AN INTERNET VIGILANTE
Haven’t heard of them? Look them up on Wikipedia and you will see that IV’s are the thousands of decent, concerned people worldwide who LEGALLY fight conmen and scammers by:
GIVING CHASE IN CYBERSPACE
This blog is dedicated to all the fine people who out the conmen
Remember Friends:
Those individuals who want to create blogs which they use to hunt down or name and shame criminals should STRICTLY ADHERE to the same rules set down by Amazon and eBay. Don’t make it libellous, defamatory or otherwise illegal and avoid profane, vulgar, obscene, or racist language or adult material.
So if you decide to be an Internet Vigilante then what you should do is create a very simple blog and paste up the facts about the offender with his photograph and criminal record.
YOU MUST BE 100% HONEST AND USE ONLY FACTS WHICH ARE SUPPORTED BY ONLINE MEDIA AND COURT REPORTS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES.
THOSE WHO LIVE BY THE INTERNET
DIE BY THE INTERNET
Autumn 2009 Awards
GOLD STAR – NICK SOMMERLAD
GOLD STAR – ANDREW PENMAN
Andrew Penman and Nick Sommerlad form the Daily Mirror's Investigations team. They write a weekly column in the Mirror every Thursday and help uncover scams, and expose the people behind them. They are the greatest threat British conman face. Andrew and Nick are so good at outing conmen that they won the Cudlipp Award for campaigning popular journalism at the 2010 British Press Awards.
CONGRATULATIONS ANDREW AND NICK – THANKS
Fraud losses cost the
Fraud - including benefit fraud, scams, charity cons, online theft, insurance cheats and tax fraud - costs the
A MESSAGE FROM THE RT. HON. JACK STRAW PC
Mr Straw is keen to get across the message that 
combating crime is a responsibility for the whole community, not just the police. "He is not encouraging vigilantism, nor asking people to take unnecessary risks. But we do all have a responsibility. Crime isn't just somebody else's problem," the spokesman said.
BBC News 18/2/1999
GOLD STAR – GILBERT
If you want to try CONING A CONMAN but being an HONEST person don’t know how to tell convincing lies and fantasies – don’t worry. Just go to the legendary site called scambuster419.co.uk, the blog of the legendary British scam-baiter Gilbert Murrey. You will find inspiration there.
Gilbert is a CYBER LEGEND. He is one of the kings of a minor form art form called Scam-baiting. Scam-baiting is a form of LEGAL Internet vigilantism where the vigilante poses as a potential victim to the scammer in order to waste their time, gather information that will be of use to authorities, or publically humiliate the scammer. They also succeed in helping to keep the scammers away from real potential victims and screwing around with the minds of deserving thieves.
The Vigilante gains access to an e-mail address that has already been targeted by scammers and impersonates a person that is receptive to the financial hook that the scammer is using. The objective once the scammer is convinced is to keep the scam going as long as possible, costing the scammer time and energy. Secondary goals include gathering information for the police.
Gilbert is one of the greatest scam-baiters on the planet and has a legendary site called scambuster419.co.uk, which mainly consists of a sequence of stories told in a list of email exchanges between “Gilbert” (in a variety of guises) and a range of advance fee fraudsters, all of them desperate to get their hands on Gilbert’s money but all failing miserably to do so.
Gilbert drives the conmen crazy with greed and expectation using dozens of characters including Dr Gilbert Murray who is invited by a Ghanaian barrister to pass himself off as the next of kin of a wealthy dead man, in an attempt to steal the deceased man’s fortune from a Ghanaian security company; Lord Murray, 18th Earl of Gypping, who responds to yet another lucrative business proposal from West Africa; and Gilbert Murray, owner of the Gypping in the Marsh Earthworm Sanctuary and a man with somewhat unusual religious beliefs, who responds to a corrupt Nigerian banker.
Gilbert, your logic for a cheap effective way to fight scammers and conmen in general is impeccable – Lie to the Liars. Con the conmen. You are right. If a few thousand people anti-scammed the 419 gangs by writing one email a week, the scams would soon start to slow down.
Gilbert, the reason I decided to do something was because I read about a poor young girl who died because of evil uncaring 419 scammers.
Web scam drove student to suicide
An inquest has been told how a university student killed herself after falling victim to an internet scam.
Jaiyue Wang, 23, gave more than £6,000 in the belief she had won half a million pounds in a lottery after being contacted over the internet. She arrived in
Vulnerable woman
He said: "A young university student - doesn't speak very much English, her parents don't speak English - been coming across to one of the great universities but has taken her own life because of a scam from
Ms Wang was found hanged at her home in Beeston last month. Jonathan Ray, a
"It's just deeply sad that the young woman was so badly hit by what happened to her just before Christmas."
Gilbert - You have inspired so many Internet Vigilante’s that you get a Gold STAR and a special commendation as well.
THANK YOU GILBERT – PLEASE KEEP GOING
MICROSOFT STARTED IT
One of the definitions of vigilante is a party who offers a PRIVATE reward for catching criminals. That makes Microsoft the world’s most powerful Internet Vigilante. In 2003, Microsoft began a $5 million Anti-Virus Reward Program clearly aimed at appealing to internet vigilantes who were becoming very active at that time. By offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the convictions of the creators of the SoBig and MSBlast viruses.3 they made crime-fighting in cyberspace respectable. In January 2004, SCO Group Inc., a company targeted by the MyDoom worm offered $250,000 for information leading to arrests and helped create a whole new generation of Internet vigilantes who believe, like Microsoft, that targeting criminals rather than regulating computer networks on behalf of security, remains in the best interest of Internet users
GOLD STAR – SHARON HODGSON MP
A gold star goes to the campaigning MP Sharon Hodgson, who called for a very old fashioned British way to deal with criminals and conmen. In February, 2009,
WHAT A GREAT IDEA - LETS DO IT
MORE POSTERS!
In
GOLD STAR – EVAN GUTTMAN
Evan Guttman is a fearless internet vigilante who wouldn’t back down even when threatened by the military police.
Evan’s 15 minutes of fame began in June 2006. His best friend, Ivanna, left her mobile phone in a
Within a few hours Evan was fielding thousands of messages from people with their own bitter memories of lost phones. Some of them found Gomez’s personal page on MySpace.com and they bombarded her and her friends with e-mail messages. Others found her street address and drove by her home taking videos or shouting out “thief”. Several even printed posters and pasted them up in her street.
Gomez has an elder brother who is a military policeman. The policeman threatened Evan with violence if he didn’t take down the site but the cop got reported and officially reprimanded for misconduct.
Evan gave Gomez one last chance to return the phone but she refused so he and Ivanna went to a police station. The police arrested Gomez and charged her with possession of stolen property.
It is hard not to admire what Guttman achieved, and the conduct of his thousands of helpers suggests that there is no way of stopping it. The internet has now replaced the stocks for serial conmen who now have to face a public humiliation that is far from virtual.
Public naming and shaming.
A good example of naming and shaming in order to stop ongoing crime is the YouTube cat abuse incident , where animal loving YouTube members saved a cat from torture and death.
A video of a boy torturing a cat was posted on YouTube and was viewed 30,000 times before YouTube removed the video and blocked the hosting account. A group of members were so angry and upset that they decided to become IV’s. They tracked down the boy and reported him to the police. Two minors were charged with cruelty to animals and the cat was rescued.
GOLD STAR – MIKE BERRY
The Internet vigilante Mike Berry, 44, from
It doesn't matter if you are new to this sport or a hardened veteran; if you are wasting the time of a scammer, or frustrating them in any way well that's good enough for us, and we would welcome you to join with our now very large community. Even if you are a newcomer, much fun can be had and at the same time you will be doing a public service. If you are new to this game and need to know what scambaiting is all about, please click on the 419 FAQ link at the top of the page. See also Baiting Tips for information on getting started on this great cyber-sport
In 2006, Mike won the thisismoney "Genius of the Week" award for his new way of outing and humiliating the 419 scammers with "a plan so cunning that Blackadder would stick a tail on it and call it a fox."
The genius conning the conmen
Every so often someone comes up with something so funny but so simple that you can’t believe you didn’t think of it first.
So my congratulations and genius of the week award to Mike Berry, who has turned the tables on the conmen behind the wealth of "I’m a Nigerian prince, let me help you make millions" emails that try and scam people.
The 44-year-old from
He asked the conmen to prove their identities by holding up a special codeword and sending a photo to him.
Of course, what our friends didn’t realise was that the sayings were ludicrous, and pictures of them holding up signs saying "I am a plonker", "Hello Sailor", or "Holy Cow, Father Ted" while holding a bottle of milk on their head, would end up on his website.
The computer engineer has been "scambaiting" the fraudsters for five years and sticking their photos in his rogues gallery on www.419eater.com
It’s the funniest thing that I have seen in a long time, but beware some slogans are of an adult nature.
WHAT A GREAT IDEA – YOU ARE A GOOD GURU MIKE
IF THEY CAN DO IT - WE CAN DO IT
The Government is already committed to publishing the results of court cases online and provides details of the outcome of trials free to local newspapers to print. In some areas, the police deliver NEWSLETTERS to residents listing court cases.
GOLD STAR – RUSSELL
RUSSELL – YOU ARE A GREAT CRIME REPORTER - THANKS
GOLD STAR – THE GANG OF GEEKS
The Gang of Geeks are a group of
Mike Grant, a
Unfortunately, committing online auction fraud is simple. A con artist steals positive eBay feedback by hijacking a series of honest sellers’ accounts, or by creating fake identities and using them to leave himself positive comments. He sells expensive items - from televisions to motorbikes - and demands that buyers pay by cheque or banker’s draft. While buyers wait for the goods, the seller disappears behind a wall of false addresses, bogus bank accounts and phoney contact details.
“The way we traced the conman behind Future-testing was very time-consuming,” says Nicola Lees, 44, a member of the group and mother of three children from
As recently as last month, Lees was able to play guardian angel to one potential victim. “I monitor what the known accounts are selling,” she said. “He had already sold a quad bike that night and I succeeded in e-mailing the buyer and warning them. That has saved them from losing £3,993.
Police sources on the Hampshire investigation say they expect to update the victims on progress within weeks. There have been no arrests so far. The problem is that police lack the resources to deal with online auction fraud, which is often perpetrated on a national scale but reported to local police with no e-crime officers.
“I’m still so angry about it,” says Holmes of her £500 loss. The Future-testing scammer had better hope that the law catches up with him before his vigilante victims do, or there could be talk of a lynching in town.
MIKE, NICOLA AND THE GEEKS – KEEP GOING
FACT
The common or garden serial conman is likely to have committed or be committing criminal or near-criminal offences such as fraud, embezzlement and deception and is likely to have committed or be committing breaches of harassment and discrimination law, employment law, contract law, Health and Safety requirements, professional standards, codes of conduct and legal requirements.
Top 10 Internet Scams for 2009 - predicted by E-Victims
1. Identity theft and phishing
2. Viruses and spyware
3. Advance fee scams
4. Work at home and job scams
5. Fake or spoofed websites
6. Economy related scams
7. Classified ads and auction scams
8.
9. Ticket Scams
10. Social Networking
GOLD STAR – TONY NEATE
Tony Neate is the managing director of Get Safe Online and his is sworn enemy of conmen who scam charities online. Tony is campaigning for people to share their stories of broadband fraud in order to warn others and hopefully avoid history repeating itself. "People are a bit reluctant in coming forward about scams. I don't know why," says Tony. "I think it would be good if people did report it … It's about education. If people know these potential scams are out there, then they are not going to fall foul of them." Tony reckons that ‘outing the conmen’ is also good therapy: "I, for one, never keep quiet if I've been the victim of an internet hoax and if nothing else, talking to someone about it lets you vent your frustrations".
TONY - THANKS
ANOTHER HALL OF SHAME
Surveys have shown that turning the tables on the conmen make victims feel better. In the absence of official action, vigilante groups offer victims an outlet for direct action. Another such group, eBay Fraud Watch, has nearly 1,800 subscribers, who share lists of eBay user names, e-mail addresses and bank details used by con artists. This hall of shame is an excellent source for cross-checking if you’re worried about a potential transaction.
GOLD STAR – ARMY RUMOUR SERVICE
ENOUGH SAID
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