Scambaiting is the latest trend on YouTube where YouTubers expose scammers and their operations in front of their audiences.
This popular trend is not sparked by a financial gain, but for exposing the people out there who are preying upon those that are less competent in protecting their livelihood.
It goes without saying that the best way to protect yourself from harm’s way on the Internet is by intentionally avoiding these scams. However, not everyone understands how to do it, nor how to spot a scammer, so this new trend is out there to help people understand these issues.
There are few prominent YouTubers out there that have their content revolve around this topic. But scambaiting has become so popular on the platform that many choose to follow in the steps of the “founding fathers” of this trend.
In this article, we’re going to hopefully try and clarify why this trend is so popular amongst YouTubers.
Scambaiting in 2024
We should first mention that it’s commendable the lengths hackers go to scam you for a few hundred dollars. While we shouldn’t underestimate how a few hundred bucks could help a person in hard times, you would expect larger sums to be involved in these operations.
Most of these scams are for petty cash that few would take issue after a few weeks. But that’s not the case every time one of these “agents” calls upon a helpless soul in a bit to “solve” their issue.
These scams come in many forms. Some are laughable and others are commendable like we said. Most appear in the form of a tech support agent who is there to solve your software issue.
Other callers introduce themselves as the government, as IRS agents to be precise. They tell you that you owe money due to unpaid taxes and spread fear-mongering in a bid to scam a few hundred dollars.
Other times, these “agents” introduce themselves as airline employees who offer you discounts or great deals on flights and accommodations.
However, there is one major flaw in all of this. Namely, for a scammer to scam you for your money, you would need to effectively give them the money.
However, the deal here is that once the money has been transferred, they will hang up on you and you’ll never hear from them again. But this is where the scammer has it most difficult.
Namely, if you simply transfer the amount of money to their bank account, they can be tracked and arrested. So that’s why these callers will ask for your money in the form of Amazon gift cards, Steam cards, Google Pay, etc.
That’s what popular YouTuber Kidboga says in an interview regarding his channel content. Kidboga is one of the pioneers of the scambaiting YouTube trend and is solely responsible for making scammers’ lives harder every time they call him for a chance to scam him.
It takes a lot of knowledge on how to scam a scammer, and there are various ways to obtain that knowledge, says Kidboga. One way is to look for books or guides on how these people think whenever they’re on the internet scamming people. But the best way to protect yourself is to install the software.
This software can ruin a scammer’s day since you have complete control over your machine, even if the scammer thinks that you don’t. This is a very popular thing they do. They ask you to install Team Viewer, make you give them permission, and then they’ll scam you for your money.
By heading over to remotekeyloggers.net, you’ll find software that will prevent all of this and give you full control over your machine.
So, the best way to spot a person with malicious intent is if he asks for payments using those methods. But that’s not all. There have been some bold people out there which hopefully you’ve heard about some of these operations.
Have you ever heard about the Nigerian Prince one? The one where alleged Nigerian Prince emails you telling you that he is in trouble bla bla bla send me a viable bank account and I’ll transfer you 10% of my millions-of-dollars fortune.
This is probably the boldest one that exists. People fall for this like birds. I mean, who doesn’t want millions of dollars in return for a bank account where he can keep the money and transfer them?
But this scam has also been outdated and people have gotten the hang of it.
The brilliant thing with scambaiting, however, is that these can sometimes take weeks due to the tireless efforts of the YouTuber. Kidboga is one of the most popular YouTubers exposing these people to the world, but none match the tireless efforts of scambaiting himself, “The Failure”.
This operation is codenamed Anus Laptops, conveniently enough. In this op, “The Failure” seems to work in a computer store in New York and uses alias “Warren Turnbuckle”.
One day, Warren gets a check from “Martin Cole – the scammer in this operation” for some laptop he supposedly wants to buy. Warren then tells Martin that he cannot ship the laptop until Martin pays for the shipping fees.
So, Martin gets this brilliant idea to send another check for $4,500 instead of $4,000. Warren tells him that he has overpaid for around $500, and gets a message in return saying to refund the $500 back to Martin.
This all happens for a laptop and $500 in a space of a few weeks. However, Warren has a brilliant idea. He pitches to Martin an idea where he will sell him the laptops as Martin sends an overseas courier to pick them up. He even, conveniently, promises to Martin that the shipping fees will be covered by his company once the check clears.
Martin takes the bait and an estimate UPS shipping fee of around $3,200 arrive in Manchester, UK, for Martin to pick up. But instead of laptops, what Martin found inside were old hard drives and two broken laptops with the words “ANUS LAPTOPS” scratched on their screens.
The UPS was also working with Warren to help expose the scammer, and they never gave Martin his shipment until he paid in cash.
