I can't complain because they did eventually restore my account. It was an incredibly stressful experience though. I feel dreadfully sorry to smaller channels who may have fallen for this scam.... I may have been lucky with reaching the right person.
@@JimBrowning It's really rough with how much the system ignores smaller channels. Glad to see they were able to put scambait Batman back in his Batcave though.
Back before Google+ closed I had to do something very similar to transfer my RUclips account from an older Gmail account, I have this account and one with no content on it now. I can definitely see how this could happen, it is pretty close to the actual process
the shame of being scammed keeps most scams from coming to light. this is what everyone who gets scammed should do. tell everyone you know and don't let them fall for it too
Not true. Never fell for a single scam not even in the heyday in the early 2000s when I was a teen. I had so many situations with scammers during a time back in the mid 2000s when people didn't expect to get scammed, ever, yet I NEVER fell for it. Sure in those days, most of us who didn't fall for scams, also had self doubt and wondered maybe it was legit. But now, we know we were rifht, and people STILL FALL FOR THEM. Even kids who GREW UP WITH THE FKN INTERNET. Some people are born deformed. Their brains are deformed and tiny and incapable of advanced intellect, logic, common sense, instinct, intuition, etc. Just like most youtube viewers who fall for the "buy my merch because it's only limited time and limited sale" scams. Or "donate on my patreon or I wouldn't be able to support myself and make videos despite already making ten times more than you per day than you do in a month just though ad revenue and sponsors" scams.
Oh, they get so technologically advanced these days. Some things still boggle me to this day how the hell did they did it from phone number jacking (not spoofing, full on hijacking) to get MFA codes..etc and I regularly studying new cyber security techniques that are like seriously they are doing this now WTF
Jim has spent literally thousands of hours fighting scammers. I’m glad he’s not too proud to admit he can also fall victim. This is a really important video. Also love he immediately went on the offensive to track down the scammer once he realised what was going on.
@KY5 [9th Main Account] not u posting several comments like this here. love how the yt app never fails to show how rent free these ppl live in yalls heads.
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Syon Lalwani, you're indian and you're better than commenting petty things to someone that is doing a good thing. You can do better than this Syon
I think part of this came down to a little over confidence on his part because after all who in their right mind would knowingly target him for a scam? Maybe it is how i was taught to work on computers but something my teacher/mentor taught me was to never be to confident to always believe there is a chance you are going to screw something up. Even today when building a computer i still worry that ill hook something up wrong and double and tipple check everything and until i see that bios splash screen im just a tiny bit worried it will die or not power on. He even said it him self he "blindly trusted..." Blind trust does show over confidence. Not a bad thing it is a normal thing once you have done something 1k times 10k times etc you get to a point where you think you can not fail and when you do that that is when you blow it big time. I fried a few usb thumb drives in my day because i knew i hooked up the usb right and in a few cases i hooked front usb ports to fire wire ports :)
It makes me a bit upset that RUclips lied and said they couldn't reinstate your account for whatever reason, when all it took was a bit of traction for them to actually try. Because as we can see from the conclusion of the video, it was most definitely possible to recover your deleted account. This just shows that RUclips support really doesn't care enough to try unless you have clout...
Or it shows they need to update their script/canned emails to reflect reality now. I don't think "clout" has much to do with this instance, otherwise it wouldn't have taken them days to do something.
It was probably someone who only helps with basic tech support stuff and didn't really know what they were talking about in regards to recovering deleted accounts, rather than someone just lying.
@@ShandoGuardian Probably word got to some higher up who could actually do this, doubt they'd give enough power to restore things to some random tech support guy working for $20 per hour.
Glad to see you back Jim - and I hope the silver lining to this cloud will be that people realise that it's not just 'stupid people' that can become victims of scams (a point I have been labouring myself for some time now) - I think people want to believe they are smarter than others who get scammed, because believing that makes them feel safer - but _feeling_ safer is not _being_ safer. Even the best people are not *always at their best* - I believe everyone has moments when they are vulnerable
James Randi: "No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived." This is an important lesson in vigilance and I'm glad Jim has shared his experience with the class.
I was actually going to refer to your video @Psyched Substance... I did see it. It's obviously an ongoing attack. I've sent this video to the (real) YT support people and I'd like to think that they might be able to use some of this to plug that hole in Google Chat. Glad you're back too PS!
@Jim Browning I’m curious if YT will have any feedback. The only difference is they actually got my password for a very brief amount of time before I changed it. It wasn’t enough for them to do anything except I keep randomly seeing their device show up in my email under “logged in devices.” No clue why/how as I’m positive they can’t do anything due to 2FA. I’m perplexed how they keep showing up though. After days I now believe it’s linked to my phone that I accepted their sign in on. As long as I keep that phone off they don’t show back up under logged in devices. I’ve since kept it off out of fear. The only thing I can think of to do is wipe that phone. Ppl suggested they have a saved cookie from the session that’s how they keep appearing but I’m nearly positive it has to do with my phone since as long as it’s off they don’t show up for days till I switch it on. Any insight?
It’s terrifying when professionals fall for it as well. Scamming is a real problem that I wish could be combated easier. Glad you got your account back though!
That’s must be quite the badge of honor. The scammer who scammed Jim Browning… I suspect he will forever live in fear as he’s made a very dangerous enemy!
@@Retroskiii The tech wars are much like any other wars- one side finds a new method or technique and it works till the oppo figures it out or makes a new, faster go-bang to counter the first one. Rinse and repeat till exhaustion. FR
Just like Simone Biles! The true greats are never invincible and aren't afraid of letting the world know it, and become extraordinary and inspirational teachers as a result.
And let that be a lesson to us all - If the master can be scammed, then no one is immune. It's a brave move to admit when you got caught out. I am impressed with your honesty.
Jim Browning, moments after realizing he’s in the middle of being scammed: “I don’t know who you are… I don’t know where you’re from… but I can tell you that I have a very particular set of skills… “
I've had scammers claiming to be from game Dev companies like Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Bioware, etc. offer 'a pre-alpha version' of their latest games (something MOST gamers would jump at), and then they provide you with a link to download+install the game, but it turns out the 'game files' is just a worm/keylogger. You gotta be SO careful these days because a single wrong click can destroy your channel. Glad you got it back Jim
They typically won't actually offer for you to play unless you sign up for it, I was part of Heroes of the Storm alpha testing. PLUS they tie it to your account 9/10 times instead of sending a straight link.
This is why I still run an antivirus on my computer. It is my backstop. If I am dumb enough to click a bad link, my AV's job is to catch the file and nuke because I missed it. Kinda like the catcher in baseball is how I think of my AV
I think it is safe to assume not all scammers come from over seas, and not all scammers have a poor handle on the English language either. This was an eye opener, thank you posting it, we all learned thanx to you. Blessings to you sir.
You know what, as a person in IT I had huge respect for you getting this information out to others. Now I have 5-10 times the respect for you admitting that you fell for this and warning others, you could have just been quiet, but you were not. Thank you.
This is an excellent point Jim makes. I work in Cybersecurity and there is a constant battle about how much we should train end users or depend on them to stop potential attacks. Awareness is great and can help prevent a larger overall number of issues, but we still need to make sure there are good procedure and products in place. CEOs get tricked, Exec Admins get tricked, even CISOs get tricked. Especially now in this crazy hybrid world we live in where everyone is stressed and working as hard as they can. Have some additional empathy and build a culture where it is ok to pause for a moment and double check if something seems legitimate. Also, I bet in this case if RUclips had a responsive account management style for content creators I am sure Jim could have contacted a named rep at RUclips when this message first initially came up.
This. "if RUclips had a responsive account management style" I mean, let's be real, they're making literal millionaires out of people and you can't get them to do anything but send you "Creator Tips".
17:09 I imagine they state that there's no recovery of deleted channels simply out of corporate expediency; it's easier to make an exception to a promise of _zero service_ than it is to fail to provide a promised service
Probably true. It did take their 'internal' team quite a while to do the necessary work to recover the channel. I'd imagine they'd not have the resources to do this often. I'm grateful they made an exception for me.
Speaking from my personal experience as the top tier of support for a cloud service provider, when your account is compromised they will move purchases over, but not the storage blob, so the same kind of messages flow. But, if you contacted my team instead of accounts team, we can build a case to have engineers move the blob.
The irony of trying to scam one of the best anti-scammers around... I'm so glad everything worked out, I can't believe 8 years of work was almost gone in an instant
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
I am glad you shared this. SUCKS when we get suckered, BUT this will help other people realize it can HAPPEN TO ANY OF US. Those scammers get too smart.
Unreal. Jim is such a pro that even after falling victim to a scam, his focus doesn’t just go straight to fixing it, he starts looking into the scam itself. It’s like a detective solving a crime he was the victim of.
You're looking at this wrong. It isnt a single crime and not only Jim was the victim of that. There are many others, and Jim is simply looking at the bigger picture, the larger problem. Even if he found ALL of this scammer's personal info, it wouldnt solve this exploit where anyone can do this via google chat, and pretend to be RUclips Support. On what grounds is someone even allowed to have a username like "RUclips Support" on Google or RUclips anything? Any webpage, chat, or any of Google's services? It does NOT make ANY SENSE whatsoever. Just imagine that you go to a police station where literally anyone is allowed to wear a police uniform, and claim they are a police officer. And the police dont have any problems with that. So people can just walk in wearing a uniform, and then impersonate an officer and try to get people's information as they come in to the station. Google is absolutely horrible.
i feel like a lost of scam baiters have a mad-eye moody approach of "constant vigilance" and rightfully so but that's also just not how it always goes down. life happens, shit happens, and you can be caught off-guard. thank you for showing and explaining to us your "off-guard" moment and being humble about it. it can literally happen to ANYONE! thanks for the reminder that victims are not alone!
@Jamie Last this video is about a popular scam baiter who very nearly got scammed himself because of a weird coincidence in his life. What I meant was you can't call a certain group of people who get scammed morons when they are still being scammed and victimized. That's victim blaming and not part of the culture that these awesome scam baiters that spend their time catching these scammers want associated with what they do. You will never hear them call any victim of a scam a moron.
It takes courage and genuine humbleness to admit such a blunder; let that be a lesson to all of us. I also admire how you managed to suppress your anger and went straight into investigative mode once you realise what's going on.
I didn't need to re sub, thankfully. This all had me terribly worried for a moment tho once I heard about it from penguinz0. Keep up the great work Jim!
This really does show how convincing these scams can be. Even people who are fully aware of this can get caught. Reinforces that the people who fall for these aren't 'dumb' or 'should know better' anyone can fall for it
@@BlondieHappyGuy yup , the beginning of the " tutorial" of what not to do sounds like a bit different. Slight voice change . Oh , it's been changed Somebody is paying attention. Lolz 😂😂😂..
He's back! This video will no doubt save some other creators. All missed Chat notification emails show that same default chat-noreply Google address, which is a huge fail on Google's part that is clearly being exploited more and more with their recent Chat merging/rollout.
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
Much respect for admitting what happened to you. Never considered supporting anyone on patreon but you'd be the first if I did. I pray you guys are successful at bringing down these scammers. They got my parents as well but thanks to videos like yours I was able to educate them and prevent them from losing more money. God bless you and your fellow youtubers. May He aid all of you in bringing these people to justice.
When RUclips/Google support talks to you, you know it is a scam. Real RUclips support will either not respond or they would respond after days of sending a query.
not chat though, that one is instant (depending on the queue). But for me, this one was an obvious scam because they have an advance warning despite serious violation, instead of just suspending the account.
this legit scares the crap out of me. In the past Ive gotten so many dodgey emails that I never know wether or not they are real anymore. Glad you got everything up and running again. I hate scammers with a passion
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
@@MrUssy101 👈 everyone help take down this die hard Karen, for using hateful toxic spams. As a way to seek desperate attention, as he continues to make people fall for his fake theories
I feel like you guys should at least tell him ways to grow his channel normally so he doesn’t continue self promoting instead of mindlessly attacking him
As a rule if i get an email about issues with one of my accounts i go direct to the site through a fresh browser and check if the problem appears there or connect with support. I only use emails as a recommendation to verify through other means.
"Never underestimate the competition" they say. This is the best and most useful video you've ever made - and you've made countless outstanding videos Jim. Thanks for sharing this very personal insight into the murky world of scumbaggery.
I respect how he's forthcoming about being scammed himself. Even more so that he's one of the biggest names in online scams. You'd think he has seen it all and yet things like this can happen. No one is scam proof and we must remain vigilant.
There's no such thig as "he has seen it all" no one has and no one can, because times (and exploits) change. And unfortunately, this exploit is so obvious and silly, that it casts Google at a terrible light of letting it slide for so long now.
@@avae5343 no. He doesn't need to fake this to bring attention to the scam as he has 3 million subs. His brand is based on honesty. The fact that he has his channel back adds nothing to this "what if" scenario.
Honestly I was almost scammed into something the other day. I was expecting to be contacted for a job opportunity anyway, so when I get a WhatsApp message saying they have an opportunity for me I went along with it for a bit. Got bounced between a couple different accounts and the website and accounts were claiming to be from a real company. Slowly it dawned on me that this was a scam as they didn't ask for any details on myself to get started, the job itself was basically cookie clicker, and the website had weird spelling errors. After some research it finally clocked, so I asked them some questions about how they thought this job ACTUALLY was supposed to work, to which they just claimed it did. Then blocked and reported their numbers and called it a day. Coincidence really is a powerful tool
-I was previously of the mindset that anyone can be scammed but now I'm just confused. Even if he did thinking he was really talking to RUclips why would you voluntarily delete your own channel? I also notice that the "RUclips Support" grammar is very similar to grammar used by Microsoft Tekneeshuns- Edit: Should clarify here that I commented this with the information on Twitter before I watched the video. The video itself seems to explain everything better. Oops.
@@Naleksuh I think it was all circumstantial. If he hadn’t had the coincidence of the phone the day before I don’t think any of this would have transpired.
LOL stop hero worshipping the guy, he got scammed by a basic bitch scam, shameful for someone whose entire schtick is being smarter than scammers and getting back at them.
7:51 I just can't get over the fact that it *literally* says "Never submit passwords through Google Forms" at the bottom. On a form where the scammer is asking for a password xD
I believe this is just proving his point that anyone can be scammed, and it takes a big man to own up to his mistakes. Good job Jim, we love to have you back.
When I saw your tweet about this I was blown away, I know Muta received a similar email as well. Welcome back Jim, I am very happy youtube was able to actually help. Keep doing what you do best
The most respectable part is that he probably didn't even know or cared what his channel was about, he just saw the capital M next to his subscriber count and shot his shot.
@@MrUssy101 Idk if this is a troll comment, but I haven't seen any toxicity. It seems most people agree about how unfortunate it is that a few bad apples have screwed up the reputation of India. Even then, Jim has made a video about not every scammer being from India. No one hates any particular group of people.
@ᙏɾ Uടടყ ಠ ͜ ಠ yeah all this dude does is comment on jim browning vids LMAO his vids are all indian music + a lot of the connected channels are indian or just random celebs so I'm wondering if he's just an angry scammer. bio literally says not a scammer so seems he's just salty he's been called out lmao
Jim, thank you for your honesty about what happened to you. This is really good information for anybody with the RUclips channel. Keep up the Great work!
@@oerlikon20mm29 when I got 2k I created a new one that would be used for anything serious and used my old for spam, but a year later the new one became spam email number 2 lol
not exactly sure what my unread email count is up to but it is several thousand at least. i only ever check my email when i am specifically expecting a message of some kind.
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!v
This, and those fricking calls. They bombard especially the elderly and it’s disgusting. I have answered my mom’s phone because of course they fake the ID and some are so foul and disgusting.
Thank you for everything you are doing! I’m new and trying to catch up on all your videos! You go above and beyond. You are absolutely brilliant and such a wonderful person! Everyone needs money- that doesn’t make it right to scam innocent people. Thank you for showing so much love and goodness in a world filled with greed and hate.
It takes a lot of humility to post something like this, especially when you're known for getting the better of scammers. I know when I lost dozens of dollars of steam items I didn't want to admit it or talk about it, but sharing experiences like this is one of the best ways to help other people avoid being scammed. I'm glad you got your channel back, and I hope other creators will see this video and now be prepared for scams like this.
yeah when i nearly lost my steam account which had hundreds of games and items on it i was distressed but steam pulled through and got my account back they never got it because i got my account locked so they couldn't.
ya i got scammed by getting a message from what looked like my bank and i logged into my account and then felt like maybe i had just fucked up so i told my mom and she was like “wow. i never thought that young people could fall for scams too i thought they only got old people” and i was soooo embarrassed
Sometimes even the smartest and most careful people can fall into the bait. But hey, as you said, in a way it needed to happen so people can be aware of this.
I alwas almost got by a steam scam, that someone had reported my profile on accident, and to speak with a steam offical. the steam offical account was insane, and im still unsure how they did some of what they did. always be careful, i would have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars. im very lucky, his English wasn't perfect when he went off script
A hero rescues others from distress. A legend does the same but also shows others the way when they fail. Jim you are the best of us. I’m glad you got you’re channel back. You deserve the platform more than most.
Props to Jim Browning for being confident enough to share what happened so we all learn. I would honestly have been so embarrassed if I was in his shoes. He is a stronger person than me.
Being open and honest when you make a mistake is one of the most underrated qualities in a person. It will make you better at your job, better at maintaining healthy and good relationships, and better at reaching your potential. Everybody makes mistakes.
I liked a lot of your 2022 videos, but this is the one that made me subscribe to your channel. I deeply appreciate your honesty and for walking your audience through the scam step by step and pointing out the pitfalls. Just four minutes in, I had already learned a few new tricks I hadn't seen before, and could easily empathize with how distraction or coincidence could catch anyone! I love your videos, keep fighting the good fight!
also, two "step" doesn't really communicate what's really going on - two factors of auth - somthing you know (your password, which you prove by giving it) and something you posses (your 2fa device - which you prove by having it generate a one time code and giving that)
2-step and 2-factor authentication are actually 2 slightly different things: 2-step just means there's 2 steps for logging in and commonly uses security questions or a code sent by email or text in addition to your password. 2-factor means that both authentication elements satisfy separate requirements. There are 3 types of these requirements: something you have, are, and know. A password and code sent by email both only satisfy the 3rd (something you know) since a hacker would only need to know your account password and email password to retrieve that code - they don't need access to a physical device of yours (something you have) or biometric data (something you are) for example. Since 2FA requires at least 2 of these things, it is far more secure. The most common forms are a physical USB key which the hacker would need to steal in addition to hacking your account, or a 2FA app that generates offline codes and would require direct access to your device (and these are usually also protected by both your device password and a 2nd password to open the app).
I mean, he does it for a job, so he makes some money, but when his scam failed he thought he might scare jim into at least giving him 100 dollars. 100 dollars for a failed scam attempt is pretty good since that number is usually 0
My first thought was that the $100 could have been symbolic. If he is indeed making the money he stated, to be able to receive $100 from Jim Browning himself would have been a symbolic victory
13:56 Wow, that part got me! Amazing for this guy to have the brass to just ask for charity after a failed scam attempt. These people must be walking black holes of morality, I doubt he even knows that what he did was wrong.
He was teasing! Jim i am from the streets, Just a different way to look at this from another angle. It dose not seem like this person was you reg common hacker/scammer. It almost appears like its almost a childlike personality to this person, an immaturity. Meaning He may not have been taking this as serious at first or even more so really expect you to fall for it. BUT, the key thing that sticks out that i most def thing that you took the wrong way is when they said "What made you think I was RUclips" You took that as he wanted to know how to improve his skills. but obviously he knew exactly what to do to add and delete your account so i dont believe this was what he meant by this. When he asked he really wanted to know why. and the dead give away was. "Do you have anybody you hate and wanna take down" you took it as a pure partnership at first but I believe he was more so telling you why he chose to do this to you. So to be honest. I believe the person you are looking for is prob most like one of these competing RUclips channels that are in your category. Prob someone who is trying to kick off their Channel and maybe thinks you arent as good as them, dosent know why you have lots of fans, or get the praise that you get in the community. Hints the pity and free show of gloat, skill and compassion by giving you the exact (CORRECT) instructions on how to get your Channel back. Scammers dont give in, they dont give anything for free. They get busted they move on. You know that. SO, long story short your looking for a fellow scammer watch page, possibly an outsider within your community and or youve had a disagreement with
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Instead of spitting your ignorant crass chatter on everyone's comment section, perhaps go for a walk and buy some Snickers. It will make you feel better, especially if you're malnourished, right :D ?
I love how you could've had this big huge ego and not let anyone know. This is bigger than you and me. If these people can get you. They can get anyone else and That's very scary man... Thank you for this info
Yeah, Jim could totally have bluffed his way out of this without telling anyone anything - channel down for a couple of days? Could have argued it was a weird glitch and the only people who would know would be a few staff at RUclips (who would never share the info) and maybe the scammer (who could be handwaved away). Props to Jim for having the guts to tell the true story. Must have been quite a difficult few days.
Absolutely. It's embarrassing to be fooled, but it's incredibly honorable to acknowledge that you messed up and tell other people exactly how to save themselves from making your same mistake. Anyone can be scammed.
Sheeeesh, this was scary stuff. I'm a software developer, so usually just scoff at obvious phishing and the like, but man...this serves as a warning to always keep my guard up online.
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tired and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
Mad that the RUclips staff claimed the account couldn't be restored. How many smaller channels have been wiped out because Google Support can't be bothered to undo an honest mistake without the backlash of a large community?
Developer here (not at Google, obviously) With the right kind of access, anything can be made up/restored. The problem is that, by definition, cancelling a permanent change is breaking the rules. Asking to undelete this is basically asking to a human expert to hack its way across several work processes in order to trick RUclips into believing the channel never moved. Well, not exactly never because that other Jim got views... uh... That's the open gate to a lot of complications. Let's say you stop your subscription to YT Premium... what if the expert come in and sets the system as if you never stopped? What the community asked to RUclips is to *break any trust into any kind of permanency*. It should "never" be done and must be reserved for exceptional cases. No human should have the right to undelete data.... and you're asking all of that because Jim forgot to check the email from RUclips support. Do you honestly believe his channel is worth enough to risk non-standard fixes, and proving that nothing shown by RUclips could be genuine? RUclips decided that yes, Jim Browing was worth the expert's salary. My 700 subs would not be worth it.
@@ng.tr.s.p.1254 I agree that there should be a grace period. If it is not available, that means the deletion process is *too complicated* to rollback automatically. And we want RUclips to do *anything* to rollback this case? Sounds like a disaster incoming. Last time I checked, Discord doesn't make recommendations to random users, nor is in a contract with advertisers to put ads on public videos. There must be *centralized lists* somewhere, and adding/removing from them must not be simple.
@@laplongejunior yeah I know DIscord isn't RUclips, I was just trying to make an example. Though even if the deletion process is indeed too complicated to rollback automatically, RUclips support team shouldn't just tell people to suck it up and make a new channel from scratch like they did to Jim.
@@somebody700 the thing is, the scammer told him to do the same thing youtube themselves (later) told him to do. That was the actual procedure. The circumstances seemed right.
You showed that even a top notched scambaiter can be scammed . I admire you for using this bad situation and turning it into a learning to all of us on what to watched for. You are still number one in my book Jim. Keep up the fight my friend.
Its very humbling that you shared this experience with everyone considering your 3.3 million subscribers came from videos showing you getting the upper hand on scammers. It definitely shows scammers are getting vast in ability
I love that you talked about this. It's a great way to remind everyone to stay alert and have proper protection in order. And sometimes even THAT won't save you. The world is a scary place. Stay safe everyone.
"The circumstances just have to be right." Which is the biggest takeaway for me. I almost got scammed for a car because I desperately needed one, I was saved only because the second part was pretty obvious like in this case.
I almost got scammed when i was trying to make my comcast payment. (dyslexia'd the last 2 numbers of the phone number) Thank god the scammer wouldn't take American Express. They didn't get the numbers and now that card's been replaced.
This makes me feel better about being scammed. It was embarrassing to admit it, but I felt it was important to share my experiences to help my friends. I, too, made mistakes because of coincidences. Now I spend time engaging with scammers to waste their time and hopefully discourage them. I think this has reduced the number of calls I get.
Creator of Grabify here, I'm absolutely star stuck that you used our service! Very glad you were able to get you account back. Keep up the awesome work!
Jim Browning, it took incredible courage and integrity to have published this account. Thank you for sharing an invaluable lesson. And thank God your content was restored.
Ok relax. Considering that he knows his status it's likely that he knows none of us would think we're above him for falling for this scam. And plus it makes a good video for his channel. He had all the reasons to upload this that he'd ever need.
@@Tjerty Yeah, made a tidy sum, too! 1.5 million views and counting. I don't blame Jim at all or begrudge him, but 'incredible courage' is beyond puke-inducing.
It’s the only thing that Jim got wrong actually. The scammer didn’t spoof the Google domain - they just sent a chat message to him and Google Chat sent an email notification to him (obviously from Google servers), hence the Google domain.
@@JDowning640srll I think that part is actually somewhat misleading, he saying that by having the Google chat request come from an official Google domain (since the chat is sent via Google's services) it makes it look like it's authentically Google sending the message without needing to spoof the email. the subject should say something like "Chat request (from scam email dot com)" rather than showing up as a Google no reply. at least thats how i took it, that there needs to be more clarity the chat request you are receiving is not directly from Google
@@hackerling yeah, but Jim makes it clear in this video that the scammer intentionally set the “outbound email” notification to be from a Google email. They didn’t. That’s just how Google sends notifications that there’s a new message on Google Chats. But I do agree that the email should be sent from the Google Chats user, however, that isn’t possible in all cases if the GC user is using a non Gmail email account.
It's really scary how scammers are getting more and more clever with deceiving people. I just want to say that it's really sad how RUclips Support won't even bother with smaller channels that fell for this same exact scam.
Your message that anyone can be scammed given the correct circumstances is so true it hurts. I was scammed out of $2000 due to a very smart scammer that ended up being from the United States, having perfect English, and having correct knowledge on local, state, and federal laws memorized and at the ready. Unfortunately because I personally authorized the payment my bank told me there was no way to get my money back and with some sleuthing of my own I found out who the person was but the police were zero help and basically told me I was shit out of luck. Stay safe out there people. Most scams are garbage but there are a few that when certain life events take place will seem true and if the stars align in a scammers favor it could be you drawing the short straw.
@@zahrulexe Its one of those that want you to look at their profile and maybe click on their videos . Sad. O.k , its what looks like an Indian kid , maybe 12 years old , Croydon ( suburb of London) England
Am I the only person that thinks this is faked for views/subs/whatever? Not even I would for fall for this shitty scam, let alone Jim Browning himself...
@@evokies Mate, you say this. But until you are actually in the situation you can not speak. Everyone has their off days where they are to distracted to notice the tiny things. And why risk years of work for a faked video? You could easily have fallen for the same or even more noticeable scam. Hindsight is 50/50 after all.
@@evokies you only now would of known it was a scam after watching the video, everything was too legit. people get distracted, do you go around checking every link and account if they're a scammer? dont think so mate.
Little did Jim know that talking to RUclips support is a far worse torture than speaking to any scammer.
I can't complain because they did eventually restore my account. It was an incredibly stressful experience though. I feel dreadfully sorry to smaller channels who may have fallen for this scam.... I may have been lucky with reaching the right person.
@@JimBrowning It's really rough with how much the system ignores smaller channels. Glad to see they were able to put scambait Batman back in his Batcave though.
@@Huggbees *Cough Cough* How its Really Made, Scams Would be nice
Didnt expect to see one of my favorite youtubers here lol
@@Huggbees Are you a mint or a chocolate?
I think that finally puts the argument of "how can anyone fall for a scam" to rest. This more then proves ANYONE can be scammed. Be careful.
Yo who is the requiem director?
@@Hellooo999 I want to talk to the requiem manager.
@@dardanik What about the requiem CEO? We have budgets to cut.
Back before Google+ closed I had to do something very similar to transfer my RUclips account from an older Gmail account, I have this account and one with no content on it now. I can definitely see how this could happen, it is pretty close to the actual process
@@MrUssy101 Bait.
Glad they restored your account! Keep being you Jim
Verified account POG
Ey!
Love your channel
Hi grandma voice! Love your content buddy!!
Ayo!! Kitboga, the most entertaining scambaiter
Only a true master recognizes his own mistakes, and lets himself and others learn from it, you are just beyond awesome.
Cairo
the shame of being scammed keeps most scams from coming to light. this is what everyone who gets scammed should do. tell everyone you know and don't let them fall for it too
Not true. Never fell for a single scam not even in the heyday in the early 2000s when I was a teen. I had so many situations with scammers during a time back in the mid 2000s when people didn't expect to get scammed, ever, yet I NEVER fell for it. Sure in those days, most of us who didn't fall for scams, also had self doubt and wondered maybe it was legit. But now, we know we were rifht, and people STILL FALL FOR THEM. Even kids who GREW UP WITH THE FKN INTERNET. Some people are born deformed. Their brains are deformed and tiny and incapable of advanced intellect, logic, common sense, instinct, intuition, etc. Just like most youtube viewers who fall for the "buy my merch because it's only limited time and limited sale" scams. Or "donate on my patreon or I wouldn't be able to support myself and make videos despite already making ten times more than you per day than you do in a month just though ad revenue and sponsors" scams.
Just like the scammer
The irony in all of this is that, in the end, the only person who can defeat Jim Browning is Jim Browning.
This is so true he got scammed but he did the damage to hinself
'Fine, I'll do it myself' - Jim Browning
Lol
@Arian Asistin Cease.
@Arian Asistin truck crash simulator Tf
I got the same message today!!!! I knew it was fake because of this video!
Hi
Don't like this comment
Cool
So less likes!
here
Another proof that ANYONE can be a victim of a scam. Even people with fast experience like Jim.
Indeed, you only need to be caught off guard
Oh, they get so technologically advanced these days. Some things still boggle me to this day how the hell did they did it from phone number jacking (not spoofing, full on hijacking) to get MFA codes..etc and I regularly studying new cyber security techniques that are like seriously they are doing this now WTF
vast🙂
@@th-wicked He has a fast knowledge of the Enlish langwij.
@@Zaillothen Put these foolish ambitions to rest
Unreal. I'm quite happy RUclips CTRL-Z'd your channel back into existence. The scammer loses...again.
Nothing is ever deleted from the internet, as it is forever in there in some way...
@@AkiraAlexisSoyra unless it’s actually cleaned from the internet
I think there's a grace period of 30 days before it's truly deleted.
I think it's just a good thing that nothing deleted on the Internet is ever really gone.
Indeed
Jim has spent literally thousands of hours fighting scammers. I’m glad he’s not too proud to admit he can also fall victim. This is a really important video. Also love he immediately went on the offensive to track down the scammer once he realised what was going on.
@KY5 [9th Main Account] don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
@KY5 [9th Main Account] not u posting several comments like this here. love how the yt app never fails to show how rent free these ppl live in yalls heads.
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Cry me a river
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Syon Lalwani, you're indian and you're better than commenting petty things to someone that is doing a good thing. You can do better than this Syon
@KY5 [9th Main Account] L...
It takes a very humble person to admit they've been scammed, especially when you make a career out of exposing scammers. Good to have you back.
I think part of this came down to a little over confidence on his part because after all who in their right mind would knowingly target him for a scam? Maybe it is how i was taught to work on computers but something my teacher/mentor taught me was to never be to confident to always believe there is a chance you are going to screw something up. Even today when building a computer i still worry that ill hook something up wrong and double and tipple check everything and until i see that bios splash screen im just a tiny bit worried it will die or not power on.
He even said it him self he "blindly trusted..." Blind trust does show over confidence. Not a bad thing it is a normal thing once you have done something 1k times 10k times etc you get to a point where you think you can not fail and when you do that that is when you blow it big time. I fried a few usb thumb drives in my day because i knew i hooked up the usb right and in a few cases i hooked front usb ports to fire wire ports :)
It's amazing having him back and this just shows that ANYONE can be scammed, even if you make a living off of exposing said scammers!
WTF is wrong with that bot having that annoying profile picture?
It makes me a bit upset that RUclips lied and said they couldn't reinstate your account for whatever reason, when all it took was a bit of traction for them to actually try. Because as we can see from the conclusion of the video, it was most definitely possible to recover your deleted account.
This just shows that RUclips support really doesn't care enough to try unless you have clout...
Or it shows they need to update their script/canned emails to reflect reality now. I don't think "clout" has much to do with this instance, otherwise it wouldn't have taken them days to do something.
It was probably someone who only helps with basic tech support stuff and didn't really know what they were talking about in regards to recovering deleted accounts, rather than someone just lying.
I doubt whoever sent that lied. Its very common for basic stuff like that to get lost between different teams for even moderately sized companies
Yeah, YT dont care what so ever for smaller channels. A few 100K subs and you're screwed.
@@ShandoGuardian Probably word got to some higher up who could actually do this, doubt they'd give enough power to restore things to some random tech support guy working for $20 per hour.
Glad to see you back Jim - and I hope the silver lining to this cloud will be that people realise that it's not just 'stupid people' that can become victims of scams (a point I have been labouring myself for some time now) - I think people want to believe they are smarter than others who get scammed, because believing that makes them feel safer - but _feeling_ safer is not _being_ safer.
Even the best people are not *always at their best* - I believe everyone has moments when they are vulnerable
@@MrUssy101 👈 everyone let’s all cancel Mr Ussy for being the origin of hateful toxic spam, so he can be terminated for harassment and threatening
Will you play amongus with me?
I got into scambaiting videos because of your content!
Ugh now if only RUclips could do something about all the scams in comment sections.. 👆
@@MrUssy101 that sounds a lot like projecting, mate
James Randi:
"No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived."
This is an important lesson in vigilance and I'm glad Jim has shared his experience with the class.
RIP Randi
I miss James Randi so much. ❤️
Man, I really miss Randi. What an incredible and funny man
The best teacher's allow students to learn not only from the teacher's past successes, but also their failures.
Hence the term "rookie mistake."
This is EXACTLY what happened to me! Same dude. He got us both.
Go troll elsewhere Gurpreet, you're not welcome here.
Watched your video on this Psyched S - glad you have recovered (except for the verified tick - hopefully this will be back soon).
Harold Potter pretty sure the tick is back unless I’m the only one who can see it lol.
I was actually going to refer to your video @Psyched Substance... I did see it. It's obviously an ongoing attack. I've sent this video to the (real) YT support people and I'd like to think that they might be able to use some of this to plug that hole in Google Chat.
Glad you're back too PS!
@Jim Browning I’m curious if YT will have any feedback. The only difference is they actually got my password for a very brief amount of time before I changed it. It wasn’t enough for them to do anything except I keep randomly seeing their device show up in my email under “logged in devices.” No clue why/how as I’m positive they can’t do anything due to 2FA. I’m perplexed how they keep showing up though. After days I now believe it’s linked to my phone that I accepted their sign in on. As long as I keep that phone off they don’t show back up under logged in devices. I’ve since kept it off out of fear. The only thing I can think of to do is wipe that phone. Ppl suggested they have a saved cookie from the session that’s how they keep appearing but I’m nearly positive it has to do with my phone since as long as it’s off they don’t show up for days till I switch it on. Any insight?
It’s terrifying when professionals fall for it as well. Scamming is a real problem that I wish could be combated easier. Glad you got your account back though!
The email simply says Hi with no name what so ever.
That’s must be quite the badge of honor. The scammer who scammed Jim Browning… I suspect he will forever live in fear as he’s made a very dangerous enemy!
It’s gonna be like a Liam Neeson movie. Jim will find and Jim will... well you know the rest.
Exactly what i was thinking, that theres someone out there who actually Scammed this Man 😂
@@Retroskiii The tech wars are much like any other wars- one side finds a new method or technique and it works till the oppo figures it out or makes a new, faster go-bang to counter the first one. Rinse and repeat till exhaustion. FR
@@bacongrz yes indeed, : of Jim: ,"I have a very special skill set. I will find you."
Scammer: ",Good luck with that."
How ironic he is in Turkey.
He'll probably be more scared of constant civil war in his home country more lmao
The true master shows his failures to make his pupils learn. Big man jim, youre a rolemodel
Just like Simone Biles! The true greats are never invincible and aren't afraid of letting the world know it, and become extraordinary and inspirational teachers as a result.
LEGENDARY!!!!!
@@athens31415 Simone biles is not comparable to this man. She got invited and trusted to make to USA look good and she field
@@realredditstories420 Field? Fielded ? Fell in a field? Fielder? Field fi fo fum……..
@@realredditstories420 field 🤡
Can we give him credit for being willing to show his mistakes and pitfalls so that others won't follow in the same path?
Kuomintang drip
Absolutely, he showed a lot of character owning up to it.
He died for our sins
That's why I love him so much imma be real he isnt trying to show a shiny status he shows everything to make sure people know the shit that goes on
@@clementine2001 Praise the Sun!
My mom almost got scammed and was feeling really bad till i showed her this. It can happen to anybody. Thank you for sharing your experience!
And let that be a lesson to us all - If the master can be scammed, then no one is immune.
It's a brave move to admit when you got caught out. I am impressed with your honesty.
This exactly! I’m really happy he put this out. Can really protect other people from this scam.
Yeah, exactly my thoughts...
Jim Browning, moments after realizing he’s in the middle of being scammed:
“I don’t know who you are… I don’t know where you’re from… but I can tell you that I have a very particular set of skills… “
😂
That is gold😅🤣
I love it. But the irony is that Jim's very particular set of skills means that he DID know where he was from haha
yawn. It's been said so many times before!
I've had scammers claiming to be from game Dev companies like Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Bioware, etc. offer 'a pre-alpha version' of their latest games (something MOST gamers would jump at), and then they provide you with a link to download+install the game, but it turns out the 'game files' is just a worm/keylogger. You gotta be SO careful these days because a single wrong click can destroy your channel. Glad you got it back Jim
nice
They typically won't actually offer for you to play unless you sign up for it, I was part of Heroes of the Storm alpha testing. PLUS they tie it to your account 9/10 times instead of sending a straight link.
I've heard of this one too... Or the 'Sign our sponsorship contract' attachment.
Got to be alert.
This is some really smart scam methods. We should all be more careful with these
This is why I still run an antivirus on my computer. It is my backstop. If I am dumb enough to click a bad link, my AV's job is to catch the file and nuke because I missed it. Kinda like the catcher in baseball is how I think of my AV
I think it is safe to assume not all scammers come from over seas, and not all scammers have a poor handle on the English language either. This was an eye opener, thank you posting it, we all learned thanx to you. Blessings to you sir.
You know what, as a person in IT I had huge respect for you getting this information out to others. Now I have 5-10 times the respect for you admitting that you fell for this and warning others, you could have just been quiet, but you were not. Thank you.
Couldn't have said it better myself
Lol "5-10", so strangely specific yet not specific
Did he ACTUALLY though?
@@JETJOOBOY EH?
@@JETJOOBOY conspiracy theorist?
I'm most shocked that the real RUclips support actually helped you so quickly. They usually let creators languish forever!
They helped quickly because big creators shared what happened
I mean.. he has 3 millions of subs. Ofc he will be one of the first to solve his probs..
I mean if they don't, with his skills in hacking, coding and computer language, he'll probably hack RUclips and do it himself if he has too.
As I had see they actually help a lot, there is a lot of cases like this that recover they channels
It happened before Jim and RUclips probably knew about the scam earlier. Fast support usually means they are in damage control.
This is an excellent point Jim makes. I work in Cybersecurity and there is a constant battle about how much we should train end users or depend on them to stop potential attacks. Awareness is great and can help prevent a larger overall number of issues, but we still need to make sure there are good procedure and products in place. CEOs get tricked, Exec Admins get tricked, even CISOs get tricked. Especially now in this crazy hybrid world we live in where everyone is stressed and working as hard as they can. Have some additional empathy and build a culture where it is ok to pause for a moment and double check if something seems legitimate. Also, I bet in this case if RUclips had a responsive account management style for content creators I am sure Jim could have contacted a named rep at RUclips when this message first initially came up.
This. "if RUclips had a responsive account management style" I mean, let's be real, they're making literal millionaires out of people and you can't get them to do anything but send you "Creator Tips".
17:09 I imagine they state that there's no recovery of deleted channels simply out of corporate expediency; it's easier to make an exception to a promise of _zero service_ than it is to fail to provide a promised service
This is in the 9th top comment when it has no likes and was posted a minute ago
Got nothing to say but that your content is very entertaining
Yeah. Without a massive online fuss the default would be "no", and that's depressing for smaller content creators.
Probably true. It did take their 'internal' team quite a while to do the necessary work to recover the channel. I'd imagine they'd not have the resources to do this often. I'm grateful they made an exception for me.
Speaking from my personal experience as the top tier of support for a cloud service provider, when your account is compromised they will move purchases over, but not the storage blob, so the same kind of messages flow. But, if you contacted my team instead of accounts team, we can build a case to have engineers move the blob.
The irony of trying to scam one of the best anti-scammers around... I'm so glad everything worked out, I can't believe 8 years of work was almost gone in an instant
Thanks for documenting this scam, Jim. Makes us all safer.
How's life going?
Yeah, Thank god he is back. I was scared for a really long time.
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
Big fan dude
Papaaaaaa
I am glad you shared this. SUCKS when we get suckered, BUT this will help other people realize it can HAPPEN TO ANY OF US. Those scammers get too smart.
Unreal. Jim is such a pro that even after falling victim to a scam, his focus doesn’t just go straight to fixing it, he starts looking into the scam itself. It’s like a detective solving a crime he was the victim of.
I just imagine a detective coming back as a ghost to find his murderer
Exactly
@@Nickwilde7755 like murder soul suspect?
You're looking at this wrong. It isnt a single crime and not only Jim was the victim of that. There are many others, and Jim is simply looking at the bigger picture, the larger problem.
Even if he found ALL of this scammer's personal info, it wouldnt solve this exploit where anyone can do this via google chat, and pretend to be RUclips Support.
On what grounds is someone even allowed to have a username like "RUclips Support" on Google or RUclips anything? Any webpage, chat, or any of Google's services?
It does NOT make ANY SENSE whatsoever.
Just imagine that you go to a police station where literally anyone is allowed to wear a police uniform, and claim they are a police officer. And the police dont have any problems with that.
So people can just walk in wearing a uniform, and then impersonate an officer and try to get people's information as they come in to the station.
Google is absolutely horrible.
@@morpheas768 lol
when the scambaiter gets scammed 😳 welcome back jim!
@@MrUssy101 salty aren't we?
Shut up clickbaiter Minecraft avocados from Mexico guy
@@MrUssy101 so..helping people with scammers is hateful and toxic? I suggest you rethink your life
@@MrUssy101 you aint going nowhere with this, you arent gonna protest and get jims channel deleted 🤡🤣
@@MrUssy101 So you're supporting the scammers ruining people's lives?
The moment when youtube suddenly had real time support, should've been the real tip-off for it being a scam.
RIGHT? lol
BINGO!!! Today's 🔨 & Nailhead Award goes to edge21str 🎉
I can’t tell if you’re joking but I love your comment either way.
@@callmeqt1269 they probably aren't tbh
@@callmeqt1269 No joke 😀 edge21str's astute observation about (supposed) real time YT support being a tip-off nailed it 😉
i feel like a lost of scam baiters have a mad-eye moody approach of "constant vigilance" and rightfully so but that's also just not how it always goes down. life happens, shit happens, and you can be caught off-guard. thank you for showing and explaining to us your "off-guard" moment and being humble about it. it can literally happen to ANYONE! thanks for the reminder that victims are not alone!
@Jamie Last lol what? That makes no sense because that is a scam as well. A scam is a scam whether it involves keyboard princes or gift cards.
@Jamie Last this video is about a popular scam baiter who very nearly got scammed himself because of a weird coincidence in his life. What I meant was you can't call a certain group of people who get scammed morons when they are still being scammed and victimized. That's victim blaming and not part of the culture that these awesome scam baiters that spend their time catching these scammers want associated with what they do. You will never hear them call any victim of a scam a moron.
Jim was like: "Finally! A worthy opponent. Our battle will be legendary"
hahahahahaha
This needs more likes:p
his name aint jim
Jim Browning vs Jim Browning
They will come across again 😃 it'll be entertaining as Jim takes him down this time ;)
It takes courage and genuine humbleness to admit such a blunder; let that be a lesson to all of us. I also admire how you managed to suppress your anger and went straight into investigative mode once you realise what's going on.
I was going to say it but you did perfectly
If it happened to Jim, it can happen to any of us .
@@rcruz6025 Dont know how he falled for this tbh. This was pretty obvious from the start. If you pay attention you will never get scammed.
I didn't need to re sub, thankfully. This all had me terribly worried for a moment tho once I heard about it from penguinz0. Keep up the great work Jim!
same, I didn’t have to re sub either
That jim browning guy is lucky
Same and Fucking he'll I almost had a heart attack, tho I was away when this happened so at least it wasn't that depressing
Me neither. No need to resubscribe.
But all this vid left me very scared.
Wait.... Why is this the same voice as @Marty T, from Australia, who fixes tractors. ruclips.net/user/AngryRamNZ
This really does show how convincing these scams can be. Even people who are fully aware of this can get caught. Reinforces that the people who fall for these aren't 'dumb' or 'should know better' anyone can fall for it
ehhhh
@@DanShinozaki ?
@@DanShinozaki A well placed coincidence on a busy day can catch anyone
Depends on the scam
@@thezec Okay, what scams does this not apply to?
your ability to flip a potentially disastrous event into an educational tool is what makes you one of the best ytbrs fighting scams, thanks Jim!
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Cry me a river
@KY5 [9th Main Account] shut up bot!!!
Plot twist.
We’re all being scammed.
This isn’t Jim’s account anymore.
_Bad ending_
The scammer used an AI bot to record Jim's voice.
@@Xantek85 i mean his voice sounds basic like text to speach on all vidoes - no hate, im just saying what it sounds like
The anti-scam scam is big on RuneScape. it was only a matter of time.
@@BlondieHappyGuy yup , the beginning of the " tutorial" of what not to do sounds like a bit different. Slight voice change .
Oh , it's been changed Somebody is paying attention. Lolz 😂😂😂..
He's back! This video will no doubt save some other creators. All missed Chat notification emails show that same default chat-noreply Google address, which is a huge fail on Google's part that is clearly being exploited more and more with their recent Chat merging/rollout.
verified with 2 likes, damn
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
@@MrUssy101 The irony of this die hard Karen, for using hateful toxic spams as a way to seek desperate attention….
That's cool and all, another scam documented, but the whole thing is, how you say, ironic.
the journey to walmart has begun !!!
Much respect for admitting what happened to you. Never considered supporting anyone on patreon but you'd be the first if I did. I pray you guys are successful at bringing down these scammers. They got my parents as well but thanks to videos like yours I was able to educate them and prevent them from losing more money. God bless you and your fellow youtubers. May He aid all of you in bringing these people to justice.
When RUclips/Google support talks to you, you know it is a scam. Real RUclips support will either not respond or they would respond after days of sending a query.
I live in Karachi Pakistan and I like your comment if you don't mind
@@sayyamzahid7312 lol wts wrong with u weirdo
@@FatboiReborn lmao ikr
youtube support basically lives in another dimension so if they respond then they are not the real deal.
not chat though, that one is instant (depending on the queue). But for me, this one was an obvious scam because they have an advance warning despite serious violation, instead of just suspending the account.
this legit scares the crap out of me. In the past Ive gotten so many dodgey emails that I never know wether or not they are real anymore. Glad you got everything up and running again. I hate scammers with a passion
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
@@MrUssy101 you realize his account was actually deleted for about a week right?
@@MrUssy101 👈 everyone help take down this die hard Karen, for using hateful toxic spams. As a way to seek desperate attention, as he continues to make people fall for his fake theories
@@MrUssy101 you realize you've clicked on the video as well.... So his tactics, if that were true, worked? 😂
TBAG!!! i love ur vids dude
No scammer can take down the mighty jim
@@kassondraaleman8993 if you gotta beg in comments for subs that aint gonna happen
@@kassondraaleman8993 stfu
@@kassondraaleman8993 reported
@@joseph_arrow 🤣
I feel like you guys should at least tell him ways to grow his channel normally so he doesn’t continue self promoting instead of mindlessly attacking him
As a rule if i get an email about issues with one of my accounts i go direct to the site through a fresh browser and check if the problem appears there or connect with support. I only use emails as a recommendation to verify through other means.
"Never underestimate the competition" they say. This is the best and most useful video you've ever made - and you've made countless outstanding videos Jim. Thanks for sharing this very personal insight into the murky world of scumbaggery.
@create Hehe
ruclips.net/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/видео.html
It's crazy that this wasn't a revenge scam, the guy knew nothing about you.
that was on my mind for most of the video
I feel like the revenge is coming... I hope Jim gets 'im.
Ya that's what I thought when I first clicked this, I thought that multiple foiled scam organizations had pooled resources to take him down haha
I thought that too! Fully expected an ip in Kolkata to be revealed.
I’m sure he’ll find out who he is soon enough
I respect how he's forthcoming about being scammed himself. Even more so that he's one of the biggest names in online scams. You'd think he has seen it all and yet things like this can happen. No one is scam proof and we must remain vigilant.
I appreciate his honesty but to be fair it makes for great content lol
Way too risky for one video. Plus he would’ve said so in the video if that was his motivation
You know what they say “even monkeys fall from trees”
There's no such thig as "he has seen it all" no one has and no one can, because times (and exploits) change.
And unfortunately, this exploit is so obvious and silly, that it casts Google at a terrible light of letting it slide for so long now.
@@avae5343 no. He doesn't need to fake this to bring attention to the scam as he has 3 million subs. His brand is based on honesty. The fact that he has his channel back adds nothing to this "what if" scenario.
Honestly I was almost scammed into something the other day. I was expecting to be contacted for a job opportunity anyway, so when I get a WhatsApp message saying they have an opportunity for me I went along with it for a bit. Got bounced between a couple different accounts and the website and accounts were claiming to be from a real company.
Slowly it dawned on me that this was a scam as they didn't ask for any details on myself to get started, the job itself was basically cookie clicker, and the website had weird spelling errors. After some research it finally clocked, so I asked them some questions about how they thought this job ACTUALLY was supposed to work, to which they just claimed it did.
Then blocked and reported their numbers and called it a day.
Coincidence really is a powerful tool
Almost fell for this a few weeks ago myself... It's a really sophisticated scam. Thanks for raising awareness Jim!
😳😳😳😳😳😳
😳😳😳
😳😳😳😳😳😳
😳😳😳
😳😳😳😳😳😳
@@chickensaladbrawlstars2729 E
@@curtuy878 cræm
@KY5 [9th Main Account] I hope both sides of ur pillow are warm.
@@i_throw_ched289 It's a bot, report it.
I’m glad you were able to get your channel back. Just shows how anyone can be scammed!
-I was previously of the mindset that anyone can be scammed but now I'm just confused. Even if he did thinking he was really talking to RUclips why would you voluntarily delete your own channel? I also notice that the "RUclips Support" grammar is very similar to grammar used by Microsoft Tekneeshuns-
Edit: Should clarify here that I commented this with the information on Twitter before I watched the video. The video itself seems to explain everything better. Oops.
@@Naleksuh I think it was all circumstantial. If he hadn’t had the coincidence of the phone the day before I don’t think any of this would have transpired.
the thing that gives it away is that on 0:56 they have We capitalized in the middle of the sentence plus the last sentence is missing a period 😂
@YouAintFromEndz well the problem is that many native speakers make mistakes as well so it's not as simple
@YouAintFromEndz so can you tell whether I'm a native speaker or not?
They scammed the man himself, and he got back stronger.
LOL stop hero worshipping the guy, he got scammed by a basic bitch scam, shameful for someone whose entire schtick is being smarter than scammers and getting back at them.
@@thebluelion3337 Ratio
@@thebluelion3337 u dont have no right to dictate others opinion. Stop telling others what to worship and not worship.
@@thebluelion3337 You say that like you wouldn't fall for it. Everyone can fall for a scam, no matter the experience
@@thebluelion3337 Found a scammer
7:51 I just can't get over the fact that it *literally* says "Never submit passwords through Google Forms" at the bottom. On a form where the scammer is asking for a password xD
I believe this is just proving his point that anyone can be scammed, and it takes a big man to own up to his mistakes. Good job Jim, we love to have you back.
Wise words, Vladimir Putin.
@Danito FG i imagine that would help
Does "owning up" to your mistakes mean having them poisoned?
@@SepticFuddy what do you mean
*anyone dumb enough to fall for it
Jim is a legend and this makes him even more of a legend. He came back stronger and more powerful. Look out scammers!
If they strike him down, he shall become more powerful than scammer could possibly imagine
When I saw your tweet about this I was blown away, I know Muta received a similar email as well. Welcome back Jim, I am very happy youtube was able to actually help. Keep doing what you do best
Big mommy milkers
Yes
I’m surprised RUclips even helped
Didn't expect you here
@@Mexikirb same
You know this scammer is getting all the respect and clout by other scammers for scamming the guy who is known for rooting out scammers.
And yet he still got rooted as well, just one step too late.
The most respectable part is that he probably didn't even know or cared what his channel was about, he just saw the capital M next to his subscriber count and shot his shot.
@@fofopads4450 Hahaha dumb*** scammer didn't even look at one video
Wow! Absolutely a very shareable video to share awareness! I'm very glad that you come back 🇵🇭 ❤️
@@MrUssy101 huhh ? What did jim ever do to u ????
@@MrUssy101 what
@@MrUssy101 Idk if this is a troll comment, but I haven't seen any toxicity. It seems most people agree about how unfortunate it is that a few bad apples have screwed up the reputation of India. Even then, Jim has made a video about not every scammer being from India. No one hates any particular group of people.
@@MrUssy101 Says the die hard Karen that’s been creating mass hateful toxic spam against anyone on RUclips for months
@ᙏɾ Uടടყ ಠ ͜ ಠ yeah all this dude does is comment on jim browning vids LMAO his vids are all indian music + a lot of the connected channels are indian or just random celebs so I'm wondering if he's just an angry scammer. bio literally says not a scammer so seems he's just salty he's been called out lmao
Poetic, in a way. The man known for hunting down scammers got scammed himself. Goes to show these things can truly happen to anyone.
I heard other youtubers got this email and fell for it. Kinda scary.
Lol he got scammed
@Sir Jimmy Savile Right??!!
damn lol
very true words Tails Is disappointed in Your Recent Decisions
That sucks man. Glad to see you got back
Don't fall for it yourself buddy.
I didn't even realize that he was gone until now
It's insane. The scam buster getting scammed. I guess we all have our lapse in judgment. Fancy meeting ACG here though! Noice.
@xXNiggaWaffenHDXx ratio
@xXNiggaWaffenHDXx ratio
Jim, thank you for your honesty about what happened to you. This is really good information for anybody with the RUclips channel. Keep up the Great work!
I’ll never fall for this, it would mean me actually checking my emails, and I’m far to lazy for that.
agree
Yea lol, I had 99+ unread emails… in 2019… I still haven’t checked my emails
@@oerlikon20mm29 when I got 2k I created a new one that would be used for anything serious and used my old for spam, but a year later the new one became spam email number 2 lol
not exactly sure what my unread email count is up to but it is several thousand at least. i only ever check my email when i am specifically expecting a message of some kind.
Bigbrain
This is freaking terrifying
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tried and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!v
Easy to avoid no?
This, and those fricking calls. They bombard especially the elderly and it’s disgusting. I have answered my mom’s phone because of course they fake the ID and some are so foul and disgusting.
Mhm
Oh your the scammer!
The amount of phising emails these days for creators is massive. from fake sponsors , fake youtube updates, fake copyright claims etc.
ye
It’s not a phishing email. It’s a legitimate email from Google Chats saying that someone has sent him a message.
you should try producing scientific papers... tens of emails a day
Only the strong will survive. No room for weakness
We are in a new era of scamming. Kind of like the Wild West of the internet.
Thank you for everything you are doing! I’m new and trying to catch up on all your videos! You go above and beyond. You are absolutely brilliant and such a wonderful person! Everyone needs money- that doesn’t make it right to scam innocent people. Thank you for showing so much love and goodness in a world filled with greed and hate.
It takes a lot of humility to post something like this, especially when you're known for getting the better of scammers. I know when I lost dozens of dollars of steam items I didn't want to admit it or talk about it, but sharing experiences like this is one of the best ways to help other people avoid being scammed. I'm glad you got your channel back, and I hope other creators will see this video and now be prepared for scams like this.
yeah when i nearly lost my steam account which had hundreds of games and items on it i was distressed but steam pulled through and got my account back they never got it because i got my account locked so they couldn't.
ya i got scammed by getting a message from what looked like my bank and i logged into my account and then felt like maybe i had just fucked up so i told my mom and she was like “wow. i never thought that young people could fall for scams too i thought they only got old people” and i was soooo embarrassed
Sometimes even the smartest and most careful people can fall into the bait. But hey, as you said, in a way it needed to happen so people can be aware of this.
Yeah love you Jim
I alwas almost got by a steam scam, that someone had reported my profile on accident, and to speak with a steam offical. the steam offical account was insane, and im still unsure how they did some of what they did. always be careful, i would have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars. im very lucky, his English wasn't perfect when he went off script
A hero rescues others from distress. A legend does the same but also shows others the way when they fail. Jim you are the best of us. I’m glad you got you’re channel back. You deserve the platform more than most.
Props to Jim Browning for being confident enough to share what happened so we all learn. I would honestly have been so embarrassed if I was in his shoes. He is a stronger person than me.
Word
It's really valuable to see exactly what happened so that we don't make the same mistakes. He's the best kind of teacher.
Being open and honest when you make a mistake is one of the most underrated qualities in a person. It will make you better at your job, better at maintaining healthy and good relationships, and better at reaching your potential. Everybody makes mistakes.
@@trwijbenga what word? learn english kid
@@jeestudent6758 Looks like we got a good old internet troll over here. I'm honored. Please continue, this is amusing.
I liked a lot of your 2022 videos, but this is the one that made me subscribe to your channel. I deeply appreciate your honesty and for walking your audience through the scam step by step and pointing out the pitfalls. Just four minutes in, I had already learned a few new tricks I hadn't seen before, and could easily empathize with how distraction or coincidence could catch anyone! I love your videos, keep fighting the good fight!
I've never seen "2-sa" as an abbreviation. I always see it as 2fa (two factor authentication.) maybe that confused him.
also, two "step" doesn't really communicate what's really going on - two factors of auth - somthing you know (your password, which you prove by giving it) and something you posses (your 2fa device - which you prove by having it generate a one time code and giving that)
yeah I was thinking the same thing, I call it 2fa
Or MFA if you don't want to limit it to two factors
2-step and 2-factor authentication are actually 2 slightly different things:
2-step just means there's 2 steps for logging in and commonly uses security questions or a code sent by email or text in addition to your password.
2-factor means that both authentication elements satisfy separate requirements. There are 3 types of these requirements: something you have, are, and know.
A password and code sent by email both only satisfy the 3rd (something you know) since a hacker would only need to know your account password and email password to retrieve that code - they don't need access to a physical device of yours (something you have) or biometric data (something you are) for example.
Since 2FA requires at least 2 of these things, it is far more secure. The most common forms are a physical USB key which the hacker would need to steal in addition to hacking your account, or a 2FA app that generates offline codes and would require direct access to your device (and these are usually also protected by both your device password and a 2nd password to open the app).
I've seen both "two-step" and "two-factor", but the only abbreviation I am aware of is 2fa. Maybe that was a misspelling?
The fact that the scammer said "I only need 100 dollars" is probably a dead giveaway that shows he doesn't make any money from stealing accounts.
I mean, he does it for a job, so he makes some money, but when his scam failed he thought he might scare jim into at least giving him 100 dollars. 100 dollars for a failed scam attempt is pretty good since that number is usually 0
Yeah If a poor person in turkey was making 16 thousand DOLLARS even semi regularly they wouldn't bother trying to extract small ammounts like that
and he uses a $100 phone that he probably got it used for $30
My first thought was that the $100 could have been symbolic. If he is indeed making the money he stated, to be able to receive $100 from Jim Browning himself would have been a symbolic victory
Could just be a power thing a $100 is still a win in his eyes.
Mark Rober saving himself by not remembering his password is just hilarious.
@Marc im in
@@agung-adhinata me too
@@vHades_ As do I
@@thedripcritic9379 guess I'm gonna join in
That was too funny to read 😂
13:56 Wow, that part got me! Amazing for this guy to have the brass to just ask for charity after a failed scam attempt. These people must be walking black holes of morality, I doubt he even knows that what he did was wrong.
He was teasing! Jim i am from the streets, Just a different way to look at this from another angle. It dose not seem like this person was you reg common hacker/scammer. It almost appears like its almost a childlike personality to this person, an immaturity. Meaning He may not have been taking this as serious at first or even more so really expect you to fall for it. BUT, the key thing that sticks out that i most def thing that you took the wrong way is when they said "What made you think I was RUclips" You took that as he wanted to know how to improve his skills. but obviously he knew exactly what to do to add and delete your account so i dont believe this was what he meant by this. When he asked he really wanted to know why. and the dead give away was. "Do you have anybody you hate and wanna take down" you took it as a pure partnership at first but I believe he was more so telling you why he chose to do this to you. So to be honest. I believe the person you are looking for is prob most like one of these competing RUclips channels that are in your category. Prob someone who is trying to kick off their Channel and maybe thinks you arent as good as them, dosent know why you have lots of fans, or get the praise that you get in the community. Hints the pity and free show of gloat, skill and compassion by giving you the exact (CORRECT) instructions on how to get your Channel back. Scammers dont give in, they dont give anything for free. They get busted they move on. You know that. SO, long story short your looking for a fellow scammer watch page, possibly an outsider within your community and or youve had a disagreement with
@@lovehildagrey lol, nice fanfic you got there
He would also request for "feedback" as if he was doing some kind of "serious job" or something
Imagine tricking the owner into deleting an entire 3.5M channel just to end up asking "I want only 100$"
Not just any owner!!!!!!Jim mfing Browning!! I could see some gamer or fitness youtuber but Geeeez the King????
Look its simple, if you give them money once, they come back for more. No way the 100$ was the final ransom money.
@@ElSkizzle actually I think he tried to find away to his bank account, he was gonna take much more than $100.
Amazing
Idk why but Jim typing "hehehe" looks hilariously out of character
I couldn't imagine him chuckling. I feel like he laughs only on the inside. He's Irish Batman.
I saw that the second I read your comment lol
@@mythosinfinite6736 very accurate
@KY5 [9th Main Account] spoken like a true scammer. :D how does it feel to leech off others? have a nice day
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Instead of spitting your ignorant crass chatter on everyone's comment section, perhaps go for a walk and buy some Snickers. It will make you feel better, especially if you're malnourished, right :D ?
I love how you could've had this big huge ego and not let anyone know. This is bigger than you and me. If these people can get you. They can get anyone else and That's very scary man... Thank you for this info
ruclips.net/video/KSXT6WAZFzo/видео.html
Yeah, Jim could totally have bluffed his way out of this without telling anyone anything - channel down for a couple of days? Could have argued it was a weird glitch and the only people who would know would be a few staff at RUclips (who would never share the info) and maybe the scammer (who could be handwaved away). Props to Jim for having the guts to tell the true story. Must have been quite a difficult few days.
Absolutely. It's embarrassing to be fooled, but it's incredibly honorable to acknowledge that you messed up and tell other people exactly how to save themselves from making your same mistake. Anyone can be scammed.
In moments like this I can only think of a quote by Brian Brushwood. "Cons don't fool us because we're stupid, they fool us cause we're human."
Sheeeesh, this was scary stuff. I'm a software developer, so usually just scoff at obvious phishing and the like, but man...this serves as a warning to always keep my guard up online.
It was an attention seeking technique by Jim to boost his cringe content. An old tired and tested method of all smoke no fire, all of you fools fell for it !!!!
@@MrUssy101 what are you a scammer. All this hate for jim
@@davidm3maniac201 I recommend to report him for spamming. I just did.
@@MrUssy101 Scammer spotted. Can someone reverse his connection?
@@pk3 Not a scammer, just a spammer. :}
Jim browning- FINALLY! A WORTHY OPPONENT! OUR BATTLE WILL BE LEGENDARY!!!!!
"I'm RUclips"
We should all fear his power
Your complaint has been filed and recognized. RUclips will be nerfed next time around. Bye!
That's similar to "I'm the captain now."
Jim Browning you're really helpful, always my goat!
Jim, if anything ... *anything at all* ... thank you for your humility.
Mad that the RUclips staff claimed the account couldn't be restored. How many smaller channels have been wiped out because Google Support can't be bothered to undo an honest mistake without the backlash of a large community?
It's scary
One small channel deleted, one less channel for youtube to pay ad revenue. ;)
Developer here (not at Google, obviously)
With the right kind of access, anything can be made up/restored.
The problem is that, by definition, cancelling a permanent change is breaking the rules.
Asking to undelete this is basically asking to a human expert to hack its way across several work processes in order to trick RUclips into believing the channel never moved.
Well, not exactly never because that other Jim got views... uh...
That's the open gate to a lot of complications. Let's say you stop your subscription to YT Premium... what if the expert come in and sets the system as if you never stopped?
What the community asked to RUclips is to *break any trust into any kind of permanency*. It should "never" be done and must be reserved for exceptional cases.
No human should have the right to undelete data.... and you're asking all of that because Jim forgot to check the email from RUclips support. Do you honestly believe his channel is worth enough to risk non-standard fixes, and proving that nothing shown by RUclips could be genuine? RUclips decided that yes, Jim Browing was worth the expert's salary. My 700 subs would not be worth it.
@@ng.tr.s.p.1254
I agree that there should be a grace period.
If it is not available, that means the deletion process is *too complicated* to rollback automatically.
And we want RUclips to do *anything* to rollback this case? Sounds like a disaster incoming.
Last time I checked, Discord doesn't make recommendations to random users, nor is in a contract with advertisers to put ads on public videos. There must be *centralized lists* somewhere, and adding/removing from them must not be simple.
@@laplongejunior yeah I know DIscord isn't RUclips, I was just trying to make an example.
Though even if the deletion process is indeed too complicated to rollback automatically, RUclips support team shouldn't just tell people to suck it up and make a new channel from scratch like they did to Jim.
This is the equivalent of rickrolling Rick Astley.
It's funny cause that also happened.
@@robertdascoli949 Yup, in reddit comment section!
This seems so unreal. This guy falling for this scam.. could be fake for views. He knows better
@@somebody700 the thing is, the scammer told him to do the same thing youtube themselves (later) told him to do. That was the actual procedure. The circumstances seemed right.
lol
You showed that even a top notched scambaiter can be scammed . I admire you for using this bad situation and turning it into a learning to all of us on what to watched for. You are still number one in my book Jim. Keep up the fight my friend.
Its very humbling that you shared this experience with everyone considering your 3.3 million subscribers came from videos showing you getting the upper hand on scammers. It definitely shows scammers are getting vast in ability
I love that you talked about this. It's a great way to remind everyone to stay alert and have proper protection in order. And sometimes even THAT won't save you. The world is a scary place. Stay safe everyone.
"The circumstances just have to be right." Which is the biggest takeaway for me. I almost got scammed for a car because I desperately needed one, I was saved only because the second part was pretty obvious like in this case.
I almost got scammed when i was trying to make my comcast payment. (dyslexia'd the last 2 numbers of the phone number) Thank god the scammer wouldn't take American Express. They didn't get the numbers and now that card's been replaced.
This makes me feel better about being scammed. It was embarrassing to admit it, but I felt it was important to share my experiences to help my friends. I, too, made mistakes because of coincidences. Now I spend time engaging with scammers to waste their time and hopefully discourage them. I think this has reduced the number of calls I get.
Waiting for the "I managed to reverse the connection, say goodbye to your Google accounts, hackers"
I managed to reverse the connection, goodbye to their families as I John wicked there asses.
@@MischievousMan23 lolol
@@myswanktrendz I love when you think Jim is a God at reverse access, this is one of the proof that he has been targeted by bot miners.
"Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war"
-Sun Tzu, the art of war
I like this since it can very much be true in warfare.
@@luviam0001 warfare?
Ok this one is actually sun tzu right? All these sun tzu comments bewildering me
@@MistahShootrES
Probably. Because somewhere in the past somebody use this tactic to win the war.
Sun Tzu approves this comment.
Creator of Grabify here, I'm absolutely star stuck that you used our service! Very glad you were able to get you account back. Keep up the awesome work!
I believe Jim has used grabify lots of times before
@franklin clinton Yeah? Then why doesnt your God expose the scammers Himself?
Grow up.
@@morpheas768 Figure of speech, nothing to do with what you're talking about.
@@morpheas768 Read your last two words to yourself. Then do it again
@@morpheas768 You really gonna attack religion over this? Come on. That’s not the main issue here. Leave people’s beliefs alone…
Another throw-off was the spelling of AdSense. But it's so subtle, hard to notice when you are scared for your channel
Jim Browning, it took incredible courage and integrity to have published this account. Thank you for sharing an invaluable lesson. And thank God your content was restored.
'incredible courage' 🤣
@@frazzleface753 ?
Ok relax. Considering that he knows his status it's likely that he knows none of us would think we're above him for falling for this scam. And plus it makes a good video for his channel. He had all the reasons to upload this that he'd ever need.
@@Tjerty Yeah, made a tidy sum, too! 1.5 million views and counting. I don't blame Jim at all or begrudge him, but 'incredible courage' is beyond puke-inducing.
You have definitely highlighted a major flaw with Google's services. Let's hope they change them soon.
It’s the only thing that Jim got wrong actually. The scammer didn’t spoof the Google domain - they just sent a chat message to him and Google Chat sent an email notification to him (obviously from Google servers), hence the Google domain.
@@JDowning640srll I think that part is actually somewhat misleading, he saying that by having the Google chat request come from an official Google domain (since the chat is sent via Google's services) it makes it look like it's authentically Google sending the message without needing to spoof the email. the subject should say something like "Chat request (from scam email dot com)" rather than showing up as a Google no reply. at least thats how i took it, that there needs to be more clarity the chat request you are receiving is not directly from Google
They should have put data in a database deep in the google servers were stuff goes if gone and they could restore it using that
What?
@@hackerling yeah, but Jim makes it clear in this video that the scammer intentionally set the “outbound email” notification to be from a Google email. They didn’t. That’s just how Google sends notifications that there’s a new message on Google Chats. But I do agree that the email should be sent from the Google Chats user, however, that isn’t possible in all cases if the GC user is using a non Gmail email account.
It's really scary how scammers are getting more and more clever with deceiving people. I just want to say that it's really sad how RUclips Support won't even bother with smaller channels that fell for this same exact scam.
How do you live without a Mustache?
i think that peoppe a paying less attention to details that got scammed, not the scammer getting smarter
Mhm
CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO AVOID YOU
@YoTokyo How do you have 30k subs without a video or views?
Your message that anyone can be scammed given the correct circumstances is so true it hurts. I was scammed out of $2000 due to a very smart scammer that ended up being from the United States, having perfect English, and having correct knowledge on local, state, and federal laws memorized and at the ready. Unfortunately because I personally authorized the payment my bank told me there was no way to get my money back and with some sleuthing of my own I found out who the person was but the police were zero help and basically told me I was shit out of luck. Stay safe out there people. Most scams are garbage but there are a few that when certain life events take place will seem true and if the stars align in a scammers favor it could be you drawing the short straw.
Well, you have proven to be human. You earned a lifelong right to tick the "I'm not a robot" checkbox.
Glad you're back!
😂
@KY5 [9th Main Account] what
@KY5 [9th Main Account] Cry me a river
@@kyson2419 just some random idiot or a spam bot
@@zahrulexe Its one of those that want you to look at their profile and maybe click on their videos . Sad. O.k , its what looks like an Indian kid , maybe 12 years old , Croydon ( suburb of London) England
Everyone when _Jim Browning_ can even get scammed: *chuckles, I'm in danger*
Am I the only person that thinks this is faked for views/subs/whatever? Not even I would for fall for this shitty scam, let alone Jim Browning himself...
@@evokies there are multiple big RUclipsrs that got their account deleted by this scam such as the spiffing Brit so I doubt it
@@evokies Mate, you say this. But until you are actually in the situation you can not speak. Everyone has their off days where they are to distracted to notice the tiny things. And why risk years of work for a faked video? You could easily have fallen for the same or even more noticeable scam. Hindsight is 50/50 after all.
@@bananiel8294 it's Jim Browning mate, I would be so fucking embarassed if I fell for such a shitty scam
@@evokies you only now would of known it was a scam after watching the video, everything was too legit. people get distracted, do you go around checking every link and account if they're a scammer? dont think so mate.