Scambaiting and the Robot of Global Capitalism | Big Joel
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- Hey! Enjoy my hot scambaiting video wooo!
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Sources are incoming in a day or two!! I had to do some last minute travelling because of the virus so I couldn't do this yet! come at me bro (in a day or two) (for the sources) 
Кино
Hey everybody! Sorry there are no sources for the video quite yet! I had to do some last minute travelling. They should be up in a few days in the description. Anyhow, I hope you liked the video!! If you did, consider supporting me on patreon, here's the link: www.patreon.com/bigjoel. That said, no pressure there! I hope you are all doing okay and are taking care of yourselves!
So you listen to zero books podcast, good choice.
Good luck with travel dude, one of these days it will be less of a safety risk.
Well just comment here when the links are up lmao I'll never remember on my own
These days I kind of cringe (not sure if that's the right word to use here) when I hear someone say that they had to do some "last minute travelling". I never know what this could mean and if the travelling was necessary or not. Especially if it is done by people who live in places where the coronavirus guidelines are just way too lax. I worry that people who generally mean well don't do enough - and especially not as much as they could - to help combat the spread of the virus because they're aware that they're "following the official rules". There are so many people who look exactly at what is officially still allowed and what is newly forbidden and try to find ways to enjoy themselves as much as possible while still *technically* following laws and guidelines - instead of just forbidding themselves to do things that they don't absolutely need to do. There is some Italian mayor or healthcare worker who asked how it could be that so many people had suddenly picked up jogging. Some awful German "comedian" said that he'd never seen playgrounds so full before people were told to avoid them and stay inside as much as possible.
I am not accusing you of anything but seeing how badly even people who take the coronavirus seriously behave I just can't be confident that your last minute travelling was necessary. It absolutely may have been. But sadly, I can't be sure at all.
But WHY do they want to? You leave that hanging. There are more then one interpretation as to why and, in an of it's self, could be it's one video.
I remember once a scammer called me asking for money and I said "I don't have that much money," and he was like "oh, sorry to bother you man," and hung up.
Alexander Colefield the virgin scamming random internet-illiterate people vs the chad only scamming the rich
@@scarletje6323 based pfp btw
Alexander Colefield same lol
@@scarletje6323 why scam the rich when you can eat them
GDCamden314 why not both
the very slight soft reverb on joel's voice is letting me imagine i'm in a small church being given a homily
Patricia Taxxon
I 💜 you!
i never expected to see you here Patricia lolol
homily
Leave it to you to pick up on such subtleties of auditory craft! ♥️
The real scammer is me and the real scam was doing the art for this video 😈 heh heh
mothcub Great Job! 🤩
Good job, I really like your artstyle 💙
I love it
Oh no! I've been scammed into looking at adorable art!
it is very good art
STOP SCAMMING YOU'RE SELF
There’s a concept in sociology that you touch in at the end here Joel, and forgive me, my textbooks from classs of semesters past are packed away somewhere so I cannot properly attribute this idea, but it’s the notion that people on the margins, either socially or economically, have a clearer understanding of society as a whole than people who are not on the margins at all. If you are a maid for a rich family in a big house, you need to understand that family and know the layout of their big house, but you also when you go home to a tiny appartment and your poor family you need to know and understand your family and your tiny appartment, how it works, where things are, what things you need to do to maintain it, and how you talk to your poor family and the things they need. Even though you the maid are not rich or in a fancy house you need to understand how being rich and how living in a big fancy house works, but the people who ARE rich and who do live in the big fancy house do NOT need to understand how life in a small apartment works or how living with little money works. I think you touch upon how this translates to the global north’s relationship with the global south. The scammer in India can take control of the web camera, see you, understand how he needs to talk to an American to get them to follow his instructions, but we as Americans don’t see him.
This is a really good comment and I think you nailed it.
Ive been thinking about a similar concept. Really wish I knew the term
Theoretically that's definitely true, but the rich also get access to much better education so it's kinda complicated.
I’m talking about social intelligence “street smarts”. The idea that people wealthy enough to not need food stamps have no idea how to use food stamps to budget and feed their family - but those who do get by using food stamps absolutely could figure out how to budget and use the money accessible to someone more wealthy to get by WITHOUT food stamps
this reply gave me chills, excellently put.
*"they might want to"* oh ok we're just ending the video like that, with the strange eye of the little doodle man looking into my soul. that is okay. that is fine,
if u think that's scary please read up on the information released by Edward Snowden
Nice profile picture
The reason they like to look at the victim's webcams is often to make sure the outlandish idiot they're talking to is actually a 78 year old woman and not Kitboga. Or, less frequently, to spy on what they assume will be an attractive female victim. There is a very strong power dynamic at play with the scammers; they often feel like they have complete control to threaten, harass and invade people's privacy. One very good Kitboga video to watch for a look at the psychology of scammers is "Scammer Lost His Mind After Failed SYSKEY" where he seems to have a complete mental breakdown and start gibbering like a baby, then flaunts his power over stupid foreigners. Honestly, the thing that makes me a fan of Kit's isn't the hilarious stuff he makes them go through, but the weird little glints at their life and the circumstances that might have lead them down the extreme path they've taken.
hey there, claw daddy
surprised to find you in both of these little corners of the internet
@@darkgengaros Agreed! My mom was called by a scammer one time and when she wouldn't comply he started commanding her in a threatening voice to go her info or whatever it was he wanted her to give him. It was scary cause while my mom didn't fall for that I could imagine someone more meek or elderly or vulnerable who might have complied out of fear (even though logically he couldn't do anything).
Fear and lust
Yeah that's definitely the reason. I'm surprised Joel didn't realize this.
Oh cool hi deadwing dork! Wasn't expecting to find you here
I used to watch the hell out of these videos because they were genuinely funny and entertaining, but when I looked at the comments it was a bunch of people just saying how much they hate Indian people, and that really bothered me so I stopped watching.
Yeah. That's the real problem I have with a lot of them. It draws in a real awful crowd. Still watch them, but find myself pretty disgusted with the comments sections.
Daniel Murimi-Worstell RUclips comment section used to be just really scummy, edgy idiots and then randos who didn’t make much sense but it’s gotten better somehow within the last few years, here’s to hoping that eventually they might change
@@jblue1622 what website are you on? RUclips comments section is full of filth, and it's been getting worse
Kohei my opinion is it has gotten better, it used to be ALL filth and bad, you can look to Gus Johnson, Eddy Burback, Nakey Jakey, D’Angelo Wallace, and some others who are trying to build a better space on RUclips as opposed to supporting edgelords and obnoxious youngsters, I’m not saying it’s all good, it’s just better than it was back before Big Joel existed on the platform
@@jblue1622 Don't see how good youtubers makes the youtuber commenters any better
Scammers are getting really weird. Just started online dating, and in a couple weeks have had several really good 2+ hour long conversations that all ended in them eventually broaching a scam. One of them didn't get to the point until after 3 days of intense talking.
😧😧😧😧
Its almost like they're lonely and do legit want to connect but then remember theyre here for something else
it's almost like everybody is a person
@@heartache5742 damn thats good words
They do that to gain your trust.
As an Indian person who watches those videos every once in a while, they obviously always make me slightly uncomfortable. (Comments are a whole shitshow of their own and I make it a point to avoid them).
I've always assumed my issue has been some kind of guilt stemming from being Indian myself - and to some extent, it might be just that. But looking at it with the lens of international labour and its power dynamics is very interesting, and you've made me consider a new facet for the reaction those videos draw from me.
Anagha M. Hating on someone for working for the company you’re doing business with is kind of stupid in its own way, but stupid people love feeling superior to other people because of their insecurity due to their own stupidity, it’s almost natural for them to just be stupid and hateful against others, pretty much the problem Americans who hate foreigners have they lack intelligence
Same, OP.
tw for this comment, don't read if you have a bad day.
i had that feeling when i watched a documentary about workers moderating big social media platforms. i suddenly realised i had never understood that real people are actually paid beneath minimum wage in the philippines to moderate and remove content that violates the media platforms tos. like actual people that are paid to sit and watch people streaming their suicide attempts on youtube. or terrorist executions. or child pornography. even if they suspect that the video will very likely contain one of those things, they have to keep watching until one of those things actually happens. only then can they step in and terminate the stream. it isn't unsual for these workers to become depressed by working this job.
www.fastcompany.com/90263921/the-hardest-job-in-silicon-valley-is-a-living-nightmare
The comments are always terrible, sorry you gotta deal with that
The comments are pretty much always a slurry of racist and xenophobic shit, you're right. It's truly a shame about how many people miss the point of scambait videos, and just use them as a springboard to further strengthen their gross opinions. I feel like Kitboga is one of the few baiters who doesn't make everything uncomfortable for me personally.
When I was a kid in the early 90's (in the US) my mom worked in a sales call center. She used to come home and cry about the old people they made her lie to.
Really good video. I think about this stuff every time I get those scam calls.
Damn man. The parallels between retail call centers and scamming centers has a lot of meat to it I think. I had never thought of that before.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. It reminds me of why I never get verbally abusive with scammers and why it makes me so uncomfortable when I hear one of my co-workers say the cruelest things he can to scammers. On one level, it is easy to say, "but these people are doing a bad thing, therefore they are bad people, therefore any abuse heaped on them is justified, and if they do not want to be verbally abused, they should stop scamming, simple as that!" However, I still see even people committing fraud as human beings. They may need to be stopped, and they may even deserve punishment in some cases, but in my mind, their simple status as human beings still confers on them the state of deserving a basic level of human dignity and compassion. I do not know the situation of the person on the other end of the phone. I do not always know whether or not they know that they are part of a scam. They may be fellow victims, tricked into thinking that they _are_ legitimately helping people. Even if they _do_ know that they are scamming people, just because someone does something wrong does not mean that they have no conscience. From what you said, it looks like your mother was very conflicted. Most people never _want_ to live by deceit, but some of us are in tough situations such that a less than honest method seems like the only one available to us to ensure our own security and that of our families.
+
My mom used to work a debt collector at local loan company. She was a single mom without a degree, and it was during the Great Recession, so there weren’t a many better options. She used to really hate that job because it forced her to occupy a role that she hated, one of a bill collector. She was put in a position of demanding payments from people who didn’t have enough to make ends meet, and this was for the sole benefit of her employers who lived in excess.
It was an emotionally taxing job because she felt like she was profiting off of the exploitation of the less fortunate while banks and creditors were doing the same to her. I didn’t criticize her or point out the ethical implications of her work, partially she already knew them and partially because she was my mom.
Looking back, with the vocabulary and education that I have know, I’d be tempted to call her a class traitor or at least as a collaborator. But I can’t help but empathize with her and people like her. In reality she was someone trying to survive and raise a kid. She wasn’t a class traitor exploiting poor people as much as she was a buffer which allowed her employers to avoid the ugly truth that there wealth was built of off the exploitation of the less fortunate.
I'm starting to realize that many of the most popular videos on the platform are more like rituals than products
That's a little spooky! Do any other examples come to mind?
Fuck, dude...
Damn, that's genuinely interesting.
what?
care to elaborate? interesting thought!
I prefer Jim Browning. Instead of just wasting one person's time, he tries to use the remote connection to get his hands on their files and collect information on them. If he can get the details of Prentiss victims, he calls them up to tell them it's a scam. Recently, he actually managed to get access to the security CCTV of a scam operation, which included the office of the boss. Apparently he partnered with the BBC and got the place shut down.
As fun as it is to watch scambaiting videos, they don't accomplish much other than showing exactly how these scams work and what to look out for. There's a video a few years back where one of the scammers actually sits down with the baiter and talks openly about what he does, and he says that scam baiters make so little difference to them, he's willing to chat with the guy for the rest of the day. After watching that, the practice started seeming kinda masturbatory, so someone like Jim Browning who has the technical know-how to do more than waste a single scammer's time is the only one I really watch anymore.
For this reason i like scammer revolts, or scambaiters who will destroy the scammers computer. Kitboga is great but only a distraction, scammer revolts, jim browning and others do real damage.
foop145
You wouldn't have the title or link to that old video where the scammer chats with the scambaiter, would you? Sounds interesting.
@@veggiedragon1000 ruclips.net/video/4Cx1pjvtVXY/видео.html
It really makes you think. I don't know what life is really like in India, but if the choice is between living an honest but dirt poor life and a dishonest but comfortable life, I can't necessarily say I'd always choose the former, especially after decades of living it.
I saw a scambaiting video by Atomic Shrimp (can't remember which vid sorry) where he broke character and offered to pay the scammer if he wanted to do some honest work. It was somewhat jarring, but refreshing, to see an attempt to connect with a scammer on a personal level and offer them an alternative instead of simply condemning.
foop145 Thanks for posting the link, it was definitely thought provoking. I still don't agree with scamming, but that guy definitely had a point. Who knows if any of us would do the same thing if we were in that situation? There is no way to know for sure.
Good video! Watching this I couldn't help but think of Parasite, the 2019 film. (spoilers ahead) After all, what are the protagonist family if not scammers? And they're definitely shown to be very amoral and self serving. But at the same time it seems clear that these "parasites" were bred by the brutal socio-economics they were born into, and they aren't completely void of humanity. They're innovative and cutthroat, using the true values of the system they live in to survive and thrive.
The housekeeper they oust from the rich family's house, and her husband, are much more sympathetic. They're also forced to be 'parasites' to survive, but they're not malicious. When threatened with exposure the housekeeper comes clean and tries to make a plea of sympathy and solidarity, sis. Then they die for that 'weakness' to a family much more suited to survival.
I think simulacrum is a good word for these people. They don't live as morally upright poors are expected to live; by the alleged values of our supposed meritocracy. Instead they move through the systems we struggle through with the efficacy and ethics of the corporations that tower over our lives. It reminds of the guy who bought thousands of bottles of sanitizers from different little stores to resell. He was harshly shamed by the public, but were he a faceless corporation using corporate channels to do this would we even have heard about it? Would it not just be a savvy business move obfuscated by numbers and bureaucracy? This is the true moral crisis of our society. It's not 'taking god out of school' or something ridiculous like that. It's because our system commodifies our values and incentivizes us view the world through a strictly economic lens; sincerity and compassion are worthless here. And the more wealthy and abstracted by incorporation we are, the less we are expected to act with any humanity.
This is why scam-baiting videos make me kind of uncomfortable. I try not to indulge too much in schadenfreude generally, but something about scam-baiting in particular just feels a bit perverse. It's hard to argue these scammers aren't 'bad people'. Sure, they're from a much poorer country, but they're also manipulating and ruining the lives of people who are struggling too. It's abhorrent, but still I can't help but wonder who these people could've been if they were born into kinder circumstances and systems. To quote the mom in Parasite, "If I were that rich I'd be nice too."
HadBabits don’t bother to emphasize with people who wouldn’t return the favor
There are far more people who are in poor economic situations in India (and the other places these scam call centers are prevalent) who don't take advantage of vulnerable people. I think its a bit of a cop out to say "I wonder if who they'd be if they were born into kinder circumstances and systems". I don't know, but I don't think its right to imply they'd be "nice too". Look at the Martin Shkreli's of the world. Maybe if they were born into a nicer system they just do different scams and exploit different people.
@@Linkman95 I have tk agree with this comment. Call scamming isnt the "go to" job for a good person, I think. I would assume they wouldn't be forced into this job but that's my limited understanding of the situation in India. There is more than one way to skin a cat (earn money) and honestly these scammers have picked the shittiest way (assuming it was a choice to be in that job).
@@Linkman95 you have a point too, but a relationship between crime and poverty does exist. Some people are driven to bad things due to their circumstances. Others may have done them anyways. But, I truly think majority of people are victims of their circumstances.
Yeah, great points, Parasite is very relevant here. I wanted to bring up the fact that 99% of scammers don't work independently. There's a whole economy behind it with shadow businesses and corporate structures. Scammers need LOTS of phone numbers to call, they need leads of vulnerable people, and there's a whole economy just in selling batches of phone numbers. So the scammer you talk to only receives a portion of the money they steal from you as commission while the rest moves up the pyramid. The job is just as grueling and exploitative as a legitimate call center.
What this has me thinking about is that there are degrees of criminality and morality in ALL labor. While these scammers are obviously okay with stealing from Americans on the other side of the world, most of them wouldn't be comfortable robbing someone at gunpoint. Many of them are very religious, and many don't even see anything wrong with what they're doing. Many of them take pleasure in stealing from Americans in a Robin Hood sort of way.
I think we get distracted by moralizing it. If we want scamming to end, we won't do it by condemning scammers or by appealing to their moral instincts, because their ethical position is often radically opposed to our own. We won't stop scamming by reporting scam centers to the police to get them shut down, because this only opens up a vacuum for another center to fill the place of. Scamming won't end with a unilateral approach like this, with America exerting its power over regions of the world where scamming can be a profitable alternative to legitimate labor. We have to look at the heart of the relationship itself, between America and India, for example, and see that the exploitation is a two way street. A solution will require just as much that Americans and their economy make adjustments so as no longer to depend on exploitative labor. With that said, TRumP 2020 bAbY BOoYAh!!!1!
Jim Browning's videos also have a good aspect of focusing lately on how the people in charge of the scam centers take all the money they steal for themselves, and the scammers on the front lines aren't doing nearly as well as their bosses. The people at the top are the ones who are the biggest issue, and they're taking advantage of people who are trying to regain a sense of control and security in their lives by having them take advantage of others.
Scammer union? Scammer union!
@@TheImpossiBelle "Oh hi, fellow scammers, it's me: Billy not-a-cop. Want to go commit some crimes, preferably ones that leave lots of evidence behind?"
"they won't try to take over your screen"
I work in I.T. support, and technical support using screen sharing tools is pretty common!
I also had that reaction.
I work customer services at a call center and I promise I don't want to know what any of my customers look like. The webcam question is creepy
These new illustrations are so incredible! Huge props to Mothcub, they've made every video of yours they've collaborated on just that much better. Though I do miss seeing Joel's fuzzy little face.
Great video!
Carl Faust
fuzzy little face UwU
U get to see it in drawn form! And it's just as fuzzy!
These scammer don’t just “want to” see what you look like. If they see the scammed it’s easier to read them/ tell if they will get money out of them. Every minute they waste is wasted money to them. They aren’t doing it just to do it
True exactly what I wanted to say...
That's probably true, but they also potentially have other motives as Joel said. Both scammers and real CSMs sexually harass women on the phone.
And some of them are just creepy like that, you don't go into someone's nudes folder just to see what they look like.
Yah, I'm usually a fan of Big Joel's analysis and there's still a lot of interesting stuff to take away from this video. The conclusion though just kind of seems like he didn't think this all the way through and was too hung up on the global income disparity angle.
@@AaronEins3 I really thought we may be going in a different direction too. Explore the material conditions that may make someone turn to this, or humanize them in a way by comparing them to the Customer service workers. One of his more eh videos for sure
The Freakonomics guys from NPR do a good bit on these scammers too... apparently the stories they tell are intentionally implausible to filter for the most gullible people.
That's the reason for the bad grammar etc in the traditional "Nigerian prince" emails etc too. Eliminates false positives.
Alex Jones uses the same strategy.
We Indians have taken a lot of flak for this (some deserving and some undeserving)
Frankly we hate these scammers because we usually are the 1st round of victims. Our socio cultural dynamics and a broken down justic system means most who have been scammed dont get financial or procedural closure. They also have to content with being victim shamed.
Another reason is that the scammers in part have destroyed perceived integrity of Indians. We aren't all evil scammers obviously but it's hard to defend oneself to a brit friend who's grandma nearly lost all her savings because of dew fellow indians.
For every scammer u see losing their mind on kitboga, remember that there r genuine CC employees who slog their ass @ work.
Also stop with the racism pls.. The comment section of the scam YTers is unbearable.
Anyways thank u Joel for covering this in such a nice way. Stay safe all of u and remember to wash your hands..
Not India's fault his grandma never learned to use a computer over the past 70 years of their existence.
Yeah, scamming is of course bad, but what's worse is the disconnected comodified society in which we find ourselves. It's socialism o' clock bitches.
The scammers can be blamed for a lot, but ruining the image of Indians?... I can’t agree to that one. That’s the fault of racists
Atomic Shrimp is doing a good thing, he does not read scam emails in an Indian accent and when so many people asked him why he doesn't read emails in an Indian accent, he said "because I am not a racist'
Let's not forget why idians scam brits and not the other way round. The wealth of britain and its inhabitants is built on the systematically extracted wealth of the indian subcontinent. The national poverty that drives indian scammers to their theft is a direct result of the theft of their nation's resources. When one indian successfully scams one brit of some money, who really comes out on top? That's not to say that scams are therefore justified, but that the blame doesn't fall so squarely on the "evil indian". Really, they remain the victim of the larger scam.
I'm a customer service operator working for an American cell phone company. I am Canadian and English is basically my first language. The weird relief a lot of irate callers have when they hear someone who they think isn't 'foreign' is absurd. I get a lot of "oh finally a real American is working today" or "your accent is so normal honey, you're doing a great job." The abuse those kinds of people throw at my coworkers both here and at our international offices is infuriating.
I agree there's a lot of stereotyping and racism based on accents but, after an average of 3 scam calls a week from India, when I had a legitimate call from British Gas from a lady with the same accent I declined the call and went to their website to pay instead. Maybe that makes me a bigot, or maybe the scammers are just reinforcing these stereotypes and people's judgement/distrust is based on experience?
@@d_inkz Yeah I think that's kind of a you problem buddy, accents aren't gonna stop because of scam callers who also happen to sound similar. "Your operators sound foreign" is a pretty bad excuse and no company is actually going to take that seriously.
"We want target gift cards!" The Knights who say nee has evolved.
NEE
N E E !!!!!
Maybe Target has the best shrubberies?
nEE
Not all scammers know they're scamming though. A while back I read an article about a call centre that outwardly looked like a legit business. Even most of the workers had no idea they were working for scammers; they were honestly thinking they're helping someone out and were overjoyed in getting a job at such-and-such multinational. I can't find the article though but it was well researched.
that makes me so sad. I feel bad even for the scammers that are aware of it because I feel like it's something you only do out of desperation even though it's wrong, like poaching.
Yeeah, gonna need a source on that. These scams usually involve a handoff to a “senior technician”, and you can make the argument that the initial caller is unaware of the scam, but beyond that your comment doesn’t make much sense.
Reply All did a very interesting investigative (multiple part) podcast on this ages ago, they found out that these companies often make themselves out to be legit tech companies at first, attracting people new to the field like college aged students, and then sometimes use harassment and intimidation tactics against their workers to ensure that they stay.
Edit: this is different than people not knowing it's a scam enterprise the whole way obviously but I think it still is worth considering that a lot of these workers also fall for a scam in some way
Mountain Goat yep capitalism
The people doing the actual scamming 100% know they're scamming. There may occasionally be people who take the initial call, get the company connected to the computer, and then hand over to someone else for the actual scam, but the ones they hand to know they're scamming, they can't not know, their entire set up is an obvious scam.
Early on in my IT career one of my jobs was to call up Microsoft to reactivate Windows after making hardware changes. I'd like to share two stories from those hours on the phone doing the same thing over and over.
Eventually I learned their script. I decided one day that after their greeting I would just continue from there and do the whole call in one go, providing both the answers and the questions on their behalf. The guy on the other end patiently waited and then just went ahead and asked the first question from the script, and we did the whole thing like normal pretending that the whole thing hadn't happened already.
One day I was having a particularly good day, and while we were waiting for the unlock key to generate (it took about 15 seconds or so in those days) I asked the lady on the other end of the phone in an enthusiastic tone if she was having a fantastic day. "No", she replied, simply, and there was about 10 seconds of dead air before she then asked if I was ready to note down the code. It's been ~15 years since that call. I doubt she remembers it at all, but I still think about her at least a few times a year. What was her day like? How long had she been working? Was she able to spend time with her family? How much was she getting paid? What were her other options and opportunities? How many other toxicly enthusiastic Kiwi's does she have to sit through on a day to day.
When your skill set is to sit on the phone and be exploited by dumb westerners, it's not hard to see why some make the jump to sitting on the phone exploiting dumb westerners.
Are *you* a dumb westerner?
We all are, is kind of the point here.
Big Joel is like the RUclipsr equivalent of chaotic neutral. You never know what he's gonna talk about, or which RUclipsrs he's going to bring up, or what his angle will even be. And he always does so in such a calm and neutral way, yet conveys a lot of personality.
I want to say I recently found out your name isn't actually Joel and it shook me to my core. Nothing is like it seems anymore.
Scambaiting videos make me deeply uncomfortable for some reason.
same, i really don't like watching them
His name is not Joel?! HE WAS THE REAL SCAMMER ALL ALONG
Wait, REALLY?! 😱
David John PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS.
He isn't actually big either
Another interesting aspect of this is from the perspective of the scammed. To fall for one of these scams you have to be living a life essentially pulled around by systems that you don't understand and are inherently antagonistic to you.
It's quite surprising how many videos by Jim Browning show scams happening to people with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. It absolutely does not alleviate or excuse the actions of the scammer, but no, victims can be extremely privileged in every other way besides one moment of susceptibility. It happened to the guy who runs Linus Tech Tips - a white millionaire Canadian man of perfectly sound mind.
There needs to be a simultaneous recognition that marginalisation makes the effects of scams worse, that some demographics have more capacity to notice and avoid scams, and that it can happen to absolutely anyone.
I once scambaitted, but the scammer scambaitted me. It was terrifying
Not to pry but yo how did that happen?
Elinn Andersson i would also like to know how
I too would love to know this ostensibly funny story
Could you elaborate
HELLO!
From earth to Mosley!
are you alive?
did tge scammer scam you out of your soul or somethin?
I used to be really into watching scam baiting videos and this reminded me they existed! I just went to watch one for funsies after finishing this video and I was sadly reminded of all the racism in the comments on every scambait video. :(
Imagine being an Indian and having to read racist shit over and over any time Indians are mentioned :/
There hardly is any of that, you're completely making that up.
Lol. Scorch. Found the reactionary... Hardly any of that? There was *so* much Indian bigotry / prejudice / racism nonsense on those vids... what are you on about?
The worst part is that they probably believe they're decent people for dunking on scammers, despite the fact that they're bigots
@@jacobxa I've never seen any racist comment, most comments I see are from Indians telling them they are embarrassed OR comments saying that the Scambaiter is doing a good job
I would not have passed my computer science exams without Indian RUclips tutorials on algorithms. Thanks to these heroes.
Martin Neumann true heros saving the education system
Ironically, a few days after seeing this my grandfather got his computer taken over by these people. At first when I watched this video I sympathized with the fact that, of course, these scammers are likely people struggling so much they need to take these kinds of jobs. And once you see that second dimension it's hard to feel as though there's a moral black and white.
But now that it's happened to someone in my family, I realize how scummy the whole situation is. I'm so mad that these people are hurting my grandparents like this, knowing the toll it's going to take on their stress (and they already have enough to worry about, believe me). Yet I recognize that these scammers, horrible as they may be, are still desperate people. All I can be mad at, then, is the institutions in place that force people into those kind of jobs.
Yes, this. It's important to understand that this job wouldn't exist (or would be extremely rare) if there were better options, but also that there's no moral justification for scams that prey almost exclusively on disabled people, no matter which country they come from.
When you haven't experienced it yourself, it's very hard to understand how much cognitive difficulties open you up to exploitation. You have no choice but to rely on the kindness of strangers. No amount of equivocation about desperation or oppression makes stealing a wheelchair or an AAC device anything other than morally reprehensible, and the same applies to scams that target the cognitively impaired.
Big Joel better notice me
delirious meatball
Teach me your ways
Holy smokes, what a return on investment
Ayyyy made my week.
Atomic Shrimp makes the best scambaiting videos. And cooking and foraging videos
I love him
He also seems to be a generally wholesome person, based on his videos and the free ad space for charities that he provides on his blog
Even Jim Browning fell for a phishing email and ended up temporarily deleting his RUclips account. Anybody can fall for a scam
there is one kitboga video where he talks to a scammer who drops the act and says he wants to quit and they kinda have a heart-to-heart conversation on why he got into the business of scamming and the guilt he feels about it.I think about it a lot.
My personality can be described as being the only person in the room subscribed to Big Joel
I once met another person who was subbed to big joel and I nearly fell out of my chair
PyramidHeadLove You’re lucky. Subbing to Big Joel doesn’t mean anything explicitly (other than being subbed to Big Joel), but it implies a basic liking of philosophy. I’m in middle school, so not that many people care about philosophy
Oh nice! Another one. What are we? Big Joel-ers? Little Joels?
"They become a broken robot; a person." That statement makes almost too much sense.
*"The Strange Art of Scambaiting"*
Jim Browning: A strange art indeed
Karl Rock: Yep, I've had more than enough experience with that
Suggesting that anyone is immune to scams, or even just a type of scam, is dangerous. Thinking you're immune is a good way to let your guard down. There will always be new ways to scam people. Also consider that people are in different mental states -- my ability to spot and deal with a scammer when I'm trying to figure out an issue with my phone bill will be greatly reduced if my mother just passed away.
"a broken robot- a person" best part
The reason I like your videos is because they make me think. About things I would normally never give a second thought. Like, for days afterwards. Scambaiting videos have always made me feel uneasy and I think I get why now thanks to your analysis
Please explain. I can see that 'Joel' is uncomfortable with them too, but not why.
@@godsofwarmaycry Basically, what I've arrived at after watching the video is more awareness of the class divide between our current Western lives and the lives of the people working in these call centres. How would I feel in their shoes? How would I feel if, as part of my job, I had to essentially switch off my own identity and deal with people who, from my perspective live in unimaginable opulence, being personally irate with having to deal with a lowly foreigner, essentially complaining about very little... I probably wouldn't be too happy with it. That's the first part.
The second is the similarity between honest call centre workers and the scammers in question. Because of the common skill set, they might be the same people? Maybe they get so fed up of their identities being denied and dealing with these privileged crybabies directing all of their frustration at them, that this type of behaviour becomes justified to them.
The third and last part of it is the inevitable explosive anger of the scammer at the end of the video. Which, to me, somewhat backs up the second point. They're Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham is breaking up their racket and making fun of them. These uber wealthy bastards who exploit my country as underpaid, faceless labour are attacking me?
Who knows if any of this is true, it's just my thought process on it. It's filled with plenty of confirmation bias and unsubstantiated conclusions, but it's enough to make watching these things very unpleasant. Maybe if the Western world didn't exploit these peoples, this type of anger and theft wouldn't exist? Maybe in an unjust system, thievery becomes more of an understandable response. I'm not saying it's right, but... It's more complicated.
Edit: the webcam hijacking too. Needing to see the person being scammed. Why is it so important?
@Jane Doe Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like most people watch scambaiting not just to laugh at people, but to feel a moral satisfaction at the fact that the more time they spend talking to the scambaiter, the less time they have to scam vulnerable people. I am very poor, and granted, I may not know what it is like to be poor in India, but I do know that desperate people do desperate acts to survive, not systematically scam poor or old people for a profit. I find it disgusting, in all honesty. Desperate people who are good will only hurt others purely as a method of survival, and will stop as soon as they can, and hopefully feel guilty about it. Scammers make the choice every day to spend hours intimidating and tricking people. I can't find it in me to feel much sympathy.
TL;DR I don't watch scambaiting to laugh at scammers. I don't think its funny, in fact, it angers me. I watch to support the person that stops (or at least tries to stop) scammers from hurting other people.
@Jane Doe Watch Spying on the Scammers by Jim Browning, or the BBC Panorama documentary by the same name. In it, through their CCTV, scammers are seen laughing at a depressed person crying because he hasn't enough money to pay them. Also those at the top are heard explicitly admitting that they focus on their bottom line, money, and that they "don't give a shit about the customers".
@Jane Doe Also there's this ruclips.net/video/ckKpO6eVbD4/видео.html
I got scammed when I was a bit younger--my computer froze and told me to call a number. The scam was obvious, but I was both gullible and a bit desperate because I was low on cash and couldnt afford to get my computer fixed. It was a horrible experience, and I've had only a few other situations come up where i was so viscerally infuriated with myself.
That said, there is an element to these scams that bothers me beyond the victimization. Not the "broken robot" thing, but something close to it. What really bothers me is the fact that both the scammer and the victim experience these interactions in complete isolation--it's dehumanizing for both parties. A con man has to look you in the eye when he tricks you, but a scam caller just hears a voice in a speaker. If you're the victim, you don't get to know the face of the person who hurt you.
And in a way, I feel almost sorry for them? There's definitely something pitiful about it. Because no one WANTS to spend their lives scamming gullible people--even if they had a visceral hatred of Americans for whatever reason, it's still hard to lie to people for days on end. Especially if they go for the kind of scams that are frankly traumatic (my grandmother was once told my brother was in a car accident and she would need to wire money for his medical bills. She almost did it too, I convinced her it was a scam. It was...incredibly upsetting for her though.). I guess I just wonder--if we've set up an exploitative system which is inherently dehumanizing to people, and that is the most common way for Indians and Americans in their respective countries to interact on a daily basis, then what expectation can we have that either party will treat each other with respect and dignity?
I am not defending the scammers. Obviously. But I do think that the world in which we live is set up to have us tear each other down. I think it's important to understand that someone who hurts me may just be more desperate. That doesn't apply to all situations, but for this one...I'm alright with speculating.
I've often thought of this myself. If the only way to keep my family off the streets was to scam old people, would I do it?
The answer is a begrudging, yes but I'd be searching for another opinion the whole time.
In Jim Browning's most recent videos, and the Panorama film that goes with them, one thing that really really struck me was the similarity between the scam call centre and a legitimate call centre. Indeed, although the scam call centre is hidden in this example, they effectively operate out of the same building, in similar rooms, with similar booths and similar equipment. There is a chain of command, and ultimately one person at the top, who takes most of the money. This supports a similarity between the front line support worker and the front line scammer. It's very strange.
I find this video really interesting and stimulating and I'm glad you made it. Thank you!
I think it's worth noting that many of the scam callers are in fact not acting individually. Rather, they're getting paid in the same way as those legitimate customer support call centers. Additionally, scammers are sometimes being given their script in the exact way you describe legit ones, with a corporate hierarchy. General 'scam-centers' have been a thing for ages and, though bots are easily taking much of the market, they will probably continue to be.
I always enjoy the calls I get for Senior Heatlhcare. I just answer with a raspy voice and general confusion: "Healthcare? I ain't no commie"
As has been mentioned, one of the reasons scammers try to open webcams on victims is because its part of a power dynamic. They're curious, sure, and that's a relatable human thing we all feel about strangers on a phone line, but scammers, particularly the good ones or the frustrated ones, also see it as a tool of power. *I can see you but you can't see me* is a powerful, intoxicating, and asymmetrical dynamic, heightened by the fact they're already manipulating their victims.
And in a way, the appeal of scambaiters is the same thing but for us. *We can see you*, in a metaphorical sense, because we as an audience can see through their scams and are watching them being manipulated instead, and we get a high off of that. I find that a lot more interesting as an aspect of these videos.
Actually if you work within a company, the internal customer support often does take over your screen.
Aye, when I worked in a lab, if there were any problems with the diagnostics software, wed call the manufacturers, theyd take over the pc and fix whatever issue we had
I'm leaving this comment at the beginning of this video - I'll edit to say if I get through or not. This is incredibly difficult to even think about. Last summer, I was on medical leave from work for PTSD & panic stuff. I got a text from a scammer that looked exactly like a text that my actual bank sent when it asked if a transaction was fraudulent. I replied that it was fraudulent & started having a panic attack. Then my bank's number called me & a guy talked me through resetting my password & giving it to him. In the course of that phone call, I gave him my SSN & he transferred out $2000 from my bank account (he would have gotten more, but it only allowed $2000 per transfer & I realized what was going on, so I reset my password). Since then, I get more robo-calls than most people I know, my credit score has tanked, and I'm literally scared to log into my bank account - it's literally triggering for me. I tried putting credit freezes on my credit with the companies, however the one that was the one that got hit with the breach - Equifax - wouldn't let me place the freeze & the website for the settlement of the court case said that I wasn't affected, even tho my bank said that people who were being hit at that time probably had their info come out from their data breach; I cannot even get the credit monitoring I am owed by the financial institutions who led to me getting victimized like this [and who contributes to the victimization and oppression of the scammers & fraudsters]. I got the money back, but I can't get back the credit score & credit limit I lost, and I cannot get back the peace of mind, I cannot get back the lack of PTSD freak-outs I may or may not have any time I have to go to my bank or log into my bank account.
The fraudsters & scammers who did that to me, are bad people who deserve to have bad, bad, BAD, painful, awful, horrible things happen to them. Getting scambaited is literally the absolutely barest, most-minimal thing they could possibly have happen to them. I know that's not up to me, I know it's not kind or compassionate or empathetic, and I know it probably makes me a bad leftist to actively want to hurt people who are even more victims of oppression than I am. But I am not their enemy - that's the corporations& the imperialists. I do social work. I actively strive to make the world better every day.
They deserve BAD things.
The prospect of Big Joel defending individuals who have profoundly fucked up my life, who I believe are less than pond scum, is daunting for me to even think about sitting through.
Like I said, I don't know if I'll be able to make it through this video.
I am very internet literate and very much know a few basic things. That's a broad statement that is not true. I had my prefrontal cortex switched off by my experience that rendered those things completely inaccessible to me & so I was not okay 100% of the time.
Well, I made it through, but I'm having a very hard time, and I've very much "flipped my lid." I don't want to humanize those people. They deserve their shitty lives. They deserve worse than they already have it. I'm sorry, like I said, I know these are unkind things to say & believe & I know it makes me a bad leftist to not support them, but I don't care. Fuck them. And low-key fuck this video. Probably not fuck Big Joel, but, like, dude - c'mon. Kind of an uncool topic to cover without more than that perfunctory little intro about how they're bad mmkay. Like I said, they've deeply fucked up my entire life.
Yes, I know I'm still inherently well-off (especially compared to the scammers featured in this video) and yes, I know that I benefit indirectly from the exploitation of the third world & global south.
Again, I'm not the one doing that. There's only so much I can do change that, but I do what I can. Go after Microsoft, go after Amazon, go after the mining consortiums, go after Wall Street - don't go after people who are also oppressed (albeit in not the same way or to the same degree.)
Maybe BJ made some of these points slightly in this video, I definitely missed part of it cuz I'm freaking out.
I shouldn't have watched this. I'm gonna go have a wank & play Doom.
@@EmeraldLavigne It's not about the individual though. Joel isn't saying scammers aren't bad people, he's saying the system is inherently fucked up. It's the same as how many leftists (myself included) think the justice/criminal system and policing is shit, it's a system that doesn't work as intended and needs drastic changes. We're not saying "hey, this poor murder/rapist/whatever is a good person and they deserve hugs", we're saying the system we're in can often lead people down a path to become that. Shit like colonisation and capitalism has driven plenty of countries to weird power imbalances and extreme poverty and that is a problem.
@@Spamhard That has nothing to do with this. Scammers exist because they can make money.
@@scorch527 Any why is money so important to make? Because the system is fucked. People are put into positions where some just happen to born into rich families where everything is catered to them from birth, and others- through no fault of their own- are born into extreme poverty with very little hope of ever getting out of it.
In the same way we don't have a clear vision of the sweat shop workers who make our products, these scammers don't have a clear view of the people they are scamming. Both transactions hurt one of the people in that equation.
Dude the camera thing is to intimidate the target, there is absolutely money to be made by making the target of the scam feel off balance. It's psychological and very deliberate.
John Schmidt I don’t even think the mark usually knows they’re being watched necessarily.
@@BigJoel Well pretty much all camera software shows the desktop it is running. But I imagine from the scammers point of view it is something more like, "when you run camera software experience shows you succeed more often ". I am sure scammers communicate with each other and share tips.
John Schmidt yeah I mean who knows if it helps in some way. I’m just saying it won’t make the mark feel more vulnerable necessarily, especially since their screen is so often black at this point
I don't know that it intimidates everyone, but I am sure it does intimidate someone. Kind of like how a poster of someone watching you also influences many people. It seems crazy on the face of it, posters are obviously not a person, yet the effect is real and well documented. I am sure it is a deliberate choice being done as a strategy in most cases.
There's something very Hegelian about this. All this talk of the self and the other sounds kind of like hegel's master/slave dialectic.
SkeledroMan k nerd
In Hegel, do you remember how the dialectic breaks down and becomes pathological? When the master self fails to recognize another self-sufficient self in the other, but just parasitically feeds on the recognition coming from the slave which the master can't actually recognize as recognition? It becomes just as hollow as the slave it exploits. The slave comes to realize their master has no power, only the illusory power of illusory recognition. And with this, the slave realizes that the source of the power is their power, the generative labor of real recognition, and the power flips. I wonder if this can be loosely read in the phenomenon of scammers watching people through their webcams.
So what you're saying is that this video isn't about scambaiting, but masterbaiting?
I'm sorry. It had to be done
@@KiloNovva YES
how was this comment posted two days before the upload?
"A human is a broken robot"
-Big Joel, March 2020 💖🤖
I really like the idea of a top google result for a website that just says “this phone number is good” and giving you a phone number to call with no actual direction
I actually only now heard that americans' calls are answered all the way in India. In Brazil, if you call costumer service you'll just be helped by another brazilian, I thought this was how it was worldwide. If anything, it's food for thought about how differently the southern and northern hemispheres operate.
I was a customer service representative for several years and am still in a call center position. I'm based in the US, though, and not international. And wow, a lot of your observations are right on the money. The ideal worker in my field is one who can follow a script to the letter, deviating only enough to customize whatever trite "empathetic statement" is relevant to the customer's situation, but otherwise be as faceless as possible. And you're right, it is immense emotional labor. My work has a room I refer to as the Crying Room, because it usually has someone in there having a breakdown after a particularly bad call. The last thing I'll say is, though other people in the comments are probably correct about there being good reasons for the webcam thing, you're right too: we are curious about the person on the other side of the line. :)
Kitboga is Elite Tier
However Jim Browning is God Tier
And Hoax Hotel is even higher, Omega Tier
Atomic shrimp is mega cool gamer cool rank
Lol neither of them actually do anything to the scammers like Jim Browning does tho
And neither of them have the dedication of Kitboga
@@nevereverr Ok.
Scammer Payback and Deeveeaar
Hell yeah, love to see one of my fav youtube niches get the Big Joel "what is this piece of art say to us" treatment!
Hope you're staying safe out there brother!
This is actually one of my favourite videos from your channel, I am really glad you made it even though you said it was a weird one.
Hey Joel, I work in customer services and have a lot of Indian colleagues. Your video calls to a lot of things I've been vaguely aware of for a long time and helps put them into words. I also briefly watched scambaiting videos and stopped due to a vague sense of guilt and it's really nice to know that's not a unique feeling. Great video!
I've seen some of these before. It can be performance art and funny. The class issue is always at the back of it though. Scamming is terrible! Wrong! But... I feel bad for someone so desperate that they would do that
exactly, its just another job for someone who can't eat
Empathy for people who are in desperate situations is very important. I went through that both times that I was robbed at gunpoint, and I found myself reflecting that, if I was in my assailants' desperate positions, I would likely have done something very similar.
However, it's also important to keep in mind that scam companies usually target people who are, themselves, financially vulnerable, and the scammers themselves are well aware of this. Scamming victims are often elderly and living off their retirement money, or are desperate to make money and are thus more likely to believe scammers' promises. And as many scambaiting videos prove, a great many scammers are very willing to go through the (very lengthy and deliberate) process of taking money from their marks even after learning that they're sick, or financially destitute, or in some other desperate position.
Being in a desperate situation can only be so much of an excuse when your entire living is built on putting OTHER people in desperate situations too.
A lot of them actually make a lot of money. Like one of the scambaiters mentioned in this video recently uploaded a video where it shows how much these scammers actually make
@@nevereverr It's the owners not the employees. A scam call center employee makes like 30000 INR a month which is like $400
no desperation save for having to pay for your sick child's medical bills makes scamming people okay.
I remember one scambaiting video I watched where the baiter essentially interviews the scammer after calling him out on his scam. The story the scammer tells is that he left his rural home to move to the city and take a job at a call center, which turned out to be a scamming operation. As he tells it, he doesn't like being a scammer, but he doesn't really know where he is, the company is boarding him, and he's barely making enough money to support himself, let alone pay to travel back home to his family. So if he quits he'll essentially be homeless and destitute, stranded far from his home.
These scammers aren't criminals pretending to work in call centers. They're people working in call centers that happen to be run by criminals. I think that's important. Scambaiting videos are jarring because they're an opportunity for viewers to mock, deride, judge, and take pleasure in the misfortune of scammers. They humanize call center workers just so people can scorn them. But if the idea that the Microsoft rep really cares about or speaks for their employer is an illusion, why would the same not be true of scammers?
I'm not saying scamming is moral, but I think holding up scammers as objects of scorn as a form of entertainment is still perverse.
This is why I find scambaiters like Jim Browning uncomfortable because of the way he hacks and spys on the hackers when a lot of them could just be there because they couldn't find any other job and are prehaps forced to work for scammers
Almost all of the stories the scammers tell are lies. This includes sob stories about how they can't find another job. Anyone who falls for it, like you, is just being incredibly naive.
@@scorch527 It's naive to think they must be true, yes, but it also seems foolish to think they can't be true. There are plenty of people who are stuck with legitimate, legal call center jobs that they hate, but can't leave because of their economic situations. It's hard to imagine why this would somehow not be the case for scammers.
I think you're right--when you're talking to a scammer you have no reason to trust them about anything. At the same time, that doesn't mean that nothing they say can be true. They're still people, and people both lie and tell the truth when it suits them. I think, then, the things they say are worth considering, if not outright believing.
@@adamg2031 Your last statement makes no sense. You seem to want to believe them because if you don't it conflicts with your worldview. Just ask yourself this question: are there really no other jobs to find in India for someone who speaks English well enough to convincingly scam Americans out of their money? Do the poorest people speak English?
@@scorch527 Aha, that is a good observation. I hadn't considered that.
Early in the video you ask us to imagine that what we are watching is a fictional story with a plot written by someone with the intent of amusing us, and I think this points up something very important about the appeal of scambaiting videos that you didn't say directly. That is: would we be so entertained by these videos if we knew they were fake? I don't think we would. I think part of what's happening when we enjoy one of these videos is that we are experiencing the schadenfreude of seeing a bad person suffer. More importantly, it's not just seeing them suffer by having to deal with an annoying person over the phone, but rather, we get a glimpse of the fungibility of their labor power as "customer support" under capitalism. Their alienation. How they spend hours of their days reading a script someone else has written for them, living their lives on a time zone 12 hours away, and so on. They're *already* miserable. And we're able to enjoy all that misery because they, from our standpoint, had it coming.
Now I certainly have watched and enjoyed these videos before. But there's something incredibly perverse and troubling about it to me. Something feels wrong about taking pleasure in someone else's suffering just because they've earned it. It feels like it speaks to a dark part of human nature, the same thing inside me that wants retributive justice instead of restorative justice.
Recently, RUclips recommended a video with a ton of views, titled something like "Thief caught on camera trying to pick my lock, then running himself over with his own car". I think the appeal of videos like this is pretty obviously (and troublingly) similar to that of scambaiting videos. What makes it good to see this person suffer? Well, it's because they're a thief. And worse, a stupid one. What makes this function as comedy is that we're capable of thinking about this person becoming a thief or that Indian becoming a scammer in total isolation from their material circumstances - such that the only factors that count in explaining their conduct are their morally blameworthy decisions. This bothers me a lot. In some sense the point of these videos is that those on the losing end of capitalism have earned it, and it's okay to not only accept but to *enjoy* the results.
I kind of agree, about the revenge psychology certainly. I just don't really see what baiters put scammers through as "suffering", they're just made to deal with as much bs as they give out. Most of it isn't any worse than the joke calls we used to get when I worked in a legit call centre.
Also, the amount of "suffering" they endure is usually proportional to how awful and underhand they are. Regardless of hardships that lead to them doing it, there are some really nasty bastards that say and do awful things to their scam victims. while some are just trying to get through the script and please the boss, (kitboga doesn't usually spend much time on them and just moves to another scammer) others are truly nasty, sadistic monsters. I can't believe some of the stuff I've heard them tell what they think is a little old lady, screaming at them, telling them they'll go to jail or that their family will be harmed.
I find your videos to be generally thought-provoking, and as a fan of Atomic Shrimp's scambaiting videos, I was excited to see that you made a video about it. one thing that I wish you had examined further is how odd it is that the scammers try to access their victims' webcams. I would think that a scammer seeing their victim makes it harder to morally justify their scam to themself, because it forces them to confront their victim's humanity.
They don't really work off the same morals in the first place though. Humanising a victim isn't a huge problem for most that we see, especially when you consider how many of their victims are very obviously vulnerable, whether it be confusion or crying.
Big assumption here, seeing their victim allows them to make even more judgements on if they can scam the individual or not.
@@moonie1825 Yeah, doesn't make sense when you already have to have gotten halfway through the scam before you can access the webcam.
My grandma got scammed by someone pretending to be my older sister calling from jail, asking for bail money and for her to not tell our parents. The scammer apparently called my grandma by the nickname we use for her. She didn’t ask anyone about it until after she had sent the money through the mail. Really scary stuff.
Big Joel, I love you, but “Kitgoba” hurt me as a fan of Kitboga’s work. It’s also extremely incorrect and rampantly dangerous to say that “computer literate” people are safe from scams 100% of the time. Intelligent, computer-literate people fall for these things every single day, and for you to downplay them that way reduces the need for awareness.
I mean, even Jim Browning was led to accidentally delete his RUclips account
Honestly your videos are presented in such an aesthetically pleasing way, I love the minimalist aspect and the fonts used as well as the cute art that goes with it(props to Moth!). Your analyses really make me think more about the subjects you talk about. :)
(also the "they might want to" part i find surprisingly effective LMFAO)
I usually let them blow up. I had two calls last year;
-> number was local (spoofed).
-> "Hello, this is Jim/Susan from Microsoft customer support. We detected a threat on your computer."
-> Me: "Alright, you're calling a number in Germany with a German phone number, yet you speak English with me. I'm pretty sure Microsoft would get into serious legal trouble with the German regulators if they actually provided this form of proactive consumer care. My suspicion is, this is a scam!"
Calling them scams directly pisses them off instantly, most of the time. I can imagine that India is not a nice pace to live and that you're in a very bad position as one of their call center workers. So I have pity for those to some extent. But I also have very little on my own hands myself and a have nothing trying to rip off a have nothing is just bad.
As far as i can tell, the reason scammers want to take video/pictures of the person on the other end of the call is to capture footage of the person on the other end for blackmail purposes.
I think the reasons can be a lot more varied than that. Often it seems like a voyeuristic sexual thing, for instance
@@BigJoel I really hope that this is the case. Maybe i am just too cynical to see it another way. Great video bud, cant wait for more.
Them just wanting to know what you look like paints a really depressing picture. I could ask my mom about it. She worked at geico for a while until it put her the psyche ward
This took a very unexpected perspective of the topic; I was blown away more than once on the way you choice to analyze the topic, and it was outstanding!
Gonna show this to my sociology teacher, as it would be perfect for his course on globalization. Fantastic job!
If these scam baiters really wanted to do something worthwhile, they would call predatory loan companies here in the US.
That's not a bad idea
@TheSpecialistGamerX2 you misunderstood my comment completely... the predatory loan companies ARE the scammers, and the scam BAITERS should be calling them.
I forget which scambaiter this is so hopefully someone will mention, but there's one I watch who was asked why he doesn't do a fake Indian accent when reading things, and he replied "I'm not racist". He's a super cool dude and I respect his kind of scambaiting because he makes it clear that there are class issues driving this stuff and racism has no place when scambaiting. I get fed up with a ton of other scambaiters because they use those fake accents and are blatantly racist at times even if they mean it in jest.
Update: Jim Browning! He's great.
Atomic Shrimp also does not read it in an Indian accent to
You inspired me to watch a shitton of Kitboga's videos and it's interesting to me how one of his main strategies is actually to get an attempt at human connection from the Global South, even if it's all made up--like asking a scammer to put his fiancee on the line or things like that. Usually they get very hostile, and I get the sense that they're in particular preying on Americans' ignorance of their conditions, and if they want to know more about what it's like, they get very suspicious
This was a really great video. I love talking to scammers abruptly as people and ignoring their attempts at scamming and seeing their reactions to me trying to be friendly. The art complements this video really well, too
This was really great. Possibly one of my favourites of your videos. Although you said at the end you don’t listen to podcasts, there’s a great episode of a podcast called Reply All where they go to track down one of these scammers. It’s really fascinating hearing them swing between almost sympathising with the scammers and resenting them.
The begining reminds me of "Sorry to Bother You" with the fact that they need a white name and to use their white voice
the real scammer is the friends we made along the way :)
Big Joel! Your videos are reaching a fantastic level of interesting material, a satisfying and intuitive succession of the points, and just getting me to think about the subject matter and ideas for the rest of the day. Nobody else I watch can talk about such a specific topic and yet get the audience thinking so broadly. Good job, Medium sized Henry!
I loved that you did this! I have been waiting for an analysis on the meta-sphere around scamming and how it connects to our lives through the lesson you gave. Wonderful video!
This is the first time I've heard of the term "Global South" and I really like it. While it feels like a very Americanized interpretation of the world (which has it's own problems), the idea of taking the North-South divide of pre-reconstruction America and mapping it to the world is really interesting; the North being the consumers and the South being the producers. It definitely summarizes the ideas and intent behind words like "third world" and "developing" much better. Making it easier to understand the thoughts and emotions that go into calling a country part of the global south.
As far as I know, "Global South" originates in the (slightly inaccurate) observation that the rich, dominant countries of the world, i.e. the ones located in North America and Europe, are located in the Northern hemisphere, while those who have been colonized and have little to no strength in the world stage, i.e. Africa, Asia, and South America, are located in the Southern hemisphere. The phrase has less use in the last few years because of exceptions to this rule, but I think Big Joel was using it here because it's an easy way to contain the package of "countries that have historically been dominated by powerful ones and with people in much worse economic situations" in two words. It's possible it is sourced in U.S. history, but I have never heard that before =p
...Maybe Google the term before assuming it has anything to do with the American Civil War
So glad you added Kitboga. I watch him everyday. He's the only scambaiter that I love. I think others are too harsh and downright racist with it. Kitboga's the only one I've seen who doesn't devolve into derogatory retorts with his scammers. He treats them as people who are doing bad things, rather than a bad person doing what they do best.
What scares me is the idea of scammers paid on commission by a large corporation that can absolutely afford to waste tens of hours a week talking to scam-baiters. I cannot imagine the emotional trauma of scamming innocents on a graveyard shift, but I completely empathize with them losing their shit.I feel for those poor dehumanized people too much to bare watching any of those videos. I just want to reach thru the screen and tell those poor pawns that they have value, that they're still persons deserving so much better. I just want to give them a hug, to do anything that might make their day just that little bit brighter...
i don't know exactly how long ago you + mothcub started collaborating, but i am really loving this partnership! i have been following both you and lilly for years now on your various content platforms, and this is like a fun real life cartoon crossover:-) x
Hey Big Joel, love your content. I always get excited when you upload a new vid. Have you considered doing a piece about the perverse spectacle of vigilante pedophile hunters? I think you're the only video essayist that could tackle the subject and the media produced from it.
Like Qanon?
how do i explain to my friends that the last line "they might want to," sent me momentarily into the greatest uncomfortable laughter i have ever experienced
god i've wanted to see someone genuinely reckon with these videos for a while now, thank you!
This video was a weird tangent for the channel. I love it, keep doing it.
This comment will probably get buried but I used to watch a lot of Kitboga and from what I can gather the scammers themselves are almost never acting as an individual. Usually they are operating under a larger group that is pushing this. Kitboga himself has said he never wants to hurt or insult (personally) the person he is talking to because he knows that they might be forced into this job. He saves his real vitriol for whenever he manages to get a person in charge on the line.
Watch more videos. The amount of people forced into this is negligible.
I thought you would go a little further in the camera aspect, I think we might even consider this as a sort of act of subjugation and role reversal - the scammer might feel degraded by the scambaiter (the Westerner, duh) and now they take a part of the scambaiter that feels way more personal than any other thing they might have provided. Or maybe they just need photos for some identity theft tricks.
Also I work in outsourcing (west of India, I want to be as vague as possible) and while many things you mentioned where true to me as well, like using English version of my name, some were not. When supporting companies you often have remote access to users' computers. You also often have a set of pointless corporate bureaucracy proceders and ask the user seemingly pointless questions. You're supposed to go by the book, but you often end up meandering. And you also may be supporting companies whose reputation is questionable, so your conscience is not always clear.
I don't watch scambaiting videos cause I feel sort of sorry for the scammers. They probably work in cubicles in a corporation-like companies and would prefer to be working somewhere else.
It's been seven months and "they might want to" still pops up into my head every now and then
art quality has taken a dramatic jump up these past few vids, I love it.
Atomic shrimp does scam baiting the best.
I remember the one where one of the spammers said that he worked for the Nigerian ministry of finances but really he lived in hole in the ground.
Scam baiting is extremely funny and entertaining.
Ownage pranks also does really good prank call videos and you should check him out if you want a laugh.
I love Kitboga's videos and watch him a lot, however, I have recently gained a new perspective after comming across another channel who deals with scammers (Pleasant Green). What I have realized and I don't think Kitboga touches upon very often is that there are many cases where the people conducting the scams are only involved because there aren't really any other income opprotunities for them, they are being forced by their superiors and the the scammer isn't making much of a living because most of the profits go to the ones leading the call center. This doesn't mean they are completely justified in what they do, I just think it is something interesting to consider. Another interesting thing I found out recently are some of the ways they make money from giftcards. For instance, one way is buy using the gift cards to launder money buy purchasing their own Apps (that they have developed themselves) through the app store and it is often hard to determine which apps are being used for this purpose. The whole process they use to make their victims fall for the scam is idiotic but I find it impressive how they have figured out how to launder the money.
I really appreciate getting a new video from you now. Being quarantined has been hard and I appreciate you.
I just wanted to say that this is an excellent video! I love watching you apply a critical perspective to things we think we understand, revealing something intriguing and challenging. Love it!
I don't particularly like Scambaiting. It's just watching people wasting time. Sure, one of the people are scamming people and you are delaying them scamming someone innocent. But it is still literally watching people wast time.
In the other hand... I love Jim Browning. Because he actually strips the scams naked. He shows us what they are doing and how they are doing it. It shows the bosses, and not only the person on the phone. And at the end... he provides police with all the info he gathered and sometimes even are able to get the some of victims their money back.
It's not just two people playing this weird game of fooling each other anymore...
I dont think that's a particularly strong argument. Anyone can say anything is just wasting time.
@@SerbianKnifeFight I'm not saying it's waste of time to watch his videos. After all it's entertainment. Watching him or watching Game of Thrones are both the same kind of waste of time.
I'm saying that what he's doing is wasting the time of the scammer. We are watching people waste time. Literally. And the reason I, Mateus, don't like it. Just as someone can dislike GoT because they don't like Dragons. Each person habe their own tastes.
I haven't watched the video yet, but there is one aspect of scam baiting that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There is a slight understated aspect of racism, especially against people from India. Most scambaiters aren't being overtly racist, apart from perhaps mocking or imitating Indian accents. But the comments under can be really disgustingly racist.
the whole gist of scambaiting videos is "look how dumb this third world guy with the funny accent is".
Agreed. I went through a week or two where I watched a lot of Kitboga videos and mostly stopped because of the comments. There were too many really overtly racist comments. In the videos themselves there wasn't anything really overt, although he does often make jokes about where the scammers claim they live e.g:
Kitboga: Where are you from?
Scammer: Oh I live in Brooklyn.
K: Oh wow, do you get to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge??
S: Oh yes every day
@@opattison why is it amoral
@@opattison It doesn't bring the worst out of its audience. There are people that hold prejudices and the anonymity of the internet allows them to express these thoughts easily. Go look up any video on india and you are going to find racist comments regardless of the topics. If anything it is the concept of scamming that emboldens these racist because it allows them to have some form of moral high ground in their racism.
@@opattison You mistake cause and effect. The problem is that scammers exist and that the vast majority of them are Indian. Pretending that not shining a light on this issue would somehow not bring out these 'bad' comments is woefully naive and counterproductive.
I love how in detail you can go about whatever you want. It’s cool. Most people don’t care about looking at stuff like this but you do care and I’m glad you can share ur opinions it’s like my favorite thing
I haven't watched this yet because there's an ad running for H&R Block but thank you so much for putting up a new video so I don't have to keep rewatching old stuff from everyone for the rest of the week I'm at home even though I will absolutely be doing that anyway and this will not actually change anything except that I may momentarily feel a spark of life anyway here's wonderwall