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Scamming the scammers: the story of the Nigerian $40 million man

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Julian Cole completed a Honours thesis in Online Social Networks at Monash University and is currently writing his Masters thesis on Blackberry addiction. Julian also works as a Digital Strategist for Naked Communication. He writes the blog adspace-pioneers.blogspot.com and is an active member of STBz.

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On a tour of the favela in Brazil early this year I was intrigued by the idea of community justice which was dealt out in these towns. If they found out that someone had murdered/raped/stolen from someone in the favela instead of going to the police, they would find them and the community would decide his fate.

I was intrigued when I first heard about this with the internet. I came across a number of websites which posted their interaction with the worst of the worst of the email $40 million dollar Nigerian scammers.

These sites publish their stories of scamming the scammers. They see how far they can push the scammer from getting them to send photos they had requested or even in some cases getting money from the scammers.

I have just seen it start creeping into the business world as well, with the hype of calling out the flog (fake blogs). A number of businesses tried to set up blogs pretending to be brand loving customers, but the internet community has started to call these people out as well.

It is important as marketers to understand that you do not only have to play by the rules of the legal systems around you, but also the rules of the communities you are entering.

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