Scamming The Scammers

In an Atlantic article from a few years ago, Ron Rosenbaum explored the world of the scam baiting:

I asked Berry how he managed to persuade a scammer to write out a Harry Potter novel.

“Well,” Berry said, “he first wrote me with the usual Swiss-bank-account scam letter, and I then told him that I worked for a firm that did handwriting analysis, and we were looking for people to write out samples of their handwriting, and that we paid $30 per page. Needless to say, he was eager to maximize his profit, and I suggested Harry Potter might be a good source. It must have kept him busy for a while.”

And he must have been a bit disappointed when he shipped his manuscript off never again to hear from the “handwriting analyst.”

As time passed, Berry’s creative engagements with the scammers became more and more elaborate. To my mind, his greatest achievement is the “Commodore 64” scam-bait, which I would not hesitate to call a scam-baiting work of art. In the hands of a master, a particularly ingenious, devious, and multilayered scam-bait is nothing less than an epistolary coup du th�âtre.

Continued here.