Posted on 07/21/2022 3:06:31 AM PDT by Windcatcher
Recently, a team of individuals went after phone scam call centers in India in EPIC fashion. Mark Rober used his skills to fashion booby traps, Trilogy Media flew to India and had insiders plant them, and Jim Browning used his hacker skills to gain access to the scammers' internal systems. What follows is mind-blowing. Presented here are three separate videos from each of their channels detailing how it all went down and the aftermath.
Mark Rober - Pranks Destroy Scam Callers- GlitterBomb Payback
Trilogy Media - GLITTERBOMBING a Scam Call Center w/ Mark Rober
Jim Browning - Pranking Scammers ft. Mark Rober
Each shows a different aspect of how it all went down, from the details of making the booby traps, embedding their rather (ahem) special payload, the nail-biting risk of deploying them under the scammers' noses, and the psychological warfare that only Jim Browning could provide (his video is not to be missed -- it's comedy gold).
For later.
I’ve seen you tube vids where the “victim” hacks into the scammers computers. It’s fun to watch them freak out when they are shown their pictures and personal information.
I went to visit an elderly neighbor and her husband was reading numbers off to someone on the phone - an Indian guy had convinced him he needed to pay for something for his computer. I asked to speak to the man, took the phone from him, hung it up and called their son after I left. The son went over later to change passwords, get cc reissued, etc.,...
They are monsters, preying on the elderly and vulnerable.
Are those the same scammers behind the car warranty schemes, who call from all over the country?
Those guys are brilliant
Just evil.
It’s difficult to get the elderly to realize they are not slaves to their phones. When I was growing up, everything was analog, party lines were normal and answering machines were a luxury for many. If you didn’t answer the phone, you might miss an important call. My parents still thought that way, even after years of answering machines and caller ID. It’s apparently a hard habit to break.
Will watch later
[They are monsters, preying on the elderly and vulnerable.]
For them, and for ransomware people.........(comment removed in advance).
Because my comment wouldn’t be very nice...
When one of these jackwagons calls me, e.g. I'm from the IRS and you need to pay us $500 or we will see you in court, I call back after blocking my number and pose as Elwood Blues, wanting to pay them. I give my address (1060 W. Addison in Chicago) and waste as much of their time as possible, e.g. engage in mindless banter "Do you like gladiator movies?"...that wasted time of mine is time where they can't attack someone's grandmother.
About 3 months before we paid our house off we began getting calls from one company urging us to re-finance with them. I explained a couple of times that we weren’t interested and could they please remove us from their call list. The calls kept coming. One day I said yes, I’m interested but you caught me outside on the portable, let me go inside. I grabbed my Charter Arms Bulldog on the way out and 2 minutes into his spiel I put it up to the phone and let loose. After about 5 or 6 times the supervisor called me, complaining that he had 2 workers out on workers comp because of my actions. I asked him if he realized how stupid he was just as I cut loose on him. Never had another call from them.
The company I used to work for built custom software. We had to interface with banks and had dozens of test accounts.
On occasion, we’d go in the conference room and see who could piss off the scammer first, who could keep them on the longest, etc. We had been issued cell phones but rarely used them. Seems each number was in some list. I took it as a team building thing. We were working too long anyway. A woman in our office was real clever. One day she took the call for an auto warranty. When talking to the guy, she’d answer but add something suggestive. The indians on staff knew how to insult the scammers. I learned a lot of phrases in their language.
The best were the Microsoft/virus scammers. We also conferenced in two scammers on the same call once. Talk about confusion.
LOL, love it! I still have a landline. Most of the time I don't answer the phone unless I recognize the number. If the same number calls more than once in a day then I'll answer. I have a window alarm, bought it back when the Dollar Tree actually sold things for a buck. This is the best purchase I've made! I let them start their spiel and then I just turn the alarm on, instant hang up. One day I actually had a woman call back and tell me she had to hang up because there was a strange noise on the line, I said, oh, you mean like this? and I set it off again. She called back AGAIN, I told her the reason she keeps hearing it is because I'm NOT interested, I set if off again, she has yet to call back and that was about a year or more ago!
Then you’ll absolutely love Jim Browning’s video. One of the scammers probably couldn’t sleep for days.
Did any of the fashioned booby traps involve large amounts of C-4?
I remember my first answering machine in the late 1980s! I was so proud of it (and my microwave!) I grew up in a lower middle class family and we didn’t really have any luxuries.
Definitely happier in that time - the advanced technology hasn’t really made my life any easier except for saving a little time.
I just blocked the following sites who sent emails asking for campaign contribution for well known conservatives:
(Fake Email political donation:)
greenecongress22.com support@greenecongress22.com ---- wendyrogers2022.com wendy@wendyrogers2022.com ---- electfinchem.com mark@electfinchem.com ---- wendyrogers2022.com wendy@wendyrogers2022.com ---- firelizcheneynow.com chipin@firelizcheneynow.com ----
Most of the text of the email is clearly copied from material from the candidate.
This is the most recent, but have previously blocked about 6 others with similar scam attempts.
The sites they give do not work and there is a java script behind the name on the site.
This gets real old.
Some other interesting email phishing scams appear to originate in the UAE. Some how, I doubt that is where there were.
Makes you want to not even have an email account.
And yet here you are conversing with all of us on FR!
Although I seldom answer the phone to such callers, sometimes I inadvertntly get trapped.
At some point I tell the caller that generally I do not deal with Paki’s.
That is a mortal insult, calling he caller a Paki
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.