbrats but serious, organised criminals!

I tired it briefly, many years ago. The results were even published by a scambaiting website: here and here. Anyone else ever tried it?

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Scambaiting by Pippa's Ghost on 2015-08-08 08:45:00 UTC

I remember seeing something similar to this once by Tira on 2015-08-08 20:47:00 UTC Reply

Narcissa Malfoy vs. the Nigerian Scammer, in which a Harry Potter fanwriter decides to respond to a scam email she received - in character as Narcissa Malfoy. She's got some other examples on her Livejournal as well.
Should explain... by Pippa's Ghost on 2015-08-08 09:53:00 UTC Reply

What got me into scambaiting in the first place wasn't the writing side. It was the chance to photoshop fake documents and IDs for my characters to send to the scammers. I loved doing stuff that.

Unfortunately, I got into it just as the rules were changing, and people were starting to realise that we shouldn't send fake documents because the scammers could then use them and pretend to be our characters in other scams against real victims. :(