| Jim Browning | ||||||||||
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| Channels | Jim Browning | |||||||||
| Years active | 2014–present | |||||||||
| Genre | Scam baiting | |||||||||
| Subscribers | 4.27 million (6 April 2024) | |||||||||
| Total views | 294 million (6 April 2024) | |||||||||
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Jim Browning is the Internet alias of a software engineer and YouTuber from Northern Ireland [1] whose content focuses on scam baiting and investigating call centres engaging in fraudulent activities.
A software engineer, [2] Browning began researching scam operations after his relative lost money to a technical support scam. [3] He started his YouTube channel to upload footage to send to authorities as evidence against scammers. [4]
He has since carried out investigations into various scams, in which he infiltrates computer networks run by scammers who claim to be technical support experts [1] or pose as US IRS agents and use remote desktop software or social engineering. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Such scams have involved unsolicited calls offering computer services, or websites posing to be reputable companies such as Dell or Microsoft. [1] [3]
Browning was featured in a March 2020 episode of British documentary series Panorama , in which a large-scale technical support scamming operation was infiltrated and extensively documented by Browning and fellow YouTuber Karl Rock. The duo recorded drone and CCTV footage of the facility in Gurugram, Haryana, India and gathered incriminating evidence linking alleged scammer Amit Chauhan, who also operated a fraudulent travel agency called "Faremart Travels", to a series of scams targeting computer-illiterate and elderly people in the United Kingdom and United States. [10] [11] [12] During a private meeting with his associates, Chauhan was quoted as stating, "We don't give a shit about our customers". Some of his call centre agents were recorded scamming and laughing at a British man who admitted to being depressed. [13] They were also recorded conning a blind woman with diabetes. [14] Although Chauhan denied the allegations in a phone interview with the BBC, he was arrested along with his accountant Sumit Kumar in a raid. [15] [16]
In March 2021, Browning and Mark Rober collaborated to construct and distribute automated glitter bombs to identify and report money mules who were receiving their money via shipping services, such as FedEx, before sending it to the scammers. [17] [18] [19]
Browning was covered in a 2021 New York Times article documenting their confrontation of a small-scale refund scam operation based in Kolkata, India. The journalist, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, a native of Kolkata who moved to the United States, described a December 2019 scam-baiting operation by Browning, during which Browning intercepted a refund scam involving an elderly woman. Suspicious, the woman told the scammer that she would cease contact with him, only for the scammer to lock her computer. [20] Browning was able to contact the woman and help her unlock the computer. Bhattacharjee later flew to India to check out call centers that Browning had identified as possible scammers and to confront the individual who had perpetrated the refund scam on the elderly woman. [3]
The April 2021 issue of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Bulletin contains an 11-page article by the director of AARP's Washington state office, centering on Browning's work fighting cyber scams. [1]
On July 26, 2021, Browning was targeted by scammers who pretended to be YouTube support staff and misled him into deleting his own channel. [21] [22] His channel was reinstated four days later. [23] He explained in a video that the scammer used Google Chat to send an authenticated phishing email from the "google.com" domain and convinced Browning to delete his channel under the pretense of moving it to a new YouTube brand account. [24]
In 2022, BBC commissioned for a television series for BBC One , Scam Interceptors, presented by Rav Wilding . In the series, Browning and a team of ethical hackers track down and attempt to intercept criminals and save the victims. [25] The 1st series premiered on 4 April 2022, [26] while the 2nd series premiered on 1 May 2023. [27]
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 12th Streamy Awards | Collaboration [lower-alpha 1] | Won | [28] |
Scam baiting is a form of internet vigilantism primarily used towards advance-fee fraud, IRS impersonation scams, technical support scams, pension scams, and consumer financial fraud.
419eater.com is a scam baiting website which focuses on advance-fee fraud. The name 419 comes from "419 fraud", another name for advance fee fraud, and itself derived from the relevant section of the Nigerian criminal code. The website founder, Michael Berry, goes by the alias Shiver Metimbers. As of 2013, the 419 Eater forum had over 55,000 registered accounts. According to one member, "Every minute the scammer I'm communicating with is spending on me is a minute he is not scamming a real potential victim."
A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf.
Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony to conduct phishing attacks.
Telemarketing fraud is fraudulent selling conducted over the telephone. The term is also used for telephone fraud not involving selling.
A technical support scam, or tech support scam, is a type of scam in which a scammer claims to offer a legitimate technical support service. Victims contact scammers in a variety of ways, often through fake pop-ups resembling error messages or via fake "help lines" advertised on websites owned by the scammers. Technical support scammers use social engineering and a variety of confidence tricks to persuade their victim of the presence of problems on their computer or mobile device, such as a malware infection, when there are no issues with the victim's device. The scammer will then persuade the victim to pay to fix the fictitious "problems" that they claim to have found. Payment is made to the scammer through ways which are hard to trace and have fewer consumer protections in place which could allow the victim to claim their money back, usually through gift cards.
An IRS impersonation scam is a class of telecommunications fraud and scam which targets American taxpayers by masquerading as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls to unsuspecting citizens, threatening them with arrest and frozen assets if thousands of dollars are not paid immediately, usually via gift cards or money orders. According to the IRS, over 1,029,601 Americans have received threatening calls, and $29,100,604 has been reported lost to these call scams as of March 2016. The problem has been assigned to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Studies highlight that most victims of these scams are aged 20-29 years old and women are more affected than men. One way to decrease the risks of an individual falling victim to IRS impersonation scams is through awareness programs.
Mark Rober is an American YouTuber, engineer, inventor, and educator. He is known for his YouTube videos on popular science and do-it-yourself gadgets. Before he became a YouTuber, Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years, where he spent seven years working on the Curiosity rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He later worked for four years at Apple Inc. as a product designer in their Special Projects Group, where he authored patents involving virtual reality in self-driving cars.
AnyDesk is a remote desktop application distributed by AnyDesk Software GmbH. The proprietary software program provides platform-independent remote access to personal computers and other devices running the host application. It offers remote control, file transfer, and VPN functionality. AnyDesk is often used in technical support scams and other remote access scams.
Kitboga is the Internet alias of an American Twitch streamer and YouTuber whose content primarily focuses on scam baiting against phone fraud. His channel has over 1 million followers on Twitch, and his YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers.
On July 15, 2020, between 20:00 and 22:00 UTC, 130 high-profile Twitter accounts were reportedly compromised by outside parties to promote a bitcoin scam. Twitter and other media sources confirmed that the perpetrators had gained access to Twitter's administrative tools so that they could alter the accounts themselves and post the tweets directly. They appeared to have used social engineering to gain access to the tools via Twitter employees. Three individuals were arrested by authorities on July 31, 2020, and charged with wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and unauthorized computer access related to the scam.
An SSA impersonation scam, or SSA scam, is a class of telecommunications fraud and scam which targets citizens of the United States by impersonating personnel of the Social Security Administration. SSA scams are typically initiated by pre-recorded messages, or robocalls, which are designed to panic the victim so that they follow the scammer's instructions. In 2018, over 35,000 incidences of SSA scam robocalls were reported to the Better Business Bureau, and the total losses of victims added up to over $10 million. It is believed that approximately 47% of Americans were subject to an SSA impersonation scam robocall during a three-month period in mid- to late 2020, and that 21% of seniors were targeted by at least three SSA scam robocalls in the same time period.
An overpayment scam, also known as a refund scam, is a type of confidence trick designed to prey upon victims' good faith. In the most basic form, an overpayment scam consists of a scammer claiming, falsely, to have sent a victim an excess amount of money. The scammer then attempts to convince the victim to return the difference between the sent amount and the intended amount. This scam can take a number of forms, including check overpayment scams and online refund scams.
COVID-19 scams are frauds whose cover story primarily relies on the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such scams have been reported in multiple countries, primarily the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Karl Edward Rice, known online as Karl Rock, is a New Zealand blogger and YouTuber based in India. He is best known for his vlogs, which are centred around his travels in the Indian subcontinent, and his book How to Travel in India.
Linus Media Group Inc. (LMG) is a privately held Canadian, digital media entertainment company founded by Linus Sebastian and Yvonne Ho in 2012. The company owns and operates several YouTube channels and podcasts that cover technology, most popularly Linus Tech Tips (LTT), serving as their production agency and distributor.
Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, is an American YouTuber and crypto journalist who is known primarily for his channel in which he investigates and discusses online scams, usually surrounding cryptocurrency, decentralized finance and internet celebrities. Before Coffeezilla, Findeisen was active on YouTube with the channel Coffee Break between 2017 and 2020.
Scammer Payback, also known by his nickname "Pierogi", is the internet alias of an American YouTuber and streamer who specializes in creating content about scam baiting against phone scams. Pierogi works against a variety of scams over the phone, such as technical support scams, refund scams, social security scams, and IRS impersonation scams.
Scam Interceptors is a British factual television programme about Internet fraud. Inspired by a 2020 episode of Panorama featuring ethical hacker Jim Browning, the programme shows a television team as they monitor and intervene in scams in progress. The programme has a greater focus on the victims and preventing actual live scams taking place than the Panorama episode.
