Is it ok (ethical) to play with scammers?

[looking]

 I have a question, is it ok (ethical) to play with a scammer, a girl that I have found to be not whom she claims by way of googling her email address, IP, and have found phrases in her letter which she copied and pasted from my initial reply because 1, she wanted to impress me or 2, too daft? I don't plan on taking it much further, but as a newbie I thought it may be a good training aide for me. I am not a Marcel30, and don't plan on smearing her like that, its her life and she hasn't done anything to me except feed me some bull. What would the mod squad here do? Are the guys like Marcel30 the ones that send Jim the info? Since I have been at this about a week, out of 2 dozen women, one has come up clean so far. Does this sound about right?
 

[Manny]

There is a name for this: Scam Baiting.

There are several forums devoted to this subject alone.

You are referring still to "her" - accept the fact that most scammers are a "he"   

It is my view that scam baiting takes your eye off what you should be doing: Finding real women.

If you are 100% certain that a potential scammer is indeed a scammer, publish the email, IP and all relevant info in our scam room for Google to devour. After that, put it down to experience and write real women.

There is not much to be gained from knowingly writing scammers in my opinion. Although, a full series of letters, right up to the money request, with emails, names, numbers and IP addresses, can be a good learning tool. This was done in its entirety here: http://ruadventures.com/forum/index.php?topic=98.msg284#msg284

[ECR844]

Also a second less thorough but more recent example can be found here: http://ruadventures.com/forum/index.php?topic=10044.0

[looking]

There is a name for this: Scam Baiting.

There are several forums devoted to this subject alone.

You are referring still to "her" - accept the fact that most scammers are a "he"  

It is my view that scam baiting takes your eye off what you should be doing: Finding real women.

If you are 100% certain that a potential scammer is indeed a scammer, publish the email, IP and all relevant info in our scam room for Google to devour. After that, put it down to experience and write real women.

There is not much to be gained from knowingly writing scammers in my opinion. Although, a full series of letters, right up to the money request, with emails, names, numbers and IP addresses, can be a good learning tool. This was done in its entirety here: http://ruadventures.com/forum/index.php?topic=98.msg284#msg284

 Thanks Manny. This one here is actually a woman, a hairy, ugly one to be exact, and I have tracked her all the way to her office and she looks nothing like the woman in the profile. I tracked her to the company she works for and man all I can say is that if I ever wind up in the arms of her, and you see me in Russia, do me a favor-kill me, please?
  Now tell me which forums are devoted to baiting? I am going to cut her/him/it whatever off in a few more emails, but I was thinking that for my own training purposes it is good to learn from other's examples and sometimes a new example up close trying to bite at my piggybank might make me more diligent. Again, thank you. -Cory

[Mod edit to fix quote]

[Chris]

looking

You have already wasted far too much time on this one, move on and get back to searching for a real one, it does no one any good chasing scammers to the ends of the earth, they certainly won't suffer from it, but as Manny says, it takes your eye off the ball and just wastes your valuable time when you could be doing something a lot more productive.

I really can't understand why some guys spend so much time trying to expose so called scammers, if they put their energies into more fruitful work they may just find a wife a lot more quickly  :

Chris

[Bruce Lee]

Is it ethical to play with scammers? A more appropriate question would be - is there any point to playing with scammers? What would you hope to achieve?

I wonder if some people have just to much time on there hands to waste time communicating with "fat Yuri"! The best thing to do is send a quick letter, saying "your busted" and move on or just ignore subsequent letters altogether!

The best advice that has already been mentioned, you time would be better served communicating with real people!

[RG]

I wouldn't even let her/him/it know about being "busted."
If you would like, exchange a few more mails to see where it goes, and how he/she/it winds up asking for money, but I wouldn't spend too much time on it, unless you believe this person is somehow unique in their approach, and something amazing somehow that has of yet remained undocumented. 

Otherwise, as stated - document and post it if you would like, and then move on to the real matter at hand.  It is nice if you are positive of the scammer to post some information about it, but it is also trivial for them to change email addresses and move on to the next attempted victim - you will have no impact on their activities; be happy instead to have realized it, post about it, then move on to your real task at hand, involving real women.

[2tallbill]

Another thing is that scammers get better over time as they get
caught they learn to be better at it. I wouldn't educate the scammer
they will try to be better at it next time.

Several people gone through elaborate plans and put a scammer or
two through their paces, going to various Western Unions to pick up
the cash that wasn't there etc. Then saying oh, I am sorry you went '
to the wrong Western Union or I am sorry I wrote the number down
wrong. etc.

I don't see the profit in it. I think time would be better spent finding
a good high quality girl and then winning her heart.

Just my two kopecks,

Bill

[looking]

Thanks all. Ok, I had a couple to drink last night and after sending messages to the real ones (well I hope they are), I opened this one girl's letter that had sent me a couple after I had told her she was much too young for me. Anyways, I ran the IP for exercise and found rather &^$%^& looking well I just hope its a woman when I googled the email. Found some little clues here and there that I had overlooked before in other's letters. I will wait for the money shot, and then drop it. I didn't give Fat Yuri anything valuable, although I did make sure to play along a little. I did ask for her to take a photo with a good quality camera and point at the date on a calendar so I could see the date and verify she was real. She didn't. But I nice photo of something I would have loved in college for a week or two. Ah the old days. How many times did we all fall in and out of love back then? -I may reveal it in my book, after I die and my excutor reads that diary. 

[Voyager]

Also keep in mind, just becaose a girl sent the same letter to multiple guys does not make her a scammer

[TomT]

I did ask for her to take a photo with a good quality camera and point at the date on a calendar so I could see the date and verify she was real.

What the hell were you thinking!?

[Vinnvinny]

I did ask for her to take a photo with a good quality camera and point at the date on a calendar so I could see the date and verify she was real.

What the hell were you thinking!?

.... a date maybe?

[2tallbill]

I would highly recommend when you are drinking is to leave the phone,
and email of FSUW alone. They usually will not be impressed with someone
calling or writing drunk. They know where they can find a drunk guy already.

Just my two kopecks,

Bill

[agencyscams]

Just to add my 2 cents...

Don't waste time playing with a scammer. They will laugh at you afterwards. The best thing to do is drop them without a word. Anything you tell them could help them scam the next guy more easily.

That being said, I had one guy, MANY years ago, tell me how he 'scammed' his scammer. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE this thing that he did.

He sent her a laptop. When it got there, she had to pay a certain amount in taxes. $200-$300, if I remember.  Remember, you need to specify a large price in order for her to pay more.

Punchline, catch, spin, best part?

He lied and did not send her a laptop. He sent a binder with keys through the rings. Size is right, weight is right. Surprise!!!

When she writes to yell at you. Ignore her.

[Olga_Mouse]

That being said, I had one guy, MANY years ago, tell me how he 'scammed' his scammer. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE this thing that he did.

He sent her a laptop. When it got there, she had to pay a certain amount in taxes. $200-$300, if I remember.  Remember, you need to specify a large price in order for her to pay more.

Punchline, catch, spin, best part?

He lied and did not send her a laptop. He sent a binder with keys through the rings. Size is right, weight is right. Surprise!!!

Quite a strange story, IMO...

In all the cases when I & my friends had to pay tax for goods shipped with incoming international mail the notifications about tax payment were issued & sent only AFTER the parcel has been opened by customs control officers, and the contents have been actually checked.  

Never has it been done based solely on the CN23 customs declaration filled by the sender...