Scamming the Scammer: Almost as Much Fun as You’d Imagine

Pet hates of mine in this industry include:

• We attempted to deliver your parcel, just pay this small fee to release it… – you’re alright pal, keep it.
• We have video of you watching porn… – Nah mate, I’m too selfish for that. If I can’t get my leg over legitimately, I’m not watching someone else do it either.
• Penis enlargement pills… – these people are obviously unaware that, in our commitment to transgenderism, both myself and Professor Roger Watson have had the full penectomy (free pint, performed while you wait at the local Wetherspoons). We also insist all male TNC contributors do this before we sign their pieces off, and are considering rolling the scheme out to readers in 2026.

Incidentally, the crappest scam of all – at least in my time – was Covid. Once the government started pretending it cared about old people dying (why in God’s name would they?!), then I knew we were being royally jerked off.

I had assumed with the advent of AI, that the calibre of scam would improve exponentially. I was, dare I say, looking forward to something spectacular courtesy of Elon Musk’s Grok. So I confess, I was disappointed to say the least when the latest lukewarm effort pinged into my Outlook a couple of months back:

‘Andy’ sounds a nice fella doesn’t he? Were he to send this to anyone with a pulse and a book deal, he might have got some traction. Unfortunately for him, there’s just a few problems with presenting a book like Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West to a bookclub in Chiswick:

A) “Mein Kampf for wankers” (as the book was once affectionately described), is unlikely to go down well on millionaires row in Chiswick.

B) The book has no ‘story’, unless it is the author’s quest to waste 10 years achieving very little.

C) Only about three people have read the book, four of whom are my mum.

In general, I never bother replying to scams. But for some reason, ‘Andy’ must have caught me in a good mood. I decided to entertain him:

I wanted to keep him honest – if he’d genuinely read the book, he’d be able to give details. Obviously he hadn’t, and could therefore at least do a very cursory Google search / AI mash-up.

Okay. So now we know our mate Andy can’t even be bothered to Google. He’s just sending the same generic shite out to everyone, and picking off the low-hanging fruit. What I did like however, was the random italicisations and the oft-repeated erroneous spacings – which suggests to my untrained eye that if AI was not writing this outright, it’s at least enabling the scammer to ‘act’ human. If nothing else, we did ‘make his night’ though!

Andy wants to ‘proceed’ – ie. get to the money, but let’s make him work a bit more for it first:

Andy is having none of it however, and is even treating me to his use of bold text:

You may notice, we’re now interchanging between American and British spellings here – AI certainly earning its keep, even if Andy is letting the side down a little. I decide to put him out of his misery, and start taking the piss:

Our lad pushes on through though. He’s finally got his man where he wants him, and now he unleashes his full sales pitch:

It’s the old doorman routine: “If you give me twenty quid, I’ll let you in free”. Naturally, I can’t get my wallet open fast enough:

Our lad’s all-in now. Bronze, silver and gold level scamming available – but naturally, he recommends the big’n:

Andy’s doing me a big favour here, because obviously it’s not like these readers could simply buy the book and fucking read it whenever they wanted, is it?

I’m hoping at some point, whoever’s reading these will twig. Naivety on my part, no doubt:

I confess that here, I was a little impressed. Demanding certain files and information before scamming me, does have a whiff of authenticity about it. I decided to let him stew for a bit:

And again, only one spot left now so I’d better act fast:

Hopefully, I hadn’t missed my chance:

Fortunately not:

I fire back with enthusiasm:

Unfortunately, Andy can’t get his invoice system working:

Would be a shame to miss out, so I’m flexible:

Curious name for a denizen of Chiswick:

But I’m not deterred of course:

You’ve got to hand it to Andy, at least he knows his currency:

Time to give our man some bad news:

True to form, Andy’s a gent – he doesn’t mind loaning you a couple of Bucks, provided you let him scam you out of half a grand:

I appreciate the care:

Andy getting a bit nervous now:

I want to come through, but what can I do – the bank’s being really arsy about the transfer:

No worries, Andy’s a professional:

Being a good citizen, I feel duty bound to let him know he may encounter this problem again:

No fear, Andy’s in it for the long haul:

I’ve obviously got to put him out of his misery at some point, but I confess I’m enjoying wasting his time:

Toner problems now:

I must say, I’m devastated that Andy won’t let me con him out of 20 nicker to get his hands on the monkey. Not exactly sporting.

Like Andy, I suspect, I was also getting a bit bored now:

Having plied me with more than enough booze for a quick knee-trembler behind the dustbins, I decide to leave him with his dick in his hand:

A couple of things surprised me about this ridiculous exchange:

• Both of us kept it going absurdly long.
• Andy remained infuriatingly professional – no meltdown, despite my teasing!
• All scams still seem to end, inevitably, with the Nigerian Prince.

It wasn’t quite the end of the affair however. Having given up on me with his alter ego ‘Andy’, I have since received quite a few offers from similar business models:

And Kimberley Detering, who’s creditably managed to get herself a photograph:

Not forgetting Daniel Foster:

I am still getting these every few days, but this one made me chuckle – spare a thought for Natasha Simons, who doesn’t seem to know how to search for a book on Amazon. Bless her!