Scam Fighters Answer Scam Questions From Twitter (ft. Trilogy Media) | Tech Support | WIRED

I'm Ashton Bingham my name is Art Kulik today we're here to answer your questions from Twitter this is scam support [Music] first up from All Things Tony how do scam call centers even get our numbers I literally never even give mine out this is called Data harvesting and there's no way to avoid it we have undercover agents in India working for call center and they literally told us so many times that bosses of call center they will send people to America so they can get jobs at any database phone companies and they will literally get all information and sell it back to India all our data is flying internationally you cannot do nothing about it any newsletter you sign up for any time you interact with a business put your email your cell phone your table reservation restaurant your data is harvested and it's sold all the time there's a lot more laws in place now about you having to physically opt in and have to consent to the data and now the cookie approval like on every website you have to accept it by you doing that you are giving consent for your activities online to be logged and used against you for advertising data lists that could be sold from company to company and there are day data Brokers that all have your information I'm like I've never even heard of any of these companies moving on strawberries why do scam texts always have a spelling or grammar mistake it's almost like they do it on purpose to give you a little clue it's very common to have grammatical expelling mistakes I have heard a theory and I don't think it's too far-fetched that it is intentional because they're trying to grasp a particular person that would fall for this and they don't want to waste their time talking to someone that would involve for this I don't know if it's true I honestly I think it's because they're all International you know which is second third language and they're just trying to find a way to get your money and they're making a lot of mistakes next up from Cody Sky how do scam callers get paid hourly or commission both both they have varying sizes of operations from just a few people in an apartment to literally five thousand people on a staff in a major business complex there is a opener person who is opening the phone hi my name is John Wilson and I'm here these and these there is a closer so every single position get paid different money but the more you scam you're gonna get commission you're gonna get bonus for that so if you scammed an extra five thousand dollars five thousand you'll get an extra five thousand rupees as a commission which honestly is kind of sickening because it all goes to the bosses it's like what 80 rupees per dollar the boss is pulling millions millions and millions of dollars on a sometimes weekly basis next up the Gregory Cole why do con artists use WhatsApp coupled different reasons first of all it's hard to track and it works internationally without any barrier a lot of these scammers are not in the states and that's not to say there aren't scammers in the States because there are it's really easy they can just claim a number they can do whatever they got to do to text you there's really no barrier to entry it doesn't cost them any money it's free it's secure in the sense that they know that they're never going to be tracked or found out it's a similar strategy to the robocall so they'll put out billions of Fish Hooks and even if a couple people grab them they're basically waiting for you to reply and say wrong number and once you do they know it's an active number they know they're talking to a person and then they can start up a conversation sometimes it might turn into a romance scam sometimes they'll be like Oh wrong number sorry I'm horny I forgot and here's a picture of me naked send me money to my cash app next up from borrowed horses are there any good ways to protect your parents from phone scams communication and awareness is number one we see it over and over and over again these scammers are not just technically Savvy they're professional manipulators they will put pressure they will find a weakness especially in an older person that might be vulnerable and they will push on that as hard as they possibly can make sure you're grandparents and your parents are aware of the tricks a common scam that's now taking a Resurgence is an IRS or a social security scam my God which targets the scams targets elderly people hardcore because that one plays on the fear they say that you're going to get arrested because your social security number was associated with some crimes and we followed the car Toyota Corolla 22 pounds of cocaine uh blood and drugs drugs and and your ID so what do you want to do have them run things by you or at least run it by somebody before they give any information to anybody but we also need to communicate that if you were scammed you need to talk about it like you need to tell people what happened you need to tell people what the tactics were that convinced you and not feel shameful or or feel judged we really want that those victims will step up and show the world hey this is what happened to me this is my story please learn from this story and that's how you protect your neighbors and uh your loved ones next up it's not Kane somebody I don't know accidentally privately venmode me to 60 payments for burritos and breakfast Fist and is asking for a refund is this a scam yes absolutely yes common scam especially through like cash app and venmo money was sent to you from a stolen credit card they request the refund or the reimbursement and they replace it with their own card and then you send them the money may not necessarily hurt you because it comes in and goes out but it's their way of basically laundering income through somebody's stolen credit card back to themselves next up from RC Lewin how do I tell my uncle that the beautiful chick he's talking to online is a man trying to scam a huge amount of money without him getting offended need suggestions ASAP I think he can invest half a million dollars is that what that means oh my God good on you for trying to find a way to communicate it because that's really the hardest part especially when they're emotionally scammed over a long period of time the best thing I can suggest is not pushing on him any kind of judgment or any kind of how could you believe this or don't don't make him feel bad for it just show him information show him videos about this stuff about romance scam specifically tell him to try to talk to the person in a video chat and I bet you this girl will have a reason why she can't when they ask for money when they ask for gift card something we will send them a link when they click the link we can get the location that's why one person is saying like hey I'm from Florida and uh when he clicked the link guess what we got their IP and we know that he's they're in you know Nigeria next up is Alex bobskers I like that name how do do you know it's an apartment listing on Craigslist is a scam asking for myself you got to look for red flags if it's too good to be true given the housing market price size all that stuff six thousand square feet and you have to pay 400 that's you know New York Ocean View performance number two is um we're traveling we cannot give you keys if the rep you're talking to is avoiding any kind of direct communication or interaction with you another red flag they're always going to try to pressure you to act fast you got to sign the lease now there's someone else coming in with an offer like so they want you to do it quickly but speak to somebody on the phone and ask questions next up from agenda 547 how do people fall for scam sites so easily like rule number one of the internet don't click sketchy links how do you forget anybody can be scammed and if you don't believe me go to Jim Browning's Channel he is considered the Godfather of scambaiting he's a legend he was scammed out of his own channel his whole channel was deleted and he has a video explaining how it happened it's mind-blowing anybody can be scammed so don't think for one minute that you're above it because you think you're smarter it's does doesn't work that way next up 4-4 Jax four four what's the most ridiculous scam you encountered we have two different stories and it's just like both of them are glorious you know how how many scammers on Craigslist right so me and Ashley we used to live together we need to be Grouse we needed to rent apartment this camera get back to us and we already see red flags as a scammer one bedroom apartment six feet one bedroom look at the pictures and pictures so basically we told scammer that we both astronauts from the space we brought an alien with us and we asked if is it okay to sign this lease agreement these aliens will be living in in the basement of this house they're gonna breed it yeah you know we're gonna breed it we're gonna make more aliens in our basement but I just want to make sure the neighbors aren't going to be offended if there's some squealing yeah no problem no problem okay that's fantastic so uh skimmer said yes you can breed more aliens in your basement just give me your money flip side of that we went to India in April to do a number of things meet up with some of our brothers that we've made some X scammers that we've helped to change and reform their lives but also to do some smuggling of some glitter bombs in collaboration with Mark Rober and Jim Browning essentially we unleashed Mayhem on a few different call centers it was only one problem we got to recognize on day two and we learned very quickly that there are these telegram groups where scammers will communicate with each other about a certain type of scam someone posted in that group hey we just saw astronaut from Trilogy media here in sector five they might be with FBI they're here to hook us if you see them shoot them we had to go into hiding it changed our whole plan it almost scrapped the whole operation but we were still able to make it happen so we started with Contraptions and Messi took him in his backpack that had tons of cockroaches in them and then he had a time delay stink bombs he had smoke bombs rats in another box and then we shipped the glitter bombs in and then as soon as they open of the owner of this call center and we send that bomb and they open it moving on Simo why are there so many scam call centers in India I think it's just demographics targeted with methods that's why you see certain groups of scams in certain areas of the world outside romance it goes to Africa right like tech support it goes to India we've been to India we've seen it firsthand we're very close with a lot of people amazing people from India and they hate the scammers just as much as we do next up Megan the nft okay but the real question is how do we scam the scammers back this is right in our wheelhouse because this is what we do every single day we love to waste the scammers time as much as possible because that's that's really the root of what this all is time costs them money they have agents actively working talking to you on the phone we'll talk to them on the phone for three four five hours sometimes we're learning about their scam because throughout the process they're doing all of their tactics all of their things that usually make people fall for it when it works so we learn what those things are when we make the content whether it's a video or a live stream people can then watch those things and know what to look for and then thirdly the more time they're on the phone with us is the less time they're on the phone with your grandmother and they're talking to us as our characters we do have characters speaking English what is that what is your stuff this is a character we have a voice changer we can do females we can do males we can be young old who is this this is Diana diagonal tall wig glasses and a cigarette and it's very snarky this is all godzillovich people always ask why the hell do you wear wigs if you're just talking to them on the phone but it's like why not yeah you should just do the rest of the interview so anyways different personalities different uh characters moving on Chris the fist why is Western Union a scam well first of all Western Union it's not a scam Western Union as a company I don't believe it has nefarious intentions I'll explain why they're associated with the word scam is because they send money internationally it's a very common way for overseas scammers to accept money that they can get a cash pick up really easily at a location from a victim and once the money is sent they're never going to get it back so it's really good for the scammers in the sense that it's reliable and they know that they can get cash very fast next up a green photog how do I get the IRS scam people to stop calling me 10 times a day you cannot probably nothing you can do yeah keep blocking keep reporting ftc.gov they got a ton of information about which scams are going on and then just you know block unknown numbers from your phone if you're not in a line of work that needs to receive unknown phone numbers then don't answer them they need to get a hold of you they'll leave them a message next up Laura prolongo do catfish scammers ever go to jail or Nah Nah the answer is usually not especially with catfish scammers because it's a totally different type of scam and their identity is usually a lot harder to get for catfish scans it's it's usually starts on dating websites Plenty of Fish grinder I mean anything essentially they're pretending to be somebody else often times they're in the military or they're doing something that makes them like I live in the United States but I'm not there now they eventually convince the victim that they're in a relationship and then they will need money for something oh my plane got canceled I need to book another flight oh I there's no water here in the village that I'm helping and why Keith got diseases my teeth got sick usually smaller amounts over multiple times over a long period of time as long as they can keep the victim hooked in fact the scammer we're going to confront here tomorrow morning it's a cash mule that lives in New York he's been receiving money from this woman who believes she's in a relationship with this guy in Africa for over eight years and she sends almost the entirety of her social security check every month to this mule and she lives here in New York Plaza plasma plasma sorry plasma she doesn't have a plaza so she's easily sent this guy probably over a quarter million dollars yeah and it's all going through this guy in New York who were going to his store tomorrow morning all right next up from Fulani Tudor why are scammers rude after they get caught when we disrupt their operation it makes them mad and makes the bosses mad too because no one's making any money they're very nasty they're gonna blast you every single word every single they want to beep every single person in your family your mom your everything they always hate our moms they always want to do something with your mom next up from Auntie Becks is it just me or has there been an increase in scans lately calls links texts everything yes it's not just you anti-backs especially what happened recently with pandemic scammers love when there is some instabilities people need jobs people need money people are hungry people have power outages anything like that that they can use to reel you in to either help you or change your life is enough of a kick to get you to go get some gift cards so yes there's a huge increase in stands it's not just you be on the lookout be careful all right next from wuji and why do romance scammers always pose as American military dudes I don't get it it's a common story because it allows them to play the excuse of traveling often and being away and being unavailable because the scammer usually is in a different part of the world so they need an excuse as to why they're talking at odd hours why they can't video chat why their connection is bad and why they can't visit them next up Beau black 98 why did the Nigerian prince scam work so well so the Nigerian print scam as it's been coined starts with an email so you get an email to your spam folder that says hi I am so and so I'm a prince in Nigeria and I have all this money and it's yours quiet of course you know for me to ship it to you sometimes it's cash sometimes it's Consignment boxes with gold bricks but for me to ship it to you you got to pay an activation fee scammers and I say this every time as to why they're so effective they prey on one of two things sometimes both which is either fear of something happening to you or playing towards your dreams of things you want to happen to you and of course everyone wants 65 billion dollars to be sent to them from a Nigerian princess Vault and finally tetagorg dog how do I block scam life from calling me what's up dog hey the scam likely thing is a good thing because that's somewhat recent whereas before you would always just get a phone number and you wouldn't know if it's scam likely there are lots of apps you can use one we personally use it's called Robo killer and it allows you to not only block the call but it'll answer it on your behalf and waste their time with pre-recorded answer Bots that you can actually find us in which is really fun you can also too just block like if it's not a number in my contacts it doesn't even ring like it'll go straight to voicemail well that's all the questions for today we're really hoping that you learned something from our questions thank you for watching and until next time until next time [Music]

Channel: WIRED

Views: 1,236,059

Keywords: art kulik, ashton bingham, ashton bingham and art kulik, how to protect from scammers, innovation, mess with scammers, messing with scammers, ott tech support, scam bait, scam baiter, scam baiters, scam buster, scam busters, scam calls, scam fighters, scammer youtube, scammers trilogy media, scams, science & technology, trilogy media, trilogy media scammers, trilogy media scams, wired, youtube scammers, yt scammers

Id: GrZi2pHnoQg

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 29 2022