Grumpy Old Chook

I quite regularly receive internet Scam letters. You know the ones I mean – they come from a woman who is dying of cancer and just wants someone to whom she can give her massive fortune (amazing how many millionaire women with cancer there are in Nigeria!) Or they come from a reformed crook who has seen the error of his ways and now wants to use the money he stole to help those in need. Or from a solicitor or government official who just happens to have millions of dollars that no-one wants to claim, and would like to pass them on to me. All for a fee, of course.

Then there are the ones that tell me that I have won a fortune in some lottery that I have never even heard of, much less entered. (Yeah, right!) Others tell me how wonderful my website is, and what a blessing it would be to the people of Pakistan if it were translated into their language – which the writer will happily do, for a small fee. (There must be a school or something somewhere where they churn these out, because the e-mails are almost identical.)

Other twists include e-mails from banks where I don’t have an account telling me that my account has been suspended and I should enter my details at the site whose link is provided, or from the IRS (in America, where I don’t live, don’t work, and don’t pay tax) telling me that my tax is overdue – and of course, wanting me to send my personal details.

At least two or three of these enticing missives hit my in box every week. Sometimes there is a spate of them, and I can get half a dozen or more in a day. They are so glaringly obvious that most of the time I am able to simply hit the delete button without even opening them.

That said, I know there are desperate – or greedy – people who do fall for these scams, and who end up losing thousands of dollars as a result. And, whilst I shake my head at their naivety, I do sympathize. The scammers are, very simply, despicable scumbags who should be put out of business, and the sooner the better. I have absolutely no sympathy for the scammers – they deserve to rot in jail for a very long time.

However, a report on Channel 7′s Today Tonight last night disturbed me greatly. It was about “Scam Baiters,” people who set out to trap scammers and humiliate them, with the idea that if they are keeping the crooks busy chasing fantasies they will have less time to attack unsuspecting people.

At first glance, that sounds good, but a very small peek beneath the surface reveals that it is anything but good. In fact, the “Scam Baiters” are every bit as bad as the scammers, if not worse.

For a start, “Scam Baiters” seem to work on the principle that anyone whose address is in Africa is automatically a scammer and a criminal. That is absolutely untrue, just as it is absolutely untrue that every person in Australia wants to beat up Indian students. If we expect other countries to understand that, just because a few people in Australia do bad things, it doesn’t mean that every Aussie is a criminal, then surely we should extend the same understanding to other countries. Yes, there are international criminals who work out of Africa. News blast – there are also international criminals who work out of Europe, the USA and, dare we say it, Australia. Most Africans, however, are not criminals but just very poor people trying to get by.

The man interview on TT is actually a mechanic, but pretends to be a minister named Rev. Brock Peterson, and claims to be the founder of the Holy Prophet Church. (That is not his name, he is not a minister, and the church does not exist.) He has set up a website for his fake church, and through it offers financial incentives to anyone who will establish a new church for his organization. When someone takes the bait, “Rev. Peterson” then leads him on a merry chase, requiring him to travel hundreds of miles and do ridiculous and humiliating things to get the money, which never eventuates. The idea is for the “scam baiter” to collect a “trophy” in the form of a picture of the victim being humiliated. He boasts on his “scam baiter” site at http://419hardcore.blogspot.com/ that some of these people have travelled so far that they have run out of money and been left destitute.

Does he really imagine that an international criminal, who can regularly scam thousands of dollars out of hundreds of people at a time without leaving his cushy office, is going to waste his own money travelling hundreds of miles to chase a “bait” like this? And does he really think that, if one of these criminals were to travel hundreds of miles, it would so eat into his personal fortune as to leave him destitute? Get real! The only people who would fall for such “bait” are desperate people who just want to break out of poverty and do something with their lives, and they fall for it for exactly the same reason as people in Australia fall for the e-mail scams: their desperation overrides their common sense.

As the leader of a genuine ministry organization which has a large number of affiliated pastors in Africa and Asia, I am incensed at this man’s behaviour. That he hides behind God to do his evil work makes it even worse. I have seen the poverty in which these people live every day. I have seen – and stayed in – the mud huts with dirt floors and no electricity. I have witnessed both their enormous need and their incredible ability to do amazing things with next to nothing. I can fully understand that someone offering them thousands of dollars to establish a church would be just as tempting to them as a scammer’s offer of millions would be to someone in the west. Exactly how does that make them any less victims than the Aussie who responds to a scam e-mail? And exactly how does it make the “Scam Baiter” any different from a scammer?

On one of the pages of his site, this man tells about asking an African man to paint a picture of his dog from a photo he sent him. The site has a copy of the original photo, and a picture of the painting, which is actually very good work. The artist duly sent him the painting, and asked that he send the money for it – a sum which I assume the “Rev.” had agreed to in advance. He acknowledges receipt of the painting, and even acknowledges that it is a good painting. But he has led the artist on a merry chase to get the money, and obviously has no intention of paying up. Now, can anyone please tell me how this is not plain, simple, common THEFT? In Australia, if you order something, receive it, acknowledge it as good, then refuse to pay it is considered stealing and you can be charged. Why should this be any different, just because the victim is African?

Personally, I hope that justice catches up with the e-mail scammers, and that they are put out of business once and for all. And I hope the same for the “Scam Baiters” because the bottom line is that they are also scammers, and the ones they are targeting are even more vulnerable than those targeted by the e-mail scammers.

This blog is © Lynn Fowler

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