Sandy Hutchens Ripoff Reporting

It started with the reluctant acknowledgment by many climatologists that despite past opposition, the claims of skeptics that the Earth has actually been cooling were essentially true. German scientists from the Liebnitz Institute for Marine Studies and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology led the way, admitting that “global warming is taking a break,” referring to the increasingly widespread acknowledgment that for the last decade temperatures have remained stable and that over the last 40 years the level of overall warming is considerably lower than previously claimed.

Even “Global Warming Central” at Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research had to admit that their past figures were suspect and that rather than a 0.2% temperature increase over the past decade their adjusted figures suggested only a 0.07% temperature increase during that period. Hadley has always been a leading source for global warming activism and their computer models and data analysis techniques are being looked at with increasing skepticism as they remain one of the few climate research groups still reporting any warming at all over the last 10 years.

Scam baiting, also known as counterscamming, is the practice of feigning interest in a fraudulent scheme in order to manipulate a scammer. The purpose of scam baiting might be to waste the scammer’s time, cause them embarrassment, cause them to reveal incriminating information which can be passed on to legal authorities, waste the scammer’s money, or simply for the baiter’s amusement.

The primary goal of the majority of scam baiting is stopping “419″ advance-fee fraud, which bilks hundreds of millions of dollars from victims, and can lead to victims committing crimes to raise enough money to feed the fraudulent schemes.

Scam baiters often simply attempt to waste the scammer’s time by pretending to be a victim; they often believe if a scammer is busy communicating with a baiter, then less time is spent finding and exploiting potential victims. In “Conversations with a Nigerian Bank Scammer,” writer Karl Mamer documents verbose “conversations” over email with several Nigerian 419 scammers. After statements like “Marco, my good and soon to be prosperous friend, you have correctly intimated from my writings on religion and Elvis that indeed, like you, I whole heartily [sic] agree that the separation of church and state is both unnatural and ungodly,” “Marco” finally says “I am so scared to meet you with this amount of talking.” Baiters often refer to scammers as “lads.”

Another common practice among scambaiters is to ask the scammer to do something in order to prove their identity or their intentions, such as sending a photograph of himself or herself in a compromising position. Baiting forums relish in a special bait they term “safari” in which they attempt to persuade scammers into traveling long distances to meet phantom victims or to pick up bogus wire transfers.

A small number of scam baiters claim to have convinced their scammers to send money to them, although the actual occurrence of this is disputed. Tom Craig, a former Scotland Yard officer, says that it would be unprecedented for 419 con artists to part with money and suggests that scam baiters could easily forge the scanty “evidence” of such successes. Other baiters have succeeded in getting their scammers to send them art or other “trophies” as evidence of completed work for the baiter, which is, of course, never paid.

Foreclosure rescue fraud is sweeping the country and can end up costing you the home and equity you’re desperately trying to save from foreclosure.

In these tough economic times, mortgage foreclosure rescue scams are sweeping the nation. Foreclosure rescue fraud is both devious and cruel. Homeowners, finding it difficult to make ends meet and facing foreclosure, are promised help to save their homes. These scammers often turn around and steal the homes from those they promised aid to. Some collect large fees for services never provided and are never seen from again.

In any form, mortgage foreclosure rescue scams add insult to injury and are expected to grow in popularity with crooks as Americans default on their mortgages in larger and larger numbers.