A 419, or advance fee fraud, is an internet-based scam that begins with the scammer promising you millions and ends with him cleaning out your bank accounts. Once known as The Spanish Prisoner the con predates the net by at least a couple of centuries. Essentially it works like this. You, known in con speak as the mark, will be contacted by someone claiming to represent a bank or pretending to be the relative of some recently deposed third world despot. You will be asked to help transfer implausibly vast sums of money out of said third world hell hole and promised 25% of the filthy lucre in return for your trouble. The trouble being that it might end up costing you everything you own.
Surprisingly an awful lot of people have fallen for this nonsense, so many in fact that a while back a site was founded devoted to scamming the scammers. Calling itself 419 Eater it embroils the con artists in endless, often hilarious correspondence, the aim being to waste as much of their time as possible. The whole thing brings to mind David Mamet's two excellent films, House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner. However, as funny as this is I don't actually have much sympathy for the 419 victims since they seem to have allowed their own rapacity to ride roughshod over their powers of reason. Far nastier are sites such as one I won't link to which by identifying your IP address and contents of your computer has you believe that unless you part with cash someone will eventually destroy your files. Thanks to GU regular 4Candles for putting me onto the latter.
