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An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears.
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.
Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Internet fraud is not considered a single, distinctive crime but covers a range of illegal and illicit actions that are committed in cyberspace. It is, however, differentiated from theft since, in this case, the victim voluntarily and knowingly provides the information, money or property to the perpetrator. It is also distinguished by the way it involves temporally and spatially separated offenders.
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."
Bremner, Bird and Fortune is a satirical British television programme produced by Vera Productions for Channel Four, uniting the longstanding satirical team of John Bird and John Fortune with the satirical impressionist Rory Bremner. It had 16 series, followed by several one-off episodes.
The Real Hustle is a BBC British television series created by Objective Productions, Alexis Conran and R. Paul Wilson for BBC Three. The show demonstrates confidence and magic tricks, distraction scams and proposition bets performed on members of the public by hosts Alexis Conran, Paul Wilson and Jessica-Jane Clement. From series 10, entitled "New Recruits", Jazz Lintott and Polly Parsons joined the hustlers.
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.
Sakawa is a Ghanaian term for illegal practices which combine modern Internet-based fraud with African traditionalist rituals. The term or word Sakawa is an Hausa word which means putting inside, how to make money. The rituals, which are mostly in the form of sacrifices, are intended to spiritually manipulate victims so that the scammer's fraud is successful. The term Sakawa referred to specific online scams but has since broadened to include all types of online frauds and scams mainly targeting foreigners. The scammers flaunt stylish clothes, luxury cars, and enormous wealth, in order to promote this act. In impoverished areas, it can be seen as a way of survival for some.
Scam City is a television show which started airing on Travel + Escape in June 2012, and has subsequently aired on the National Geographic Channel, and in Australia on the subscription channel Nat Geo People. Host Conor Woodman travels to some of the world's most popular cities in an effort to expose the darker side of tourism.
Chris Atkins is a British journalist, documentary film maker and best-selling author. He has made several fiction feature films, feature length documentaries and television documentaries, which have received three BAFTA nominations.
A technical support scam, or tech support scam, is a type of fraud 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.
Ghana has one of the highest rates of cybercrime in the world, ranking 7th in a 2008 Internet Crime Survey. The most popular form of cybercrime in Ghana is cyberfraud and is typically achieved via credit card fraud. However, recent decreases in universal credit card usage has seen the expansion of other cybercrimes such as blackmail and hacking. This growth in crime has warranted a government response, with policies specifically addressing the cyberspace being developed. This has necessitated various studies including a cyber security maturity study which was inaugurated by the Ministry of Communications and conducted by the Global Cyber Security Capacity Center (GCSCC) of the University of Oxford in collaboration with the World Bank.
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.
Jim Browning is the Internet alias of a software engineer and YouTuber from Northern Ireland whose content focuses on scam baiting and investigating call centres engaging in fraudulent activities.
A fraud factory or fraud park is a collection of large fraud organizations usually involved in human trafficking operations, commonly found in Southeast Asia and usually operated by a criminal gang. Fraud factory operators lure foreign nationals to scam hubs, where they are forced into modern slavery, to scam internet users around the world into fraudulently buying cryptocurrencies or withdrawing cash, via social media and online dating apps. Trafficking victims' passports are confiscated, and they are threatened with organ harvesting and forced prostitution if they do not scam sufficiently successfully.
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.
You've Been Scammed by Nigel Latta is a New Zealand television programme which teaches its audience about scams. It is hosted by psychologist and television host Nigel Latta, and has four episodes. The programme details eight types of scams and the human weaknesses they exploit. Several scammers were contacted within the programme, and several victims of scams were interviewed, including a woman who lost $100,000. Latta compared scammers to magicians within the show. Magician Brendan Dooley featured within the programme, who carries out scams on unsuspecting victims. The programme was first aired on TVNZ 1 on 3 July 2023 at 8 pm.
Hunting The Catfish Crime Gang is a BBC Three television documentary. The programme is presented by James Blake and follows his investigation into a criminal network that stole his identity and used it for an online catfishing scam. During the investigation, the programme revealed that hundreds of fake social media profiles had been set up using Blake's likeness, and multiple women had been defrauded.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jack, Malcolm (28 April 2023). "'They're coming up with devious ways to take your money': the TV hackers taking on the scammers". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 May 2023.
- 1 2 3 "BBC One - Scam Interceptors, Series 1, Episode 1". BBC. Retrieved 8 May 2023. First broadcast 4 April 2022
- 1 2 3 "TV BAFTA-nominated series Scam Interceptors returns to hack the hackers and expose unscrupulous scammers". BBC. 25 April 2023. Retrieved 9 May 2023.
- ↑ Dathan, Matt (10 April 2023). "Labour vows to bar foreign scam callers using UK numbers". The Times . Retrieved 8 May 2023.
- 1 2 Tunney, Liam (21 April 2023). "Scam-busting NI YouTuber teams up with BBC series to help expose con artists". Belfast Telegraph . Retrieved 8 May 2023.
