Scamming the Scammers

There are a lot of scammers out there – but there are also a lot of ways to fight the amount of phone scamming going on. There are apps (shoutout to PrivacyStar!), there are in-network solutions (shoutout to T-Mobile!), but sometimes that isn’t enough for people. Some people want to take it into their own hands and exact their revenge on the annoying people calling to steal your money.

There are quite a few people out there making it their life’s goal to scam the scammers right back. What this means is that people are basically calling scammers or answering scam calls and pretending to fall for their scams.

The goal is to keep the scammers on the phone as long as possible so that they aren’t scamming someone else instead, and this has become very popular video content for a lot of YouTube users. They will film themselves talking to the scammer on speaker, and for some people, it has gathered them a large following and even money.

One user, Kitboga, uses different voices and personas to trick scammers while streaming live on Twitch, which he later uploads to YouTube. His most popular persona is an old lady who goes off on long tangents while dragging the conversation on almost indefinitely. He even encourages the scammers to sing to him through the phone.

This entertaining form of reverse-scamming has gained Kitboga over 5.5 million views and 260,000 followers and subscribers who pay a monthly fee to support his Twitch channel. His YouTube channel has over 100,000 followers, and he has become a prominent face for this form of vigilantism.

Though this may seem like a menial task, for every minute that people like Kitboga spend with a scammer, it’s one less minute they have to scam other innocent people that could fall into their trap. It doesn’t hurt that they’re alerting people to common scams at the same time. So to the valiant soldiers out there scamming the scammers, we tip our hats to you.

Sick of scam, but not quite ready to start your own YouTube channel around it? Get an extra layer of protection for your phone. Download PrivacyStar on Android and iOS to start blocking known scammers for free. And, you can read more about the adventures of Kitboga on Engadget.