Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #318046 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Scottish Business Post
A strong contender for the funniest book this Christmas.

Synopsis
With warm hearts I offer my friendship, and my greetings, and I hope this letter meets you in good time. It will be surprising to you to receive this proposal from me since you do not know me personally. However, I am sincerely seeking your confidence in this transaction, which I propose with my free mind and as a person of integrity. My name is Jacob Kamala the son of Mr. A.Y. Kamala, a farmer from Zimbabwe, murdered in the land dispute in my country. As led by my instinct, I decided to contact you through email...The above, or something similar, is familiar to all of us now: letters asking us for money for orphans, for victims of hurricanes, letters telling us we've won the Spanish lottery, letters telling us we have been contacted because we are known to be of good integrity and could be trusted to bank $30 million in our saving's account, for a generous fee of 10 per cent of the sum. To most of us, the letters are an irritant. To Michael Berry, they are a call to arms.

For the last five years, he has replied to the scammers emails, expressing an interest in their propositions and then spending days, weeks, even months leading them down the garden path with his hilarious requests and misunderstandings. He's had them selling paintings to Del Trotter Antiques, writing out by hand an entire "Harry Potter" novel, booking expensive hotels for his no-show personas, posing with fish on their hands to prove their sincerity (!), believing he's been kidnapped by the CIA, or been killed by an out of control car just outside the office at which he was going to make a payment to them, and cruelest of all falling in love with him as he pretends to be Gillian Anderson. His revenges are funny, often savage and, as he reminds us, wholly justified - these people are heartless thieves. And not only does he entertain us with his leg-pulling, Michael tells us how to bait the scammers ourselves - fun we can all have at home!

Customer Reviews

It serves them right!
When I got this book I already had some experience of the authors escapades with the scammers, and still I laughed from page to page!
From Mr Max N Paddy to Klench Mychiques, the characters and scenarios that Shiver Metimbers - the authors id in the scambaiting world - comes up with, never fails to raise a laugh and a giggle.
At times it is easy to forget that these scammers are ripping people off every day to the tune of thousands, but Michael Berry regularly brings us back to reality throughout the book and reminds us not to feel sorry for the people that he is dealing with....even when he persuades them to travel over continents to "meet" him, or get a tattoo done with the words "baited by shiver".
There really needs to be a follow-up book to this complete with MORE pictures!

Hilarious with a serious twist.
Greetings..

I have been a fan of Shiver Metimbers for some time and so I was very excited to see his work being published. He is a mentor to so many who aspire to achieve similar results.

This book is a must read for anyone who shares a hatred of these disgusting criminals, OR, for those who really have no idea that this sort of crime is so rife. The book makes you want to be a part of the crusade. Read it, laugh at the ridiculous emails that he sends to the scammers, laugh at the replies as they hopelessly try to scam money out of their victim.......

and after all that, remember that there are people out there who get taken for a very bad ride by these guys and join in the fight!

Read it, Read it, Read it!

Very funny whilst at the same time educational
I bought this book from my local bookstore only yesterday and although I had not intended to buy from Amazon my store had no other copies of this book [I wanted to buy another copy to send to my brother] I decided to order a second copy here. I couldn't put it down. It is a page turner for sure.

A couple of years ago my sister fell victim to a similar scam featured in this book to the tune of just over £1100. It is fantastic to see these scamster get a taste of their own medicine and in such a brilliantly funny and creative way. The correspondences featured are not only at times pants wettingly funny but educational too as well as being an eye opener as to just how devious and low down these criminals can be. Anyone who reads this book would definitely be armed with enough information to recognise these 419 scams in future.

My only complaint would be that the text is a little on the small side and the photographs not as clear as they could be.

Overall the funniest read I have had for a long long time and I look forward to more from this author but please let us have a large hardback version with more of these great stories and colour photographs!!