The way to deal with Scammers and Spammers

I have had a lot of requests for a post I made to the CRIME Hackers board back several years ago documenting more ingenious ways to deal with spammers and scammers.  The original post is still available here.  The relevant parts read:

I usually spoof the email address of another known spammer or else put
the email address of a law enforcement agency that is tasked with
stopping the Nigerian Scams. These guys send out so many emails they
will never know who they sent to or not.

The spoofing idea is a new twist on an old school fax-spam retaliation
scenario I used to do in the late 1980's. The office I worked at used
to get hundreds of Spam faxes each week. We would note the return fax
numbers of the biggest perpetrators, then change our fax machine to
spoof a fax coming from them. I would then tape four pieces of paper
into a big loop with the words "Buy" "More" "fax" and "Paper" on them
and transmit the fax to another fax spammer. The machine would chug
away until it used up all the fax paper at the receiving machine. I am
sure this started more than one fax "war" between the spammers.

Although I abhor spam in any way shape or form, I usually rationalize
retaliation against known spammers in this manner, by using a
combination of creativity and social engineering for personal amusement.
Hey - we have to get something back from these people ;-).

cheers

D

NOTE: Use at your own risk!!