Only a few months have passed since I wrote about the latest iteration of Mark Rober’s glitter bomb. It has received enough attention each year that it will undoubtedly return to ruin the days of porch pirates over the 2021 Christmas season, but before then he has a new target: scammers.
Rober has teamed up with some people in an effort to deliver a glitter bomb to a call center staffed by internet scammers. Originally, he worked with a Youtube personality and white hat hacker who regularly monitors the computer systems of known international scammers and attempts to warn victims before they can send money. As events escalated, he’s shifted to working with law enforcement in various states and on the federal level, and with Indian authorities as well.
It’s not a bad habit for a playful engineer who started off trying for a little revenge on petty thieves.
Just under a week ago, Robert uploaded a video to his feed which explained what he’d been doing. As one might expect, it’s well produced and there are a few images of people getting hit with glitter. There’s a value well beyond the usual schadenfreude, this time. The video doesn’t show how he engineered his punishment machine, it instead details, step by step, how the scams are perpetrated. In so doing, he may have created one of the most helpful instructional videos in years.
The glitter bomb will keep people interested and draw in new viewers, including many people who will never click on a video explaining how scammers operate because they believe themselves to be above falling for their traps.
Some people will be… but a surprising number of people aren’t, because the scams are far from the Nigerian Prince e-mails which used to be regularly sent around. There are many bright and clever people who can easily fall for these tricks because the tricks have become polished and hidden within operations which have grown familiar to those seeking online customer support.
The videos are a way to get past people’s preconceived notions and provide them with extremely useful information. I thought they merited a turn in the nightly showcase of non-political postings, because they are exactly the sort of thing that can be sent to potentially vulnerable parents, friends or siblings and might keep them from being successfully targeted.
Here’s the original post, where Mark Rober explains, for the uninitiated, the “refund” scam and gets some people arrested.
And here’s the anti-scammer expert he started working with. He is not as entertaining as Rober – it’s hard to beat skunk spray, glitter, and McCauley Culkin threats – but he provides a more complete rundown on not just this scam but all of the other types which are currently used by internet thieves. Hopefully, family and friends who enjoy the Rober video can be induced into watching Jim Browning’s associated video, and then perhaps some of Browning’s other productions.
Education is a good thing. Education that can keep otherwise clever and smart people from giving away their life savings is better than good, it’s wonderful.
Question of the night: Have you ever had to deal with a non-political con artist or scammer?
