Scammers on iWindy - how to fight back

[capetonian]

Interesting analysis of the Nigerian scam suggests a way to harass the iWindsurf scammers:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/

My conclusion: If iWindsurf can't be our firewall, then we need to reduce the profitability of the scam. The scammers are working towards a payoff. The larger the number of scammees (us) they interact with that result in no payoff, the less their payoff-to-effort ratio.

Cons of this approach - the scammers will flood your email with porn sounding emails (I haven't opened any so I assume it's porn) once they realize you are wasting their time, so create a fake email just for this purpose.

[isobars]

Scammers make many tens of billions of dollars per year in just the U.S. alone. When it's convenient to answer their calls (at my desk I just hit a button and keep working) or if I'm expecting an important call (e.g., I get several calls a week from medical providers), I may ask them why they waste their time calling me 30 times every day KNOWING they'll get the same answer.

Despite growing consumer awareness and heavy government legal action, scamming is growing dramatically. They already know my full name, my Medicare number, my phone number, my birthday, my social security number, my mother's maiden name, my email and past and present street addresses, what cars I own, probably which hand I wipe with, and much more. They intercept and hijack some of my online orders from legitimate big companies (simply calling my credit card company gets me refunds on such charges if I spot them.) WA state has had laws on the books for many years allowing victims to sue telemarketers (and internet personal attack dogs so common in this forum) for millions of dollars; at last report only one such suit has been filed in WA. It won millions of dollars IIRC, but only because the target had logged and recorded countless scam calls.

By far our best defense seems to the Nancy Reagan mantra: when refusing to answer all calls isn't practical, Just Say No. My internet provider already filters something like 98% of my incoming emails, and far too many scams still get through. When I start getting several scam or spam emails every day supposedly from big reputable companies, I dig up the CEO's email address and harass the hell out of her. That actually seems to help when I can show them hundreds of emails hurting their reputation.

As for iW classifieds response scams, asking them a few questions about WSing has shut them up so far.

[dcharlton]

I've got a foolproof way to stop them, just send me your date of birth, social security number and mother's maiden name and I'll put a stop to it!

DC