This Chatbot Wastes Scammers' Time, And It's Glorious

I've gotten quite adept at hitting the delete button whenever I see a scammer email staring at me from my inbox.  Phone calls, unless the number is recognized, automatically go to voicemail.  Often entertaining the thought of messing with scammers, and once doing it, I find little time to actually perform this task.  I will vicariously live through and find endless delightment in following those that do have the time to spit back what scammers deserve.  You guys go!

This article was originally located at: This Chatbot Wastes Scammers' Time, And It's Glorious

This Chatbot Wastes Scammers' Time, And It's Glorious 

by Emily Price

At some point, we’ve all been contacted by a Nigerian prince, long-lost uncle, or some guy that just can’t manage to get a bank account with the promise that if we just make one small wire transfer we’ll have millions in our account by morning.

Admittedly, I’ve responded to a few for fun just to see where the conversation can go. As The Verge reports, now one security firm has created a chatbot that allows you to respond to all those annoying scam messages and waste their time like they did yours by sending the email in the first place.

To use it, you just have to forward the first offending message to me@rescam.org. When you do, a proxy email address will start replying to the scammer’s emails for you. And the responses look pretty real.

Rescam has a few listed on their site. For instance, this was the chatbot’s first response to a request for a wire transfer.

It’s easy to use, and says just enough to keep the conversation going without letting on that you’re actually using a bot to do the talking.