scams

A Last Week Tonight segment on pig butchering scams, in which long-con romance and investment fraud is run, often by trafficked workers. It explains how victims are groomed and interviews people who lost large sums.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on timeshares covers how people get sold into them, why they are so hard to leave, and the exit-company scams that target owners trying to get out.

CBC Marketplace investigates locksmith scams in the Greater Toronto Area. It exposes networks of fake Google Maps listings and fake reviews, and uses hidden cameras to show how low quotes turn into overcharges.

Mark Rober sets up elaborate glitter-bomb traps to go after phone scammers, working his way up their chain of command, and ends with a scammer being arrested. He also points viewers to fraud-reporting resources and to scambaiter Jim Browning's investigation.

At DEF CON 27, Nina Kollars tells how buying Nespresso capsules on eBay led her to investigate fraudsters reselling goods bought with stolen credit cards. She describes her non-technical tracking and reporting efforts.

Jim Browning reverses a scammer's remote connection and discovers CCTV in a Delhi call centre. He gives a detailed look at how a tech support scam operation runs, and he shared the footage with the BBC.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas investigates the Mikkelsen Twins and the ghostwritten-audiobook passive-income course industry, even playing along with the scheme. It is a long video essay on get-rich-quick publishing grifts.

Dan Olson's roughly two-hour video essay critiques NFTs, cryptocurrency, and Web3, covering their technical, economic, and ideological flaws. It is heavily sourced and ends with the advice to ask whether a project needs crypto to work.

Jason Scott of textfiles.com tells the story at DEFCON 17 of being sued for two billion dollars by a scammer who plagued him and others for over a decade. The talk is tragic and funny, covering what he learned about misleading schemes.

Coffeezilla's investigation into the Counter-Strike 2 skin gambling ecosystem, covering casino sites, influencers and esports teams that profit from it. It is part of a multi-part series on Valve's skin economy and its effects on young players.

Mark Rober and collaborators build glitter bomb traps and other pranks to fight phone scam call centers, and share evidence about the operations.

Kitboga baits tech-support scammers into believing they will get $3,000, wasting hours of their time while he plays along and screen-shares. The scammers become frustrated as it becomes clear the money will not reach them.

MegaLag investigates PayPal's Honey browser extension, showing how it swaps affiliate attribution and was promoted by large YouTube influencers. It includes technical demonstrations of the affiliate tag replacement in browser dev tools.

An ABC 20/20 investigation into whether the Better Business Bureau sells its ratings. It looks at BBB finances, executive pay and how grades relate to paid accreditation.

Scam-baiter Jim Browning explains how he fell for a phishing email and ended up deleting his own YouTube channel. He walks through the circumstances and prior incidents that made the scam convincing.

Kitboga builds an elaborate automated phone maze with fake captchas, hold loops and absurd support to trap scammers for days. It also covers how this protects potential victims by wasting scammers' time.

A short clip from The Office US in which Michael Scott gets drawn into an email scam promising riches from the son of a deposed Nigerian king. It plays on pyramid schemes and gullibility.

An Adult Swim parody infomercial for a for-profit online university that promises to let you print your own degree. It is absurdist comedy in the style of Tim and Eric.