Chasing scammers

Scammers usually hide their IP by using mail.com or live.com.

There are ways to fool them to reveal their IP. I have two such examples: One leads to an internet service provider (ISP) in Northern France, another to America Online which could be anyhwere in the US.

The police has the authority to force ISPs to reveal the identity of these people, but they are doing nothing about fraud, not domestically and especially not internationally.

But, there are people working at ISPs who have access to log data. They might be interested in preventing scams from happening. If there was a board on the internet (like this forum) where scam evidence is collected they could assist anonymously through such a forum.

When police and banks don't do their job, honest people need to find other ways to prevent crime.

[AlanJones]

You won't get customer information from an ISP - any one giving it to you won't be in a job for long.

Also, even if someone did give you that information, what are you going to do with it? The police still won't be interested.

Alan,

ISP employees have access to data and can report anonymously.

When scammers have been identified and get their identity published on internet they will feel fear and consider stopping their activity. This is the way pedophiles are chased.

Police is doing nothing. Honest people need to organize and stop being just victims.

How about a "Scammer hunting" section on this forum where anyone can contribute with information?

We, and all the other scam warning websites and blogs, are doing just what is needed. We bring out in the open what scams are, post scam emails and the email addresses that are used by scammers so that potential victims can read about it and be warned. Education is the best weapon against scams. People who are aware of scams won't be victims and the scammers are left empty handed.

You can join in and post scam emails for others to see.

I suppose the different sections on the forum, as they are, can be used for chasing scammers, collecting evidence and taking help from the collective intelligence on the Internet.

The best weapon against bank robbery and terrorism is education... Well, Jesus and Gandhi would be proud.

[AlanJones]

Which is exactly what we are already doing - we profile the scammers, we post the emails and email addresses that they use, the websites that they set up, the bank accounts and money mules that they use.

You will not get ISPs to release customer information, just because someone has posted some details on the Internet - any ISP employee giving that data will be looking for a new job. And even if you did by some miracle manage to get someone to provide the information, do you really think that posting the details of an Internet Cafe in Lagos or someone in Moscow is going to stop a scammer or save a victim?

any ISP employee giving that data will be looking for a new job.

3rd time: *anonymously*.

AOL have thousands of employees.

Not trying is a secure way of not hunting scammers, as well as not reporting to police is.

And even if you did by some miracle manage to get someone to provide the information, do you really think that posting the details of an Internet Cafe in Lagos or someone in Moscow is going to stop a scammer or save a victim?

My impression is that most of them are quite dumb and would be easy to pick if you had the authorities. They want the money as badly as the buyer wants the goods so they are easy to fool into traps.

The problem is that the police is dumber.

One problem Bankscam is that you're suggesting that employees divulge information and thereby put their job at risk, if not risking prosecution, out of the kindness of their hearts.

The problem is that the databases and information you suggest that employees penetrate can, and are, being divulged, not to fight crime, but to aid criminals for profit. It's far likelier that an employee who could or would divulge information to third parties is going to choose the option that provides them with a reward, in view of the risks they're taking.

Databases are very valuable to advertising companies and fraudsters and both will pay for access to them. Many of them pay for legitimate access to databases and one example is CV's that people provide on employment sites. I cannot understand why people willingly post their personal details so freely as no company will ever trawl through a database looking for someone to hire. People are merely freely giving away their details to a company that exploits it for money, and they don't vet who has access. A couple of hundred pounds and a fraudster will get thousands of names and details of people who are vulnerable to many types of scam.

There have been many recent examples of databases being penetrated, often by hacking, and you'd be surprised how valuable they are to scammers. Payday loan companies often make loans against minimal detail and even astonishingly HMRC will provide tax refunds with little scrutiny. The UK's most widespread scam involving phoning the elderly to attempt to get hold of banking details must be based on some database someone has accessed, or perhaps it's freely available information.

Databases are valuable to fraudsters and anyone choosing between using it to fight crime or earn money will usually opt for the latter option. That's human nature. Robbing a bank has risks but running off a list of customer details and selling it for profit is easy.

Scammers usually hide their IP by using mail.com or live.com.

Your basic premise is flawed. More scammers use yahoo (which does not hide IP) and gmail than either of the ISP's you mentioned, and the vast majority simply use whatever is convenient.

3rd time: *anonymously*.

Saying it in a condescending way doesn't make a bad idea any better.

Oddly enough, most ISP's have taken measures to protect their data, and they are actually capable of investigating breaches, including those caused by employees. Stealing and sharing data can lead to more than loss of a job--it can also get the employee arrested. No employee with common sense is going to take that risk for a pointless activity that brings no profit and certainly isn't going to stop the scammers!

My impression is that most of them are quite dumb and would be easy to pick if you had the authorities. They want the money as badly as the buyer wants the goods so they are easy to fool into traps.

An impression that is obviously not based on any actual knowledge. Not all scammers are dumb. Many are intelligent, and educated scammers are pretty common.

Those who want to hide actually do use things like proxies or Virtual Private Networks, or are working out of internet cafes used by hundreds of others. In any of these cases, your "inside man" isn't going to be able to trace the scammer, and it's not exactly headline news that an internet cafe in Nigeria is being used for fraud.

Many scammers simply don't care if you find them, because they are working out of an internet cafe, and/or living in a corrupt area where they can bribe their local law enforcement anyway.

As for the dumb scammers using an IP-stripping email provider? Any baiter with a modicum of skill can get an IP anyway, no ISP employee needed. It's actually quite easy if you know what you are doing. Sometimes we get the IP because we want to, but many times we don't bother because we know it is pointless.

As for the whole "name and shame" concept? Might work with other types of criminals, but absolutely useless when the scammer is living in a society that condones, even sometimes reveres, his ability to steal money that doesn't belong to him.

The problem is that the police is dumber.

I could point out the irony of this statement, but moving on...
The police are not dumb. They have to deal with pesky things like laws, evidence, and jurisdictions. The police from one country can't just fly into another country and pick up a suspect, even if they have a string of IP's on a piece of paper. Many of us have worked with law enforcement at one point or another, and we have seen the work that goes into building a fraud case.

You will find lots of knowledge and experience on this forum, if you are willing to learn. But we aren't going to encourage people to waste their time on activities that will ultimately serve no purpose.