I always reassure my potential business partners that I run a completely legitimate business and am not, in any way, connected to organized crime. Or disorganized crime for that matter. This business is completely legal and does not break any laws in any country with which we do business. So there is no reason to worry about police coming to your door in relation to this business.
Imagine going to the store and the person working there goes "are you ready to shop at our perfectly legal establishment that will absolutely not steal your money the moment you try to pay with a credit card?"
"Of course i will shop at your buisness, while lawfully paying every item, and not handing out the most expensive ones to the homeless and complete strangers at the backdoor."
It’s very simple, SAFFRON is used in medical device EKG. Those red strings make up the up and down heart monitor lines. When hospitals don’t have enough SAFFRON, they must make it last longer, so they stretch each piece out flat, which is detrimental to patients and makes the machines long beep. You missed out on a good opportunity.
I absolutely love when you use made up words that look like they could be a genuine word in the english language. Can just imagine the scammer looking at the sentence 'Does the payment need to be beholegranated in some way?' and sweating, staring at the word and trying to figure out what it means, maybe trying Google translate, and coming up with nothing. Probably wastes even more of their time, the more difficult to understand your email is. Need more of that. It's beautiful.
Check out "The Gostak", it's an interactive text adventure game, all the text is like that: Finally, here you are. At the delcot of tondam, where doshes deave. But the doshery lutt is crenned with glauds. Glauds! How rorm it would be to pell back to the bewl and distunk them, distunk the whole delcot, let the drokes uncren them. But you are the gostak. The gostak distims the doshes. And no glaud will vorl them from you
I love that you read these broken-English scam emails in the most normal, conversational, native-English-speaking accent. It really lets the ridiculous errors shine through.
The broken english is actually somewhat intentional. The idea behind it is that people who are too vigilant to fall for a scam won't trust any mails with that many obvious errors and just ignore/delete them, meaning that the only people who'll respond to them are possibly also gullible enough to actually fall for the scam itself.
@@darthplagueis13 That's a myth easily debunked by the fact that some scammers are actually surprisingly fluent in English (or at least aren't totally awful at it compared to the other 99%). They're also mostly overseas so... yeah, of course their English is going to be dogshit. Although it is pretty funny when they actually think they sound native with their thick accents over the phone, and that throwing a bunch of generic cusswords and 'MFer' a thousand times makes them scary. In reality it makes them sound like cringy, prepubescent children angry that mommy didn't cook their tendies right.
@@user-njyzcip I've heard that other people say that as well, that sometimes it's to weed out people who notice the email looks fishy, it might not be the case but darthplague13 didn't come up with it.
Thank you for not blaming the victim in your FAQ; my grandmother was recently scammed by someone who claimed they loved her. They requested money for 'plane tickets' to see her. Her husband passed away a year ago, and she has been lonely since. Sometimes the victims get scammed is because they are at a vulnerable point in their life, and scammers may use this against them.
Thanks Atomic Shrimp for sticking up for victims. They are not stupid. I truly believe that almost anyone can be scammed to some degree with the right words at the right time.
@Danielle Anderson You put that perfectly. I read an article that said that scammers hope to catch people when they are distracted, sick, confused, lonely, etc. That's what they hope for.
Absolutely. I know someone who was scammed out of most of her savings shortly after a bad divorce. It's just a person taking advantage of you at a low point in your life and making it even worse
🎵I'm just mad about SAFFRON 🎶 🎶She's just mad about me🎵 🎵I'm just mad about SAFFRON🎶 🎶And business, legitimately🎵 🎵They call me mellow RED (quite rightly)🎶 - with apols, Donovan circa 1970s (i think)
My life would be quite boring without your channel, so sending a virtual hug for all the wonderful and diverse videos you do. This scammer episode really was gold!
I fell for a phishing scam recently. I got a message on Steam from a friend, asking me to vote for his team in a game tournament of sorts. He also mentioned something about giving me something if they got to Top 20 at the least, which I didn't particularly care about. Worst thing is he is the kind of person I totally would've expected to ask something like this. I didn't think much of it, signed up on the page like an idiot, and went about my day. Next thing I know is my sister asking me why I texted her on Steam and in English (We speak Polish to each other). I looked at the message I supposedly sent, and sure enough, it was an exact copy of the message I received. Turns out my account sent dozens of such messages and blocked the recipients afterwards, so I wouldn't find out. Fortunately I was able to salvage the situation, save my account, and warn people that my account sent the message to. And I thought I am a person not easily fooled by such things. I felt incredibly stupid.
I had a similar scam come across me. I was contacted around 11pm by a friend who had asked for and I had given advice to several times. I had recently had a falling out with this friend for reasons I won't get into, but these problems were never voiced in steam chat. He supposedly came around to warn me my steam account was going to be investigated by steam. I knew that was BS, because how would he know my account would be terminated? When I told them I was going to contact steam about it, he freaked out. Luckily that friend wrested control of his account and apologized.
I had something like this happen, but the way they did it was just nonsensical enough to tip me off. They asked for me to vote for their friend in some contest and sent me a link to where I was supposed to vote, then when I tried to vote it would ask me to "sign in through Steam". The thing is, they said that I would be voting for a friend's logo submission, but the page they sent was a fake "About Us" page for page for a UK esports team. I looked through some of the other pages and there were embedded RUclips videos for a different group. Looked up the real group and it turned out the link I'd been sent was a copy of a real existing site with some names changed to try to hide it. Checked the Whois information on the site and it's been created like 3 days earlier, but if they had used a different wording or had sent it from somebody I spoke with more often I could easily see myself falling for it under the right conditions
3 years later, and you just saved me some hassle. Got the same style of message over a month ago. Just read your comment and went and changed my steam and google passwords. I had steam guards mobile authenticator enabled thankfully, and they also didn't seem to do anything sketchy with my account either, so I don't think they actually got in, but you can never be too careful.
The "they're stupid so they deserve to get scammed" logic is the exact logic many scammers appear to employ to justify their behavior in the first place. I've seen interviews with former scammers who stated that everyone in their call center believed that america was unbelievably wealthy, and that people stupid enough to fall for their scams were undeserving of the wealth, and that they (the scammers) were deserving of it because they didn't have the opportunities americans did.
@@bikeshop2002 So people who got money in first world countries through work, developing some career over the years or even people that have "low" income jobs deserve to get scammed? Even if they fell for it due to one of the reasons mentioned in the video?
"Can I understand it please?" is brilliant! Reminds me of a great T-shirt I once saw which said: "I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you"
I was scammed out of about 300$ a few years back. I was in a stressful situation and I got an email claiming to be from Facebook for an award. The papers, video and person I talked to seemed legitimate. I know others have lost much worse and I thankful nothing else happened to me but I'm upset with myself. Watching these videos help me cope in a way. I want to warn others and help them, like you do. Thank you.
Scammers are already cultivating Alienation from their victims through the othering of being a target. There's no incentive to humanize any of the thousands of people they attempt to scam, because the relationship between the scammer and the scammed is one predicated on value extraction and money
Wow! I didn't realize that SAFFRON was so rare and expensive more than gold! It now makes sense how SAFFRON inadvertently drives the entire plot of the 2007 Disney Pixar animated movie Ratatouille.
@@siddharthnandi3995"The answer is: Yes, saffron really is more expensive than gold and also the most expensive spice in the world. Here, we'll look at why saffron is the world's most legendary, costly spice." Its because its so hard to harvest, you have to do it by hand, whereas gold, while rare, is still fairly easy to mine, process and is heavier.
@@siddharthnandi3995 I know right, its unexpected. I had a vague idea of its value cause my mum is into cooking and taught me about saffron when I was young. "Its the most expensive thing in the shop" she'd say. And I would note how insignificant the size was (0.1g) for its price $10AUD give or take. Until recently, I was working in a supermarket and it was not infrequently stolen, the manufacturer even started putting ribbon around it to prevent theft.
I think that what you said in the FAQ is really valuable. I often think about how scared I would be to tell anyone about what happened if I was scammed for fear of being seen as "stupid". A more constructive attitude towards this sort of thing could go such a long way in increasing awareness of scams and preventing them. Great video as always! :)
One thing everyone should ask themselves: would they react the same way if their (grand)parents fell for such a scam? (And yes, I'm aware that not everyone has the best relationship with their family, replace with another close person if necessary.)
I couldn't agree more, I was actually scammed for $500 about a year ago. Luckily, thanks in part to my report, along with others who had been scammed by the same guy, they actually managed to track him down. Although I certainly felt incredibly stupid afterwards, if the people I reached out to hadn't been understanding or just called me "stupid" or said I "deserved it" then nothing would have been resolved.
@@Sky-CladObserver All true. The shame of being scammed only benefits the scammer, because it keeps victims for speaking up even once they've realised they've been had.
@@AtomicShrimp The other thing is that not every scammer is like that. I find that UK and American scammers tend to use better marketing terms especially when trying to target me with investment scams. It is very easy to fall for those scams, even for seasoned investors. They obviously know that the average investor has received a decent quality education so they can't use the usual tactics. Different kinds of scams call for different kinds of tactics from the scammers. Of course, there's also "spear phishing" which nearly caught out an HR lady at my former company. They spoofed the CEO's email address too. You could also very likely find saffron in Oldham "cheaply" given a large Asian population there, albeit not from the major supermarkets but maybe so at Ramadan time.
ok i cannot lie, expecting a long winded explanation of the scam then just hearing "send monmey" put me into the hardest laughing fit ive had in recent memory, thank you so much for perfectly reading scam emails with misspellings included
I love how he stresses the capitalized SAFFRON. I wasn’t looking at the screen and I was like, why does he keep doing that?! Is he trying to insinuate something? Then I look at the screen and fully understand. 😂
Really like your bit about scam victims not being "stupid". There are all sorts of life circumstances that can affect your ability to tease a scam from a reality, including many of the ones you listed. And even if you're super informed and healthy, we all have blind spots: subjects in life where we're less informed and less likely to be able to tell what's fake and what's not. The best thing we can do is to keep everyone alert and watch out for each other.
@@PoptartParasol It really depents on the kind of scam. Sure, it's kinda dodgy if someone tells you that they can't do certain things because they'd be fired for it, but some scams are also about winning some random lottery or whatever. If you're in a bad spot or just not very well informed, or if the scammers make it seem like you're helping someone and you're just trying to be a good person, I don't think that's morally questionable.
That part really made me sit down and have a think. If we can’t even look at someone who falls for a typo-ridden classic Nigerian prince scam and say “that was stupid,” instead have to make excuses because we as a society can’t have someone feel bad for being inadequate. Maybe the scammers are right. Maybe we deserve to be scammed.
Calling victims stupid is just counterproductive in every possible way. It achieves nothing but the stroking of your own ego. It stalls the conversation about how the scam succeeded. It cuts off the opportunity to learn from the victim's vulnerability and it stigmatises victims, creating an environment where they may be too ashamed to ask for help.
When I used to work in customer service, I was trained to respond to customer indecision with immediate aggression and insulting comments. That’s the professional way :)
In my country's middle boclition, SAFFRON is a highly includenated substance! My cousin was viliflagging SAFFRON and the government arrested and seproded him, he still has not been walgrated!! i miss him so much.
Scambaiting idea: Try to convince the scammer that emailing in Wingdings font is the only secure method of communication. It will most likely require a bit of editing work in order to tell us the contents of each email as Wingdings characters are symbols but will guarantee to waste the scammers time both in writing and decoding emails.
@@Leith_Crowther You don't live in a second world country with a poor education system and working for a desperate scam company...These guys will do anything for a couple bucks.
@@cheechmarin4812ome of my scambaiting characters reply to the scammers in Polish, forcing them to run my (and sometimes their own) replies through Google Translate. Once that happens, I like to throw them curveballs by using very colloquial language or intentionally getting the scammer's honorifics wrong - for example, instead of writing "czy mógłby mi Pan powiedzieć", a phrase that you would say to a man in polite company, I might write "czy mogłaby mi Pani powiedzieć", which means the same thing but directed to a woman!
I just have to say, bless your soul for your understanding and compassion. It takes a good level of awareness to not only recognize, but voice "did you choose your basic education?" This phrase has so much behind it, and it warmed my heart to hear.
That FAQ hits home. My grandma who is dealing with the middle stages of dimentia almost fell for a scam. She got a phone call from someone who said they were in a car crash and needed money. She had asked, "Is that you, Griffin?" Griffin, who is my older brother older brother is a racecar driver as well as a professional couch potato. So he doesn't do much driving outside of a track. It took my Grandpa and my mom to convince her that my brother was actually just watching anime on the couch, not stranded somewhere with a broken car. There are A LOT of factors that go into who might fall into a scammer's trap. Some scams extraordinarily elaborate and some are low effort.
Hi Mike, I live in Bispham (Blackpool) and I deliver to Blackpool Technology Park on Hawking Place and as you probably all ready know there is no company there by that name. Love all your videos. Best Wishes Paul
@@AtomicShrimp you don't eat it for the looks lol, but ofc you're free to have your opinions. Better to dislike something expensive than like it in some ways I guess
the ever so slightly more intense pronunciation of "SAFFRON" simply because it was in all caps every time the word appeared was just absolutely perfect.
14:19 - I can't believe you didn't notice you were corresponding with the famous football player Anthony Martial, which coincidentally happens to also be in Manchester. Maybe he somehow is involved with the SAFFRON guy. Maybe they plan to use the red string herb to colour the Manchester United home kit for next season. Sounds like a huge Saffronspiracy to me.
I remember the first time I saw saffron in the aisle at a Walmart. I could feel my eyes trying to eject themselves from my skull when I saw the pricing. My only thought was "Isn't this sort of pricing usually reserved for controlled substances?"
@@ChristyQQ1 I never tried it. In the German kitchen saffron was used as yellow food coloring in the past and is nowadays replaced by cheaper alternatives. I first was astonished that other cultures treat saffron as a spice.
@@MetalheadAndNerd You are missing out! I actually think of Saffron in the context of certain desserts. Absolutely unique, very delicate. Requires very little Saffron!
I looked after a patient that had a phone block on his home phone. When I tried to ring the wife to arrange discharging him from hospital I couldn't. She explained to me that he had spent thousands on scams so had to put it on. Really sad, he had dementia.
We had the same thing for my Grandad, damn scammers just wouldn't leave him alone. Then they got a hold of his mobile number. Then there's the scammers like Safestyle UK and SCS who rip off old people and gleefully say "well they signed the contract" before taking thousands of pounds. There's some absolute fiends out there.
I just wanted to say that I love your videos and am really grateful for how your goal is to educate us without condemning people who fall for these scams. It really is true that anyone can be a victim... one of my uncles ended up in a romance scam a little while ago and he sent "her" thousands of dollars - all of the inheritance money he got from his mother's passing, which also led him to being homeless for a while. He genuinely believed that he was doing something good. If only everyone could see your videos, they're the perfect mixture of humor and education for these types of things.
"The Saffron means Yellow Flower. Then what concern Yellow Flower in this matter? Do you lost your mind? Stop asking stupid questions here again." Scammer quote of the day LOL
I love how you decided that adding made-up words to your e-mails should a staple of your scambaiting. It makes them that much funnier to read. Keep up the good work, wasting their time is a good way to spend one's own time while you're having fun.
As a thought instead of randomly inserting made up words you should try misusing big words. I think that would help to pontificate the situation nicely.
Some scams are actually really smart. My hubby almost got scammed by someone trying to buy our car. He gave us a cheque that was fake and he intended it to bounce back so we would have to pay that much. Thankfully my hubby's bank noticed the scam.
Back when I was a kid, reading about saffron for the first time from a book, I also thought that some small pieces of red strings lying around are saffron.
It's semi-intentional. The scammers are working under the assumption that writing their mails in poor english means that the kind of people who likely can't be convinced by the scam will immediately recognize it as one and not even bother responding. Allowing the scam mails to look shifty in the first place means that the only people who would respond to them are also gullible enough to actually fall for them, allowing for easier scamming overall and not wasting the scammers time with people who are too smart and/or vigilant to fall for their schemes.
Thank you so much for bringing up the reasons why people might get scammed. I've never fallen one for myself but I have been in a vulnerable state before where it could have happened. People like that don't deserve hate. I don't really think anyone does
Hi, would you like to buy SAFFRON which is NOT contraband and is completely legal? SAFFRON is a red string, and is completely legal and absolutely not contraband.
I just wanted to say that I really enjoy these videos and I find them oddly relaxing. Between your voice, your style of humour and I guess the calming nature of these videos, it's something that really helps me relax.
Top notch for the explanation as to why people MAY get sucked into these scams. It's not always that simple as 'they deserve it'. My Nan is knocking on and she can't manage a 'dumb phone' really. I cringe every time she goes online because of stuff like this and rings me. Keep up the good work Mr Shrimp 👍🏻
I really appreciate that you brought up access to education - among other issues beyond our control - on the part of scam victims. With thoughtful answers like those it's no wonder you've cultivated a pleasant comment section community.
Genuinely can’t get enough of these. Been on a 2 days binge so far. Keep em coming plz. I think your voice is also something brilliant in its own right. ❤
THANK YOU for that FAQ answer. For a few months I was really interested in the anti-MLM community (scene? movement?) and there's an ongoing controversy about how to talk about the people who buy into MLMs, especially as many end up preying on others in turn. However you want to talk about their behaviour, I think an un-nuanced "they're just malicious/stupid by nature" is unhelpful... and I think it's symptomatic of an uglier desire to laugh at or shame victims without trying to unravel the actual, sometimes quite difficult, issues involved
Hey sir mike ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I just want to say as a middle eastern Saffron is the best spice you can add to your cup of milk tea it turns it little tint of orange, and it is very delicious. Also we use a little pinch of it and soak it in a small cup of water and add little bit of rose water and keep it in the fridge for occasional uses like pouring it into rice on top, it adds color/ amazing smell and it adds nice flavor.😋😋❤️❤️ Thank you for this upload. 😭❤️
Love the question/answer of the day. I was one of the people that asked that question when I first started watching scambaiting content. I have come to realize that, especially now after the Jim Browning Channel Deletion scam, that really anybody can be scammed.
Scammer: "We can't use the fund on the card since we don't have the pin. There is no way to remove the money from the card." Later: "If you don't send the fee we will retract the money."
Bravo Bravo on your Q&A responses. Well thought out and said. Thank you for taking the time to add these segues (especially this one). And thanks for reelicionating things.
I really like how you go into detail to defend victims of scams, it's important to remember that anyone can find themselves in a situation where someone can take advantage of them.
This is the kind of entertainment I can get behind. I dearly hope your channel is prosperous and profitable and you will continue to produce this quality content! Thanks for all you do.
"I'm just mad about SAFFRON and SAFFRON is mad about you?" Oddly I recently came across this on your channel, and I thought ... "wow this is an odd one, I've not come across anyone quite as bold as to claim such things"... And guess what... With no prompting... I'm dealing with something even more bonkers myself. Thank you for being helpful Manuel.
You shoulda have told that other scammer that you were asked to pay $4000 for the saffron fee and not $220 and see if he would have started trying to figure out what saffron was 😂 may have kept him on the hook even longer
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I love saffron. 😂
It is the red string spice herb plant
@@AtomicShrimp red string.. 😂
wait how 6 hours ago?!
*SAFFRON
@@undefined06855 Patreon
The first e-mail is very suspicious. It does not specify whether the funds are glarded or not. That makes me feel both macrific and valuntle.
Oh, sure. As if that same things have never happened leading up to the Glorffon Conquest. Please hold my beers.
Glemulously written closing just bemarges me.
It's a surprise that the funds are not glarded, it would be suplibilous for that
Be rest assured it is glasses through moneysquirt sir
@@ireneofunes89 why thank you sir, your gravitublity is kindly accepted
'This is a 100% legitimate business and has nothing to do with fraud money!!' Very reassuring.
Super reassuring text that definitely doesn't make people suspect the e-mail of scamming.
Can't help wonder, how James Veitch would have reacted...! 😹😂
Send monmey
I always reassure my potential business partners that I run a completely legitimate business and am not, in any way, connected to organized crime. Or disorganized crime for that matter. This business is completely legal and does not break any laws in any country with which we do business. So there is no reason to worry about police coming to your door in relation to this business.
Ahh yes, my favourite type of money..
*Fraud money.*
I love the email where the scammer calls him a moron, then goes right back to demanding his information as if that will motivate him in any way.
So professional, 10/10
Negative reinforcement
"You are a moron! now back at the subject matter, send me all your private information and 4000$"
Sounds like a banter with friends, casual insult but then right back to the convo as normal 😂😂😂
Well, judging from scammers on the phone,being really rude apparently works sometimes. People are not used to it so they tend to comply. It's weird
Imagine going to the store and the person working there goes "are you ready to shop at our perfectly legal establishment that will absolutely not steal your money the moment you try to pay with a credit card?"
"Of course i will shop at your buisness, while lawfully paying every item, and not handing out the most expensive ones to the homeless and complete strangers at the backdoor."
That is how the scammer do.
@@killdozer7792Congrats, you got the joke
"Or better still, a steam gift card?*
that doesn't seem safe, my money would probably get glarded in that establishment
It’s very simple, SAFFRON is used in medical device EKG. Those red strings make up the up and down heart monitor lines. When hospitals don’t have enough SAFFRON, they must make it last longer, so they stretch each piece out flat, which is detrimental to patients and makes the machines long beep. You missed out on a good opportunity.
"Because of the voices" If I encounter a scam I will be using that line for sure.
That part made me laugh so hard. The way that his tone just changed when narrating it was hilarious!
I visualized the scammer reading that and going WTF? then asking around in their little scammer boiler room to find out what it meant.
what time?
Me I went full pml at the plemules.
10:10
I absolutely love when you use made up words that look like they could be a genuine word in the english language. Can just imagine the scammer looking at the sentence 'Does the payment need to be beholegranated in some way?' and sweating, staring at the word and trying to figure out what it means, maybe trying Google translate, and coming up with nothing. Probably wastes even more of their time, the more difficult to understand your email is. Need more of that. It's beautiful.
Check out "The Gostak", it's an interactive text adventure game, all the text is like that:
Finally, here you are. At the delcot of tondam, where doshes deave. But the doshery lutt is crenned with glauds.
Glauds! How rorm it would be to pell back to the bewl and distunk them, distunk the whole delcot, let the drokes uncren them.
But you are the gostak. The gostak distims the doshes. And no glaud will vorl them from you
@@Fridelain I would like to play "The Gostack", but my molastestive condition does not allow me to sproad any ancrestons.
@@Fridelain so _The Gostak_ is "text adventure, but you're about to have the worst migraine of your life"
just mess with the dudes
timestamp? lol
I love that you read these broken-English scam emails in the most normal, conversational, native-English-speaking accent. It really lets the ridiculous errors shine through.
The broken english is actually somewhat intentional. The idea behind it is that people who are too vigilant to fall for a scam won't trust any mails with that many obvious errors and just ignore/delete them, meaning that the only people who'll respond to them are possibly also gullible enough to actually fall for the scam itself.
@@darthplagueis13 definitely not most of the time
@@darthplagueis13 you give nigerian scammers too much credit lol
@@darthplagueis13 That's a myth easily debunked by the fact that some scammers are actually surprisingly fluent in English (or at least aren't totally awful at it compared to the other 99%). They're also mostly overseas so... yeah, of course their English is going to be dogshit.
Although it is pretty funny when they actually think they sound native with their thick accents over the phone, and that throwing a bunch of generic cusswords and 'MFer' a thousand times makes them scary. In reality it makes them sound like cringy, prepubescent children angry that mommy didn't cook their tendies right.
@@user-njyzcip I've heard that other people say that as well, that sometimes it's to weed out people who notice the email looks fishy, it might not be the case but darthplague13 didn't come up with it.
Thank you for not blaming the victim in your FAQ; my grandmother was recently scammed by someone who claimed they loved her. They requested money for 'plane tickets' to see her. Her husband passed away a year ago, and she has been lonely since. Sometimes the victims get scammed is because they are at a vulnerable point in their life, and scammers may use this against them.
When someone says that a victim deserves to be scammed, they're siding with the scammer
Thanks Atomic Shrimp for sticking up for victims. They are not stupid. I truly believe that almost anyone can be scammed to some degree with the right words at the right time.
Yep, I think it may only be continual awareness of vulnerability that might be anything like a reliable defence
@Danielle Anderson You put that perfectly. I read an article that said that scammers hope to catch people when they are distracted, sick, confused, lonely, etc. That's what they hope for.
@@AtomicShrimp so 👍true
@@dianalovescolors
Sounds like how Cults like to recruit members. to be honest.
Absolutely. I know someone who was scammed out of most of her savings shortly after a bad divorce. It's just a person taking advantage of you at a low point in your life and making it even worse
"The Saffron means Yellow Flower. Then what concern Yellow Flower in this matter?" truly a valid philosophical and moral dilemma
🎵I'm just mad about SAFFRON 🎶
🎶She's just mad about me🎵
🎵I'm just mad about SAFFRON🎶
🎶And business, legitimately🎵
🎵They call me mellow RED (quite rightly)🎶
- with apols, Donovan circa 1970s (i think)
😂
Genius 😂
1967...
Still waiting for Electrical Bananas to be the "very next phase."
My life would be quite boring without your channel, so sending a virtual hug for all the wonderful and diverse videos you do. This scammer episode really was gold!
It's is not a gold. It is a spice herb plant.
Ahaha
@@AtomicShrimp It's a red string spice herb plant
Or was it a yellow flower?
@@johnwarosa8972 not only is that incorrect, it's also not useful or relevant at all.
I fell for a phishing scam recently.
I got a message on Steam from a friend, asking me to vote for his team in a game tournament of sorts. He also mentioned something about giving me something if they got to Top 20 at the least, which I didn't particularly care about.
Worst thing is he is the kind of person I totally would've expected to ask something like this. I didn't think much of it, signed up on the page like an idiot, and went about my day.
Next thing I know is my sister asking me why I texted her on Steam and in English (We speak Polish to each other). I looked at the message I supposedly sent, and sure enough, it was an exact copy of the message I received.
Turns out my account sent dozens of such messages and blocked the recipients afterwards, so I wouldn't find out.
Fortunately I was able to salvage the situation, save my account, and warn people that my account sent the message to.
And I thought I am a person not easily fooled by such things. I felt incredibly stupid.
I had a similar scam come across me. I was contacted around 11pm by a friend who had asked for and I had given advice to several times. I had recently had a falling out with this friend for reasons I won't get into, but these problems were never voiced in steam chat. He supposedly came around to warn me my steam account was going to be investigated by steam. I knew that was BS, because how would he know my account would be terminated? When I told them I was going to contact steam about it, he freaked out. Luckily that friend wrested control of his account and apologized.
o kurde, no trzeba uwazac bo sa debile i sa madrzy oszusci.
I had something like this happen, but the way they did it was just nonsensical enough to tip me off.
They asked for me to vote for their friend in some contest and sent me a link to where I was supposed to vote, then when I tried to vote it would ask me to "sign in through Steam". The thing is, they said that I would be voting for a friend's logo submission, but the page they sent was a fake "About Us" page for page for a UK esports team. I looked through some of the other pages and there were embedded RUclips videos for a different group. Looked up the real group and it turned out the link I'd been sent was a copy of a real existing site with some names changed to try to hide it.
Checked the Whois information on the site and it's been created like 3 days earlier, but if they had used a different wording or had sent it from somebody I spoke with more often I could easily see myself falling for it under the right conditions
That hurts
3 years later, and you just saved me some hassle. Got the same style of message over a month ago. Just read your comment and went and changed my steam and google passwords. I had steam guards mobile authenticator enabled thankfully, and they also didn't seem to do anything sketchy with my account either, so I don't think they actually got in, but you can never be too careful.
The "they're stupid so they deserve to get scammed" logic is the exact logic many scammers appear to employ to justify their behavior in the first place. I've seen interviews with former scammers who stated that everyone in their call center believed that america was unbelievably wealthy, and that people stupid enough to fall for their scams were undeserving of the wealth, and that they (the scammers) were deserving of it because they didn't have the opportunities americans did.
Interesting point. It's hard to explain then that even First World poverty looks different from the outside.
It's kinda true. As a middle class brazillian, i wish i was a "poor" american
they're not actually wrong though
@@bikeshop2002 So people who got money in first world countries through work, developing some career over the years or even people that have "low" income jobs deserve to get scammed? Even if they fell for it due to one of the reasons mentioned in the video?
@@bikeshop2002 They're pretty wrong. That's called "entitlement."
"The Red String Theory" by Benson Hawking
I love you
@@NP7_16 whoa slow down u just met em
@@mr.foxasmg ._.
"Can I understand it please?" is brilliant! Reminds me of a great T-shirt I once saw which said: "I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you"
I was scammed out of about 300$ a few years back. I was in a stressful situation and I got an email claiming to be from Facebook for an award. The papers, video and person I talked to seemed legitimate. I know others have lost much worse and I thankful nothing else happened to me but I'm upset with myself. Watching these videos help me cope in a way. I want to warn others and help them, like you do. Thank you.
Scambaiting idea: pretend to be a homeless man using a library computer and see if they still try to scam you for just a few bucks
That's genius!
Probably they will try to scam
Scammers are already cultivating Alienation from their victims through the othering of being a target. There's no incentive to humanize any of the thousands of people they attempt to scam, because the relationship between the scammer and the scammed is one predicated on value extraction and money
good idea
YES! please do it!
Wow! I didn't realize that SAFFRON was so rare and expensive more than gold! It now makes sense how SAFFRON inadvertently drives the entire plot of the 2007 Disney Pixar animated movie Ratatouille.
Saffron comes from a particular type of crocus flower, and yes it is expensive.
@@gracebard6664 Still less expensive than gold though.
@@siddharthnandi3995"The answer is: Yes, saffron really is more expensive than gold and also the most expensive spice in the world. Here, we'll look at why saffron is the world's most legendary, costly spice." Its because its so hard to harvest, you have to do it by hand, whereas gold, while rare, is still fairly easy to mine, process and is heavier.
@@skullsaintdead Oh. I didn't know that.
@@siddharthnandi3995 I know right, its unexpected. I had a vague idea of its value cause my mum is into cooking and taught me about saffron when I was young. "Its the most expensive thing in the shop" she'd say. And I would note how insignificant the size was (0.1g) for its price $10AUD give or take. Until recently, I was working in a supermarket and it was not infrequently stolen, the manufacturer even started putting ribbon around it to prevent theft.
I think that what you said in the FAQ is really valuable. I often think about how scared I would be to tell anyone about what happened if I was scammed for fear of being seen as "stupid". A more constructive attitude towards this sort of thing could go such a long way in increasing awareness of scams and preventing them.
Great video as always! :)
That's a good point that I didn't touch on - the stigma of calling a thing 'stupid' is also bad because it inhibits people from asking for help
One thing everyone should ask themselves: would they react the same way if their (grand)parents fell for such a scam?
(And yes, I'm aware that not everyone has the best relationship with their family, replace with another close person if necessary.)
I couldn't agree more, I was actually scammed for $500 about a year ago. Luckily, thanks in part to my report, along with others who had been scammed by the same guy, they actually managed to track him down.
Although I certainly felt incredibly stupid afterwards, if the people I reached out to hadn't been understanding or just called me "stupid" or said I "deserved it" then nothing would have been resolved.
@@Sky-CladObserver
All true. The shame of being scammed only benefits the scammer, because it keeps victims for speaking up even once they've realised they've been had.
@@AtomicShrimp The other thing is that not every scammer is like that. I find that UK and American scammers tend to use better marketing terms especially when trying to target me with investment scams.
It is very easy to fall for those scams, even for seasoned investors. They obviously know that the average investor has received a decent quality education so they can't use the usual tactics.
Different kinds of scams call for different kinds of tactics from the scammers. Of course, there's also "spear phishing" which nearly caught out an HR lady at my former company.
They spoofed the CEO's email address too.
You could also very likely find saffron in Oldham "cheaply" given a large Asian population there, albeit not from the major supermarkets but maybe so at Ramadan time.
ok i cannot lie, expecting a long winded explanation of the scam then just hearing "send monmey" put me into the hardest laughing fit ive had in recent memory, thank you so much for perfectly reading scam emails with misspellings included
20:44
The small red slinky in the background brought me boundless joy.
I love how he stresses the capitalized SAFFRON. I wasn’t looking at the screen and I was like, why does he keep doing that?! Is he trying to insinuate something? Then I look at the screen and fully understand. 😂
Which brings up the question, why did the scammer do that?
@@failure4452 they're just very excited about SAFFRON
@@failure4452 my guess is the email is pre-written and the SAFFRON was added later.
@@rafabuda0 maybe they just hit caps lock accidentally and then copy pasted it trying not to get the spelling wrong
It almost sounded like a bark every time he read SAFFRON! 😂
Really like your bit about scam victims not being "stupid". There are all sorts of life circumstances that can affect your ability to tease a scam from a reality, including many of the ones you listed. And even if you're super informed and healthy, we all have blind spots: subjects in life where we're less informed and less likely to be able to tell what's fake and what's not. The best thing we can do is to keep everyone alert and watch out for each other.
Stupid, not necessarily, morally questionable? Very likely. Especially if they continue once they realize what they are doing
asdf asdf how is being tricked morally questionable?
@@PoptartParasol It really depents on the kind of scam. Sure, it's kinda dodgy if someone tells you that they can't do certain things because they'd be fired for it, but some scams are also about winning some random lottery or whatever. If you're in a bad spot or just not very well informed, or if the scammers make it seem like you're helping someone and you're just trying to be a good person, I don't think that's morally questionable.
That part really made me sit down and have a think. If we can’t even look at someone who falls for a typo-ridden classic Nigerian prince scam and say “that was stupid,” instead have to make excuses because we as a society can’t have someone feel bad for being inadequate. Maybe the scammers are right. Maybe we deserve to be scammed.
Calling victims stupid is just counterproductive in every possible way. It achieves nothing but the stroking of your own ego. It stalls the conversation about how the scam succeeded. It cuts off the opportunity to learn from the victim's vulnerability and it stigmatises victims, creating an environment where they may be too ashamed to ask for help.
"I never speak on the phone because of the voices"
LMAO
me too... 🤣
"Can I please be told what is now happening, and what is to happen nextly, and also thirdly, and what will happen later and finally?"
"send monmey"
I love when you bring back the "Are you perhaps a small boy?" thing in these. It's hilarious every time.
What a kind observation you make in the middle about scam victims. Thank you for speaking about mental health and educational opportunities.
Scams sell a dream of hope that a lot of people have.
Eric Castiglia’s upcoming single “SAFFRON” is going to be a hit.
The Ballad of SAFFRON and Benson Hawking ...
Saffron Single's upcoming Castiglia "ERIC" is hitting to be a go.
@@hunters.dicicco1410 You completed glarded that sentence. It’s noncortorious!
Saffron Barker?
@@hunters.dicicco1410 definitive mostly
i was just chilling and watching this and then "send monmey" hit me out of nowhere like a ton of bricks. im still recovering
so what *is* monmey? is it like moneh?
Same Here!! 😂😂😂
Fecking Hell!! 😂😂😂
Its 1am & Im Wheezing!! 😂😂😂
It seems the word monmey is a cognito hazard
SAME. Almost woke my mom up laughing
@@raisin4406 almost woke up your *monmey 😄😉😁
I love that you included both versions of "bi-monthly", because English
It's pretty much a useless term, given the ambiguity means it could be wrong by a factor of 4
@@AtomicShrimp exactly! I love that you pointed out the pointlessness of that term that way 😄
there is a 25% chance that bimolthly and biweekly bi the same thing.
Does it actually mean both? I thought twice in the same month was semi-monthly and bi-monthly was every two months.
@@RevertiveDeath I've never heard semi-monthly but to me it sounds like it should mean every two months.
"The saffron is a medical herb and not just a red spring" God.. I nearly spewed my coffee :D
When I used to work in customer service, I was trained to respond to customer indecision with immediate aggression and insulting comments. That’s the professional way :)
LOL
I absolutely love the way you read out SAFFRON or misspelled words, its hilarious
SAFFRON has already been scheduled and glarded in my country. I don't want to go to prison.
why SAFFRON glarded please make me to understan
@@johnhawkins4257 It was part of the minghews decision back in the middle ages. It was forcazled back then, before the fools glarded it.
@Mr. Pung The Glards Must Be Crazy
In my country's middle boclition, SAFFRON is a highly includenated substance! My cousin was viliflagging SAFFRON and the government arrested and seproded him, he still has not been walgrated!! i miss him so much.
Scambaiting idea: Try to convince the scammer that emailing in Wingdings font is the only secure method of communication.
It will most likely require a bit of editing work in order to tell us the contents of each email as Wingdings characters are symbols but will guarantee to waste the scammers time both in writing and decoding emails.
If I was a scammer I wouldn't reply to that email.
You would first have to genuinely convince the scammer that you have ligitimateley fallen for the scheme, and that you have a lot of money.
@@Leith_Crowther You don't live in a second world country with a poor education system and working for a desperate scam company...These guys will do anything for a couple bucks.
Or ask to have the convo in Hindi (Indian language) that would throw them off hardd
@@cheechmarin4812ome of my scambaiting characters reply to the scammers in Polish, forcing them to run my (and sometimes their own) replies through Google Translate. Once that happens, I like to throw them curveballs by using very colloquial language or intentionally getting the scammer's honorifics wrong - for example, instead of writing "czy mógłby mi Pan powiedzieć", a phrase that you would say to a man in polite company, I might write "czy mogłaby mi Pani powiedzieć", which means the same thing but directed to a woman!
I just have to say, bless your soul for your understanding and compassion. It takes a good level of awareness to not only recognize, but voice "did you choose your basic education?" This phrase has so much behind it, and it warmed my heart to hear.
That FAQ hits home. My grandma who is dealing with the middle stages of dimentia almost fell for a scam. She got a phone call from someone who said they were in a car crash and needed money. She had asked, "Is that you, Griffin?" Griffin, who is my older brother older brother is a racecar driver as well as a professional couch potato. So he doesn't do much driving outside of a track. It took my Grandpa and my mom to convince her that my brother was actually just watching anime on the couch, not stranded somewhere with a broken car.
There are A LOT of factors that go into who might fall into a scammer's trap. Some scams extraordinarily elaborate and some are low effort.
Hi Mike,
I live in Bispham (Blackpool) and I deliver to Blackpool Technology Park on Hawking Place and as you probably all ready know there is no company there by that name.
Love all your videos.
Best Wishes
Paul
Always good to have eyes on the ground!
do they have any SAFFRON though?
@@orbcat1790 Only if it's imported from Oldham
Thanks Paul 😎
Please, please, voice audio books! Your voice is smoothing as heck! I would legit pay top dollar to hear you narrate a novel.
alternatively, a side gig of asmr
Every time the short audible ad plays I think the video's started
*Does he have a fivver account? Maybe that could happen...* 🤔
I'd like his version of Harry Potter.
Damn bro this scammer had no business violating Saffron like this. Obviously as a Persian I’m going to defend Saffron lol, it’s an incredible spice
It looks like red string
@@AtomicShrimp you don't eat it for the looks lol, but ofc you're free to have your opinions. Better to dislike something expensive than like it in some ways I guess
@@Amaling is it made of gold?
@@jonnyc429 it doesn’t grow on every other soil
@@Kingsley98 Please reelicionate!
the ever so slightly more intense pronunciation of "SAFFRON" simply because it was in all caps every time the word appeared was just absolutely perfect.
Agree
Agree
SAFFRON don't grow on every other soil, only on every third soil.
14:19 - I can't believe you didn't notice you were corresponding with the famous football player Anthony Martial, which coincidentally happens to also be in Manchester.
Maybe he somehow is involved with the SAFFRON guy.
Maybe they plan to use the red string herb to colour the Manchester United home kit for next season.
Sounds like a huge Saffronspiracy to me.
I was looking for this comment
I remember the first time I saw saffron in the aisle at a Walmart. I could feel my eyes trying to eject themselves from my skull when I saw the pricing.
My only thought was "Isn't this sort of pricing usually reserved for controlled substances?"
Almost 2000€ per kg. On the other hand you usually only use small amounts.
@@ChristyQQ1 I never tried it. In the German kitchen saffron was used as yellow food coloring in the past and is nowadays replaced by cheaper alternatives. I first was astonished that other cultures treat saffron as a spice.
@Gizmo Cat Tumeric has a strong taste. It would ruin the cake. Saffron was traditionally used to color cake.
@@MetalheadAndNerd You are missing out! I actually think of Saffron in the context of certain desserts. Absolutely unique, very delicate. Requires very little Saffron!
@Gizmo Cat The actual flavour is not one you can substitute for the other. In that context, the colour is just a byproduct.
I looked after a patient that had a phone block on his home phone. When I tried to ring the wife to arrange discharging him from hospital I couldn't. She explained to me that he had spent thousands on scams so had to put it on. Really sad, he had dementia.
We had the same thing for my Grandad, damn scammers just wouldn't leave him alone. Then they got a hold of his mobile number.
Then there's the scammers like Safestyle UK and SCS who rip off old people and gleefully say "well they signed the contract" before taking thousands of pounds.
There's some absolute fiends out there.
I just wanted to say that I love your videos and am really grateful for how your goal is to educate us without condemning people who fall for these scams. It really is true that anyone can be a victim... one of my uncles ended up in a romance scam a little while ago and he sent "her" thousands of dollars - all of the inheritance money he got from his mother's passing, which also led him to being homeless for a while. He genuinely believed that he was doing something good.
If only everyone could see your videos, they're the perfect mixture of humor and education for these types of things.
Saffron is legitimate, however one must ensure the strings are properly glarded.
Be rest assured I approve of this content.
Rock on Shrimp!
"The Saffron means Yellow Flower. Then what concern Yellow Flower in this matter? Do you lost your mind? Stop asking stupid questions here again."
Scammer quote of the day LOL
“… the scammer went a bit melty…” Brilliant. 😄
Please stop telling me about the soul called Mr. Stephen Hawking. There is only Mr. Benson Hawking...
SHUT UP BEFORE I SHUT YOU UP
@@mangomountain5368 no.
The amount of cromulent words that you have invented is absolutely jergulic and ristable.
I love how you decided that adding made-up words to your e-mails should a staple of your scambaiting. It makes them that much funnier to read. Keep up the good work, wasting their time is a good way to spend one's own time while you're having fun.
What a perfect time to upload. Done with work, about to sit down to eat and then I see another wonderful scambaiting video. Thank you very much :)
As a thought instead of randomly inserting made up words you should try misusing big words. I think that would help to pontificate the situation nicely.
I think shrimp is too much of an antidisestablishmentarian for that, my friend.
Malapropisms are always great.
Brilliant.
Some scams are actually really smart. My hubby almost got scammed by someone trying to buy our car. He gave us a cheque that was fake and he intended it to bounce back so we would have to pay that much. Thankfully my hubby's bank noticed the scam.
20:28 _”Clustly”_
😂😂😂😂😂
My spellcheck says it’s not a real word *yet after watching 8 of your videos in a row* _I understood_ ❣️
Back when I was a kid, reading about saffron for the first time from a book, I also thought that some small pieces of red strings lying around are saffron.
Funny you say that, but I think I did too!
John Barosa would love to hear about this generous business offer
For something different may I suggest
Nick Barbarosa "The Charmer" on Polydor UK (1968).
@@smcdonald9991 r/woooosh maybe idk
His name is “W”arosa
My English teacher would have a field day with all of these emails lol. I can already imagine the red ink.
Or any english teachers really
Mine used to use lip stick and kiss my papers but everybody else got red ink. Thinking about it now that’s a bit odd
@@unnamedchannel1237 if this happening in high school, she was a predator
@@oz_jones that was *satire/made up
It's semi-intentional. The scammers are working under the assumption that writing their mails in poor english means that the kind of people who likely can't be convinced by the scam will immediately recognize it as one and not even bother responding.
Allowing the scam mails to look shifty in the first place means that the only people who would respond to them are also gullible enough to actually fall for them, allowing for easier scamming overall and not wasting the scammers time with people who are too smart and/or vigilant to fall for their schemes.
Thank you so much for bringing up the reasons why people might get scammed. I've never fallen one for myself but I have been in a vulnerable state before where it could have happened. People like that don't deserve hate. I don't really think anyone does
despite saffron being entirely fine and legal the number of times the scammer had to state this is making me slightly question it now, lol
Hi, would you like to buy SAFFRON which is NOT contraband and is completely legal? SAFFRON is a red string, and is completely legal and absolutely not contraband.
@@kibukaj2956
Cop: Do you know why I pulled you over?
Driver: THERE ISN'T A BODY IN THE TRUNK!
It must be tiring dealing with all these small boys every day. Hats off to you sir
Editing the M&S shelf to say "Is not a gold" destroyed me 😂😂😂
Scrolled way too far down to find this comment!
This is how I imagine Artificial Intelligences going at each other will look a couple years down the line.
I love that a red spring appeared in the screen when the scammer mistyped!
I just wanted to say that I really enjoy these videos and I find them oddly relaxing. Between your voice, your style of humour and I guess the calming nature of these videos, it's something that really helps me relax.
Scamming on spices like it's the 12th century.
Benson Hawking is a great chef and culinary artist. He works miracles with SAFFRON
Top notch for the explanation as to why people MAY get sucked into these scams. It's not always that simple as 'they deserve it'. My Nan is knocking on and she can't manage a 'dumb phone' really. I cringe every time she goes online because of stuff like this and rings me. Keep up the good work Mr Shrimp 👍🏻
the way this scammer capitalizes certain "important" words makes them seem like an NPC in an old-school RPG
I really appreciate that you brought up access to education - among other issues beyond our control - on the part of scam victims. With thoughtful answers like those it's no wonder you've cultivated a pleasant comment section community.
**gets distracted watching a red slinky**
Is this to do with the SAFFRON deal?
yeeeeeeeessss someone else saw it
It is not red spring
It scared me 😂
"I Need Your Anger & Frustration"
Top Tier Aromatic Shrimp...I Mean Atomic Shrimp
I love your work. I also really respect that you looked into the potential circumstances of scam victims in the FAQ.
Genuinely can’t get enough of these. Been on a 2 days binge so far. Keep em coming plz. I think your voice is also something brilliant in its own right. ❤
THANK YOU for that FAQ answer. For a few months I was really interested in the anti-MLM community (scene? movement?) and there's an ongoing controversy about how to talk about the people who buy into MLMs, especially as many end up preying on others in turn.
However you want to talk about their behaviour, I think an un-nuanced "they're just malicious/stupid by nature" is unhelpful... and I think it's symptomatic of an uglier desire to laugh at or shame victims without trying to unravel the actual, sometimes quite difficult, issues involved
Hey sir mike ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I just want to say as a middle eastern Saffron is the best spice you can add to your cup of milk tea it turns it little tint of orange, and it is very delicious. Also we use a little pinch of it and soak it in a small cup of water and add little bit of rose water and keep it in the fridge for occasional uses like pouring it into rice on top, it adds color/ amazing smell and it adds nice flavor.😋😋❤️❤️
Thank you for this upload. 😭❤️
"i never speak on the phone, because of the voices"
me too buddy, me too.
"send monmey" had me cracking up
12:49 It's like saying "the victim deserved to be assaulted because he was fat and ugly", which is just disgusting on so many levels.
Love the question/answer of the day. I was one of the people that asked that question when I first started watching scambaiting content.
I have come to realize that, especially now after the Jim Browning Channel Deletion scam, that really anybody can be scammed.
They might feel "coursed". :-D
I always love your break FAQs. Really shows what a cool person you are irl.
Scammer: "We can't use the fund on the card since we don't have the pin. There is no way to remove the money from the card."
Later: "If you don't send the fee we will retract the money."
Bravo Bravo on your Q&A responses. Well thought out and said. Thank you for taking the time to add these segues (especially this one). And thanks for reelicionating things.
Very good point about describing them as vulnerable rather than stupid, good to see kindness and consideration about this
1:54 “the actually price” has brought a tear to my eye
Thank you! I show a lot of your videos to my eldely parents, so they learn how to avoid scammers, that means a lot. God bless you.
I really like how you go into detail to defend victims of scams, it's important to remember that anyone can find themselves in a situation where someone can take advantage of them.
"It's a medicinal spice used medically"
Well who would have thought
This is the kind of entertainment I can get behind. I dearly hope your channel is prosperous and profitable and you will continue to produce this quality content! Thanks for all you do.
"I'm just mad about SAFFRON and SAFFRON is mad about you?" Oddly I recently came across this on your channel, and I thought ... "wow this is an odd one, I've not come across anyone quite as bold as to claim such things"...
And guess what... With no prompting... I'm dealing with something even more bonkers myself. Thank you for being helpful Manuel.
Combine ARAMCO crude oil and SAFFRON and make red string plant oil?
You shoulda have told that other scammer that you were asked to pay $4000 for the saffron fee and not $220 and see if he would have started trying to figure out what saffron was 😂 may have kept him on the hook even longer
But I need your anger and frustration. You got a falsetto giggle out of me. Lol
From me, too.
"Be the right judge and do justice to it" is such a powerful sentence. I should end all conversations with that, just to show that I'm serious.
Your way of pronouncing the word SAFFRON in capital letters is GOLD 😄