Jim Browning (YouTuber)

Last updated

Jim Browning
Jim Browning YT logo 2021.png
Personal information
Occupations
  • Scam baiter
  • Software engineer
YouTube information
Channels Jim Browning
Years active2014–present
Genre Scam baiting
Subscribers4.33 million
Total views300.07 million
YouTube Silver Play Button 2.svg100,000 subscribers2018
YouTube Gold Play Button 2.svg1,000,000 subscribers2020
Last updated: 15 September 2024

Jim Browning is the Internet alias of a British software engineer and YouTuber from Northern Ireland [1] whose content focuses on scam baiting and investigating call centres engaging in fraudulent activities. Browning cooperates with other YouTubers and law enforcement when they seek his expertise in investigating and infiltrating scam call centers. Browning has published several journalistic exposé videos highlighting the results of his investigations.

Contents

Scambaiting

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]

BBC Panorama investigation

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] Chauhan denied the allegations in a phone interview with the BBC, and he was arrested along with his accountant Sumit Kumar in a raid by Delhi Police. On 2 May 2022, Chauhan was acquitted of all charges at a court hearing in Gurugram and released. [15] [16]

Money-mule catching

In March 2021, Browning and fellow YouTuber 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 scammers. [17] [18] [19]

New York Times interview

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]

AARP report

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]

Temporary channel deletion

On 26 July 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]

Scam Interceptors

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 white hat hackers attempt to intercept criminals and prevent fraudulent activity. [25] The first series premiered on 4 April 2022, [26] and the second on 1 May 2023. [27]

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryResultRef.
2022 12th Streamy Awards Collaboration [a] Won [28]

Notes

Related Research Articles

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romance scam</span> Confidence trick using romantic intentions

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, Cash App, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technical support scam</span> Type of fraud and confidence trick

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 via gift cards or cryptocurrency, which are hard to trace and have few consumer protections in place. Technical support scams have occurred as early as 2008. A 2017 study of technical support scams found that of the IPs that could be geolocated, 85% could be traced to locations in India, 7% to locations in the United States and 3% to locations in Costa Rica. Research into tech support scams suggests that millennials and those in generation Z have the highest exposure to such scams; however, senior citizens are more likely to fall for these scams and lose money to them. Technical support scams were named by Norton as the top phishing threat to consumers in October 2021; Microsoft found that 60% of consumers who took part in a survey had been exposed to a technical support scam within the previous twelve months. Responses to technical support scams include lawsuits brought against companies responsible for running fraudulent call centres and scam baiting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Rober</span> American YouTuber and engineer (born 1980)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boogie2988</span> YouTube personality (born 1974)

Steven Jason Williams, better known by his online alias Boogie2988 or simply Boogie, is an American YouTuber best known for his video rants about video games and nerd culture as a character named Francis.

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.

The locksmith scam is a scam involving fake business listings for cheap locksmith services that, once called out, overcharge the customer. The scam targets people who call a locksmith out of desperation, usually because of being locked out of their car or premises. Locksmith scams have been reported in the U.S., the U.K., and New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MrBeast</span> American YouTuber and businessman (born 1998)

James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, better known by his online alias MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, media personality, and businessman. He is known for hosting the reality television series Beast Games, and his fast-paced and high-production YouTube videos featuring elaborate challenges and lucrative giveaways. With over 340 million subscribers, he has the most subscribers of any YouTube channel and is the third-most-followed creator on TikTok with over 106.9 million followers. He also has over 63.9 million followers on Instagram and over 31.4 million on X.

YouTube may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. Suspensions of high-profile individuals from YouTube are unusual and when they occur, often attract attention in the media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitboga (streamer)</span> American YouTuber, Twitch streamer, and scambaiter

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 one million followers on Twitch, and his YouTube channel has over three million subscribers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 Twitter account hijacking</span> July 2020 compromise of multiple Twitter accounts to post scam tweets

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 scam targeting citizens of the United States by impersonating Social Security Administration employees. SSA scams are typically initiated through pre-recorded messages, or robocalls, that use social engineering to make victims panic and ensure they follow instructions given to them. In 2018, over 35,000 instances of SSA scam robocalls were reported to the Better Business Bureau with over $10 million lost by victims. Approximately 47% of Americans were subject to an SSA scam robocall during a three-month period between mid- to late 2020, and 21% of seniors were subject to at least three robocalls during 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 scams</span> Scams related to COVID-19

COVID-19 scams are scams whose cover story primarily relies on the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been reported in multiple countries, primarily the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Rock</span> New Zealand YouTube personality and blogger

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.

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Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, is an American YouTuber and cryptocurrency 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 an American YouTuber and streamer, who specializes in creating content about scam baiting against phone scams and Internet scams. He 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.

Trilogy Media is an American YouTube channel and streaming service founded by Ashton Bingham and Art Kulik(Russian: Арт Кулик) in 2016. The channel is known for producing content related to scambaiting and internet vigilantism, with a focus on exposing scams and fraudulent activities.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Doug Shadel (April 2021). "Inside an International Tech-Support Scam". AARP Bulletin. AARP. Archived from the original on 19 August 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  2. ↑ Flippin, Alex (20 July 2021). "FF12 dissects scam after Wichitan falls victim". Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit (27 January 2021). "Who's Making All Those Scam Calls?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  4. ↑ Tait, Amelia (3 October 2021). "Who scams the scammers? Meet the scambaiters". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 17 August 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  5. ↑ Gelinas, James (20 June 2019). "How some consumers are fighting back against robocalls". Komando.com. Archived from the original on 30 October 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  6. ↑ Cellan-Jones, Rory (25 October 2019). "Tech Tent: Shutting down the software scammers". BBC News. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  7. ↑ "Tech support scammers hacked back by vigilante". Naked Security. 4 March 2020. Archived from the original on 14 October 2022. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  8. ↑ "Robocall revenge: Meet the techies turning the tables on scammers". CBS News. Archived from the original on 30 November 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  9. ↑ Carlos Christian (8 March 2020). "Confessions of a call-centre scammer". The Union Journal. Archived from the original on 30 October 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  10. ↑ Mooney, John (8 March 2020). "Northern Irish hacker exposes call centre scam in India". The Sunday Times. London. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2020.(registration required)
  11. ↑ "VIDEO: Briti häkker avaldas salvestised petukõnekeskuses toimuvast". Postimees (in Estonian). 3 March 2020. Archived from the original on 29 July 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  12. ↑ McCarter, Reid (4 March 2020). "Hacker breaks into scammers' CCTV cameras and computer records". The A.V. Club . Archived from the original on 29 July 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  13. ↑ "Panorama - Spying on the Scammers". BBC News. Archived from the original on 6 March 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  14. ↑ "Spying on the Scammers: Part 3". YouTube . 16 March 2020. Archived from the original on 8 May 2020. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  15. ↑ "Scam call centre owner in custody after the exposé". BBC News. 4 March 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  16. ↑ Dhankhar, Leena (4 March 2020). "Udyog Vihar call centre duped at least 40,000 in 12 countries; 2 arrested". Hindustan Times. New Delhi. Archived from the original on 5 March 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  17. ↑ Rober, Mark (18 March 2021). "Glitterbomb Trap Catches Phone Scammer (who gets arrested)". YouTube . Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  18. ↑ Browning, Jim (18 March 2021). "Catching Money Mules featuring Mark Rober". YouTube . Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  19. ↑ Webster, Sophie (24 April 2021). "YouTube Star Mark Rober's NASA Career and His Incredible Investions". Tech Times. Archived from the original on 6 March 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  20. ↑ Spadafora, Anthony (10 February 2020). "Lock My PC fights tech support scammers with free recovery keys". TechRadar. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  21. ↑ Leebody, Christopher (28 July 2021). "Northern Ireland YouTuber who exposes scams falls victim to ploy himself". Belfast Telegraph. Archived from the original on 5 August 2022. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  22. ↑ Halfacree, Gareth (27 July 2021). "Scam-baiting YouTube channel Tech Support Scams taken offline by tech support scam". The Register. Archived from the original on 23 September 2022. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  23. ↑ Jim Browning [@JimBrowning11] (30 July 2021). "Yes.... I'm back. Slightly different channel URL: https://youtube.com/channel/UCBNG0osIBAprVcZZ3ic84vw I'm trying to get the http://youtube.com/JimBrowning link updated, but this might take a little longer. Expect a video on the whole debacle later today" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  24. ↑ Jim Browning (30 July 2021). My channel was deleted... HOW? (YouTube Video). Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  25. ↑ Darvill, Josh (7 March 2022). "Rav Wilding and Jim Browning to hunt cyber criminals in new BBC One show". TellyMix. Archived from the original on 4 May 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
  26. ↑ TV, Mem (3 April 2022). "Scam Interceptors: Series Premiere (S1EP1 BBC One Mon 4 April 2022)". Memorable TV - Episodes, News & More. Retrieved 4 May 2023.[ permanent dead link ]
  27. ↑ "TV BAFTA-nominated series Scam Interceptors returns to hack the hackers and expose unscrupulous scammers" (Press release). BBC Media Centre. 25 April 2023.
  28. ↑ "12TH ANNUAL WINNERS". Streamy Awards. Archived from the original on 12 December 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
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