Man sends 30,000 texts to scammer as revenge

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Grand Master

Hum

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Only in the UK would an internet scam lead to a whole lot of Shakespeare. Edd Joseph got his revenge on a scammer by texting him the complete works of Shakespeare. That's over 30,000 texts!

Edd bought a Playstation 3 on Gumtree, which is basically the Craigslist of England. $130 later, the console never arrived and Edd started plotting.

He told the Daily Mail that at first he thought about sending texts pretending he knew where the seller lived, but he found that to be too cliche.

So, he copied all of Macbeth, pasted it in a single text and sent it. Since his phone carrier breaks messages down to 160 character installments, that's about 1,000 texts. The scammer started replying with abusive messages, so Edd decided to send everything Shakespeare ever wrote. He saw this as "sharing a little bit of culture."

Edd has unlimited texting, but there's no word on the scammer's phone plan. Let's hope it's the same one, cause if not, that phone company's going to want a pound of flesh. Ah, Shakespeare humor.
 

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Night Prowler

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Seeing as it's the UK and we don't pay to receive texts...

I would think after the first two messages he would have blocked the number, and the guy only thinks the other 29,998 text messages were received.  

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Grand Master

firey

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Who the hell pays to receive texts? 

In Canada it used to be like a 2c fee or something.  10c -> 2c <- I think.

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DJGM

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Edd bought a Playstation 3 on Gumtree, which is basically the Craigslist of England.

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Err, no it isn't. Far from it in fact. Gumtree is a far more reputable classified ads service than Craigslist will ever be.

It was originally started up as "a classified ads website for Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans arriving in the city",

and is now "the UK?s number one classifieds site". Gumtree was acuired by eBay in 2005.

 

BTW ... The UK is not only England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well.

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Grand Master

Hum

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BTW ... The UK is not only England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well.

90% of the UK stories I read, are actually in England ;)

 

 

Who the hell pays to receive texts?

I am charged 1/3 of a minute, receiving and sending. :/

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Grand Master

McKay

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I am charged 1/3 of a minute, receiving and sending. :/

 

Wow, I've never heard of paying to receive texts, except when Im abroad etc. You could ruin somebody with that surely? Would it be a crime to text the complete works of Shakespeare to somebody knowing full well they'll pay to receive it all?

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Grand Master

FloatingFatMan

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I am charged 1/3 of a minute, receiving and sending. :/

 

Sucks to be you. No one in the whole of the EU is dumb enough to let telco's get away with charging you to RECEIVE texts and calls.

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Grand Master

Hum

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Wow, I've never heard of paying to receive texts, except when Im abroad etc. You could ruin somebody with that surely? Would it be a crime to text the complete works of Shakespeare to somebody knowing full well they'll pay to receive it all?

I don't actually get charged for received texts, unless I'm foolish enuff to open them. ;)

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Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

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Wow, I've never heard of paying to receive texts, except when Im abroad etc. You could ruin somebody with that surely? Would it be a crime to text the complete works of Shakespeare to somebody knowing full well they'll pay to receive it all?

 

Verizon use to charge us 10-25 cents to RECIEVE a text and also to SEND one! Now days with data plans taking all that easy profit away, they offer unlimited texting like its nothing..

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Grand Master

j.r.l.

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Verizon use to charge us 10-25 cents to RECIEVE a text and also to SEND one! Now days with data plans taking all that easy profit away, they offer unlimited texting like its nothing..

I so agree with you. I used to pay for texts, they're free now. But I pay $10/month to Telus for 100Mb of data, while I have fiber at home with 80/50mbps, unlimited bandwidth.

 

How does this make sense?

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Grand Master

leesmithg

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Only in the UK would an internet scam lead to a whole lot of Shakespeare. Edd Joseph got his revenge on a scammer by texting him the complete works of Shakespeare. That's over 30,000 texts!

Edd bought a Playstation 3 on Gumtree, which is basically the Craigslist of England. $130 later, the console never arrived and Edd started plotting.

He told the Daily Mail that at first he thought about sending texts pretending he knew where the seller lived, but he found that to be too cliche.

So, he copied all of Macbeth, pasted it in a single text and sent it. Since his phone carrier breaks messages down to 160 character installments, that's about 1,000 texts. The scammer started replying with abusive messages, so Edd decided to send everything Shakespeare ever wrote. He saw this as "sharing a little bit of culture."

Edd has unlimited texting, but there's no word on the scammer's phone plan. Let's hope it's the same one, cause if not, that phone company's going to want a pound of flesh. Ah, Shakespeare humor.

 

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Gumtree isn't Craigs List, exchange and mart might be Craigs list.

 

I heard on lbc he sent 500,000.

 

He should had just done a charge back with bank.

 

It was me you need to thank for them changing their system with respect of activation/verification emails.

 

They never used to do it, I received so much crap to my unique email inboxes, I made a few complaints and they then changed their system.

 

I used to get prostitutes that advertise on gumtree giving out an email I own, as contact, to others people selling goods giving out my emails.

 

I would never buy from Gumtree unless I can physically go inspect and pick-up itesm.

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