Trolling for a good cause.

There is plenty of scum on the internet. I'm certain we've experienced trolls, scammers, 12 year old children who shouldn't talk online until they've hit puberty.

If I hear one more Russian kid...

However, what happens what you start combining the groups together? You start getting some rather interesting combinations and my most favorite one is 419eater.com, a site dedicated to wasting the time of scammers in the most hilarious ways possible.

Unfortunately there are still plenty of people who still fall victim to the "Nigerian Prince who needs to transfer millions into a foreign bank account" or "The terminal cancer patient who wants to donate his fortune and is willing to compensate you for your help" stories. If I'm correct a lot of elderly are tricked and their life savings disappear just like that.

419eater operates on the hope that by pretending to be victims the scammers will have less time for legitimate victims (as they're lead on a wild goose chase), become discouraged from performing future scammings or even ruining the scammer's lives.

Go internet superheroes!

If you have time, go take a look through the Wall of Shame and/or some of the success stories. One example was digging chest high holes while wearing togas followed by having milk poured on their head whole holding bread and fish and sending the resulting pictures.

Another good one was where a scammer carved an entire wooden bust of the anti-scammer's head. Or if you're really crafty, getting a scammer to fly overseas to dig up "buried money". However, they are told to dress up in costumes before reaching the dig site and not told that several other scammers will be also arrive in costume to try and dig up the non-existent money.

I know some of you will find this cruel and unusual or even inhumane. However these are not poor individuals attempting to make a meager living. These scammers are well off people who have likely scammed significant amounts of money from numerous people without a second thought. They use deceit, exploit vulnerable populations and are motivated by greed.

Plus I find it hard to have pity for people who pose like this.

I'm actually tempted to see if I can mess around with said scammers when I get some spare time. Would make for an interesting blogging arc I think. But school is starting to get busy again so we'll have to see.

Damn it that was stupid

While I wait to hear back from my job interview I'll probably keep working at my part-time fast food job. I've been working here since high school and I don't mind it. My boss is great and is really flexible with scheduling, my coworkers (all the new ones anyways) are fun to work with and I enjoy getting free food.

But once in a while, you get stupid crap like this.

So. Mad.

So it basically went like this. We're about half an hour to close when this guy comes up and orders $2.50 worth of food and proceeds to pay with a $50. I give him $47.50 in change and he then asks for one of the $20s gets broken up into a one $10 and two $5s. So far so good.

Suddenly he asks for his $50 back and adds one $20, two $10s and four $5s and asks if I can give him five $20s back. I comply, he walks off with his food and $20s.

And when I count my till that night it's $50 short.

Replace that with a cash register and that's basically what I was doing.

Did you catch it? Did you see what he did? Fairly simple once you know how this trick works.

Suddenly he asks for his $50 back

I know some of you may be wondering how a trick like this works but it's simple:

1. Small order is paid with a large bill. This causes a lot of change to be produced and as a result, more confusing. In my case the guy asked for one of the bills to be broken up even further.
2. Upon receiving their change, the scammer will ask for his bill back, add some money to it and request the total back.
3. Most people aren't aware of this trick, or trying to be compliant workers, not paying attention to the amounts being handed out and will do as the scammer says.

And we weren't the only place hit by this guy. My sister worked at the nearby Starbucks that night and remembers a similar looking man doing something similar. They were short $40. So I wouldn't be surprised if that guy just walked all around the area and got a bunch of free food and money.

This is for you buddy.

Something similar happened before and it didn't fool me so I'm kind of pissed that it tricked me a second time. My boss however wasn't angry at all, all he said was don't let it happen again. He even refused to let me pay back the $50 that we were short. (Little things like this are why I've stayed at this job for so long).

But yeah, for anyone working a cash register, watch for these little details so you don't get screwed over like I did. It's not fun.