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Big Al
Scambaiting is the art of scamming scammers out of their sanity by pretending to be a gullible victim, while tricking them into posing for silly pictures and travel halfway around the world searching for imaginary money.
There are many communities dedicated to practitioners of this art, that tends to attract some very colorful individuals. On the one hand you have the usual batch of basement dwellers, internet humanitarians, trolls and faggots. On the other hand, you also get some hugely inflated egos and the occasional genuinely mentally disturbed tinfoil-hat wearing nutcase.
One of these is known as "bigal" (aka Big Al or BiGal), the pseudonym of a 64 year old man who lives in Brisbane, Ausfailia. His claim to infamy comes from having been banned from a forum back in 2006, and trying pathetically to make a large noise on the internet about it ever since.
Bigal joins 419eater.com
On 2005 August 06 Big Al came across the scambaiting forum www.419eater.com and joined up. He was full of joy at becoming a member of this community that was actively making a difference to people's lives by preventing them from being scammed out of their hard-earned money.
His first post at the 419eater forum, on 2005 August 07:
— Big Al | ||
By 2005 November 18 he was hinting of dissatisfaction with the site, having come to realise that the site was little more than a front for a group of South African white supremacists and descendants of nazis. This is a reply to a user "ftfoi" who announced he was leaving the forum:
— Big Al | ||
This is his last surviving post on the site, on 2006 March 04:
—Big Al | ||
A few days after this post was made, Big Al was banned and he has been crying to the heavens ever since about the grievous injustice meted out to him by the nazi moderators and admins.
Big Al is an e-expert
In the short while that Big Al had posting privileges at eater forum, he demonstrated his total lack of knowledge, comprehension and tact. He was ready to jump in and offer advice on subjects he knew absolutely nothing about.
Someone was complaining about an old computer which hung half way when booted from a Linux install disk. There was an error related to missing or unrecognized USB devices, but the problem does not, clearly, involve the hard disk in any way.
—Big Al | ||
He was advised to use a light distribution which had less requirements on hardware resources, but Big Al has to butt in again:
—Big Al | ||
Love affair with Lotta
While he was at 419eater.com, he fell head over heels in love with an admin there called "Lotta", ostensibly a female.
Scambaiters rarely disclose their true name, sex, or location. They dupe scammers into thinking they are dealing with a real victim, and when finally the scammers realise they have been duped they tend to get a bit pissed off. Death threats against baiters are common and desirable as trophies to put in your signature. Anonymity is a precaution against an irate scammer showing up at a baiter's door-step and making a trophy out of your ass.
"Lotta" was really a boy in his mom's basement pretending to be a forty-something woman with three kids.
Big Al sent a photo of himself, love poems etc to this hirsute basement dweller behind "Lotta" and received positive results. Eventually he got so jealous that Lotta could not make a friendly remark to another user on the forum without Big Al throwing a fit via PM and email. He cooked up stories to make a rift between Lotta and other people who he imagined were too friendly with "her", and eventually they got tired of all this shadow play.
Big Al still hasn't realised that his love at 419eater isn't the mature woman in the few photos he was sent.
To celebrate the long fake love they had together, lotta still carries the name and address of Big Al in her profile, but Big Al has totally pwned her there since it is the name and address of a totally innocent man. The innocent man is also screwed because lotta is really not a dame, but he does not know it yet. Somebody made an entry at wikimapia pointing to this address Australia. Big Al joined up to delete the description that said "Big Al lives here".
He went further. He said that "the poster is lying" - but you could not see what exactly the lie was, since it had already been removed.
Big Al gets banned
On 2006 March 10, Big Al was banned from www.419eater.com, and has been crying about it ever since.
The reasons for his ban are lost in the mists of antiquity by the moderators, it may have had something to do with the abnormally large self esteem he had, which many on the forum barely had time to notice. Considering that having a huge ego is practically a prerequisite for being a baiter, he didn't really stand out that much. On the other hand, it's not as if 419eater moderators ever needed much of a coherent reason to ban someone.
The next stop on this crazy train was scambaits.net, formed from the exodus of other refugees escaping the evil nazi moderators at 419eater. Employing the philosophy that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Big Al joined with this group of baiters (known as the Alliance) to continue hurting the lads and helping scam victims worldwide. Soon enough, though, he was banned from scambaits as well. It seems that something happened at the Alliance meeting in Clacton which set the wheels in motion to ban Big Al. The hammer fell simultaneously on all Alliance forums (Scambaits, Fraudwatchers, ILS). Big Al still talks about the dark and dire conspiracy that was hatched at the Clacton meet in order to cast him outside, where there was darkness, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
— Big Al | ||
Big Al pretends to be a woman - "Hoaxie"
Soon after he lost posting privileges in 419eater.com, he thought of a really good way to get back - pretend to be female! Yeah, that would really work, and he would get the sympathy due to a woman.
Sadly, user "Hoaxie" was also banned.
He crawled back using other names and proxies several times - more times than anybody cares to count, and was found out and kicked out each time - sometimes even before making a single post.
The Clacton Meet
Mystery surrounds the 2007 meeting of upper echelon members of the Alliance in Clacton on Sea, but this doesn't stop Big Al from obsessing over it. His fucknuttery was well established prior to Clacton, and his banning was in the works for some time, but the sense of good will and pity everyone felt for Al had quickly eroded. Shortly after this meeting, he was banned. Naturally, it was nothing Al had brought on himself. There was only one person who could be behind such deviltry.
If only that were the case !!
An admin at 419eater describes Big Al:
This is from the discussion on the arstechnica forum.
His blog was hacked
He put up a blog, roninclean.
— A. J. Ronin | ||
In the height of irony, right below this first post, two comments had been deleted by the admin.
The fun did not last. Someone acquired the password by pretending to a female head over heels in love with him, and changed the contents to what we see there now.
He whined about it (as starfighter) in a google support group: google help - the email he used to post to that group was compromised, too, and he had to sign up another account to post to it as starfighter2.
Much later, somebody started a new blog baleeted with his old posts.
He whined to google and, as the first post was not answered, he whined again. He used the username Zylon this time.
Big Al joins theRanter
After Big Al was banned from 419eater.com, he tried joining various other web forums set up to discuss scambaiting, and was banned from every one of them. He insisted that everyone drop the business in hand and discuss the grievous wrong the cretins! at eater had done by banning him. They found it easier to emulate eater's example, and ban him too.
theRanter discussion forum was set up by members of 419eater as a venue where they could discuss anything. It later became one frequented by the members who had been banned from there. The attraction of this board was that it then had a no-ban policy.
Big Al, well aware of his reputation of having been banned from all the forums he had joined so far, was wary of letting his identity become known. He joined up as "Striker" and posted bland comments to be accepted there. Then, feeling courageous, he joined again as "Big Al" about one and a half months later.
This was a community of people who had been banned from eater, but even there Big Al's efforts did not meet up with the appreciation he had hoped for. He would post fragments of old posts, entire private messages and chat logs (some of them made up) without any explanation of context, and get angry and go ballistic whenever somebody asked him for enlightenment. He constantly referred to himself as the wronged party, and was always on the verge of making some momentous revelation that would be a bombshell, second in magnitude only to Gabriel a-blawin' 'is hawn. It was here, at theRanter, that he announced that his computers had been hacked and keylogged, his passwords all stolen, and his blog hijacked. He also complained about another user using his photo as avatar, and thus confirmed that the picture was indeed his.
He was given a subforum to post his rants in, and made a moderator of that forum. The regulars there then flooded it with crap posts, so that he could not keep the place organized. He deleted a few posts and got called out on it. His own posts were modified, and had little derogatory tag lines tacked on. His complaints were met with derision, and he was advised to "walk it off, pussy". He walked off.
He stopped posting at theRanter, accusing the admins of deleting and changing his posts. But he constantly keeps an eye on the activity there for any references to himself.
Crusade against anti-scam sites
He eventually started on a crusade against all those forums which had made the mistake of banning him, and stood by and cheered when a few sites seemed to be closing down.
— Big Al | ||
He seemed genuinely happy that these websites, set up to help the scambaiting community, and to offer resources to educate the public against falling for these scams, were in difficulty.
His usual modus operandi would be to join a scambaiting forum, and then interfere in its treatment of members. He would demand preferential treatment and demand that his moronic ideas be followed. Eventually they would get tired of this and ban him.
One method he used to close down a few such sites was to register again using a proxy and post a few inflammatory and racist comments against the scammers - saying that they were nigerian nigger monkeys, for instance. Then the forum would be reported to the hosts for being racist and discriminatory. He managed to close down quite a few sites this way before the others wised up and tightened their moderation of such posts.
He would later post material made up to show that members of these sites were actively engaged in scamming people. He accuses these websites of teaching their members the techniques of extracting money from gullible people by promising them riches.
— Big Al | ||
Here, he is accusing the people at 419eater (his first site) of putting up fake websites in order to steal credit card info.
Arstechnica article
He posted in the discussions following an article on arstechnica forums, opening his attack by this deadly salvo:
These questions will save the world!
He was challenged by other members of 419eater who had registered at arstechnica forums, and he had this questionnaire for them:
- Why are so many posts deleted or locked when the member is just asking a reasonable question?
- Why are the avatars and signature's of ex members altered and changed as has been done to not only members but even long time moderators like KD?
- Why do the eater moderators spread false rumours and lies about any one who disagrees with them and get banned for it?
- Why do you try and discredit anyone who oppose your opinions and try to make out they are crazy, by spreading lies in a feeble attempt to portray them as crazy, so their views will not be believed?
- Why do you try and portray anyone who does not share your opinion, as trolls, When MANY of them have never trolled ANY forum in their lives and have no wish to do so?
- Why did eater delete over three hundred posts, mainly in the dark arts section, when they thought that the USSS was after them, if they have nothing to hide?
- Please explain why a long time Moderator with years of dedicated service was Banned. IE Kleindoofy.
- Why were good members like B A ware and Al Roberts banned for offering an opinion (recently)As well as MANY more?
- Why are any questions by members about why any member is banned, quickly locked?
- Why have SO many moderators left, retired or stepped down? Especially after the take over by Rover.
- Why not explain to the members about the other forums on eater like the dark arts and the different levels of Moderators?
- Why did four or five moderators step down on the same day? ALL had real life issues at the SAME time,? You expect anyone to believe that?
- Why is the existence of a private or "cleared " area kept from the members?
- Why did the ip of the person responsible for posting photo chopped pictures of an ex member onto a KP magazine, show up as leading back to shivers house?
- Why did shiver post a denial on scambaits.com, with a promise that it would be simultaneously posted on eater, go back on his word and never post it on eater? (screen shots available if you do not believe this)
He really should have had a question # 16 - Why do birds suddenly appear when you are near?
As he was not a member of the website in question when he was asking those questions, it was really none of his business, but he asked them nevertheless. He wanted the answer "because 419eater is run by a bunch of crooks". He did not get it.
Big Al doesn't like the answers
After these questions were answered by members of his old forum, Big Al dismissed them as unsatisfactory, and had this to say:
The dot net fiasco
Big Al set up a web forum imitating 419eater - if he could not get to heaven, by gaw he was going to be all the members at a reasonable facsimile. It was named www.419eater.net - the original was "dot com", the imitation being referred to as "dot net".
Dot Net was to be the place where none of the faggotry that took place at dot com would happen. Anybody would be able to post as he pleased, and posts would not be deleted or moderated. It was easy to see what it would turn into - a festering pile of fail.
A considerable number of members there had the same style of posting, and they were all incensed at the "evil eater mods". They all sported usernames that were ripoffs of moderators and administrators at eater dot com, and they posted names, addresses, phone numbers, and merciless abuse. Eventually the original forum was forced to sit up and take notice.
There was a problem - the website belonged to "Krokodile Dundee" of Australia. The names and addresses were fake. Email addresses listed were anonymous. It was hosted in the USA. "Dot com" was based in the UK. The legal obstacles were formidable. Dot net was an unimpregnable fortress, and within its safety Big Al sat and hurled abuse at the evil mods who had banned him years ago.
The evil mods swallowed their pride and begged Big Al to take down this hate site. Victims of fraud were googling the persons offering help at eater dot com (and an allied site, scamwarners). Dot net assured these people that eater dot com and scamwarners were there to squeeze them out of whatever money they had left. Dot net said that eater dot com was the driving force behind the scam emails. Big Al trumpeted in dot net that dot com was the training facility for scammers and fraudsters.
Of course, Big Al was not the owner of dot net. Or so he said.
There was one tiny lead - one unfortunate individual, a nurse by profession, had let Big Al use his credit card to pay for registration of the domain. Right now his bank account is xxxx as it is being leeched by the lawyers he has to pay to sort out the legal mess he has landed himself in.
Big Al is not the owner. He has disclaimed all responsibility. He is happy, and that nasty nurse can go roast in the hell he has landed himself in.
The story is there, in all its gory details on the 419eater forum, but you have to be a member in order to read it.
Death of dot net
419eater.net was taken down due to the efforts of the 419eater.com team, and they celebrated this by sporting avatars that said "404" and "nothing found". For a few days, entering the address 419eater.net in a browser resulted in a 404 not found error. Then it was replaced with a page saying that the site was temporarily down pending investigation by the ISP. Then it came up again, but the content was gone. Big Al worked tirelessly, posting inoffensive jokes and general banter and such drivel in order to give visitors the impression of a busy forum.
The upshot to all this is that, due to legal action and some behind-the-scenes, backroom compromise, dot net no longer exists. Anyone who attempts to go to 419eater.net is redirected to 419eater.com. This is clearly a win for team eater, and probably confusing to legions of Big Al disciples and supporters (of whom there are many). Big Al has never addressed this situation. When earlier attempts at having dot net shut down failed, Big Al and the other members of dot net changed their avatars to read "404 No More" to show their triumphant return to the web and their continued success in sticking it to the man. However, when dot net slid silently into oblivion, there was only silence from Big Al. Clearly, he had little to crow about anymore.
Big Al joins JUOT
Somebody joined Joe's Ultimate Off Topic discussion forum with username "Bigal" and proceeded to spray random threads with passages from the original Big Al's posts taken at random from around the net. The inhabitants of that corner of the innertubes were at first puzzled, and then enraged.
— admin at juot | ||
— member at juot | ||
Big Al did not take these allegations lying down. These people were besmirching his reputation, and they had to be put right, fast. He joined up there the next day as "Big AL" and posted his rebuttal.
— Big AL | ||
An amusing shitfest followed as each of the big al's accused the other of being the imposter. Looking at their posts, it was hard to say which was which. The fake bigal had an easy job of it as he just copy-pasted old posts of the real big al's that was somewhat vaguely relevant to the present discussion. The real big al was exasperated, and it was funny to see him in a rage at his own words in settings which made them sound like gibberish.
—Big AL | ||
The regulars at JUOT rose to the occasion, registered multiple "AL" usernames and added to the lulz:
- Real Big Al : What the hell is going on here?
- Bigger Al : You bastards will REAP and LEARN!!!
- Nig Al : Word up homies- The REAL Nig AL is in da house! All these other IMPOSTERS are lame white dudes with small white dicks. Especially "Real Big Al." I'm the REAL thing ladies, I'm here to cover your vanilla canyons in my chocolate sauce. My superior Nigerian manhood has made the other Al's jealous because I've sexed up all their wives.
- Big Al Bundy : The truth is I haven't been called "Big Al" since High School when I scored 4 touch-downs in a single game! But, irregardless, I AM the REAL Big AL!
- Big Al Gore : This is bullshit! I invented the Internet, I invented everything. None of you would even have a forum to complain about if it wasn't for me therefore I AM THE REAL BIG AL!!!
- Big Al Sharpton : Lord O' Lord take pity upon these White Devils for they know not what they speak. I am the one and true Big Al - ask anyone in Harlem who is "Big Al?" and they will all point to me - that is all the proof you need.
- Big Al Franken :
- Big Al Queda : Al Franken sounds like a Jew. Death to the Great Satan! We are the true Big Al - we strike fear into you all. We Jihad your buildings, we jihad your planes. All your bases are belong to us!
- Big AL : My My, what a popular guy I am right now. All these people want to be me, are they really jealous of me? I did not know I had so many fans who would like to be me.
This quickly led to a discussion about identifying the "Real Big Al". It was suggested that the real big al will have a titanium hip, as he has posted on several forums about going in for that operation. He was shocked at the suggestion that it was a cover, a euphemism for getting treated by electric shocks to the head in the looney bin.
—Big Al | ||
Big Al survives the Brisbane flood
After the flood of January 2011 Big Al posted this to calm the fears everyone, who was doubtless worried sick of his safety:
— Big AL | ||
Nobody at JUOT was impressed with this piece of news. One response was "Die, Faggot".
—Admin at juot | ||
—Big AL | ||
This was greeted with disbelief, and he was asked to provide proof.
—user at juot | ||
Big Al threw down the gauntlet:
—Big AL | ||
Another user who knew Big Al before he joined up at JUOT spoke up at this point and said he had contacted Big Al about the floods.
—user at juot | ||
—Big AL | ||
Brown Monkeys
Big Al has attracted his retinue of followers who like to poke him with a sharp stick. His reaction to this is twofold:
- Threaten to get them banned from eater
- Call them brown monkeys
This old man holds membership in the website eater forum as the ultimate that anyone can aspire to, and the threat of being banned from that utopian forum will be enough to make anyone fall into line. Or so he thinks.
He is a racist prick, and anybody with skin colour different than his own is a monkey.
Medical History
He is known to have an artificial hip.
I got an infection on my leg, and it spread to my hip!! not a good thing to happen, so they say! i have had that many tests i feel like a pincushion! I am getting better now that the antibiotics are working and the swelling is going down, so should be ok ! It is something i have to watch out for, thanks again, talk later "Al"
He gets psychiatric treatment:
Hi,I am currently on break from posting for a while and will return soon. I have been admitted to the Brisbane psychiatric hospital and when I get out I will continue exposing the lies that the cretins have been spreading, and closing down many fake eater web sites. Until then, please check back occasionally to see how my medication is working. "AL"
Trolling Big Al
He does not like to be called Bi Gal.
Big Al has an acute case of megalomania and is always ready to defend his good name. Joining one of the sites where he has not been banned yet and addressing him as Bi Gal immediately provokes a reaction. On a site where he sucks up to the admin (eg. thescambaiter.com) it can result in an immediate ban, followed by a circle-jerk by Big Al, the admin, and assorted hangers on - as in here.
He moans about his picture being stolen from his PC and distributed over the internet without his permission. Yet he uses someone else's face as his avatar on certain sites, and it is fun to ask him whether he has permission to use it as his avatar. The resulting discussion can be funny, but goes nowhere.
He is also sensitive about his age, and saying that he is 65 years old when he really is only 64 years young will bring on his wrath.
—Big Al | ||
See Also
External Links
- 419eater.com - bigal was banned from here
- scambaits.net - bigal was banned from here next
- thescambaiter - bigal has not been banned from here yet
- theRanter - bigal is a few users at this forum, but does not post there now
- anothermessageboard.com - bigal (and "spunkychick") frequents amb, many screenshots taken from there
- Joe's Ultimate Off Topic - Big Al joined here to clear his name when somebody else copypasted his old posts to impersonate him
- antifraudinternational - Big Al is an admin here as "De Master Yoda"
- 419legal - Big Al is an admin here by the name "scammerslammer". He made a few posts here as "Berrymike" too.
- Article in arstechnica forums where Big Al puts in a show as "berrymike".
- 419 explained by Snopes.
- George Bush & The Village People Severely tl;dr but the greatest scambait of all time.
- Some 419 scamspam found in an EDiot's inbox recently (mid-December 2010)
- This blog, cashbaiting-darkarts-volksanctum.blogspot.com
has bigal's ramblings all in one placebaleeted - by Big Al baaawwing to blogger, probably. - This blog, thebigalchronicles.blogspot.com shall have bigal's idiotic ramblings all in one place.
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Big Al is part of a series on Visit the Trolls Portal for complete coverage. |