419eater.com is a website where people play tricks on internet scammers, especially those involved in "advance-fee fraud." This type of scam is often called "419 fraud," a name that comes from a section of Nigeria's criminal code. The website's founder, Michael Berry, goes by the name "Shiver Metimbers." The main idea is to waste scammers' time, so they can't trick real people who might actually lose money.
On the site, you can see funny exchanges between the "baiters" (people playing tricks) and the scammers. Sometimes, baiters even get scammers to send them funny photos of themselves, believing they're about to get paid. The website used to have "cash baiting," where they tricked scammers into sending them money, which often went to charity, but that's not allowed anymore. There's also a big online community where baiters can talk to each other and new people can get help from experienced mentors. In the past, the community helped identify fake banks and close down accounts used by scammers.
The founder, Michael Berry, even wrote a book about some of the scambaits. One famous story involved a scammer traveling thousands of miles to a dangerous area, thinking they would pick up a huge sum of money that didn't exist. The people who do this believe that any dangerous situation a scammer gets into is their own choice and is fair payback. They feel that every minute a scammer spends dealing with a baiter is a minute they aren't trying to trick someone's parents or grandparents. Baiters have even convinced scammers to travel to remote places in England to meet for fake deals, with some scammers being questioned by the police.
