Chances are, you or someone you know has been the target of a scam. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), reported scams cost Americans more than $12.5 billion in 2024—a 25% increase from the previous year. But as scams grow more sophisticated, so do their opponents.
A growing number of online vigilantes are flipping the script, turning the scam on the scammers—and racking up millions of views in the process. Mashable’s Chris Taylor recently spoke to a few who’ve turned scambaiting into full-time work.
Rosie Okumura got into scambaiting after her mother was tricked out of $500 by a pop-up on her computer. Now, she channels her acting skills—mimicking well-known voices like Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian—to waste scammers’ time while entertaining her audience. Her YouTube channel, IRLrosie, boasts most than 1.6 million subscribers, with another 1.2 million followers on TikTok.
“I feel like teaching people how to avoid scams is better than helping someone who’s lost a ton of money, or putting myself in a dangerous situation,” Okumura said.
Ashton Bingham and Art Kulik, the duo behind the YouTube channel Trilogy Media, also have 1.6 million subscribers—but they take their scambaiting offline. Their ">most-watched video, “Hunting a Scammer with Cops,” has amassed more than 5.6 million views since its 2022 release. In it, Bingham and Kulik team up with law enforcement to confront a “refund scammer” in person, armed with $40,000 in fake cash and a camera crew. With a subscription platform, Trilogy+, and a freshly signed deal for an unscripted TV show, scambaiting has become a profitable venture.
Some scambaiters argue that by wasting a scammer’s time, they’re preventing real victims from being defrauded. But whether this tactic actually reduces online fraud is still debated. Research has also flagged ethical concerns, as some early scambaiters used racist, extreme, or even violent methods when confronting scammers.
Still, for Okumura, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. “The best part is getting recognized at restaurants,” she told Mashable. “They will comp my bill!”
Chcete-li přidat komentář, přihlaste se
Ostatní příspěvky v této skupině
These days, our tech experiences are all about speed—and our expectations for instant action are actually kinda insane.
Think about it: Not so long ago, phones, computers, and e
There’s a quiet transformation underway in how we eat. It’s not being led by chefs, influencers, or climate activists. It’s being driven by a new class of pharmaceuticals that are changing the way
On TikTok, soup is getting a rebrand. It’s now water-based cooking, to you.
“Pov you started water based cooking and now your skin is clear, your stomach is thriving and you recover from
You may not have heard of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, but he’s one of a handful of people responsible for the current AI boom. As VP of Research at OpenAI, Amodei helped discover the scaling laws
2026 may still be more than seven months away, but it’s already shaping up as the year of consumer AI hardware. Or at least the year of a flurry of high-stakes attempts to put generative AI at the
