Q Is that a spelling mistake? Isn't this a FAQ?

A No, it's an AQ.

Q Right. OK then smartarse, what's an AQ?

A We thought you might ask that.

AQ stands for Anticipated Questions. If people asked us questions frequently, we'd have a FAQ, but we're young, and that hasn't happened yet. So we have an AQ.

Q Hmmmm. OK then, anticipate this: whowhatwhywhenwherehow?

A Ahem.

Who? What? Where? Not telling. Sorry, but some unknown (although probably very small) proportion of Advance Fee Fraud scammers are dangerous violent criminals. Here at The Chaos Project we are confident that a number of different aspects of our operation and the way we conduct it provide us with more than adequate protection from the prospect of our young friend Shaka spending up large on intercontinental flights, bus tickets, and snowshoes to eventually turn up at our door and hit us on the head with a coconut, but nonetheless we began this project with a firm resolution to be paranoid about dropping even the tiniest crumb of traceable information. And if you've made up your mind to be paranoid, there's no paranoia like total paranoia.

Why? Because it's fun. Or to put it more pompously (The Chaos Project's preferred style of expression, after all), it's gratifying. It's gratifying to have a modest amount of skill in a technical field like the Internet. It's even more gratifying to have an outlet to use that skill. It's very gratifying to have an opportunity to demonstrate that skill successfully, and it's extremely gratifying when we can put all this together to actually do a small amount of 'good', such as wasting a criminal's time, or alerting his potential victims. We could say that we do this because of a noble and irresistible urge to fight crime and make the information superhighway safe for the vulnerable and gullible. But we'd be lying: basically, we do it 'cos it's fun.

How? A good question. The Chaos Project employs a range of techniques, from the laughably simple to the deviously complex. We'd love to share those techniques with those who would put them to the same use, but there are a number of drawbacks and obstacles to this. We're still considering the implications. We'll get back to you.

Q These scams all seem to appeal to people's greed, and always involve some sort of illegality, like money-laundering. Don't the victims deserve what they get?

A Well, that's one point of view. But from our limited experience a number of the actual victims do not speak English very well - in fact they sometimes have even more trouble with the language than the scammers themselves. We don't think it's safe to assume that the victims always understand that they are volunteering to commit a crime. If someone uttered the phrase "over-invoiced contracts" to you in a foreign language, would you understand?

People who believe that a complete stranger would pluck their name at random from the Internet, volunteer to trust them with tens of millions of dollars of cash, and promise them a large percentage of it for doing practically nothing are arguably more than a little foolish. But that doesn't make them criminals. The scammers are committing fraud - that does. As far as we're concerned, there's no question: the fraudsters are legitimate targets.

Q Why don't you just report the scammers to the police? Aren't they the appropriate people to handle this sort of thing?

A Undoubtedly. But would they? Could they?

Reality check time: there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Nigerians and other criminals operating these scams. Reports suggest that Nigerians as a whole (citizens, banks, police, government) often regard the victims as criminals themselves, and stupid ones at that. There is little motivation to do anything about the problem inside Nigeria (and let's face it, they do have one or two other problems to worry about). Police in other countries have no jurisdiction, so it's fairly safe to assume that no-one is going to be particularly interested in prosecuting fraud within Nigeria, or similar African countries.

When the crime crosses borders the police of other nations have a chance to get involved, but anecdotal evidence suggests that this is rare. Again, we are generally talking about financial crime here, where the victims have to some extent brought it on themselves. The authorities in some countries place a fiscal limit on getting involved - you have to have lost quite a lot of money before they will bother investigating. Having said that, prosecutions do occasionally happen - there are reports of some spectacular 'sting' operations against fraudsters who were foolish enough to arrange meetings with their victims inside the USA.

One of the dangers of this type of crime arises when the victim is convinced to travel to another country to meet the scammers. Counting on the victim being reluctant to approach foreign authorities if he realises that he is being cheated, the fraudsters may arrange to meet him or her in Nigeria, a neighbouring country, or even a European city. Although it may be rare, there are documented reports of these meetings resulting in victims being threatened, intimidated, beaten, kidnapped, ransomed, and murdered.

When we do happen across a victim for whom there is even a remote chance of this fate, that is time for the fun to end. Efforts must be concentrated on alerting the victim to the facts of life in order to ensure their safety. For an example, see Chaos Project #2. As will be seen there, this is not always the easiest of tasks.

Q Can you send me some information on a scammer to play with? Can you teach me how to do this? Can you help me with a scammer I'm corresponding with?

A The Chaos Project would love to help you with your own efforts, but time is limited. The Chaos Project has a real life, too, and a real job. If you're planning to take up this hobby as well, then good for you. Please don't be offended if we don't respond to your email. We don't get a huge amount, but even so, 'handling' a Chaos Project target can take a fair amount of time and concentration. Then there's the website to maintain, future developments to plan, ...

Q Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a group effort?

A Yes. But a group effort would require a considerable amount of planning and coordination. The Chaos Project's preference would be for a collaboration that didn't require a time-consuming or long-term commitment. We have some ideas about how this might work, and in the near future we plan to assemble those ideas into some sort of coherent form, and publish them for open debate.

Q Hey! Is that the bottom of the page just down there? How come there aren't more questions?

A Well, there is a limit to what we can anticipate. If you've got any more questions, just let us know.

Q Aha! But then, they wouldn't be anticipated questions, would they? Huh? Huh?

A We knew you'd ask that.