THIS is what happens when you reply to spam email

[switchedmodepsu]

 

Prepare... sit down, relax, and watch... you will enjoy these... A LOT.

[xrunner]

LOL 

[switchedmodepsu]

Rather than watch videos about it (and I did) just don't reply. I routinely delete email I can't account for receiving.

You do HAVE a sense of fun... don't you?

[DimitriP]

Oh No..not a TED video 

[switchedmodepsu]

Oh No..not a TED video 

What? 

Have you even watched it? What a bizarre response...

[Ampera]

Oh No..not a TED video 

What? 

Have you even watched it? What a bizarre response...

TED Talks have a bad track record of having people standing on stage with a microphone who really shouldn't be allowed to use one. They are infamous for having tons of crying SJWs all over the place.

[German_EE]

I used to have lots of fun when I lived in Hungary replying to spam email, the secret is that you MIGHT find a spammer who speaks German but Hungarian? Not a chance.

So, send a message back to the scammer and get friendly, it's important that you never ever use your real name and a good idea if you use a disposable email address that gives no clue to your real identity. Eventually the scammer will ask for the details of your bank so that they can wire the money and you use this address:

Országos Rend?r-f?kapitányság Bank Kft
Teve u. 4-6.
1139 Budapest
Hungary

Telefon: 0036 1 443-5500

For those who don't speak Hungarian the first line reads 'Police Headquarters Bank Ltd' and the rest of the address is the location and telephone number for the central police headquarters. I upset quite a few scammers doing this.

Edit: EEVBlog doesn't handle accented characters too well so here is the web page with the address:

http://www.police.hu/info/impresszum

Have fun!

[VK5RC]

I have a brother in law who has a great technique for spam telephone calls that invariably arrive an inconvenient time - he expresses great interest for a minute or so  then asks then to hold for a minute - then comes back - very apologetic then gets called away again and again etc - he tells me he has spun one guy out for 40 minutes while he baked a cake!

[GreyWoolfe]

I have a brother in law who has a great technique for spam telephone calls that invariably arrive an inconvenient time - he expresses great interest for a minute or so  then asks then to hold for a minute - then comes back - very apologetic then gets called away again and again etc - he tells me he has spun one guy out for 40 minutes while he baked a cake!

When SWMBO isn't around I typically curse and abuse them until they hang up.  If she is around, I speak politely, explaining over and over that I know that they are scammers and just as politely refer to the shallow depth of the gene pool in their family, their lack of education and the benefits of an education to get a real job until they hang up.  One way or another, if you call and annoy me, I will annoy back and I am better at it than you are.

[switchedmodepsu]

I have a brother in law who has a great technique for spam telephone calls that invariably arrive an inconvenient time - he expresses great interest for a minute or so  then asks then to hold for a minute - then comes back - very apologetic then gets called away again and again etc - he tells me he has spun one guy out for 40 minutes while he baked a cake!

When SWMBO isn't around I typically curse and abuse them until they hang up.  If she is around, I speak politely, explaining over and over that I know that they are scammers and just as politely refer to the shallow depth of the gene pool in their family, their lack of education and the benefits of an education to get a real job until they hang up.  One way or another, if you call and annoy me, I will annoy back and I am better at it than you are.

You'll never have any fun when you're so angry, serious and clearly bitter at the world. You've made snap judgements about their education and are way too ad hominem to be taken at all seriously. People who get so irrationally angry are the ones they likely hear the most, and so they're well prepared for a grumpy, nasty old man - if you want to make an impact on them, be calm and witty and kind (you do realise they're human, right? They don't deserve abuse, no matter what they're pulling off) - use some intelligence - do something funny or ask them "Does your Mother know you do this kind of thing? Wouldn't she be ashamed of you if she knew what you did trying to scam people like this?"

As soon as you start ranting and swearing, you've already lost and are at a strategic disadvantage from thereon. The scammers probably tell their peers "hey, if you're bored you should call this  guy - he's a grumpy old man and really easy to wind up."

[switchedmodepsu]

Oh No..not a TED video 

What? 

Have you even watched it? What a bizarre response...

TED Talks have a bad track record of having people standing on stage with a microphone who really shouldn't be allowed to use one. They are infamous for having tons of crying SJWs all over the place.

Maybe some of them, but they also have many, many fun, funny and intelligent people presenting them. I don't ignorantly write off and therefore deprive myself of hundreds and hundreds of videos, just because of some "reputation" some narrow minded people have branded the "TED" series as having.

Rumours are usually false and hugely exaggerated. If I don't like the speaker or the subject, well I just turn off and search for another - that solves that. An intelligent person will know better than to avoid something so potentially entertaining and/or useful, based on some unfounded "reputation" - I don't care for gossip or "reputations", I'm calm enough to form my own (sometimes false) decisions.

[GreyWoolfe]

I have a brother in law who has a great technique for spam telephone calls that invariably arrive an inconvenient time - he expresses great interest for a minute or so  then asks then to hold for a minute - then comes back - very apologetic then gets called away again and again etc - he tells me he has spun one guy out for 40 minutes while he baked a cake!

When SWMBO isn't around I typically curse and abuse them until they hang up.  If she is around, I speak politely, explaining over and over that I know that they are scammers and just as politely refer to the shallow depth of the gene pool in their family, their lack of education and the benefits of an education to get a real job until they hang up.  One way or another, if you call and annoy me, I will annoy back and I am better at it than you are.

. 
You'll never have any fun when you're so angry, serious and clearly bitter at the world. You've made snap judgements about their education and are way too ad hominem to be taken at all seriously. People who get so irrationally angry are the ones they likely hear the most, and so they're well prepared for a grumpy, nasty old man - if you want to make an impact on them, be calm and witty and kind (you do realise they're human, right? They don't deserve abuse, no matter what they're pulling off) - use some intelligence - do something funny or ask them "Does your Mother know you do this kind of thing? Wouldn't she be ashamed of you if she knew what you did trying to scam people like this?"

As soon as you start ranting and swearing, you've already lost and are at a strategic disadvantage from thereon. The scammers probably tell their peers "hey, if you're bored you should call this  guy - he's a grumpy old man and really easy to wind up."

You have it wrong.  I am not angry, serious or bitter.  There are no snap judgments being made.  I find it amusing how angry THEY get.  I'm not the one who has lost, they are because I have thrown them off of their script.  Because English is not their native language, they don't have the skill of invective that I do and I find that amusing also.  I simply give what I get.  If you are going to annoy and inconvenience me by making me take the time to answer your call, then you can expect it back.  Switched, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion and your judgment of me.  It's not going to affect me one way or the other.  What you don't know about me is that I enjoy random acts of kindness like paying for the meal of the person behind me in the drive through and I make it a point to shake hands and thank all military and police personnel I come in contact with.  I fixed a computer that one of those "Microsoft Security Personnel" screwed with for free because the woman is 90 years old, disabled, no family and no money.  She is a patient at the practice my wife works at, and I willingly helped her for no more than a hug and thank you.  The tears of joy were rewarding enough.  I also fix computer/printer/network issues for cancer patients or survivors for nothing more than the cost of parts because I lost both parents and my oldest sister to cancer.  To sum it up, I have lots of fun in life.  I actually enjoy my job, I enjoy my hobbies, I enjoy helping people and giving from my need not because I have excess.  I have an awesome wife, an awesome son and daughter-in-law, 2 pretty cool stepdaughters and grandchildren that I love very much.  So come on over, we'll sit down, I will get you a cold drink, put out some snacks, you can scratch the ears of my dogs and we can chat for awhile.   Then, you can make a judgment on the kind of person I am.  You're welcome anytime, just call first to see if I am home.

[raspberrypi]

I got a real one of those in the mail posted from England. Its was the nigerian prince scam. Although I have met a nigerian prince and sent my bank account info to a nigerian through email. He was a real business partner and the brunt of many jokes after that. I like Daves video of the fake church asking him for donations.

[raspberrypi]

Oh No..not a TED video 

What? 

Have you even watched it? What a bizarre response...

TED Talks have a bad track record of having people standing on stage with a microphone who really shouldn't be allowed to use one. They are infamous for having tons of crying SJWs all over the place.

Hey! I was invited to do a TED talk on inspiring people to pursue chemistry. Maybe you are right though.

[FrankBuss]

I think he makes a good point in the video (the first one) : If you answer to these eMails and have some fun with them, they have less time to scam people who might actually fall for it. Usually these eMails are in my spam folder, but I might try to setup an eMail account for this at gmail, protonmail or any of the other free services, and have some fun. If only a small percentage of the receivers of such spam eMails would do that, they would soon quit doing this.

PS: if you do this, make sure to hide your identity very well, they are criminals and might have friends in your country which can be dangerous if they are upset. So e.g. if there are any numbers or other unique things in the initial eMail to you, don't include this in your reply, so that they can't associate your original eMail address and name (just in case, I doubt they are that smart) and of course, never tell them anything which could help them to identify you, and don't phone them (except maybe with a disposable pre-paid mobile phone). Best would be to get these spams to the new eMail account, so enter the eMail to any "free iPhone" etc. site you can find.

[GreyWoolfe]

I think he makes a good point in the video (the first one) : If you answer to these eMails and have some fun with them, they have less time to scam people who might actually fall for it. Usually these eMails are in my spam folder, but I might try to setup an eMail account for this at gmail, protonmail or any of the other free services, and have some fun. If only a small percentage of the receivers of such spam eMails would do that, they would soon quit doing this.

You can also use Yahoo like I do.  The thing is that they won't quit.  I responded to a few and the number of spam skyrocketed overnight.  I would check the email every few days because I use it for other things and get 50-60.  Now, it is in the hundreds.  If there is a response, then the email is shared out to others.

[DimitriP]

Oh No..not a TED video 

What? 

Have you even watched it? What a bizarre response...

TED Talks have a bad track record of having people standing on stage with a microphone who really shouldn't be allowed to use one. They are infamous for having tons of crying SJWs all over the place.

Hey! I was invited to do a TED talk on inspiring people to pursue chemistry. Maybe you are right though.

When one can pay $8500 to attend TED, already has some sort of inspiration going on .... Y'know what I mean?

[Skimask]

I have yet to see a decent TED video, and I've watched a buttload of them.  Pretty much every one of them has had some whining piece of shit on stage, babbling on and on about some bullshit that may or may not happen, or that may or may not have already happened, with circumstantial evidence, based on variable probabilities, blah blah blah.  Kinda like the whole "Startup" thing that's been going on for the past handful of years.  Idiots with zero business sense trying to get some shit started up, wasting somebody else's money, because they've got an idea that 3 people want to make happen, that doesn't benefit the masses.  Oh sure, there may be one or two here and there that'll work out just fine and are really good ideas.
TED...not so much...
Spam emails, spam callers, spam spammers...they're fun to fuck with.

[janekm]

I once got an email claiming to be from a design company which wanted to license one of my travel photos from Japan for re-decorating the lobbies of a middle-Eastern retail bank. Which is almost word-for-word the setup of a common advance fee scam in the photography world (a cheque would be sent and later found to be invalid). But I figured "well, let's see what happens" and told them I'd be happy to license them the photo if they can transfer the (large for me at the time) fee by Paypal.
Which they promptly did to my surprise, and for all I know my photo graced bank branches for years to come 

[rrinker]

 Really? One of the first TED videos I ever saw was on how we should allow our kids to take things apart, to get dirty, and generally have fun, and stop this helicopter parenting and wrapping them in bubble wrap. Absolutely spot on. I forgot who it was. Certainly not a bad talk at all.

[Vgkid]

I have heard a handful of decent TED talks, but never went out of my way to listen to them. Whatever was on my whro/pbs radio station.

[FrankBuss]

I always wondered how successful they are. For the telephone support scam now we have some numbers:



The scammer was so damn stupid to login to his merchant account on the victims computer to enter the victims credit card number, but the victim was a (white hat) hacker and was running a keylogger. At the end of the video you can see the report of all payments. Within half a year the scammers got half a million USD And this was for the second half of 2016. It's sad that there are so many people who fall for it, and that there are people who do the scams, instead of doing something useful.

[timothyaag]

I get charges flagged all the time for being suspicious, and can claim any charge as fraudulent, why wouldn't the CC company take care of the scam charge?

[FrankBuss]

The evil part of these telephone scams is, that the victims don't know that they were scammed. E.g. they see this popup, then the "technician" logs in and closes it, system fixed. "Yes sir, if you pay the money, your computer will be safe for the next 3 years, we magically take care of it".

[FrankBuss]

Well, my first eMail conversation with a scammer wasn't that interesting. He said he was a diplomat and wanted to send me a box with money, which I own. This is an interesting twist, because if you fall for it, you have to be a criminal, too. There were some eMails back and forth, because I pointed out inconsistencies, but he didn't react, just asking for personal data. But he sent me a picture of the box, which I found with Google image search, very dumb.