Internet spamsters are often nigh-artistic with the fraudulent tales they weave—an exiled prince! Hidden treasure!—but scamming them can be even more creative. The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal tells one revenge story of a conman duped into carving wooden sculptures.
When anti-spam hero Mike Berry received an obviously false email promise of African millions, he resisted the urge to roll his eyes and delete—and instead strung the criminal into an unwitting career in art. Sort of.
To keep the spammer’s interest—and waste a ton of his time—Berry upped the lie ante, claiming to represent an art gallery that was looking for submissions (and offering a scholarship—a nice little reverse-con in itself). The spammer