I’ve talked quite a bit about how to avoid scammers here, but have you ever thought about fighting back against the scammers? One of my favorite podcast episodes is an old episode of ReplyAll where the host gets contacted by a scammer in India and he goes on an epic quest to find out exactly what’s going on with this particular scam. It’s really interesting and also pretty entertaining. I was delighted to discover there are also YouTubers who are fighting back against scammers. Here are some of the best YouTube channels that fight back scammers.
ScammerPayback
One of the most popular YouTube channels that fights back scammers is ScammerPayback. This channel is hosted by a guy who goes by Pierogi. He is a former cybersecurity specialist, and he started his channel by essentially prank calling scammers to waste their time (and of course, get some laughs). But he has also started up a program called “People’s Call Center.” In the People’s Call Center, Pierogi and other scam baters get together and start fighting back against the scammers by wasting their time but also by helping out people who are actively being scammed. The center sets up a bunch of fake computers, fake bank accounts, and other materials, so the scammers think they’re actually getting something.
And of course, it’s all recorded, so not only is their time wasted, but they also get exposed.
Jim Browning
Jim Browning is another popular YouTube channel that fights back scammers. Jim (not his real name) is a software engineer from Northern Ireland who runs investigations into scammers by breaking into the networks used by the scammers and also exposing them in other ways. He started his channel after a family member lost money to one of these scams. He has been featured by the BBC, the New York Times, and other major media. He’s also been featured by the AARP, and a lot of his videos can be good to share with family members who you worry might be at risk of being taken in by these kinds of scammers.
SkeletonSyskey
SkeletonSyskey has done quite a bit of work with Jim Browning over the years and focuses a lot on Tech Support, IRS, and SSA scams. He is located in the United Kingdom and has gotten some pretty hilarious reactions from scammers. He has videos of keeping scammers on the phone for over three hours, only to have them angrily ending the call after they realize that the tables have been turned and they have been scammed themselves!
ScammerRevolts
ScammerRevolts is a smaller channel, but no less entertaining. He has plenty of videos of getting scammers locked out of their own computers, figuring out their exact location, and even one where he shows a scammer a photo of himself! Obviously, the scammers don’t like being identified, and the hope is that the people working for these larger scam companies get scared enough to quit these “jobs.”
Read More:
- This Is How QR Codes Are Being Used To Scam People
- Four Ways to Spot an Impersonator Scammer
- 5 Tips To Protect Older Relatives From Online Scams
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
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