“Scambaiting is the practice of engaging with online fraudsters to waste their time, disrupt their operations, and gather evidence, often for entertainment or public education.” – Google
Well, it’s been a super fun week here at WritersWeekly! We’re getting 6-pack abdomens from all the laughter!
This is an abbreviated version of what happened. To listen to the entire, HILARIOUS story, check out Episode 38 of the WritersWeekly Podcast.
We couldn’t pronounce his real name but I think we got close. Icky-Chuck-You!
Since Icky-Chuck-You was not available for the recording (ha ha ha!!!), Brian put on his very best Nigerian accent (he actually sounds more like the Indian guy from The Simpsons, which cracked me up!), as he read the messages from Icky-Chuck-You. Of course, while recording the conversation, I played myself… đ
It started out after Icky-Chuck-You saw a post I made to an authors’ group on Facebook. Of course, like every other scammer, he immediately sent me a private message (PM), asking me questions about my book and my marketing activities. He pretended to be so interested… I knew where that false praise was heading so I replied back with three simple words:
Eff you, scammer! (Except, I spelled out the actual word in my message. Short and sweet!) That usually makes them go away. But, noooooo!!!!
Icky-Chuck-You didn’t take the hint. He kept messaging me. I threw another “eff you” in there. But, that guy would NOT let go! He kept coming back for more, and more, and more. It was AWESOME!!!
So, I asked him to write an article for us for $60 US on how he fakes his location. He admitted he’s in Nigeria but his Facebook profile says he’s in two U.S. states (and other locations as well). He thought I was trying to scam him (I was!). I thought it wasn’t going to work out. I was starting to feel bummed… (Don’t worry. It DID work out in the end! And, FAR better than we could have hoped for!!!)
Then, he started losing his temper (that’s putting it mildly). His spelling, grammar, and punctuation SUCKED! He couldn’t even spell English profanity correctly. That was after I told him I was going to get his website and Facebook profile taken down.
He wrote, “You’ve gone too far”
Yep, no period at the end. I’m purposely not fixing his errors and there were LOTS! Our eyeballs wanted to bleed…
Overnight, while we were sleeping, Icky-Chuck-You started casting voodoo spells on me. Want to see an example? I’m sure you do!
“You bastard Born out of sheets Ungrateful souls evils of all demons The bringer of distraction and died That’s why you parents leaves you and die , because you a bastard”
He also said I was, “fool of sheet” and he sent me a middle finger emoji with this, “Eff you stickler.” Yes, he spelled the F word correctly in his text…but who the heck is Stickler? Ever since we shared his voodoo profanity with our employees and with University of Tennessee Professor and professional editor (and real book marketer!) Clayton Jones, we’ve all been accusing each other of being “fool of sheet,” and telling each other, “Eff you, Stickler.” I’m not sure when that joke will ever get old. I imagine never! đ
He sent a lot more than that. You’ll definitely want to listen to the podcast episode to hear ALL of it, including his amazing ability to switch between words that make NO sense whatsoever, to paragraphs he CLEARLY pulled from AI programs.
The next morning, he came back at me again…but with three waving hand emojis and, “Hey , How are you doing?”
Heh… I went right back to playing the game! And, it was FUN!!!
My goal was to get him to share with us and our readers how he fools people in the U.S. and the rest of the world into believing he’s actually located in the U.S. We ended up getting that and SOOOO much more, including:
1. His real name, and his fake name, and another fake name. Hilarious!
2. His bank name, account number, routing number, etc….which wasn’t really his. He insisted it was his account but he later said it was a “global receiver account,” and then later finally admitted it belongs to a “relative.” (More B.S. It’s a money mule!)
Wait until you hear how upset he was when I told him that Wells Fargo wouldn’t accept my payment because the account had been terminated for fraudulent activity. (Of course, I never attempted to send a payment. Attorney James M. Walsh and I simply sent ALL of our correspondence to reportphish@wellsfargo.com.)
3. His virtual address. In case you don’t know, “virtual office” services let individuals all over the world use their addresses so they can appear to be located in the U.S. Icky-Chuck-You gave us that address for “his Wells Fargo branch,” and then the same address for “his relative.” A quick Google search revealed that other people have complained about scammers using that exact same address as well.
4. His Gmail email address. Real book marketing companies have their own websites, and use those domains for their email addresses. They don’t use Gmail!!! By the way, his website is on lovable.app. He claims to run a book marketing agency but he doesn’t even have his own domain! Amateur scammer!!!
5. EXACTLY what he does on his end to hide his true location and identity. Yes, he really did write the article!! The number of typos was laughable, to say the least…even though he used AI to help him write it!
6. He’s also on Twitter and TikTok, and he not only asks people to send him bank transfers (Never pay using a bank transfer! You’ll NEVER get your money back!!!), but also Western Union, Wise, and Payoneer. He said he can’t accept Paypal because he’s in Nigeria and Paypal isn’t permitted there. That’s just one of many lies he told. You can use Paypal in Nigeria…but not if you’ve been caught scamming people!
I could go on and on but it’s all in the podcast episode and you do NOT want to miss it! (Especially Brian’s hilarious accent!)
Episode 38: We Scambaited a Nigerian Scammer and HILARITY ENSUED!!!
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