E-mail fishing

So if one wanted go fishing and collect like thousands of e-mails I thing I have the perfect plan.

1. post several fake adds on CraigsList

2. when the fishers reply to my add by texting "please reply by e-mail" I collect all of their emails.

3. figure out who to sell a bunch of email addresses to.

4. open new craigslist accounts with my fished e-mail addresses and repeat the process, until all of the fishers are fishing each other.

Bad idea?  I really don't know how this all works.

What are you trying to accomplish here? Sounds awfully scummy and potentially illegal.

mtn said:

What are you trying to accomplish here? Sounds awfully scummy and potentially illegal.

This.

Then again, I haven't used CL in more than a decade because it sucks.

If you want to collect a bunch of emails, either scrape them, or get a hotmail bot that will spit out a few thousand per minute. 

If you want to berkeley with Craigslist scammers, you gotta do it the long way.

You can't turn their scam emails into your email addresses. 

If you're trying to sell a few thousand valid and verified email addresses, find a marketer, but odds are they already have them.

This is an exercise in screwing with craigslist scammers.  Just a thought, I really don't have the time or care that much.  It's just funny how every time I post on CR the first hour is full of scammers.  It will never end, should probably be in the minor rant thread.

If someone had the ability to create an automated way to screw with scammers it would make my day.  Normally I just lead them on a while if they appear legit at first just to waste their time.

akylekoz said:

This is an exercise in screwing with craigslist scammers.  Just a thought, I really don't have the time or care that much.  It's just funny how every time I post on CR the first hour is full of scammers.  It will never end, should probably be in the minor rant thread.

If someone had the ability to create an automated way to screw with scammers it would make my day.  Normally I just lead them on a while if they appear legit at first just to waste their time.

The scammers generally aren't great at english so using a bot to respond to them and keep them occupied would be a natural fit! Just make a new email address, and get a bot that responds to all emails coming to that email address. If you want you can also get a text to email converter so that any texts go to that email too. 

Then, start posting ads (make them severely overpriced and very common items so no normal people respond)!

Trying to mess with them as a group is one thing, it also might be entertaining for you to just pick one out to torment. Here's an example from an expert.

Posting a for-sale ad on CL, you can plan for getting a few immediate responses that are 100% scammers.

FB Marketplace has started doing the same thing.  Within minutes of posting the person (seeming very real) asks a few questions, then asks for your phone number...and then sends you a google validation text "to prove that  you're real" ...presumably so they can hack your google account. 

There is way more at play here.  A data set is not just an email.  Email is worthless and they can get it for free from Twitter, about 3 cents from any one of a dozen other social media platforms.  What they're buying is a complete data set on a person along with a WTA (willingness to accept) rating.  This involves a process of contacting the person with a set of targeted ads and seeing how much and how far they're willing to interact with the script.  If you click the link, it's one score.  If you click another link within the website, another score.  If you end up purchasing the product, a higher score yet.

The average value of a person's data set along with a perfect WTA (buys everything) is worth about $250 on the average to the person who owns the data.  That doesn't mean they pay $250 per person to purchase their data, that means that the data they purchased (on average) will net them a profit of $250.  Of course, a miniscule percentage of the people have perfect WTAs, so those numbers drop as WTAs drop.  The average complete data set along with a WTA score... which means the data miner has already done months of research on the data set... is likely worth a couple dollars.

Because these corporations know that the average profit they get from each complete data set means that each set is purchased for pennies.  The money comes from the use of bots that do all the work for you.  

You know how you do a google search for "best dog food" and then suddenly you get ads for Dog Chow and Nutro?  Those are the bots at work determining your WTA.  

It boils down to this.  Even if you were able to mine 100,000 email addresses, they would be worthless.  You can get email addresses anywhere.  The value is in the targeted research and the complete data set of age, political leaning, browser history, primary language, vehicles owned, what kind of TV you have and what you watch on it (which, by the way, you had to accept when you bought the TV), which SiriusXM channels you listen to, what your credit score is... the works.... THAT is the data set that is worth a little money.

The big thing is, it's not just a once and done deal.  People always ask... well won't they finally get info on everyone and the well will dry up?  It's dynamic.  Every time you log into GRM, FB, whatever, you add to your data set.  You are constantly updating the websites you view, how their frequency has changed, what type of youtube videos you watch.  It will never run dry because we keep giving them more data.

Your smart phone itself collects data which your provider and/or the phone manufacturer can sell.  Then, each additional app you have on that phone contributes pieces of data.  Things like google maps require location to be reported otherwise it won't work.  Google collects that data.  There are plenty of nefarious apps out there that use your camera and microphone (because you gave them permission) to record things you say, or use the camera to gain information on where you are.  The bot notices that it looks like you're walking into a WalMart and you suddenly get WallyWorld ads.

Try this one:  Last summer I was trying to explain this to mom and dad, so I tried an experiment.  We were sitting around a campfire and my BIL started saying things like "I really need to buy some John Deere tractor parts," then we followed up with "yeah, I wonder where the best place is for John Deere tractor parts." etc.  In the morning, all but one of us out of 7 people had ads for tractor parts on our devices.  Mine was dubious because I had been helping a friend shop for a riding mower about a month before and the ads could have come from that.  But, the bots did an excellent job.  They melded the data they already had about our locations, our internet searches, and gave us targeted ads.  I got an ad for a local International Harvester dealer (the same brand as what my friend bought and I looked up parts).  Dad got one for a John Deere dealer in Clarksburg WV where he had been the week before.  Mom got something random like a Mahindra ad.  My sister is the one who didn't get any ads, so she must have been pretty conservative with her app permissions.

Watch two documentaries:  The Social Dilemma and The Great Hack.

You'll understand it much better than I could explain.