Confronting an Internet Scammer

some scammers are worse than others but this gang must be one of the worst hello hi a very good day to you this is roger calling you from your computer company how are you doing today roger whose real name is works with around nine others in the south of kolkata in india that's great well i hope you remember you paid money for your computer protection and for the computer services this script buys data of people who have been scammed previously they'll then call them up offering a refund but it's just their way of getting it more money from these victims i deliberately let the likes of shabazz onto my computer so that i can find out how they operate and warn others about their scams and i found out so much that i was able to give their details to an american journalist who traveled india to confront shabazz face to face and as previously covered these guys are refund scammers they will offer you a refund for an item you didn't buy and suddenly they'll put what looks like too much money in your account so you just have a checking account in your bank right and you don't have a savings account or you have a savings account in any other bank he asks about savings accounts because he can then transfer their own savings to their current account okay so i'm going to go ahead and refund you the money into your check-in account all right he'll have to be content with a page edit can you just grab a pen and a paper and write down the balance what you are having it in your check-in account right now you're looking at shma's pc as he's calling a woman named patricia he gets her to note carefully what her balance is write it down in a piece of a paper 17058 058.65 he'll be editing this page shortly okay so i'm going to go ahead and i'm going to credit the money into your checking account okay as usual with these scams he makes a temporary edit to the page to make it look as if he's put money in if she knew to refresh the page then the total would return to the way it should have looked oh just hold on for a minute just hold on for a minute ma'am it looks like i have made a mistake out here just give me a minute but he didn't make a mistake this was just me pressing the f5 key to refresh the browser and reproduce the original total so he has to do all of his edits again looks like mom i have made a mistake out here what is the balance you can see right now in your checking account ma'am all right ma'am uh yes ma'am actually i was going to i was giving you the numbers the confirmation number for the refund and at that point of time i was processing you the refund but by mistake imam i credited fifteen thousand dollars in your checking account you can see right there ma'am there was seventeen and i hit f5 once again two thousand dollars right don't touch your computer hold on for a minute pearl shabazz having to redo all of his edits one more time i give you the numbers i gave you the confirmation number have you written it down can you just read me out those numbers asking for the confirmation numbers is just a distraction technique he doesn't want her to view what's happening on her screen no no no no no the number what i gave you the confirmation number not your balance i'm not talking about your balance i'm talking about the confirmation number you know you like yeah pick up not pick up ma'am sending ups yeah so by mistake lee i credited fifteen thousand dollars in your account so what you need to do is ma'am on that fifteen thousand dollars you can keep your two hundred dollars what you paid for your computer protection and send the rest of the differences back which is fourteen thousand eight hundred but what sets this group apart is just how much they will bully their victims into sending money that's right ma'am so i'm gonna help you out how you i'm gonna help you out how you need to send this money do you have your checkbook with you and as patricia goes to get her checkbook he turns on her webcam okay first you need to write a check for fourteen thousand eight hundred go ahead grab your checkbook and write a check for fourteen thousand eight hundred the figure of 15 000 wasn't chosen at random he knows she's got this in her account and shouldn't have any problem with drawing that amount and will still leave little for herself you just need to go to the teller give the check to the teller and take the cash money and come out if they will ask you why you want this much of cash just tell them i need to pay this money to the contractor or give them some personal uh excuse for it it's always important that they coach their victims in case there's some question from the bank nothing about the refund nothing about the computer or nothing about me okay and if they and if they will and if they will not give you 14 800 ask them how much cash they can give you if they will tell you they can give you ten thousand take ten thousand whatever cash they will give you take it take it and come back home take that cash and come back home okay and make sure make sure if they will ask you the reason for taking out this much of cash what you're going to tell them oh oh oh oh that's well and good that's well and good that's well and good no problem with it you just tell them that i need to purchase a car you can tell this thing also okay so you need to just go back to the bank once again get the cash and come back home i'm just waiting for your call just we did this time but because i didn't have patricia's phone number i did the next best thing and contacted her bank so while she was talking to the scammers i was having this conversation with the bank's manager yes sir this is dean feathers i'm the president of the bank and i've got a couple of my ladies here with me so yeah okay i explained what had happened to patricia and that i didn't have her phone number hang on just a second let me ask did she withdraw fourteen thousand online you're giving us okay okay okay we just shut it down so let's but anyway proceed we're gonna contact if with your permission we're gonna contract the tricia let her know that this is happening okay i do not have her phone number so it would be it would be great if it comes from you guys yes sir well jim thank you very much we appreciate that we will contact patricia right now okay and let her know that there is a scam in process and we're going to try to help her set it down she she will believe she's got twice as much money in their in her account because that's what they edited the screen to look like but you can assure her exactly how much is in her bank account and then hopefully she'll understand what's happening okay perfect perfect all right okay okay good luck with that okay thank you very very much we appreciate that thanks for taking care of others please call us thank you okay yes sir thank you thank you bye bye [Music] but patricia was one of the lucky ones for those who didn't follow instructions or requesting too much there was a lot worse in store hold on for a minute ma'am do you think that we are working out here for money do you think that we are going to take your money just hold on ma'am hello just hold on don't touch your computer hold on let me show you something okay now can you just look on your check-in account and can you just see what is the balance you can see in your checking account right now and because this person was suspicious about what they were doing they zeroed the balances of all of her accounts there in your account it is right now with me now you were thinking that i'm trying to take money from you then i just want to show you ma'am that if my intention was to take money from you i can simply go ahead and take out all the money from your account and i can hang up the call by keeping up all your money do you want me to do that i hope you don't want to lose all your money right and to ensure compliance have a look what he does to this victim he wasn't playing ball okay but before i do that all right i just want to know that what guarantee is there that you are going to send my money you told me all right here he uploads a file to the victim's computer okay all right so you are going to send my money if i'll send you your money right no problem just give me a minute i don't have any problem putting your money back but see just because i'm trusting you all right that's why i'm sending you your money so i don't want you to break my trust i hope you are not going to do that the file is called lock my pc and is being used by scammers these days as a replacement to windows sys key which was removed some time ago because your computer will be locked and you won't be able to get into your computer anymore for the whole lifetime your computer once you shut down your computer once you shut down your computer once you shut down your computer you won't be able to get into your computer and you won't be able to use your computer if you're a victim of this locking software see the description for a way to work around this problem first of all you are not going to get your money what was there in your account and you are not going to get your computer back as well because you won't because i have to you are trying to keep my money who the hell you are who is going to why you are keeping why you are trying to keep my money why you are trying to keep my money why you are trying to keep my money you are going to lose all your money so as you can tell shabazz is a pretty unsavory character he regularly threatens to wipe out his victims bank accounts and will often lock their pcs so they can't get them back again i think it's time we found out a bit more about shabazz i knew exactly who he was because he would regularly log into facebook using his personal id i also knew his approximate location from all of the various wireless networks around his pc the network gave me his location within about 50 meters or so but it was the files on his computer which distinctly gave me his exact address of course he could have been using stolen identity documents or was just pretending to be someone else so i was really pleased whenever he decided one day to uncover his webcam oops not so clever okay and is there any option out there down like uh install anyway but he wasn't the only scammer in the call center this for example is a guy called chamele operating exactly the same scam yes ma'am now look at your computer man like i s i am supposed to give you 2 000 right which you paid in our company correct but ma'am while i transfer the money from my company account to your icon ma'am is instead of putting ma'am like two thousand dollar by mistake lee i had put it over there ma'am like ten thousand dollar i do believe you can see at your account the available balance and during this time as i was trying to work out what to do with these scammers i was approached by an author and journalist named jutijit baracharjee yutijit is an award-winning author who specializes in things like cybercrime and very importantly he's a native of kolkata so when i was showing him live some of the scams actually happening he had the idea to go to kolkata and confront at least one of the scammers face to face so he traveled to the address of the scam call center and there he met shabazz's parents it seemed that the call center wasn't a building adjacent to where he lived so although shemaz wasn't around scammer and writer agreed to meet in a hotel in kolkata and when he did turn up at the hotel the cyber bully wouldn't come on his own he brought what he described as his cousin with him just to make sure things didn't get out of hand i had provided you tidget so much video and audio of his scams and action that when predictably shibaz denied being a scammer utijit was able to confront him with a mountain of evidence we were interested in why somebody like shabazz gets into these scams and aloe he's not a major player what motivates a young man like shabazz to do what he does of course we all know it's mostly about money here he is posing with a lot of rupees undoubtedly stolen from elderly people in the usa so in the description i've linked to the new york times magazine article which describes the confrontation between yutijit and shabazz so if you'd like to hear what shibaz has to say for himself i'd encourage you to read the article we initially agreed not to name shabazz in the article as long as he would stop the scamming however just weeks after the confrontation and shabazz swearing that he would give up scamming he fired up his pc and it was really clear that the scams were continuing here he's giving gift card numbers to his colleague imran who will process these and they will share in the prophets so there doesn't seem to be a fear of any repercussions of this sort of scam it's far too lucrative and there doesn't seem to be a fear of being caught in other areas of india like delhi there seems to be a clampdown on these sorts of scams but in kolkata there is very little evidence of any sort of action by the police so in this vacuum the likes of shabazz and hundreds of others like him will continue these scams until there's some positive action by the police in kolkata and many more people will be put in a position just like this sir because if you are not going to fill up the form if you are not going to complete the procedure your computer will be locked so what do you want to do sir if you would like to support me and my fight against scammers i have a patreon channel and the link is on screen and in the description i'm also on twitter at jim browning11 and again thank you for watching you

Channel: Jim Browning

Views: 1,784,906

Rating: 4.9796448 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: R1etkjUN6Ak

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/where_is_duane]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/magazine/scam-call-centers.html

The article he helped with for anyone interested^

[u/ZeldenGM]

This guy has earnt my first and only Patreon subscription. It'd be cool if everyone supported him even just a small amount. Really does gods work.

[u/tdn]

Jim should be on the £20 note. Any time a scammer calls me I use my Jim Browning soundboard.

[u/Diggedypomme]

I can't wait for GPT-3 scam baiting

[u/mleibowitz97]

Can anyone explain how Jim knows what was happening, while it was happening? Did he get access to the scammer's computer or something?

[u/coogie]

They all seem to use Teamviewer. Is there something about them that makes them the goto remote access software for scammers and can they do more to prevent it?

[u/YUNGbigMURPH]

it's crazy that in india they see nothing wrong with this, scamming people is a legitimate business over there.

[u/Stock-Driver226]

When he opens the camera and it shows a frail elderly woman... Makes you want to fly to india and turn that guy inside out.

[u/insanekid66]

I've seen a bunch of JB's videos, and every single one of them makes me so mad.