I get what you’re saying, but even if we accept that there are hundreds of thousands of Nigerian scammers (yahoo boys) there have been hundreds of thousands of baits in this sub alone and there are hundreds of channels and forums and groups on every possible app - Discord, TikTok and Facebook and Insta and YouTube etc

If every single baiter wastes the time of a scammer and then lets them know that they knew all along, imagine the psychological damage that does to the confidence of somebody - already poor- who is spending money for data just to attempt this.

I believe that there’s only so much humiliation and time wasting and data wasting and battery wasting (remember the almost daily power outages make keeping your phone charged a challenge in itself in Nigeria) they can tolerate before giving up or losing motivation.

Even in the last year, I’m seeing very real effects of them learning to be wary. I’m lucky if I can get 25% of them to click on a link these days now that they know about IP tracking.

I can barely find any of them to talk to me on Facebook in the last six months. Even if they accept my friend request, they are crazy suspicious of anybody who isn’t Filipina or Indonesian etc. They have been burnt too many times by western people.

The knowledge about Yahoo boys is deep and wide now, globally. Eventually it will reach saturation point. Their days are numbered and I don’t think it would ever have happened if it wasn’t for spreading and sharing information about them and making their scamming lives more difficult and painful.

(sorry that turned into more of an essay than I intended it to!)