The idea: Scambaiting is an online competitive sport in which people answer those e-mails from Nigeria promising millions of dollars in return for a large fee, then try to waste the scammers’ time and persuade them to complete embarrassing tasks.

The parrot sketch: The king of scambaiters is Shiver Metimbers, aka Mike Berry from Manchester, who has orchestrated dozens of elaborate hoaxes against the scammers. In his latest he persuaded a would-be scammer to recreate Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch on video in a Lagos food store. The clip has been on YouTube for weeks.

The original: Berry was inspired by “Bill Smith”, who led a scammer on an epic 13,000-word journey, playing multiple roles and pretending to visit Nigeria. The first scambait trophies were funny e-mails and pictures of scammers holding stupid signs. Posing as a representative of “Derek Trotter Fine Arts”, Berry has secured bizarre carvings from Nigeria, from a bust of himself to a larger-than-lifesize Commodore 64 computer.

Tattoos: When Berry found a scammer claiming to be a priest raising money for the Pakistan earthquake, he decided to raise the bar and persuaded the man to get a large tattoo saying “Baited by Shiver”.

The dilemma: Scambaiting sites are queasy experiences, as sincere-looking Nigerians are held up to juvenile ridicule, but it’s easy to forget the misery the scammers can cause. In 2006, psychotherapist John Worley ended up in prison after passing forged cheques from scammers (he’d already lost $40,000 of his own money). Berry argues that the scammers are vicious criminals, and that every minute they’re re-enacting Python sketches, they’re not trying to rip someone else off.

Shiver Metimbers writes about his heroes: "By far far and away the biggest influence on me, and the guy who gave me the impetus to get into scambaiting seriously is a guy who I only know as "Bill Smith" (not his real name). When I was first starting out with scammer baiting, years ago, one of the first scambaiting correspondences I read was here http://www.scamorama.com/smith-okoro.html and at the time it totally blew me away, with all the twists and turns he introduced, an how he portrayed himself to the scammer. There have been better, more extravagant scambaits by other people since then of course, but if there's one scambaiting correspondence that I look on most fondly then that is the one. I guess if you wanted to place the hero badge on one person, then Bill would probably be the guy.

"I also admire all the "straight baiters" out here. These guys don't usually publish their work, and they don't have the scammers doing anything outrageous; they just keep plodding away, playing the bait as straight as possible, keeping the scammers tied up as long as possible. No one gets to see their great work, but it is absolutely invaluable, and I for one really appreciate the brilliant work they do."

"There are many higher profile scambaiters out there whose work I admire. Far to many to mention, but some more recent notable ones would probably be Stargate, for his outrageous baiting of a scammer called Richard. He persuaded him to get tattoed, then make a short video "audition" for a part in the Stargate TV series. Then there are the guys who orchestrated the extraordinary and bizarre T.W.A.T Ceremony."

Extras:

Nigerian police raid a cybercafe looking for scammers.

Shiver Metimbers essay on the ethics of scambaiting.

(Thanks to Paul Clark for suggesting this Microtrend)

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