The 5th International 419 Flash Mob is over. The site now leaves a message about how we together succeeded, in a 48 hours party, to shut down at least 17 fake bank websites! We have made our voices heard! And, I am kind of looking forward to The World’s 6th 419 Flash Mob on June 1st, 2004!
www.artists-against-419.mugus.com/FlashMob.shtml
Update in January 2007: The 419 Flash Mob site doesn’t exist anymore. But I’ll let this entry stay for historical reasons.
05/03 2004 – Flashmobs is a new way for consumers to claim their rights against fraudulent companies. And a very interestting way to battle iscammers online:
The 419 Flash Mob is a 24 hour flash mob aimed at closing down a lot of 419 iscam sites. Visit their site at
www.artists-against-419.mugus.com/FlashMob.shtml
This is the fist anti-scam flashmob I’ve heard of.
Basically the aim of The 419 Flash Mob is to shut down 53 fake company web sites in less than 24 hours!
Furthermore this online event shall make web hosting companies, the authorities and the media more aware of the problem of the Nigerian 419 fraud and particular of the problem with criminal fake websites.
The methods of the 419 flash mob seem to work quite well:
- Access their sites (and eat up their monthly bandwidth)
- Mail them (thereby clogging their mailboxes)
- Sign them up to mailing lists (keep those mailboxes filled)
- File complaints with your legal authorities.
- Send abuse complaints to their ISPs
The mother site of the 419 flash mob has lot’s of great info on how 419ers work. Many of them run fake banks, where the victims are signed up and trusted with offshore accounts filled with all those zillion dollar baits.
The site has been up for 7 hours now, and it has already been able to close some of the sites down (mostly due to filled up bandwidth at the 419 sites).
Help spread the word! This is a great initiative!
Pingback: David Johnson - an Irish 419er | Nikke’s Index()