I mean ignoring the fact that it was a typical comma/full-stop mishap as is common in those type of scam, I wouldn't be surprised if even that small amount of money could potentially lure in someone from a more impoverished or isolated country, which might not know how much $8.50 is worth (aside from an assumption that that is a lot of money).
“Without the steam gift card, I can’t show you where I am.” I like the idea that he is crouched over, hiding behind airport chairs, responding to emails.
I like that these scammers so regularly end their sentences with "okay". I understand that it's supposed to be a question, like they're instructing you to do a thing, okay? But the lack of punctuation just makes them sound like dysfunctional telegraph messages.
For me that's the fundamentally insulting part of the scam, not that they're trying to cheat a person, but that they have the absolute disrespect to completely bastardize the language as well.
Same here! 🤣😂😁 “FOUND BUYER OK SOLD CROP $28 BUSHEL OK RETURN ON BLUE RIBBON STEAMER MAY 10 ARRIVE 14 OK YES BEEN HAVING AFFAIR OK FILING FOR DIVORCE ON 15TH OK HATE YOU SO MUCH OK”
A former neighbour used to use an exclamation mark. Instead of a full stop. Texts don't really have tone unless a wide vocabulary is used. But this style threw a wrench in to the gears. Very strange.
I was gobbling up buckets of imaginary popcorn, wondering if "right now" would catch up or at least keep up with "ok". Dangerous drinking game, this right here.
I really enjoyed that final ending, cause it leaves the impression that the scammer succeeded at the hard part, separating their mark from their money, but failed at the only part they actually care about, receiving the money.
I loved the comment that the old supplier "was dead." I would have asked "so the supplier came back to life?" or something absurd like that, just to hold their attention.
listen the oil brought him back to life ok so if you pay the fee right now you can bring your dead friends back too right now ok, please pay the fee right now or i will cancel the delivery right now ok
I love your Scambaits, the righteous indignation is always hilarious, and you have a voice for story telling. Thank you for always brightening our day.
This comment is a bit long, but I wanted to leave this comment as a thank you for helping me to potentially avoid being scammed 2 days ago, and as a reminder to anyone who might doubt that they could become the victim of a scam that this is something that can happen to anyone in the wrong scenario. It's mentioned a few times on these videos that people will be more likely to fall for scams if the details of the scam just happen to line up with something that has actually happened in the potential victim's life, or in a situation where someone might be tired or mentally fatigued and not able to think clearly in the moment, and that's what nearly happened to me. During the last couple of weeks, I've been taking care of a family member with Covid while also working more than usual (no physical contact with the family member, mostly just grocery and medicine deliveries and taking their dog out for walks, plus I'm vaccinated, and have been wearing a mask, sanitizing regularly, and got tested just in case.) Near the end of last week, another family member who isn't very tech-savvy asked me to check into some weird charges on their card, and it turned out that I had accidentally been using their card when ordering food for myself. I had originally set up an account for a food delivery app for this family member a few years ago, so I had set it up using their card. We shared the account for a while, though I only used it occasionally with their permission, and they stopped using the app altogether after a while. I started using the app again over the last couple of weeks since I was too tired to cook by the time I got home. I thought I had switched it to my card about a year ago when my family member stopped using it, but apparently I hadn't. We got that cleared up, I paid them back, and I switched the account to my card. A couple days ago, maybe an hour or so after I used the app to order some food, I got a call/voicemail from my bank about a potentially fraudulent charge on my card. Nothing in the message was overtly asking for my information, just a (paraphrased) notice that a potential fraudulent charge had been caught and that I should call back when I had the chance. I logged onto my online bank account and didn't see any unusual charges, but did see that the last few purchases I had made, including the food order, were all listed as "pending" and hadn't gone through as quickly as they normally do. I figured that my food order had gotten flagged somehow by the bank's system since it was the first time I had used my card with the delivery app, and that my account might have been locked, so I decided to look into it more and call back later in the day. I ended up getting a second call a few hours later from the same number with the same message. I've never had any spoofed messages from my bank before, so the odds of getting two just a few hours apart in a plausible scenario where the bank might have mistakenly flagged a purchase made it seem more legitimate. I've had both text messages and calls from my bank before, but never an automated voicemail, but figured that if it had been flagged by an automated system, maybe the message I had received was also part of the same automated system. I was tired and enough unrelated events lined up that I mostly believed that it was legitimate. I thought back to these videos though and how it's been mentioned before that happenstance can make a scam seem more legitimate, so I decided to be cautious about it and look up what my bank's procedures are for this sort of thing. It turns out that they do sometimes leave voicemails, but the phone number it would have come from was different from the number that had called me. I called my bank using the number I found on my bank's website and the person I talked to was honestly kind of unprofessional, in my opinion, asking me to verify my identity with my full name, account number, and SSN after I had told her that I was worried that someone was attempting to impersonate the bank to steal my information. Really all she had to do was ask for the number that called me and either confirm or deny it was a number associated with the bank, but she didn't do that and insisted that she was just trying to verify my identity. I'm pretty sure that this was someone actually working for my bank since I got the number from their website, but the situation made me uncomfortable and I decided to just go in person to talk with someone face-to-face. I went in, everything was fine with my account, they verified that they do leave voicemails sometimes but never automated like the ones I had received, and I gave them the fake number that had called me. So to summarize, I almost fell for the scam because: 1. The scammers used the name of my actual bank, which was unusual since it's only a small, local bank. 2. I had never previously had any phishing or spoofing attempts from someone claiming to be my bank, (though I have had a few from larger banks that I don't have accounts with,) but my actual bank has called and texted me before, so there was already some degree of trust there. 3. The scammers more-or-less followed the actual procedures that my bank uses, only falling short on the phone number and the voicemail being automated. My bank's website also didn't mention that they don't use automated voicemails, I only learned this after talking to someone in person. 4. These calls just happened to come right after I made a purchase that could realistically have been accidentally flagged as fraudulent. 5. At the same time I got these calls about a potentially fraudulent purchase, my actual recent purchases were taking longer than usual to clear, leading me to believe my account had been locked. 6. I was really tired after two weeks of being overworked and initially wasn't thinking as clearly as I ideally could have been. It wasn't until a few hours after the first call that I started to have my doubts and fortunately I hadn't had the chance to return the call yet by that point. Please, everyone, stay vigilant. Don't immediately jump to solve a potential issue that's brought to your attention by a stranger on the internet or over the phone, or even through the mail in some cases. Take some time to think things through, and even if something seems legitimate, ALWAYS double check.
Hope youre well rested now! Being scammed has very little to do with being stupid, in the right condition (wrong place, time and circumstances), everybody can be scammed!
This has more characters than a typical youtube comment and i love it In all honesty, im honestly shocked that the scammer was able to copy the name of your bank BY CHANCE. Jeez those scammers are terrible.
I really appreciate you sharing that story with us, truly an eye-opening experience! We might not fall for a scam under normal conditions but when life and its unpredictable circumstances occur, we might not see so clearly, not to mention that our natural urge to solve problems as soon as we possibly can, contributes to that effect. Be vigilant everyone!
This was so ridiculously OK the only thing delaying me RIGHT NOW from liking the video RIGHT NOW is that I can't stop laughing RIGHT NOW be rest assured I binge these videos once a month OK so please make more of them when you have the time OK seeing a new one pop up in my feed RIGHT NOW is like winning 8.10$ million united state dollar OK
Listen to me OK I will created 75, 000 00.0 00, 00M million real 100 % accounts right now to like your comment OK be rest assured that other commentator is a scam OK and then confirmed the only thing I am waiting for is gift card $ 100 dollars united state dollars OK? Best Regards ,. *Colonel Doctor Reverend Barista Doctor Sally Harry CBT WTF GNVQ*
These are always a treat! I especially like when you get them to give you a specific deadline and you break it. Despite the broken deadline, they have to keep going because the temptation of scamming you is just too great.
@@mambu3630 I think it's probably similar to an "umm" or "uhh" in their specific english dialect Or a way to try to make them seem more understanding/patient
@@mambu3630 In regards to punctuation, in another video he actually puts a graphic of a keyboard "OK" button getting pressed every time they say it, it's pretty funny. Maybe that's part of why they do it. But if you watch phone scambaiters, they do tend to use "OK"/"OK?" quite a bit
As a hockey fan, I died when the first scammer tried to fool you using Doug Wilson's autograph to pass himself off as "Paul M. Wilson"😂😂🤣 Great video! Keep up the good work, sir
I like the chess analogy: in scambaiting, you have a fundamental advantage over your opponent, and the object is not to go right for checkmate but to prolong the game as much as possible before a checkmate or forfeit.
Ideally, you want the game to go on as long as possible. The more time a scammer is trying to scam a scambaiter, the less time they'll spend scamming more vulnerable people.
I really like the live but glarded keyword counter and how each email shrinks into the background as a new one potatoes up. Small edit: I'd recommend adding 'kindly' to the word counter. It's another scammer favourite and is often a giveaway when dealing with fake text messages and scammers on Facebook marketplace.
"Kindly" seems to be an indian thing... I have some indian coworkers (online) who always put "kindly" at the beginning of any sentences asking someone to do something. It always makes me think of this series
As a retired taxi driver, calling for payment upfront is not that unusual, particularly if it involved a long distance and/or the customer was of dubious character.
@@toadhall1951where and how. Where i live thats not even remotely allowed. Also seems a bit sketchy to me to calculate a price before you exactly know how long the route is and how long it will take
@@andrefasching1332 In England it is not unusual for a set price menu to be in place for journeys outside of the licensing district. Early one morning (c. 6 am) I was approached by a man who wanted to go to Heathrow Airport - a journey of some 90 miles. Normally such journeys are pre-booked (and occasionally pre-paid). This guy was in a hurry so I told him the price and requested the fare in advance, as it has been known for passengers to arrive at their destination and to skip without paying. The fare was based on the set price menu. The taxi licensing authority is quite happy with this arrangement.
@@andrefasching1332 here some taxis have a fixed rate for distance (instead of charging for time and distance) and you can pay them in advance. Very useful for long-distance trips, but very expensive for shorter ones.
I wonder, what if you told scammers that whatever money they were pretending to have weren't enough to be worthy of your time getting them. I wonder would they'd start claiming that their funds suddenly increased?
Nah, they're generally impervious to responses at the best of times and the idea is to not only hook them with 'genuine' interest in getting scammed, but to be as much a fool as would be reasonable. Saying you have no time for $10 million would almost certainly drive them away. It's better to just stay on the hook and play with the nuance (e.g. typos, weird terms, confusion around paying in person, reluctance to use online payments, buying gift cards but they're paper 'Get Well Soon' stuff etc).
@@KdosdaHegen that wasnt a typo tough. they somehow were talking about 8.5 dollars for a few of the messages.. And he responded with 8.5 dollars isnt enough to bother with and they then bumped it up.
Whenever I'm in a horrible mood, just the kind of mood where I don't want to watch anything or talk to anyone or do anything - I find myself coming back to your scambaiting videos and other heres and theres on your channel. It takes my mind off of everything around me and theres something different with how you present your videos (compared to other youtubers I watch), that brings me into a state of calm and ease. I of course have other youtubers that I see as "comfort youtubers" but theres something with your channel in patricular that makes it easy to watch and listen to no matter what I'm doing or how I'm feeling. I really like your voice for example, and your calm manner, and a cheesy joke here and there. It brings me some sort of security and comfort knowing that I get to exist on the same planet and timeline as you and other wonderful content creators. I hope everyone who took the time to read this has a wonderful day/night. :D
I've got a bit of a weird idea, on a couple of occasions previously you've gotten rather wholesome with scammers, what would happen if you tried to do the opposite of that? Many scammers try to make up fake sobstories or claim connections to real-life tragedies to gain sympathy from victims, how would they react if you acted dismissive or outright malicious in reply to such claims, suggesting that you don't care about their fictitious suffering or even imply that you feel they deserve whatever horrible thing they claim to be suffering from. After all the scammers are already showing significant disrespect to their victims and the real victims of the various tragedies they claim to be victims of, it could provoke an interesting reaction to throw a similar degree of disrespect back at them.
You know that dude he does cooking things with, in Africa somewhere? Can't help but think that maybe that's what you're looking for? Or maybe I'm a douchebag, but unintentionally
Instantly gone. You either break them through force, but then you have to hold one over them, or talk them down. Any other option is the exception that proves the rule. This is war, and war has always played by these rules. Look at what the terrorists are doing in Ukraine. They can't do war, so they use terror. The most incompetent country on this planet is keeping people in fear because they have a hold on them.
ive done that a couple times with facebook scammers. theyve gotten quite upset at me being so dismissive or insistent that theyre lying about their fake families or life. it might be different with email scammers but it could be fun to see
What I like the most are all these new expressions like "holding up the potato" or "sound like a broken radish". I will use them in my conversations with Brits to sound more authentic.
I can just hear you saying "The kind of information you should never share with a stranger on the internet" whenever I see a form asking for personal details. It just goes to show, repetition is the mother of invention (or however that phrase goes, I don't hear it all that often)
Ditto, is very touchy subject as have lost my entire family to it, I'm last one alive, these people are a special level of scum and karma will soon catch up with them, thoughts and best wishes to you, I know it's easier said than done but please try keep chin up.
@@wellerjam Congratulations! I work for the Federal Reserve Bank and we are selecting 5 "Internet Heros" who do great deeds online in the internet to receive a bank account with $10k dollars US dollars inside it. All you must do is pay the small transfer fee to handle legalities and you will be sent access to the account immediately. -John Smith US Federal reserves Bank supervisor.
@@owoberon4947 No no no, 9.0 is not ready yet, okay? We're using version number 8.10 to show that we iterated, but aren't far enough along to use 9.0. Okay?
I watch pretty much every one of your videos, but your scambaiting videos really are unique. As there are a lot of scambaiter (esp. phone scambaiting), their videos are quite fast paced and sometimes quite agressive. Yours are, like the rest of your content quite chill. Its nice Mike, I am very glad to have found your channel a while ago :)
@@videowatcher5931 I'll be honest with you, I have no clue where I got the picture from, why I've set it as a profile pic and that that thing was a Chihuahua...
Not only that but phone scams get really similar really fast for some reason Or maybe it’s just that Mike keeps finding new and weird ways to derail the conversation Probably both, email scammers do seem to get confused more easily
I just discovered a new channel with animals trying to bait other animals. Beware the Raccoon Federation... See: ruclips.net/user/KLRProductionsplaylists and sublist: Derpy Animals. Also "Most Popular"playlist. Atomic Shrimp may be looking for psychological help for such a pet.
I've been guilty of the "you should have said this to them" type comments, and I see how it's not helpful now. Especially since you can't go back in time and may never have the same scenario where it could be used. Great videos, just found your channel today. Looking forward to watching more!
Leaving the card at the airport for them to collect was genius.. I wonder would it have annoyed them more if you said that the airport called to confirm someone had collected the gift card :) So close but so far
Out of curiosity, what would happen if you offered to pay with an NFT? Would scammers refuse (proving that no even they are so gullible to fall for that)?
Sadly they re-sell the cards to other (scummy) vendors and recieve a small cut per card, so if the vendor is not accepting NFT's the scammers wont either. Then again, the "emplyees" of these "callcenters" might not know exactly what can be sold or not, so they might fall for it occasionally.
Most scammers probably already know what NFTs entail, but if they can get it for "free" with nothing in return, then they can then use it to scam someone else and actually get something.
Once in awhile a content creator perfects a formula that is so brilliant and so entertaining you just wish there was more. This is one of those channels . I do have to say the use of the word okay (ok) is absolutely worn out and eviscerated. I'm thinking it's in their scammer handbook as a requirement that they have to meet a certain threshold of usage in their correspondence. I also appreciate how Atomic shrimp repeats the misspellings and grammar mistakes, it adds to the authenticity of the narration.
I have loved your videos for a while now, (especially love Weird Stuff In A Can and the saga of the Johns Warosa and Barosa ) but I must admit I was downright shocked when you showed whose signature "Mr. Paul M. Wilsons" really was. That is absolutely incredible, how the hell did you spot that? I wouldn't even think twice about it. Wow, just wow.
I don't get email scams, but I do get the occasional call. I have taken to, if I don't have time to play idiot with them, telling them flat out that whoever sold them my number screwed them over because I play with scammers. They usually hang up pretty quickly after that. I also have this small hope to cause some conflict between them, but I suspect it really doesn't come to anything.
You're lucky to get real people at all. All scam calls I receive are all prerecorded messages or an automated call that only activate upon hearing the word "Hello", however if I don't say anything, they stay silent until hanging up after 10-15 seconds of silence.
I used to get the odd scam calls, but because I usually didn't have time for elaborate games, I just rickrolled them - literally by searching Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up on RUclips, holding the phone to the computer speakers and pressing play. I must admit, I've not really gotten any others since then.
I'm always amazed at the time, effort, and mental emergy these people put into these scames, when they could likely go get a job that hurts no one and has a guaranteed income. Baffling.
One of the things that keeps me coming back to advance fee scammers is how little we know about who is writing these emails. Their general amateurishness makes them feel like single-person operations, perhaps run as a side hustle and not necessarily making much or indeed any money. I've even wondered if the scammers might overpay for lists of emails addresses and scripts and whatever else on the promise of earning big money from decadent Westerners by a whole different group of scammers. That might explain why they fall for such obvious baiting and get so angry afterwards. A professional running a serious operation would have to learn to see through baiters very quickly, one would think. Then again, that's pure speculataion. I've also heard from some sources that a particular Nigerian organised criminal group called "Black Axe" specialises in this kind of activity, and that the majority of advanced fee scam emails are connected with them. If so that might mean that technically the scammers *do* have the money somewhere, because organised crime is quite lucrative. It still goes with saying that they aren't going to give you any, of course.
@@DeathnoteBB Not sure I'd call scamming a profession. Though then again, I do quite like the idea of a professionally qualified "Chartered Scammer", with post-nomial letters and everything. Now I'm wondering what the entrance exams for that would look like. Different competencies for internet scams, street hustling, cold calling and selling faulty goods perhaps, where you have to keep a diary showing you've done enough hours on each of them? Some kind of interview where you have to present a case study of a con you pulled off, followed by a written paper on how to dodge money laundering regs and get around Amazon's terms of service?
The amateurish-ness may be intentional. Anyone who could easily see how bad the grammar is would probably be too smart and/or not in enough distress to fall for it anyway.
@@JanusHoW I've heard that in a lot of different places, but never with anything concrete to back it up. To me it doesn't make much sense. Simply enough, if your scam is nonsensical and badly worded, fewer people will fall for it than if it was written well. That means you make less money writing it poorly. Sure you'll also get more responses that go nowehere, but that seems a small price to pay for ultimately making more money. Even someone in distress will more likely fall for a well-written scam than a poorly written one, so surely you should write well. Also, do we really think that Nigerian prince scammers' inboxes are so full of responses in their current form that they have no extra capacity? Plenty of them seem to have time to reply to what would for a professional operation be obvious timewasters, like Mr Shrimp here.
I'll tell you what you SHOULD be doing, Mike ---- carry on just as you are. These scambaitings are most enjoyable, (not to mention informative). I particularly liked the Taxi Cub in this one.
At “send other information” you should’ve sent tons of informations like Citizen count in random city x y and z. The fact that my Everest is earth highest point above sea level and the marianeers trench is the deepest along with relevant informations on how many peoples died at these point concluding since no one has died in said trench it is the safest place on earth
This is brilliant. You poked through any hole of conceivable logic, not that there is really any begin with, and truly backed him into a corner that he could not get out of. Imagine expending this much time and energy for a measly $100.
I like how you play the scambaiting game like how I play Really Bad Chess, making sure that the game becomes as hilarious and ridiculous (to me) as possible before a checkmate.
I love the way you handle these a holes. I get them often too but if I talk to them at all, my temper gets the better of me and plenty of expletives go flying.
I absolutely love these videos. Certainly a highlight! One thing I've started to wonder, why is it that so many of these scammers end their sentences and emails with "ok". No question mark to imply a question wanting you to confirm if you understand, just "ok"
I was cackling the whole time as soon as the counter shows up. It's not as singsong-y like the Dubai scammer, but it's amazing how these people keep repeating the same words over and over
The other side of this is pretty worrying though... the fact the scammers hang on for so long kinda gives me the idea that there are actually people as daft as what youre pretending to be.. and they have these convos with people like this everyday who arent pretending ok.
I like to think that scambaiters acting like this causes scammers to be less patient with genuinely daft victims and give up on people who might otherwise have been scammed.
Well, it seems to be a strange combination of the fact that these people respond to like three emails a minute in their day so they’re perfectly willing to keep it going for so long, along with another comment, I saw that was quite true being that the next message just might be the one where they get money to the scammer
The only thing I want to know is how in the world you manage to your mailbox organised with so many simultaneous conversations!?!?! Other than that, great content, as always :D It just keeps getting better and better, production-wise (I absolutely lost it at the taxi cub, as well as the word counter :D) And also, for the longest time, I was banking on "Right now" overtaking "OK" at the last minute. Unfortunately, "OK" had an insurmountable head start :D
I'm evidently an old man on the internet. I remember the days when "top posting" was seen as weird, even rude. You were supposed to trim out any irrelevant quoted material and then either intersperse your response or add it at the bottom. How times have changed!
My favorite part of AS' Scambaiting series is how he includes subtle references to previous scams that you only get if you are familiar with the lore, like the screen shoot.
Look I could be wrong and that you do this in multiple takes to read out everything so perfectly but if you don't I highly admire the fact that you can read out a horribly written email so flawlessly. Also on another note I have learned from this channel if an email says OK more then like 5 times in a short amount of text then they're likely scammers.
mighty unfortunate they hadn't heard of saffron, it would've been a great business opportunity! though, they might be in a tax clode which would explain the need for gift cards.
Your answer to the FAQ reminds me of a video by Kitboga where he tries to actually "refund" a refund scammer by actually giving them the exact money they need and claiming they did it as part of an online transaction but the scammer got furious because it was off-script. What was supposed to happen was that the scammer wanted gift cards to be purchased and then the numbers sent to the scammer so that THEY refund the cards and then convert that into bitcoin. So obviously, going off script is gonna make them unhinged and start making really nasty but hilarious threats and name-calling as well as attempting to scare you.
I love this. I had one scammer on the line and we got to the picture of the gift card portion. I took pictures of random barcodes that frustrated him to no end. Subscribed.
Ever ask for their address so you can send them the actual, physical cards they are demanding payment by? "Local anti-fraud laws require me to send these cards with tracking information. Please provide details and I'll send them straight away." Do you think you should offer "Congratulations" with this?
I love how he eloquently and politely sets the boneheads in his comment sections straight. A billion people telling him how he should do his scambaiting. I always think to myself.... "why don't YOU do it?" Can you imagine some newbie coming into your job and saying 100 times a day "why don't you do THIS?"
Just a heads up. I sent a recorded package a few days ago, it had my phone number on the external sender information. I received a text message saying my recorded package had been delivered, and had a random link in the message. This text was not from Royal Mail. Beware.
I liked the bit about Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, which seemed to be about how passive voice can be used to eliminate all agency. It was kind of fascinating and funny (the "hurty leg" bit), and I'd love to read more.
I was thinking about making a series like this where horrific stories from history are sanitised by phrases like 'Anne decided not to be alive any more' and 'the man with the big metal thing helped Thomas with a problem where his head wouldn't come off'
@@AtomicShrimp I think you may have devised a new literary form here... a sort of passive voice as propaganda and thought control. Because if you frame the discussion, and set the terms, you control what people can think about a given subject. It's either hilarious, or scary, depending on how it's used. "After his dermabrasion treatment, Jesus was encouraged up the hill by his new army friends, with their nine-tailed kitty-cats. There, he became very attached to his new lounge. He was stood up, so he could enjoy the view. After three days, Jesus decided to stop living, so friends put him in a hole and rolled a large rock on top. Four days later, Jesus decided to stop being dead, and came out of his hole to show the kids his new body piercings. They became very fashionable, and all the cool kids got piercings and little lounges to be like Jesus." (Excerpt from "Jesus Christ: Fashion Icon, Chapter 16, Jesus Goes to the Spa)
"The supplier had health issues which resulted in his death" is so brilliantly non-committal it could apply to anything from cancer to thirteen knife wounds to the back.
My favourite method to deal with scam calls is switching to Hebrew, sure I live in the UK now, but born and raised in Israel, so they never expect a foreign language, scammers always have super bad English, it's funny. Moral of lessons, many language know good, make fun scam ok right now? P.S. you should learn Spanish or German and reply in that, the reaction would be hilarious
I’m British but live in Italy. I occasionally get calls from a British number (+44) so although they speak Italian to me I automatically reply in English, and insist that they speak English too. Sadly they usually hang up pretty quickly
I do that with telemarketers all the time. Of course, I did shit a brick on that one occasion where the scammer answered back in fluent fucking German. 😆
@@razyeldropa7351 best if you switch accents at random from the authentic soft German accent to the harsh one the n*zis used instead, and obviously speak fast with lot of lovely German compound words
I know Japanese and one time I got a scam email which was in japanese probably due to my surname. When I responded they replied in English so I played the "can't understand please send in japanese" they did that but with a ton of really broken language. It had obviously been translated in Google translate
![[DRAGON BALL LEGENDS REVEALS ＆ STUFF] LEGENDS FESTIVAL 2024 Special Edition Part 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mV5bGIswTtQ/mqdefault.jpg)
13:50 I absolutely love the idea that this scammer is trying to lure people in with the promise of $8.50
Or even better, an upgrade from $8.5 to $8.10.
@@masked_being Halving money. 100% legit
Standards are just falling everywhere :(
I mean ignoring the fact that it was a typical comma/full-stop mishap as is common in those type of scam, I wouldn't be surprised if even that small amount of money could potentially lure in someone from a more impoverished or isolated country, which might not know how much $8.50 is worth (aside from an assumption that that is a lot of money).
@@karolkozik5918 I really doubt that, unless they are the dumbest person in their country
“Without the steam gift card, I can’t show you where I am.”
I like the idea that he is crouched over, hiding behind airport chairs, responding to emails.
I like that these scammers so regularly end their sentences with "okay". I understand that it's supposed to be a question, like they're instructing you to do a thing, okay? But the lack of punctuation just makes them sound like dysfunctional telegraph messages.
1920s New York mobster you see? Okay.
For me that's the fundamentally insulting part of the scam, not that they're trying to cheat a person, but that they have the absolute disrespect to completely bastardize the language as well.
English is already bastardized
It’s common for Nigerians to end their sentence with ok.
I AM A ROCKEFELLER DYING OF CONSUMPTION STOP. I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU MY FORTUNE STOP. PLEASE SEND 10 DOLLARS VIA CARRIER PIGEON STOP
Their use of the word "ok" after every message is killing me. It reminds me of people reading telegrams and saying STOP at the end of each line lmao
Same here! 🤣😂😁
“FOUND BUYER OK SOLD CROP $28 BUSHEL OK RETURN ON BLUE RIBBON STEAMER MAY 10 ARRIVE 14 OK YES BEEN HAVING AFFAIR OK FILING FOR DIVORCE ON 15TH OK HATE YOU SO MUCH OK”
@@samy7013 lmao
A former neighbour used to use an exclamation mark. Instead of a full stop.
Texts don't really have tone unless a wide vocabulary is used. But this style threw a wrench in to the gears.
Very strange.
It's impressive that they said "Right now" almost as many times as "OK"
I was gobbling up buckets of imaginary popcorn, wondering if "right now" would catch up or at least keep up with "ok".
Dangerous drinking game, this right here.
That's because right now is ok 'right now' ok.
It's not ok after right now ok.
I really enjoyed that final ending, cause it leaves the impression that the scammer succeeded at the hard part, separating their mark from their money, but failed at the only part they actually care about, receiving the money.
This last guy's writing style is one of the most infuriating things I have ever experienced
I can't quite escape the suspicion that he thought he was using some sort of psychological manipulation technique on me.
@@AtomicShrimp Right now you must send the funds immediately today ok? Or I will cancel ok???
yeah ok you’re right ok
OK I agree....this is violence against the English language ok? Not even my first language and I'm still angry mkay? OK bye
The series is "saying OK to scammers", but in this episode the scammers are saying OK back
I loved the comment that the old supplier "was dead." I would have asked "so the supplier came back to life?" or something absurd like that, just to hold their attention.
This comment aged like a fine wine, but not in the way you might expect.
listen the oil brought him back to life ok so if you pay the fee right now you can bring your dead friends back too right now ok, please pay the fee right now or i will cancel the delivery right now ok
I love how their default when you go even slightly off-track is to just be like "Okay, I guess you don't want the big number... Sad..."
Scammers be starting to sound like my parents 🤔
@@alessiobenvenuto5159
_Or maybe your parents are sounding like scammers._
@@theuncalledfor _or maybe his parents are the scammers.._
@@triktuniaI'm going to be needing his parents address....I need to talk to them about their cars extended warranty.
“Can you understand it for me”
“It’s self explanatory”
“That’s what I mean can you explain it to yourself please”
This is comedy gold here
Comedy silver
@@gooseinatuxedoradio gravy
@@jakehyams8659Television emerald
I actually had to lie down from all the laughing haha
I love your Scambaits, the righteous indignation is always hilarious, and you have a voice for story telling. Thank you for always brightening our day.
Your comment made me realize I would love some atomic shrimp read audiobooks...
"Righteous indignation" has become a part of my vernacular, lol. Such a fun phrase.
@@DaMoreFish yes, please!
I would love Atomic to read me a bedtime story!
The Anne Boleyn bit is glorious.
This comment is a bit long, but I wanted to leave this comment as a thank you for helping me to potentially avoid being scammed 2 days ago, and as a reminder to anyone who might doubt that they could become the victim of a scam that this is something that can happen to anyone in the wrong scenario. It's mentioned a few times on these videos that people will be more likely to fall for scams if the details of the scam just happen to line up with something that has actually happened in the potential victim's life, or in a situation where someone might be tired or mentally fatigued and not able to think clearly in the moment, and that's what nearly happened to me.
During the last couple of weeks, I've been taking care of a family member with Covid while also working more than usual (no physical contact with the family member, mostly just grocery and medicine deliveries and taking their dog out for walks, plus I'm vaccinated, and have been wearing a mask, sanitizing regularly, and got tested just in case.) Near the end of last week, another family member who isn't very tech-savvy asked me to check into some weird charges on their card, and it turned out that I had accidentally been using their card when ordering food for myself. I had originally set up an account for a food delivery app for this family member a few years ago, so I had set it up using their card. We shared the account for a while, though I only used it occasionally with their permission, and they stopped using the app altogether after a while. I started using the app again over the last couple of weeks since I was too tired to cook by the time I got home. I thought I had switched it to my card about a year ago when my family member stopped using it, but apparently I hadn't. We got that cleared up, I paid them back, and I switched the account to my card.
A couple days ago, maybe an hour or so after I used the app to order some food, I got a call/voicemail from my bank about a potentially fraudulent charge on my card. Nothing in the message was overtly asking for my information, just a (paraphrased) notice that a potential fraudulent charge had been caught and that I should call back when I had the chance. I logged onto my online bank account and didn't see any unusual charges, but did see that the last few purchases I had made, including the food order, were all listed as "pending" and hadn't gone through as quickly as they normally do. I figured that my food order had gotten flagged somehow by the bank's system since it was the first time I had used my card with the delivery app, and that my account might have been locked, so I decided to look into it more and call back later in the day.
I ended up getting a second call a few hours later from the same number with the same message. I've never had any spoofed messages from my bank before, so the odds of getting two just a few hours apart in a plausible scenario where the bank might have mistakenly flagged a purchase made it seem more legitimate. I've had both text messages and calls from my bank before, but never an automated voicemail, but figured that if it had been flagged by an automated system, maybe the message I had received was also part of the same automated system. I was tired and enough unrelated events lined up that I mostly believed that it was legitimate. I thought back to these videos though and how it's been mentioned before that happenstance can make a scam seem more legitimate, so I decided to be cautious about it and look up what my bank's procedures are for this sort of thing. It turns out that they do sometimes leave voicemails, but the phone number it would have come from was different from the number that had called me.
I called my bank using the number I found on my bank's website and the person I talked to was honestly kind of unprofessional, in my opinion, asking me to verify my identity with my full name, account number, and SSN after I had told her that I was worried that someone was attempting to impersonate the bank to steal my information. Really all she had to do was ask for the number that called me and either confirm or deny it was a number associated with the bank, but she didn't do that and insisted that she was just trying to verify my identity. I'm pretty sure that this was someone actually working for my bank since I got the number from their website, but the situation made me uncomfortable and I decided to just go in person to talk with someone face-to-face. I went in, everything was fine with my account, they verified that they do leave voicemails sometimes but never automated like the ones I had received, and I gave them the fake number that had called me.
So to summarize, I almost fell for the scam because:
1. The scammers used the name of my actual bank, which was unusual since it's only a small, local bank.
2. I had never previously had any phishing or spoofing attempts from someone claiming to be my bank, (though I have had a few from larger banks that I don't have accounts with,) but my actual bank has called and texted me before, so there was already some degree of trust there.
3. The scammers more-or-less followed the actual procedures that my bank uses, only falling short on the phone number and the voicemail being automated. My bank's website also didn't mention that they don't use automated voicemails, I only learned this after talking to someone in person.
4. These calls just happened to come right after I made a purchase that could realistically have been accidentally flagged as fraudulent.
5. At the same time I got these calls about a potentially fraudulent purchase, my actual recent purchases were taking longer than usual to clear, leading me to believe my account had been locked.
6. I was really tired after two weeks of being overworked and initially wasn't thinking as clearly as I ideally could have been. It wasn't until a few hours after the first call that I started to have my doubts and fortunately I hadn't had the chance to return the call yet by that point.
Please, everyone, stay vigilant. Don't immediately jump to solve a potential issue that's brought to your attention by a stranger on the internet or over the phone, or even through the mail in some cases. Take some time to think things through, and even if something seems legitimate, ALWAYS double check.
Hope youre well rested now!
Being scammed has very little to do with being stupid, in the right condition (wrong place, time and circumstances), everybody can be scammed!
Thanks for taking the time to tell your story.
This has more characters than a typical youtube comment and i love it
In all honesty, im honestly shocked that the scammer was able to copy the name of your bank BY CHANCE. Jeez those scammers are terrible.
Thank you I read your comment
I really appreciate you sharing that story with us, truly an eye-opening experience!
We might not fall for a scam under normal conditions but when life and its unpredictable circumstances occur, we might not see so clearly, not to mention that our natural urge to solve problems as soon as we possibly can, contributes to that effect.
Be vigilant everyone!
This was so ridiculously OK the only thing delaying me RIGHT NOW from liking the video RIGHT NOW is that I can't stop laughing RIGHT NOW be rest assured I binge these videos once a month OK so please make more of them when you have the time OK seeing a new one pop up in my feed RIGHT NOW is like winning 8.10$ million united state dollar OK
Bravo! 👏
be rest assured ok
OK
Listen to me OK I will created 75, 000 00.0 00, 00M million real 100 % accounts right now to like your comment OK be rest assured that other commentator is a scam OK and then confirmed the only thing I am waiting for is gift card $ 100 dollars united state dollars OK?
Best Regards ,.
*Colonel Doctor Reverend Barista Doctor Sally Harry CBT WTF GNVQ*
OK
Scammer tried to use Righteous Indignation.
It hurt itself in it's confusion.
i love the idea of a scammer you've talked to using the phrase 'you're holding up the potato' in future correspondence with someone else
😂
Don't forget "broken radish" as well. Hope those phrases get used in future scam bait conversations.
Yeah, they're exactly like children, parroting the first thing that catches their attention lmao
These are always a treat! I especially like when you get them to give you a specific deadline and you break it. Despite the broken deadline, they have to keep going because the temptation of scamming you is just too great.
Yeah, often I've been planning to wrap it up and then they give a hard deadline, so I feel like play absolutely has to continue then
Thanks for the word count. I have low key wondered how many "Ok's" are used in a typical scam e-mail... loved the content as usual
I wonder why they do that. Maybe it's a substitute for actual punctuation. Or maybe using "ok" so much is a thing in their native language?
Lol ok
@@mambu3630 I think it's probably similar to an "umm" or "uhh" in their specific english dialect
Or a way to try to make them seem more understanding/patient
@@mambu3630 In regards to punctuation, in another video he actually puts a graphic of a keyboard "OK" button getting pressed every time they say it, it's pretty funny. Maybe that's part of why they do it.
But if you watch phone scambaiters, they do tend to use "OK"/"OK?" quite a bit
thanks, ok.
As a hockey fan, I died when the first scammer tried to fool you using Doug Wilson's autograph to pass himself off as "Paul M. Wilson"😂😂🤣 Great video! Keep up the good work, sir
“Taxi cub”, “holding up the potato” and “broken radish” had me howling.
And all due to a confused auto-carrot.
@@likebot. A car-carrot, if you will
A scammer named Salad. (a real thing, from CCP Land)
I don't think you actually "howled." At most, you smiled and passed air through your nose. I doubt you had any more exciting of a reaction than that
@@jamesduncan6729 Thank you Mr. Killjoy, your contributions have been noted.
I like the chess analogy: in scambaiting, you have a fundamental advantage over your opponent, and the object is not to go right for checkmate but to prolong the game as much as possible before a checkmate or forfeit.
Ideally, you want the game to go on as long as possible. The more time a scammer is trying to scam a scambaiter, the less time they'll spend scamming more vulnerable people.
I really like the live but glarded keyword counter and how each email shrinks into the background as a new one potatoes up.
Small edit: I'd recommend adding 'kindly' to the word counter. It's another scammer favourite and is often a giveaway when dealing with fake text messages and scammers on Facebook marketplace.
Iam also not very sure if your comment is glarded.. I need confirmation on that to check on my glarded tax cloude
Make sure to ask your bank for an Inoppolity Certificate.
@@TammoKorsai Thanks for the advice! I almost let it slide
One of my favorite giveaways is "will you gonna" or "you will gonna"
"Kindly" seems to be an indian thing... I have some indian coworkers (online) who always put "kindly" at the beginning of any sentences asking someone to do something. It always makes me think of this series
Only in the alternative universe of a scammer would a taxi driver insist on being paid entirely upfront.
As a retired taxi driver, calling for payment upfront is not that unusual, particularly if it involved a long distance and/or the customer was of dubious character.
@@toadhall1951where and how. Where i live thats not even remotely allowed. Also seems a bit sketchy to me to calculate a price before you exactly know how long the route is and how long it will take
@@andrefasching1332 In England it is not unusual for a set price menu to be in place for journeys outside of the licensing district. Early one morning (c. 6 am) I was approached by a man who wanted to go to Heathrow Airport - a journey of some 90 miles. Normally such journeys are pre-booked (and occasionally pre-paid). This guy was in a hurry so I told him the price and requested the fare in advance, as it has been known for passengers to arrive at their destination and to skip without paying. The fare was based on the set price menu. The taxi licensing authority is quite happy with this arrangement.
and solely in steam gift cards, lmao
@@andrefasching1332 here some taxis have a fixed rate for distance (instead of charging for time and distance) and you can pay them in advance. Very useful for long-distance trips, but very expensive for shorter ones.
I wonder, what if you told scammers that whatever money they were pretending to have weren't enough to be worthy of your time getting them. I wonder would they'd start claiming that their funds suddenly increased?
that litterly happend in the third one.
@@L3vinesNL I agree that it's similar, but in this case scammer made a typo which made money amount look really small.
Nah, they're generally impervious to responses at the best of times and the idea is to not only hook them with 'genuine' interest in getting scammed, but to be as much a fool as would be reasonable. Saying you have no time for $10 million would almost certainly drive them away. It's better to just stay on the hook and play with the nuance (e.g. typos, weird terms, confusion around paying in person, reluctance to use online payments, buying gift cards but they're paper 'Get Well Soon' stuff etc).
@@KdosdaHegen that wasnt a typo tough. they somehow were talking about 8.5 dollars for a few of the messages.. And he responded with 8.5 dollars isnt enough to bother with and they then bumped it up.
Yes. That happened in previous videos.
Asking each other for money while the language keeps falling more and more apart, ending in "meeting" at the airport is pure gold.
I like the new (I think it's new?) way of displaying the emails, where they all recede as a new one pops up
Whenever I'm in a horrible mood, just the kind of mood where I don't want to watch anything or talk to anyone or do anything - I find myself coming back to your scambaiting videos and other heres and theres on your channel. It takes my mind off of everything around me and theres something different with how you present your videos (compared to other youtubers I watch), that brings me into a state of calm and ease.
I of course have other youtubers that I see as "comfort youtubers" but theres something with your channel in patricular that makes it easy to watch and listen to no matter what I'm doing or how I'm feeling. I really like your voice for example, and your calm manner, and a cheesy joke here and there.
It brings me some sort of security and comfort knowing that I get to exist on the same planet and timeline as you and other wonderful content creators.
I hope everyone who took the time to read this has a wonderful day/night. :D
I've got a bit of a weird idea, on a couple of occasions previously you've gotten rather wholesome with scammers, what would happen if you tried to do the opposite of that? Many scammers try to make up fake sobstories or claim connections to real-life tragedies to gain sympathy from victims, how would they react if you acted dismissive or outright malicious in reply to such claims, suggesting that you don't care about their fictitious suffering or even imply that you feel they deserve whatever horrible thing they claim to be suffering from. After all the scammers are already showing significant disrespect to their victims and the real victims of the various tragedies they claim to be victims of, it could provoke an interesting reaction to throw a similar degree of disrespect back at them.
You know that dude he does cooking things with, in Africa somewhere?
Can't help but think that maybe that's what you're looking for?
Or maybe I'm a douchebag, but unintentionally
I agree 👍😂😂😂😹😹
They would immediately ghost you
Instantly gone. You either break them through force, but then you have to hold one over them, or talk them down. Any other option is the exception that proves the rule. This is war, and war has always played by these rules. Look at what the terrorists are doing in Ukraine. They can't do war, so they use terror. The most incompetent country on this planet is keeping people in fear because they have a hold on them.
ive done that a couple times with facebook scammers. theyve gotten quite upset at me being so dismissive or insistent that theyre lying about their fake families or life. it might be different with email scammers but it could be fun to see
The word counter was so much fun to follow! I appreciate that effort... As well as the taxi cub gag.
Scambaiting skills on another level. The Terminal 5 scenario- sheer genius.
What I like the most are all these new expressions like "holding up the potato" or "sound like a broken radish". I will use them in my conversations with Brits to sound more authentic.
It might be fun to ask for a fee to be able to send the fee to them and have an endless line of fee's set up to conclude the transaction.
Giggled a little bit at that, it could be neverending!
This has worked in the past or people have sent the scammers on safaris across Nigeria
I’m reminded of SpongeBob’s theory about an infinite chain of mailmen delivering mail to other mailmen
If they try to scam you, you scam them right back!
I remember reading about something like this, where a scambaiter actually received money from a scammer.
I can just hear you saying "The kind of information you should never share with a stranger on the internet" whenever I see a form asking for personal details. It just goes to show, repetition is the mother of invention (or however that phrase goes, I don't hear it all that often)
The real plot twist would've been if the scammer sent an authentic picture of an empty starbucks and asked where you were
Send another one back...oops, wrong Starbucks!
Be better if he claims he is from Seattle. Play cat and mouse for a while in the millions of starbucks in that city
@@zekedia2223 that would be incredible
“Without the fee I can’t come” didn’t know it was THAT kinda scam…
As a cancer patient myself, any time a scam mentions cancer my outrage meter rises to 100%
Ditto, is very touchy subject as have lost my entire family to it, I'm last one alive, these people are a special level of scum and karma will soon catch up with them, thoughts and best wishes to you, I know it's easier said than done but please try keep chin up.
Hope you get better!
Then you also have anger management issues
@@wellerjam Congratulations! I work for the Federal Reserve Bank and we are selecting 5 "Internet Heros" who do great deeds online in the internet to receive a bank account with $10k dollars US dollars inside it. All you must do is pay the small transfer fee to handle legalities and you will be sent access to the account immediately.
-John Smith
US Federal reserves Bank supervisor.
@@looksirdroids9134 No, it means he's rightfully triggered by things that hit home
That Mike Paul conversation is perfect Eric Castiglia material 😅
$100 gift card for 8.5 USD? That’s a scam even if it was real
Yeah, but they increased it to 8.1 USD
@@DonutOfNinja lmao
@@DonutOfNinja it's actually 8.10 aka: 9 with extra steps
@@owoberon4947
No no no, 9.0 is not ready yet, okay? We're using version number 8.10 to show that we iterated, but aren't far enough along to use 9.0. Okay?
@@theuncalledfor can't wait for 1.20
The random 'congratulations' peppered inbetween angry rambles are hilarious.
I watch pretty much every one of your videos, but your scambaiting videos really are unique. As there are a lot of scambaiter (esp. phone scambaiting), their videos are quite fast paced and sometimes quite agressive.
Yours are, like the rest of your content quite chill. Its nice Mike, I am very glad to have found your channel a while ago :)
@@videowatcher5931 I'll be honest with you, I have no clue where I got the picture from, why I've set it as a profile pic and that that thing was a Chihuahua...
Not only that but phone scams get really similar really fast for some reason
Or maybe it’s just that Mike keeps finding new and weird ways to derail the conversation
Probably both, email scammers do seem to get confused more easily
I just discovered a new channel with animals trying to bait other animals. Beware the Raccoon Federation...
See: ruclips.net/user/KLRProductionsplaylists and sublist:
Derpy Animals. Also "Most Popular"playlist. Atomic Shrimp may be looking for psychological help for such a pet.
I've been guilty of the "you should have said this to them" type comments, and I see how it's not helpful now. Especially since you can't go back in time and may never have the same scenario where it could be used. Great videos, just found your channel today. Looking forward to watching more!
Leaving the card at the airport for them to collect was genius.. I wonder would it have annoyed them more if you said that the airport called to confirm someone had collected the gift card :) So close but so far
Having that counter in the corner counting all the obnoxious and repetitive stuff the scammer says is a feature I didn't know I needed.
"I can't come without the fee". Scammers have denial kink confirmed?
Crossed over with findom kink
"Listen OK today immediately right now the only thing delaying..."
Almost sounds like a sentence a scammer would use.
Out of curiosity, what would happen if you offered to pay with an NFT? Would scammers refuse (proving that no even they are so gullible to fall for that)?
They would probably take it under the right circumstance.
At the very least a scammer would try to sell an NFT.
Sadly they re-sell the cards to other (scummy) vendors and recieve a small cut per card, so if the vendor is not accepting NFT's the scammers wont either. Then again, the "emplyees" of these "callcenters" might not know exactly what can be sold or not, so they might fall for it occasionally.
Most scammers probably already know what NFTs entail, but if they can get it for "free" with nothing in return, then they can then use it to scam someone else and actually get something.
I'd love to know if they'd accept fastfood gift cards...
@@KECOG There are places where you can sell gift cards for real money, at a discount to face value. It would depend whether they accept that card.
Once in awhile a content creator perfects a formula that is so brilliant and so entertaining you just wish there was more. This is one of those channels . I do have to say the use of the word okay (ok) is absolutely worn out and eviscerated. I'm thinking it's in their scammer handbook as a requirement that they have to meet a certain threshold of usage in their correspondence. I also appreciate how Atomic shrimp repeats the misspellings and grammar mistakes, it adds to the authenticity of the narration.
These videos are in my "drop everything I'm doing to watch" tier
Surprised Teleios hasn’t came after this comment yet.
Same!
I have loved your videos for a while now, (especially love Weird Stuff In A Can and the saga of the Johns Warosa and Barosa ) but I must admit I was downright shocked when you showed whose signature "Mr. Paul M. Wilsons" really was. That is absolutely incredible, how the hell did you spot that? I wouldn't even think twice about it. Wow, just wow.
you could probably reverse image search the signature and it comes up with the real one
I don't get email scams, but I do get the occasional call. I have taken to, if I don't have time to play idiot with them, telling them flat out that whoever sold them my number screwed them over because I play with scammers. They usually hang up pretty quickly after that. I also have this small hope to cause some conflict between them, but I suspect it really doesn't come to anything.
You're lucky to get real people at all. All scam calls I receive are all prerecorded messages or an automated call that only activate upon hearing the word "Hello", however if I don't say anything, they stay silent until hanging up after 10-15 seconds of silence.
@@FilmsNerf2
I still only get a very rare actual person. Mostly just recorded things like that. Possibly because I play with them.
I used to get the odd scam calls, but because I usually didn't have time for elaborate games, I just rickrolled them - literally by searching Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up on RUclips, holding the phone to the computer speakers and pressing play. I must admit, I've not really gotten any others since then.
@@killdozer7792 I'm more likely to put on Shut The Fuck Up the moment they start going on about their scam.
Been waiting for this! Love your videos, your dry humor and accurate reading of the broken-english emails is gold.
"I don't understand the memorandum of understanding" is funny on its own, but I love the way it portends Atomic Shrimpnanigans.
I'm always amazed at the time, effort, and mental emergy these people put into these scames, when they could likely go get a job that hurts no one and has a guaranteed income. Baffling.
"Holding up the potato" and the twist with the information desk at Heathrow had me cackling for a good minute 😂 well done 👏
“8.5 increased for you to 8.10” is so unintentionally hilarious
One of the things that keeps me coming back to advance fee scammers is how little we know about who is writing these emails. Their general amateurishness makes them feel like single-person operations, perhaps run as a side hustle and not necessarily making much or indeed any money. I've even wondered if the scammers might overpay for lists of emails addresses and scripts and whatever else on the promise of earning big money from decadent Westerners by a whole different group of scammers. That might explain why they fall for such obvious baiting and get so angry afterwards. A professional running a serious operation would have to learn to see through baiters very quickly, one would think.
Then again, that's pure speculataion. I've also heard from some sources that a particular Nigerian organised criminal group called "Black Axe" specialises in this kind of activity, and that the majority of advanced fee scam emails are connected with them. If so that might mean that technically the scammers *do* have the money somewhere, because organised crime is quite lucrative. It still goes with saying that they aren't going to give you any, of course.
I mean, that would make sense. The majority of scammers are probably amateurs, as with any profession.
@@DeathnoteBB Not sure I'd call scamming a profession. Though then again, I do quite like the idea of a professionally qualified "Chartered Scammer", with post-nomial letters and everything.
Now I'm wondering what the entrance exams for that would look like. Different competencies for internet scams, street hustling, cold calling and selling faulty goods perhaps, where you have to keep a diary showing you've done enough hours on each of them? Some kind of interview where you have to present a case study of a con you pulled off, followed by a written paper on how to dodge money laundering regs and get around Amazon's terms of service?
The amateurish-ness may be intentional. Anyone who could easily see how bad the grammar is would probably be too smart and/or not in enough distress to fall for it anyway.
@@JanusHoW I've heard that in a lot of different places, but never with anything concrete to back it up. To me it doesn't make much sense.
Simply enough, if your scam is nonsensical and badly worded, fewer people will fall for it than if it was written well. That means you make less money writing it poorly. Sure you'll also get more responses that go nowehere, but that seems a small price to pay for ultimately making more money. Even someone in distress will more likely fall for a well-written scam than a poorly written one, so surely you should write well.
Also, do we really think that Nigerian prince scammers' inboxes are so full of responses in their current form that they have no extra capacity? Plenty of them seem to have time to reply to what would for a professional operation be obvious timewasters, like Mr Shrimp here.
Watching these videos is so relaxing. You are so calm and you just chat like a friend would to a friend.
I'll tell you what you SHOULD be doing, Mike ---- carry on just as you are. These scambaitings are most enjoyable, (not to mention informative). I particularly liked the Taxi Cub in this one.
scammers will never be stopped. but as you demonstrated, they can be annoyed. your service is truly remarkable mr shrimp
They could be stopped if the financial incentive to do so was removed. But that would require a massive, species-wide shift in our way of thinking.
I feel like this breaks records of the most amount of OKs said in a video
Mine did it constantly but yes, i think this one wins okays okay? I still haven't found out why they do that?
OK
“Holding up the potato”
“Autocarrot”
“Broken radish”
If only he’d turnip at the airport.
At “send other information” you should’ve sent tons of informations like Citizen count in random city x y and z. The fact that my Everest is earth highest point above sea level and the marianeers trench is the deepest along with relevant informations on how many peoples died at these point concluding since no one has died in said trench it is the safest place on earth
Who is your Everest?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Science First, that is a really good idea.
The marianeers trench sounds interesting
This is brilliant. You poked through any hole of conceivable logic, not that there is really any begin with, and truly backed him into a corner that he could not get out of. Imagine expending this much time and energy for a measly $100.
I like how you play the scambaiting game like how I play Really Bad Chess, making sure that the game becomes as hilarious and ridiculous (to me) as possible before a checkmate.
The best protection against being scammed seems to be complete incompetence.
Possibly the greatest wild goose chase I've ever seen in this genre, absolutely outstanding
I love your reply, "I don't have thatsapp". Great video as always. Keep them coming!
I love the way you handle these a holes. I get them often too but if I talk to them at all, my temper gets the better of me and plenty of expletives go flying.
I absolutely love these videos. Certainly a highlight! One thing I've started to wonder, why is it that so many of these scammers end their sentences and emails with "ok". No question mark to imply a question wanting you to confirm if you understand, just "ok"
I was cackling the whole time as soon as the counter shows up. It's not as singsong-y like the Dubai scammer, but it's amazing how these people keep repeating the same words over and over
The other side of this is pretty worrying though... the fact the scammers hang on for so long kinda gives me the idea that there are actually people as daft as what youre pretending to be.. and they have these convos with people like this everyday who arent pretending ok.
I like to think that scambaiters acting like this causes scammers to be less patient with genuinely daft victims and give up on people who might otherwise have been scammed.
Well, it seems to be a strange combination of the fact that these people respond to like three emails a minute in their day so they’re perfectly willing to keep it going for so long, along with another comment, I saw that was quite true being that the next message just might be the one where they get money to the scammer
The only thing I want to know is how in the world you manage to your mailbox organised with so many simultaneous conversations!?!?! Other than that, great content, as always :D It just keeps getting better and better, production-wise (I absolutely lost it at the taxi cub, as well as the word counter :D)
And also, for the longest time, I was banking on "Right now" overtaking "OK" at the last minute. Unfortunately, "OK" had an insurmountable head start :D
we should report this video immediately right now how dare it let ok beat right now like wtf i will cancel the payment
@@Yveldi congratulations
My guess he sets a Rule on his email account to send messages from specific email addresses to a separate folder.
I love the idea that the scammer was trying to convince you that he would pay for a taxi ride with a $100 Amazon gift card
He is so good a at diverting the attention from the primary topic that even I sometimes get slightly mad
absolutely perfect ending. Not a fizzling out or loss of interest, but a strategic and long-winded destruction of the scammer's arguments. love it.
These videos are so incredibly entertaining. That last scammer played out like a game of chess, brilliantly controlled by a master.
i can't believe he's able to read all these ridiculous messages out in a single breath with no misses
There are a lot of retakes and I have to cut and edit a lot
@@AtomicShrimp oh i bet, and thinking about how much time it must take makes my head spin... 😅salute to you right now ok!
Take a shot every time he says ok
Lol
How to die of alcohol poisoning, a one step process
@@b21r35 yep
"Person dies from alcohol poisoning following a bizarre drinking game involving watching a RUclips video."
Fark .... ok
Man, your channel is so underrated and you make some of the most interesting, unique, videos on RUclips, keep doing what you do!
I'm evidently an old man on the internet. I remember the days when "top posting" was seen as weird, even rude. You were supposed to trim out any irrelevant quoted material and then either intersperse your response or add it at the bottom. How times have changed!
Well, there's nothing preventing you from still doing so.
My favorite part of AS' Scambaiting series is how he includes subtle references to previous scams that you only get if you are familiar with the lore, like the screen shoot.
Your editing on these has always been fantastic, yet somehow you keep getting better. Always a joy, thanks! ✌️🍍
Look I could be wrong and that you do this in multiple takes to read out everything so perfectly but if you don't I highly admire the fact that you can read out a horribly written email so flawlessly. Also on another note I have learned from this channel if an email says OK more then like 5 times in a short amount of text then they're likely scammers.
mighty unfortunate they hadn't heard of saffron, it would've been a great business opportunity! though, they might be in a tax clode which would explain the need for gift cards.
Sorry but the funds are glarded and I can't present the certificate of inoppolity :( should they come to my sablity address or my holity address?
@@kets4443 I think they should do an expanding transfer to your beige address.
Your answer to the FAQ reminds me of a video by Kitboga where he tries to actually "refund" a refund scammer by actually giving them the exact money they need and claiming they did it as part of an online transaction but the scammer got furious because it was off-script. What was supposed to happen was that the scammer wanted gift cards to be purchased and then the numbers sent to the scammer so that THEY refund the cards and then convert that into bitcoin. So obviously, going off script is gonna make them unhinged and start making really nasty but hilarious threats and name-calling as well as attempting to scare you.
Very well done! I really enjoy the Niche you've carved out for yourself in the world of scambaiting. It's a pleasure to hear your work. Cheers 🍻
I think I found my new favorite genre of RUclips video. The broken English of these scammers is always so entertaining.
Counter was missing "square dollars", I haven't laughed so hard in a while. Thanks, AS!
I love this. I had one scammer on the line and we got to the picture of the gift card portion. I took pictures of random barcodes that frustrated him to no end.
Subscribed.
Ever ask for their address so you can send them the actual, physical cards they are demanding payment by? "Local anti-fraud laws require me to send these cards with tracking information. Please provide details and I'll send them straight away." Do you think you should offer "Congratulations" with this?
They want you to send the code. They probably would just insist you take a photo of the back so they can redeem it
@@jakehyams8659 just claim that new technology detects card photos and won't allow the photo to be sent lol
This is why you are incredibly awesome at this; you not only dazzle them with your brilliance, but you baffle them with your complete BS. Love it all!
Autocarrot 😂 I love it, this whole video is just an amazing run on sentence
I love how he eloquently and politely sets the boneheads in his comment sections straight. A billion people telling him how he should do his scambaiting. I always think to myself.... "why don't YOU do it?" Can you imagine some newbie coming into your job and saying 100 times a day "why don't you do THIS?"
Just a heads up.
I sent a recorded package a few days ago, it had my phone number on the external sender information.
I received a text message saying my recorded package had been delivered, and had a random link in the message.
This text was not from Royal Mail. Beware.
I liked the bit about Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, which seemed to be about how passive voice can be used to eliminate all agency. It was kind of fascinating and funny (the "hurty leg" bit), and I'd love to read more.
I was thinking about making a series like this where horrific stories from history are sanitised by phrases like 'Anne decided not to be alive any more' and 'the man with the big metal thing helped Thomas with a problem where his head wouldn't come off'
@@AtomicShrimp I think you may have devised a new literary form here... a sort of passive voice as propaganda and thought control. Because if you frame the discussion, and set the terms, you control what people can think about a given subject.
It's either hilarious, or scary, depending on how it's used.
"After his dermabrasion treatment, Jesus was encouraged up the hill by his new army friends, with their nine-tailed kitty-cats. There, he became very attached to his new lounge. He was stood up, so he could enjoy the view. After three days, Jesus decided to stop living, so friends put him in a hole and rolled a large rock on top. Four days later, Jesus decided to stop being dead, and came out of his hole to show the kids his new body piercings. They became very fashionable, and all the cool kids got piercings and little lounges to be like Jesus."
(Excerpt from "Jesus Christ: Fashion Icon, Chapter 16, Jesus Goes to the Spa)
7:58
Mike Paul said OK so many times that the word OK started to look weird to me.
"The supplier had health issues which resulted in his death" is so brilliantly non-committal it could apply to anything from cancer to thirteen knife wounds to the back.
But Mr Burns' science team was able to resurrect someone who'd died from 13 knife wounds in their back, hadn't they?
My favourite method to deal with scam calls is switching to Hebrew, sure I live in the UK now, but born and raised in Israel, so they never expect a foreign language, scammers always have super bad English, it's funny.
Moral of lessons, many language know good, make fun scam ok right now?
P.S. you should learn Spanish or German and reply in that, the reaction would be hilarious
I’m British but live in Italy. I occasionally get calls from a British number (+44) so although they speak Italian to me I automatically reply in English, and insist that they speak English too. Sadly they usually hang up pretty quickly
I am german and it would be fun to talk to such people in my native language and maybe even my east german dialect.
I do that with telemarketers all the time. Of course, I did shit a brick on that one occasion where the scammer answered back in fluent fucking German. 😆
@@razyeldropa7351 best if you switch accents at random from the authentic soft German accent to the harsh one the n*zis used instead, and obviously speak fast with lot of lovely German compound words
I know Japanese and one time I got a scam email which was in japanese probably due to my surname. When I responded they replied in English so I played the "can't understand please send in japanese" they did that but with a ton of really broken language. It had obviously been translated in Google translate
legend!
Edit: your narration skill is superb!! 10/10!!
Imagine the frustration of being told the card is waiting for you where you lied about being, if only you were actually there to collect it...
I have no idea how your brain works…amazing how you navigate your way through these situations…absolutely amazing.