February 11th, 2008 by OddO
Countless people are victimized every year around the world by international scammers claiming to have access to fortunes through banks, royal families, business partners, deceased loved ones and more. Some clever crusaders, however, are fighting back in kind and hilariousy scamming the scammers
. In some cases this ties up the scammers’ time with useless tasks and in other cases the result are downright hilarious, like a scammer baited into carving a Commodore 64 keyboard replica from wood. This sampling of scambusts is just a starting point and these are often quite involved and long, going back and forth for weeks, so read the descriptions and click the links if you want to read more!
Scammer Shoots for MacBook, Gets Nightmare Computer
The nutshell: what started as a genuine attempt to sell a laptop resulted in a buyer (scammer) trying to get a free laptop and paying hundreds for a joke/junk one. The original laptop buyer realized right after his purchase he didn’t need the computer and attempted to resell it on eBay. The first responder was someone from the UK who asked about international shipping and the use of a seemingly sketchy Escrow service. The seller realized a scam may be in the works and kept the scammer on the hook. Eventually the scammer ended up paying fees in order to receive a package containing the hilariously junked “computer” shown above. He proceeded to send viruses and otherwise attack the seller but it didn’t stop his humiliating story from going public!
Scammer Shoots for $150,000, Gets Scambait Tattoo
The nutshell: a fake pastor from Nigeria tries to con a stranger out of money only to end up with a horrific tattoo instead. In a supposed bid for financial assistance to help Pakistani earthquake survivors this scammer tried to trick the wrong individual. The scambusters write back that he could have up to $150,000 if only he were a member of the church. The scammer bites, of course, and is told that he’ll simply have to get a tattoo showing his devotion to the church. Sure enough, he gets the tattoo and sends pictures! At this point things get strange: the scambusters fake being another scammer who has hacked into the good church’s email system. They finally get the scammer to “work for them” and admit what he is doing. Before it is finished, the scambusters have the name and address of the scammer and leave him waiting (forever) for his funds).
Scammer Shoots for Political Funds, Gets H.P. Lovecraft
The nutshell: a Nigerian scammer poses as a political candidate seeking funds toward his election, while the scambuster’s responses grow ever more creepy, surreal and insane. The scammer and scambuster begin discussing a transfer of money when the scambuster begins unraveling a tale that includes the discovery of a secret, ancient and still-active cult. While the scammer is asking him to send his passport, the scambuster continues with his story and cites furtive cult meetings and raises the possibility he is being followed. While the scammer pushes him to send some money via Western Union, he replies that a friend has died in mysterious circumstances while researching the cult. Eventually the scammer starts warning him to be careful, and even gets into the game: warning him what to do to play it safe and what to do with secret society objects he has accumulated. Then the hammer drops and the scambuster goes crazy before switching emails and sending the scammer information about the mysterious disappearance of the scambuster. The final response? The tables have turn and the insanity has spread as the scammer flips his lid and types - all typos and caps - a deranged warning to leave him alone.
Scammer Wants Help Recovering Fortune, Gets Murder Plot
Nutshell: Mrs Marie Jeanne Keita, formerly of Saudi Arabia, now in Cote D’Ivoire, is supposedly dying of cancer and wants assistance in getting her late husband’s fortune - and winds up in a conversation with multiple personalities and faux-deadly consequences. The supposed money is secured in a “matalic” box at a security company, out of Africa and use it to fund orphanages and such. She also wants help taking care of and raising her son. New York ad executive Pete Moss has no time for Mrs. Keita’s problems unless of course she can help him solve some of his own - which she does. Adult movie producer, Dick Wadd and his sales manager, Hugh Jass, eventually get in on the act and when Mr. Moss is brutally murdered by British hit-men, Mike Rotch steps in, but only to try to steer him back to Mr. Wadd. In the end? The nice old lady sends photos of potential male models to be part of his non-existent pornographic films.
Scammer Wants to Transfer Funds, Gets Hilarious Web of Lies
Nutshell: This one is too funny to even try to explain. In short: you should read it. This scammer stays on the line despite the scambusters repeated requests for him to use absurd code names, repeated abuse, bizarre requests for photographs, strange attached photographs sent to him and so on. Biblical quotes, sex references and nonsensical truisms are only the beginning. The Ebola Monkey Man starts out slow but once he takes the gloves off this is a no-holds-barred death match well worth checking out. Check here more scambaiting links and resources and this book if you are worried about getting scammed.
February 4th, 2008 by Odds n Ends
Ludwigshafen, Germany - If there weren’t pictures to prove it, people might have a hard time believing a loving father threw his child multiple stories to waiting rescuers below. This dangerous gamble was taken against an almost certain death in a smoke-filled burning building where, in the end, nine other people perished. The baby, however, survived. Rescuers managed to catch and save the baby from below.
The wreckage is still too unsafe to check for further survivors, police say, and the cause of the fire has yet to be revealed. The building had over 50 residents and more than half either died or were taken to the hospital in critical condition. Many of those who did escape were force to follow the infant’s lead and leap from windows as staircase escape routes were choked with flames and smoke.
The damage could have been far worse had rescue workers not been nearby at a celebration. Multiple rescue workers were also hurt while trying to rescue people from the building and put out the fire though none sustained serious injuries.
In Other News:
The Ongoing Attack on Scientology
Chimps Are Not People
January: Month of Strange Animal Stories
This Week in Theft
February 3rd, 2008 by Odds n Ends
Super Bowl Robbery Still a Mystery One Year Later: Over $150,000 was stolen from the winners of a Super Bowl betting crew last year. The co-owner of Mike’s Place was stabbed by one of two masked thieves who ran off with the collective winnings. Ouch!
Bank Manager Foiled Stealing From the Elderly: A branch manager of a bank stole thousands of dollars from an 86-year-old man, apparently hoping the individual would not notice the missing funds. He used a combination of credit and ATM cards to do so.
New Nigerian Scam Targets Dateless Australians: The latest victim, a woman named Patricia, lost nearly $10,000 when she fell for a man over the course of six months. When he left for Nigeria, supposedly to secure land, he claimed to have been mugged and requested she send him money. She got off lucky, though, according to authorities who say the typical scam of this kind ends up costing someone $35,000 dollars.
January 22nd, 2008 by Odds n Ends
Despite the protests of animal rights groups Austria’s Supreme Court ruled that, in fact, a chimpanzee cannot be legally considered a person. In a play to ‘give’ the chimp known as Matthew Hiasl Pan monetary gifts of support said groups attempted to have him declared a person.
This chimp and others have been living in a shelter since being released from medical experimentation. Being granted rights as a person would have allowed Matthew to accept donations and thus have a funded life outside of his shelter.
The court’s decision is similar to one made last fall in which a judge dismissed the case, ruling the Association Against Animal Factories has no legal grounds for advocating for the chimp in question. The group attempted to file on behalf of the chimp for bankruptcy protection.
January 17th, 2008 by OddO
Ever wonder what the world really looks like through someone else’s eyes? Representations of the planet have changed with the times as have the people who made them. These are just a few strange, innovative and/or humorous examples past, present and future.
Cartograms such as those above are a way to represent statistical information in visual form, expanding and contracting areas of a typical map to show various kinds of information and a readily understandable format. Above are a map of the world showing resource distribution and a map of American political affiliations. For more technology empowered mapping, see the US’s evolving obesity over time and energy production potential as well as this map of world economic activity.
Ever have trouble finding a date? Well, this map may be for you! National Geographic did a survey and mapped the relative proportions of female and male singles throughout the United States. The result: a relative abundance of men on the West Coast and women on the East Coast, so choose accordingly! Maybe West Coast should spend less time looking at maps of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes and pick up some maps that made history.
Ever wonder what the world looked like 500 years ago? It used to be that high-resolution world maps like the one above were kept (at best) in glass cases in museums or (at worse) were secreted away in vaults. Now antique maps are readily available to the world via sites like Wikipedia and are changing the way (and resolution) in which we look at the past.
Ever write or draw maps or directions on your hand? Believe it or not this is nothing new. These gloves were created for the 1850 Great Exhibition in London and enabled visitors to easily find their way. Imagine the possibilities of this in the digital age: an ever-shifting GPS-based glove map that changes orientation and location with the wearer!
There have been many attempts to ‘map the internet‘ in various forms and with differing degrees of success. Some of these are more convincing than others, such as the first series above that depicts information transfer overlaid on a world map. Some simply make points about the relationships of key internet players in a familiar way, such as the subway map of the internet. Another curious internet phenomenon: here is a list of places blurred out from Google Earth.
With the past and the present covered, what about the future? Well, scientists have developed a map of what the world is predicted to look like in 250 million years that bears a remarkable resemblance what scientists speculated the world did look like in the equally distant past. This Future World, like Pangea, is a place where all of the continents are again pushed together to form one or two mega-continents. Still want more maps? A great collection of 175 maps spanning 4,000 years is available for purchase.
