Why is idtheft.co.uk here? Well, personally, for the past 5 years I have been fighting numerous types of online fraud, but mostly what is commonly known as the Nigerian 419 scam, that was done by means of actively baiting the fraudsters after receiving their scam emails, wherein they offer you millions of dollars from non existant outstanding contract payments, fake lottery wins, inheritances and any number of other scam formats. I also have another scam information links website that contains a lot of information on the subject of 419 fraud.
I became a member of the 419eater.com forum, that's where I learnt the art of scambaiting, and joined other sites like aa419.org, where members actively close down fake banks and fake escrow websites that are run by fraudsters, getting the sites closed down is done through sending abuse notifications to the webhosts of the fraudulent sites containing clear evidence of fraud taking place, getting fake sites closed down causes the scammers a lot of hassle, time and money.
It costs them a lot for a scammer to hire a fake site maker to make them a website, and we know from communications with known fraudstars that it usually costs around £2000 per site, so closing them down not only costs them money, it also disrupts their operation, and it scares off some of their potential victims when they visit the fake site only to see a notice from the webhost stating that it was closed down for operating fraudulently, or there simply being no website at the address given by the scammer, except for a repeatedly dead page.
Identity theft (ID theft) is on the increase, so this is another avenue for me to explore, any help, advice or links to important information about security updates, virus's and relevant news that I can provide, all helps even if it stops just one person falling victim to ID theft. It's all about educating the general public about the dangers they face online, one of which is phishing, that is a major online problem, and if you are new to the internet, as many people are, you might be asking yourself, what is phishing, click that last link to get a non technical rundown of what phishing involves and some tips on how to avoid becomming a victim of it.
The other side to baiting scammers is the warning of victims and potential victims of advance fee fraud, we have a forum dedicated to that particular area of scams, if you are a victim of online fraud, and in particular, 419 "advance fee fraud" feel free to drop by and the members will help you in any way that they can, the forum is based at scamwarners.com, even if you are a scam victim of any other type of fraud apart from that that the forum specialises in, they will point you in the right direction to get help on the matter.
Along with the serious nature of fraud, as a hard core scambaiter, nothing gives me greater pleasure than having a laugh at the scammers expense, that is done by getting them to waste their time and money, I might get them to make a sign with some silly words on it, then tell them to have their photo taken holding the sign, or I might get them to make large cloth banners extolling the virtue of my church, yes, I also have a fake church website that I use for scambaiting purposes, I often get emails from charity scammers sent to my fake prists characters email address, those are some of the worst types of scammers that I despise, because if they were not trying to scam my fake church, they would be trying it on a real church, and I know of many churches that have lost money to Nigerian scams.
When I'm playing the part of a priest to bait a scammer, it puts me in a stong position, because pretty much all of the charity scam emails I receive are from Nigeria and neighbouring courtires in West Africa, and even though they are scamming, they are very Christian people, infact, they say that God agrees with them scamming westerners, that is how sick and twisted they are, so it gives me great pleasure, as a priest, if only a fake one, to make them suffer for their sins, you can see what I did to some scammers on my website where some of the numpties are on display, there are many photos on the site that were sent to me by scammers and some links to videos that one special scammer made for me.
Well that just about sums it up, that's what I do for my online hobby, at least it keeps me off the streets :)
