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My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

bentasker.co.uk

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Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#21

Post by whoisstan »

jjani wrote: post #13
_tk_ wrote: post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

This deserves some nuance. Much of the scam-baiting content - in fact, all of the ones I'd seen until this post - revolves around tech support scams, advance fee scams and the likes, which unlike these romance scams are generally not done by slaves.

How do you know they are not done by slaves?

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#22

Post by belorn »

_tk_ wrote: post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

Based on crime research, it seems that most organized crime is composed of modern day slaves, with varied degree of slavery. The most extreme are those that involve trafficking. It is a key distinction of the lowest level of their hierarchy, including the aspect that the lowest levels do most of the hands on work and most/all of the interaction with victims.

I view articles like this to be similar to those that explain and analyze the behavior of foot solders in street gangs. Who do they approach, how, what strategy do they employ to build trust, and how do they avoid detection.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#23

Post by whoisstan »

_tk_ wrote: post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

Same, better to think about ways to actually help them than mock them.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#24

Post by gus_massa »

_tk_ wrote: post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

Hi from Argentina!

Yesterday someone tried to hack my WhatsApp. He call me and said something like:

> Hello! I'm from phone company $Name. Someone tried to register your WhatsApp number form $Another_city. We are calling to confirm because otherwise we will have to block your phone line with $Name.

The first problem was that $Name was not my phone company. I though it was a "change company" call that is worse than a scam because it's real and is done by the phone companies. They even let children accept the company change. So I said that I didn't authorize any change to anything. He replied that:

> You are in WhatsApp group $Something and if you don't confirm we will have to block your phone line with $Name.

Weird pause because I was in group $Something! And he continued:

> We will send you now an SMS with a code to confirm your identity, because if we don't get the confirmation we will have to block your phone line with $Name.

I hang up.

I got a SMS from WhatsApp with a secret number to install WhatsApp in a new device, that explicitly says that I should not share the number with anyone.

They probably hacked the account of other member of group $Something. The main plan is to send money request to other persons in the group. Our bank system is quite modern and everyone has in their phone an app from the bank to transfer money instantly for free. (I have not seen a dead-tree check in decades.)

So today I have zero sympathy for scammers. Moreover, I think the employees of the call centers of the real companies here have worse working conditions than the scammer here. And neither of them are in almost slavery conditions.

(From time to time we have police investigations of slavery conditions but mostly for forced prostitution and ilegal cloth factories. It's a real problem but not in the scammer area.)

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#25

Post by codedokode »

belorn wrote: post #22
_tk_ wrote: post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

Based on crime research, it seems that most organized crime is composed of modern day slaves, with varied degree of slavery. The most extreme are those that involve trafficking. It is a key distinction of the lowest level of their hierarchy, including the aspect that the lowest levels do most of the hands on work and most/all of the interaction with victims. I view articles like this to be similar to those that expla…

In this case, if the scammer is from Russia there is likely no trafficking involved (except maybe for the woman who called on the phone because she did not sound Russian to me).

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#26

Post by znpy »

_tk_ wrote: post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

> who are essentially modern day slaves

scams are not acceptable, no matter who's performing it

> I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers.

mocking is a very effective way to raise awareness of the issue, it delivers information on how scammers act and how to understand you're being scammed, and make that information stick.

making that kind of scam inefficient is a very good way (entertaining, non-violent, essentially harmless to scammer) to make the phenomenon disappear.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#27

Post by znpy »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #5
brohee wrote: post #2

A bit of a missed opportunity with the war in Ukraine. He could have expressed pro-Ukraine sentiment and the (most likely Russian) scammer could have echoed them back and possibly be caught in a FSB dragnet.

It was probably a Chinese slave in a Myanmar boiler room. Romance scammers and “pig butchering” scams are usually run by Asian gangs. Nasty folks. The “good” news, however, is that AI is likely to make a big impact, here, and reduce the need to kidnap poor folks.

[flagged]

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#30

Post by mschuster91 »

whoisstan wrote: post #21
jjani wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This deserves some nuance. Much of the scam-baiting content - in fact, all of the ones I'd seen until this post - revolves around tech support scams, advance fee scams and the likes, which unlike these romance scams are generally not done by slaves.

How do you know they are not done by slaves?

Scammer Payback's videos always include footage from the surveillance cameras. At least the scammers he and his crew target don't use slavery - that's more of a problem in Burma/Myanmar, not in India where many tech scammers are.
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