Scam-baiting isn't a particularly new online sport. There are plenty of sites devoted to it; the site whatis?com defines it as "the practice of eliciting attention from the perpetrator of a scam by feigning interest in whatever bogus deal is offered."

But the people who do it have interesting tales to tell. Mike, who resides in Europe - he didn't want to be more specific about either his name or location as he has made plenty of enemies in style over the last 12 months - has been toying with scammers and annoying them ever since he got interested.

Mike has his own website where he has detailed all his efforts to waste the time of the scam artists who bombard people's inboxes with unbelievable offers every hour.

A computer engineer by trade, Mike said he had been receiving the '419' emails on a fairly regular basis for about two years. "I didn't understand all that much about them at the time, but I was certain they were dodgy," he said.

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