Comments on: Happy New Year!

By: john b

john b — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:44:28 +0000

@ Sam - well, I’ve obviously not had any direct experience with them aside from the initial emails, not being a total idiot. However, in all the conversations I’ve read with the jokers who bait 419ers and post the results online, the whole point of the scammer’s routine has been to ask the victim to transfer money to their account. That’s why it’s also called “advance fee fraud” - i.e. “we’ll give you £1,000,000 if you send us £2000 for admin expenses”.

@ Garry - yup, yup, and indeed. I was considering posting my bank details Clarkson-style when the fraud broke; I think it’s less likely that any of my 4 readers would have given my £500 to charity, but still eventually decided against it…

By: Garry

Garry — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:54:54 +0000

I see what you mean, john. Although, it didn’t occur to me yesterday when I wrote this, the DD guarantee means that Clarkson could get the £500 back if he really wanted too. He won’t because it’s a charity and even he’s not that much of a twat.

People could use the details to set up fraudulent DD’s and it’d be a hassle sorting it out but you wouldn’t ultimately be out of pocket.

I do think the information on the discs might be useful for identity fraudsters in other ways though. They contain a lot of the information you’d need to take out a new loan in someone else’s name, for example.

Not sure how the 419 works exactly but I’m definitely not planning to post my bank details on here. Better safe than sorry and all that.

By: sam_m

sam_m — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:16:47 +0000

@ john b: You and I have had different experience of scammers.

By: john b

john b — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:25:03 +0000

[and 419ers make their money by getting you to set up Western Union transfers with them, not by using magic to do impossible things with your bank account]

By: john b

john b — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:23:57 +0000

You’re not often wrong, but this is one of those times.

Clarkson’s £500 loss showed that if you have the bank account details of someone who’s a famous twat, then you can briefly annoy them by setting up a direct debit with a charity.

But he was absolutely right (and was proved absolutely right) on his main point, which is that you can’t steal money from their bank account and do anything usefully fraudulent with it.

So unless some particularly aggressive chuggers (not even chuggers, actually, because they’re on commission whereas this would have to not be) get the discs, then everyone who’s not a famous twat is still safe…

By: sam_m

sam_m — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:57:47 +0000

Idiot’s obviously never had a 419.