What is Scambaiting? / Tech Support Scams Explained

Let's start off with what a Phone scam is.

Now, A phone scam is a scam that happens when you get called via your phone, and the person(s) on the other end try to exploit your naivety and either get money or information out of you. It normally goes down like this: You get called from an unknown number out of nowhere, normally starting with 888 or 855 meaning it is from India. They may try to convince you that you won some raffle or that you won some 50$ coupon or something, and they will (most likely) try to get either your bank/credit card info, get you to write a check, or any other form of payment. If you have any trace of common sense, just hang up immediately. I say that it probably comes from India with the extension 888/855 because that's where the majority of them come from, but I've also gotten some from places like Australia, the UK, and even America.

Now that you know what a Phone scam is, let's talk about Tech Support Scams and Scambaiting. So a tech support scam is normally executed like this:

You accidentally type in yourube or spoitfy or something like that and an error message pops up (like the one in the thumbnail) saying that you have a virus and to call a number. This happens because they buy the domains for common typo's of popular websites (ex. youtub, redidt), and if you were to call the number on the ad, you will soon be connected to a most likely indian man or woman. claiming they are tech support, they will ask you what the problem is, and If the scam goes well, they will have successfully convinced you that your PC is infected by some virus. They will then happily have your financial information, and use it for personal use.

Now for some scambaiting.

Scambaiting is an art form to me. If you are a scambaiter, you take advantage of these scammers, waste their time, and maybe even gather information from them. Sometimes people even go as far as getting a RAT (Remote Access Tool) deployed on their computer and stealing their files. Others have even managed to lock them out of their computers completely. Normally scambaiting happens by people intentionally finding scammer-hosted ads and calling their numbers. The baiter manipulates the scammer through Social Engineering to gather information, which can be used to take down scam URL's, or even destroy the entire scammer's company. Many social media users and youtubers have taken advantage of Scambaiting and used it to gain a large following. I hope you can check them out sometime because they are pretty entertaining, so I'll link some popular channels below.

Thanks for reading!

Lewis's tech - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLZxPVkEvf9XuifStuHK_gA

Kitboga - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm22FAXZMw1BaWeFszZxUKw

Leo Takacs - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOkhTr4FqEAWRz2UecVsh4g