*Afterthoughts & Addenda* *SCAM RECOVERY SPAM* - of course, this being a video with 'scam' in the title, it attracted the attention of bot comments from scammers recommending scam recovery services. These are just more scams. Do not trust ANY recommendations for 'scam recovery experts' in the comments. www.which.co.uk/news/article/how-recovery-scammers-trick-vulnerable-victims-asH3c7c4sWUw
I received a suspicious text from my mother asking for my birthday and address. I called her to confirm it was her. Turns out it was not a scam and she forgot both. Thanks Atomic Shrimp!
I forgot my birthday years ago. I honestly don't want to know how old I am, it's just one year closer to the grave. I'm old, you see, and getting more disillusioned with this shitty world by the minute.
That bridge from Antrim to Scotland is going to be much easier now. And the IOM will become tropical now the Irish Sea is a lake. It's going to really mess up brexit though.
There's something about that fake Tik Tok voice that fills me with rage. I realized that I'm going to probably be a willful luddite in my old age. It's not something I'm excited for, but I'm already feeling it in my 30's.
Same, though I don't think there's any shame to be had. That voice communicates "hi i'm a lazy pos that can't' be bothered to actually convince you to buy our product." I just assume they're all scams, especially if they clearly show only chinese branded content.
AI mimicry of human productions is specifically designed to scam, defraud and con - there is no valid use for it. It is a completely different matter from the scientific analysis programmes.
The question that has to be asked is " How and why does Google allow these Ads to run?". There are so many of them it's unfathomable how they allow it.
Money. Pure and simple. I think this saying I quoted was from Shrimp himself: we - the users * aren't * the customer, the advertisers are; they pay these platforms so the platforms will serve the advertisers first. We can only rely on authorities to keep these platforms in check, unfortunately.
Also worth noting that TH-cam (owned by Google's parent company) made changes that specifically made things easier for scammers. Same for companies that allow people to remotely access people's computers. Scammers pay them. Simple as.
Money. They get money from it, the actual contents of the ad doesn't matter. They could be selling literal shit as a cure-all but Google got the money so sod 'em. But of course, god forbid we the plebs say a naughty word or a pronoun or show a nipple (something everyone has)! I know the word "snowflake" gets thrown around a lot to the point it's lost meaning, but advertisers are the biggest example of what the term supposedly means.
Can I just add - when they say "and it connects to your phone over bluetooth" usually means to stay far away from it, even if it's a genuine device. Because this passage usually means "and the ONLY way to get to your data is via bluetooth on your phone, using an app that demands your personal data and stores your (medical!) information on an insecure server". But they will never say that of course.
"And said app will stop existing and render your device useless when we go bankrupt, and/or brick your device when we want you to buy the new model, and/or we will start forcing a paid subscription to keep using your device whenever we want to".
I appreciate the call for people to check on others in their life - my grandmother was hounded for many years by a scammy company that wanted to steal every last cent from her. It can happen to anyone, even very experienced people who know all the signs can be caught off guard on a bad day.
I love the innovative heater that heats your entire house in ten seconds, designed by a 14 year old schoolboy who was tired of shivering in his schoolroom. Or this amazing fan that will cool your entire house,ditto..ditto..ditto..
The really annoying thing about those ads is... electric heaters can't really be made any more efficient, because inefficiency in electrical devices typically manifests as heat. In a sense, an effective electric heater is just a device that is 100% INefficient at doing anything else.
@@AtomicShrimp if we want to be pedantic.... heat pumps move heat, and so can have "over" 100% efficiency (that energy comes from inside/outside the home of course, pesky thermodynamics)... but then again that wouldnt be described as a "heater"
Yeah, I thought about mentioning heat pumps, but the things on the scam ads clearly aren't that. As far as I can see they're just a stripped back hot air gun.
What really annoys me is the prevalence of the type of obvious scam adverts on TH-cam similar to the ones you feature. I have complained on numerous occasions to no avail. YT doesn't seem to do any due diligence on ads, and don't seem to care if they are scams, as long as they get their advertising fee 🤬
Honestly, as someone who wears glasses because of nearsightedness, a pair that "uses smart technology to adjust to my prescription sounds absolutely terrible. Even if it wasn't a scam, it would be an absolute nightmare as a user experience.
Yes, it would be like that driver assistance on a car that kept trying to run the reviewer into a ditch. I forget the brand of car but it was an interesting review because that wasn't the only thing it did wrong.
"You will see what WE want you to see." Another "lovely" app of recent is Gemini, which will message for you. However, when you install it and get to the "Agree" page, you see that it uses AI to write messages (not so bad) and cannot be guaranteed to tell the truth (very bad). At least it tells you it's about ready to send a message ... for now.
Thank you. I rely on your scam awareness videos to help me understand what kind of scams are happening and how they operate. I'm pretty sure you've saved me from getting scammed a number of times now. I know I shouldn't rely to your videos solely, but they are definitely a useful resource for me. Keep up the good work. You're really helping people with these videos.
That fake government website was very realistic with the right colours, layout, text and style(except the url) so could easily be accepted as the real thing.
Yeah, also a lot of mobile browsers nowadays tidy away the address bar to make room for the content, so it's possible to land on those pages and not even see the URL
Your spam awareness increased my salary! I got an email from my supervisor "You do good work, I would like to propose a salary increase, *if you answer right now, it'll be just in time for this month*" - Something along those lines. Of course, I took the time to look up inflation numbers and made a counteroffer. Next week, I got confirmation from HR _and_ since it was too late for this month salary, they would add it to next months payout! So, yeah, learning trigger phrases really works!
The humor of making fun of the scammers, who *do* deserve the insults, is always nicely balanced by the insistence that we not insult the people who fall for these scams, and that's one of the reasons I love the scambaiting videos (in addition to the cooking videos)
Even reasonably priced storage is sometimes fake for the reasons you explain. I would always run tests on prospective storage devices and buy them from sellers with reputable return programs, in case anything fishy is occurring
Another note on cheap usb drives - The IT policy where i work (and i think in more and more places these days) is not to accept a single flash drive, the PC's will not read them. Apparently its not uncommon for them to come preloaded from the manufacturer/reseller with hidden malware, and you are literally paying to infect your PC, Laptop, Network, whatever. Its a nasty trick, but it works apparently. Trust nothing when it comes to computers, its not worth it! Good video, thanks :)
Yes, a few machines even have all USB ports locked inside. The bargain mouse or keyboard can be a security threat. Edward Snowden used writeable CDs and a set of headphones to make it appear he was listening to music while he worked.
I always love your compassion. It is so easy to look down on people for falling for scams but your gentle reprimanding of judgement is forever heart warming. I'm not necessarily a fan of your typical scam bating videos as they often take a very aggressive or condescending stance, but you always seem like a favourite uncle giving worldly advise so thank you ❤
thank you for spreading awareness about this stuff!!! I sometimes share the info i get from your work with my grandma, hopefully preventing her from falling for this :)
one of the proudest I've been of my mum (late fifties, not the most tech literate, or at least not as much so as she used to be); she received a (genuine) call from her bank, but it was unexpected, and they were asking her for all the usual security stuff. She was unsure, and told the bank's agent that she didn't feel comfortable giving the info, and hung up. Called them back from the number of the back of her card 10 minutes later. Was very proud of her; even though the first call did turn out genuine, her caution was admirable! Though, I was actually somewhat disappointed with the bank as the lady who called my mum first didn't do anything encourage the call back, which I think really would have been generally advisable move in the context!
I have used your channel and your viewpoint as an example of how to be more understanding of why anybody can be caught out by a scam, depending on what the scam is or how vulnerable they are when they get that communication. 10:22 is another perfect point to start somebody on a more empathetic point of view.
I suppose this is more of what you're talking about, but just this morning I saw several ads on You Tube videos, all using that obvious AI voice, with some version of "Entity (which might be the government or it might be a big famous retailer like Wal Mart) doesn't want you to see this product or buy this product, but they can't stop you!" And then proceeds to show some janky footage of this miraculous product being used. Sometimes it's a miraculous cure for something, or some amazing device that does some unbelievable thing. I typically just skip them if I can, or mute them if I can't. But they are clearly ridiculous, to the point of being funny.
Half the time I click on ads like this by accident because I'm browsing on a slow android phone with a broken touch screen. What really annoys me is that they used to be limited to dodgy or illegal sites, now they're literally everywhere, even on reputable sites and on social media where you'd expect there to be some standard of moderation...youtube, tiktok etc. are literally making money from this.
using a firefox browser with the uBlock origin extension should help you a lot, it prevents the ads from loading so your browsing might feel faster as a result. it is a very effective adblocker
I've never understood the "How could anyone fall for this?" rhetoric. You clicked on a scambaiting video, you're primed to think what you're being shown is a scam. The real world is a lot less easy!
i almost got scammed today. A random phone number texted me and wanted me to click a link because my "parcel" needed to be confirmed from the "royal mail". I blocked them
Yep, even in the USA. Love this scam. I have an account with the US post. I use it to hold mail while gone. They have a good address for me. No need to take care of a bad address.
I get the same texts; they need my Zip code to deliver a package. Except I’m in Canada and we don’t use a Zip code. (We use combination of letters and numbers)
Honestly, those two comments that you showed from people sounding surprised that that you can now allegedly find cheap flash storage both read (at least to me) a bit like those spam comments that claim someone helped them invest or get their money back from a scam or whatever. I could just be jaded but the wording just feels wrong and give me whiffs of that same kind of comment. And I wouldn't be totally surprised if scammers really do try post them to discredit videos after the fact after a "reasonable" amount of time has passed to seem genuine.
Yeah, they were a bit weird, but a lot of these comments turn into conversations where the person does acknowledge or realise that they've been looking at scam products. Unfortunately, these comments often disappear (maybe people delete them for some feeling of shame, or maybe they get other people deriding them or something) so I don't have very many surviving samples of this phenomenon that I can show.
One other tip for the holy season (true the rest of the year as well): all TH-cam ads are either scams or promote at best terrible products. Avoid them.
Ironically, I almost got scammed going the other direction. I needed a sub 2 GB flash drive to mod an orignal xbox as its base OS couldnt deal with strage devices bigger than 2 GB and i tried to buy a flash drive off amazon but the only thing close to 2GB were literal random assortment of unknown sizes up to 16 GB. But they were advertised as every possible size that seemingly has ever existed only for the disclamer is tiny small text super down low in the description was "storage size may vary anywhere between 1 GB and 16 GB" Thankfully i found my old flashdrive from when i was still in middle and high school for the long long ago where a 2GB flash drive was massive and expensive and I could use it to mod the Xbox.
"You get what you pay for" hasn't returned because nowadays, just because you pay more, youre usually getting the same cheap stuff but with a Brand markup.
buying quality items is so hard, every fucking brand sold out their association with quality to sell people crap at a premium. it's really annoying as a shopper, everything is just made from the cheapest stuff!
Another great vid Sir Shrimp! I think the TH-cam algorithm knew you were going to upload this - it's been recommending me your other videos about these scam USB drives all week! (Either that or it watched me rewatch all of the scambaiting videos in about a week and ran out of ideas!)
I've literally just received a msg supposedly from Evri claiming I wasn't home at 09.27 today to receive my parcel I know it's a con, a) I was sitting 10 feet from the door, b) I've not actually got anything coming, besides my local Evri driver, if it fits will post it through, if it won't will lean it against door ring the bell and run away
Not only victim blaming super toxic and unproductive, while you should keep an eye out for those who are vulnerable, also yourself. Anyone can get scammed, even people with tech knowledge can get scammed if they make one mistake.
Pretty sure I've said this on your previous videos, but it bears repeating just as the video does: This is why I have an PC who's entire job is testing drives before I start using them. I mainly use it for 3.5" HDDs and 2.5" SSDs to find any problems within the return window, but the principal is the same. I use badblocks and F3 (fight fake flash) both are Linux command line tools.
Thank you for a well timed video 🙂. I've shared a few of your videos with older relatives before (like the short series on not clicking on email attachments) and they've gotten a lot out of it. I fully agree that rather than congratulating ourselves on "not being stupid enough" to fall for these scams, we could help educate the people in our lives who may not be so tech savvy. With most electronic devices now I will look at the company's actual site and if I find the product for cheaper in a physical store I will often get it from there, but only if I'm totally sure it's the same product.
Yeah, I mean, I just don't think the people who pontificate about scam victims being stupid really are as smart as they give themselves credit for, but in case they are, then they should be putting that power to good use.
"No contract, no S I M card". Wow that's a bad AI voice, lol. That was one of the most unbelievable scam ads I've ever seen. Download a full HD 2 hour movie in 5 seconds? I have really fast wired Internet and I can't even do that.
What's really depressing is the idea that even brick and mortar retailers can be selling scam slop. I guess I don't have very high expectations for Walmart but even this seems like a new low. There's just not enough incentive to *not* scam these days. Our world is set up in such a way that those who most effectively deceive the most people are the ones who have the most power. Consumer protections are more important than most people realize, and if corporations had their druthers, there wouldn't be any
"Our world is set up in such a way that those who most effectively deceive the most people are the ones who have the most power." ... You saw our [United States] election, didn't you? 8-)
the sandisk 2 TB ssd card is most likely real. It looks the same and is priced to match what I paid for my own. The only suspect caveat is that when I bought mine in stores there weren't color options. Though honestly, I feel like a good piece of advise for buying any sort of tech is to get it either directly through the manufacturer's online store, or buy it in person so you have a place you can return it to.
My first question for the flash drive issue is, who is buying a 2tb flash drive? What needs that amount of storage that couldn't be serviced with a portable ssd or the like. I am not saying that use case does not exist, or that external ssd's cannot be scams, but for how easy and brittle flash drives are I would not store anything more important than my third copy of unimportant text files on them.
I fell for the PayPal invoice scam last year when buying my husband some boots. The website was a fake version of a legitimate boot resale website and the PayPal invoice was for the same amount that the boots were purchased for so I paid it without thinking. Later I reviewed the payment confirmation on my banks portal and it said I'd paid 89 dollars to an Italian food chain. That was sketchy enough that I went back through and saw all the red flags I'd originally missed Luckily PayPal was able to refund me my money when I didn't receive the boots. I'd also used a credit card for the transaction so I could have filed a chargeback if PayPal didn't refund me.
I don't even have a PayPal account and got one of those emails. I called the number, gave them my full name, social security number, and mother's maiden name to prove it too. They were very helpful and promised they take care of it right quick.
your video helped me convince my dad to avoid a USB scam earlier this year. 😥 it wasn't easy. i maybe should have shown him your video directly, i just recalled details and tried to explain. convincing him that it was too good to be true was what he eventually believed, even though he was confused on how those USB scams get their reviews. people review too quickly, it muddies the waters.
id rather lose data than money, but i also don't have a lot of valuable data. these scams are sad but part of me is relieved that generally the scenario is being out $20 and losing a video file for those USB scams.
Why aren't all of these scams thoroughly stamped on? Perhaps a naive question but is it a case that the online resellers just don't care? Are there political reasons? Lack of policing? And so on.
Probably all of those reasons as they somewhat overlap with each other. The distribution companies such as don't care about the quality of the product as long as people are buying it so they dont bother to effectively police their own stores. Politicians receive large amounts of money from these companies via lobbying so are unlikely the effectively police the distribution companies.
I had a similar question: Why aren't the companies whose names are being used, not going after them? I mean, it's copyright violation at the very least.
@@christopherheckman7957 most of the scams are out of china and china does not have much in way of copyright protection, especially for non chinese companies.
Speaking about scam for glasses, here on TH-cam Thailand, there is/was an ad for glasses that see through clothes. I thought that silly idea was dismissed when I was 10 years old. That is 50 years ago. Funnily enough, according to the ad, you can see through the blouse, but not through the bra. You get what you pay for: you could find and still can find good bargains online, but you must have your expectations right: know the full retail price and expect a 5 or 10^ discount. Maybe a 30 or 50% discount on special occasion like black Friday. But expecting a 90^ discount that is offered all year round is just unreasonable.
As always, if something is being advertised on social media it's probably a scam, if it's being advertised with TTS voiceovers it's almost definitely a scam.
Funny that the bot narrarating the glucose monitor ad says that "taking glucose pricks is painful" when if done correctly there is little to no pain. Says a person that is absolutely NOT a diabetic
I'm not personally vulnerable to scams, but I'm watching and commenting to help this video out in the algorithm. Hopefully everyone who needs to see this can!
I reckon TTS is especially suspicious in vases like the blood sugar level ad, where the "person" is allegedly giving a testemony of how she really uses it. I mean, I assume in most ads the people gushing about the product probably aren't completely unbiased but when it's very clearly not a human speaking about the experience it makes it seem even worse
reminds me of the time I got an update for my anti-virus on the computer, and it decided to shut down internet entirely. I suppose that is the only way to stay safe. at least from internet scams. but then, I remind myself not to be bitter and suspect towards people in general. if someone says they are in need, or promise they will return the bike, they just need to borrow it right now to quickly go to the hospital, I'd rather be naive and believe the good in people than bitter and assume everyone is evil and lying all the time. edit: and yes, that bloke did indeed return the bike, leaving it right where he said he would.
I received a voicemail about my "Mac purchase", "Press 1 to dispute". I wish there was a payphone still around somewhere so I could return their call and have some fun with it.
Someone with a burner phone could have some fun too. There is a story, it may even be true, that went something like this: Scammer calls the home of someone and starts there pitch. The voice on the other end says "Now honey please put that gun down" and this was followed by two very loud bangs and silence until the scammer eventually hung up. A few days later the police got in touch to ask them not to do that again. This happened here in the US where even the cats carry guns.
If you buy from a more specialized store, not something like Amazon that sells a million things from a million places, scams are way less likely as they usually have one supplier.
Funny enough Amazon is getting to a point where it's becoming so popular some items are actually more expensive than the high street. I find this is the case with mostly household items.
I just did the same "2tb USB" search and weirdly enough only three on the first page are scams (one of them even waterproof - which is nice all things considered!). Funny how different our search results can be. Wonder why?
It is weird. I did the same search too just now and I am getting quite different results - still a lot of scams in the mix, but not three solid pages of them now. It comes and goes, I guess. Also I suppose there are probably other variables in the mix such as region and previous Google search history.
There's an Amazon strike this weekend, Friday through to the end of Monday. If anyone reading this still shops there, please do not cross the picket line, and don't place any new orders until Tuesday.
*Afterthoughts & Addenda*
*SCAM RECOVERY SPAM* - of course, this being a video with 'scam' in the title, it attracted the attention of bot comments from scammers recommending scam recovery services. These are just more scams. Do not trust ANY recommendations for 'scam recovery experts' in the comments. www.which.co.uk/news/article/how-recovery-scammers-trick-vulnerable-victims-asH3c7c4sWUw
ok
I received a suspicious text from my mother asking for my birthday and address. I called her to confirm it was her. Turns out it was not a scam and she forgot both. Thanks Atomic Shrimp!
Well that's sad.
I forgot my birthday years ago. I honestly don't want to know how old I am, it's just one year closer to the grave. I'm old, you see, and getting more disillusioned with this shitty world by the minute.
Did she not attend your birth?
Calling a "SIM card" by sounding out ever letter is more psychopathic than the scam itself
Do you expect these AI voices to have an ounce of intelligence
Yes, I have S-I-M card for cellular technologies to human benefit
got a good laugh when you used the extremely united kingdom map again later in the video, good bit.
I do like 'extremely united kingdom'
@@AtomicShrimpEireUnitedKindom. Such a shame the Isle of Man has gone the way of Atlantis, Mu or other disappeared places.
So extremely united.
As an American, that map looked very real to me
Came to say this. Good stuff 😂
As an Irish Person I can confirm we had too many bonfires this past Halloween and accidentally melted ourselves onto the UK
That bridge from Antrim to Scotland is going to be much easier now.
And the IOM will become tropical now the Irish Sea is a lake.
It's going to really mess up brexit though.
Imagine being attached to the UK, this is the tragedy of the century :(
There's something about that fake Tik Tok voice that fills me with rage. I realized that I'm going to probably be a willful luddite in my old age. It's not something I'm excited for, but I'm already feeling it in my 30's.
Same, though I don't think there's any shame to be had. That voice communicates "hi i'm a lazy pos that can't' be bothered to actually convince you to buy our product." I just assume they're all scams, especially if they clearly show only chinese branded content.
Not just me then. I switch off anything with those irritating voices 😬
Im at my twenties. It pisses me off too. The use of these voices stinks of slop or coal content.
Don't worry mate, I think we're all in that boat by now.
AI mimicry of human productions is specifically designed to scam, defraud and con - there is no valid use for it. It is a completely different matter from the scientific analysis programmes.
The question that has to be asked is " How and why does Google allow these Ads to run?". There are so many of them it's unfathomable how they allow it.
They get money from it, still. You have to pay to run the ad. They don't care where it comes from, only that they get their pound of flesh.
And TH-cam. The answer is they get paid to do so.
Money. Pure and simple.
I think this saying I quoted was from Shrimp himself: we - the users * aren't * the customer, the advertisers are; they pay these platforms so the platforms will serve the advertisers first.
We can only rely on authorities to keep these platforms in check, unfortunately.
Also worth noting that TH-cam (owned by Google's parent company) made changes that specifically made things easier for scammers. Same for companies that allow people to remotely access people's computers.
Scammers pay them. Simple as.
Money. They get money from it, the actual contents of the ad doesn't matter. They could be selling literal shit as a cure-all but Google got the money so sod 'em. But of course, god forbid we the plebs say a naughty word or a pronoun or show a nipple (something everyone has)! I know the word "snowflake" gets thrown around a lot to the point it's lost meaning, but advertisers are the biggest example of what the term supposedly means.
i love how respectful you are to scam victims, people forget how to have compassion when they’re online 😿
Commenters think they're geniuses for realising an image/video on a scambaiting video is (get this...) a scam!
"It's the pot, 73%." brb, choking on my sweet potato casserole
bon appetit!
A Pot, 73%?! I've always wanted one of those!
Can I just add - when they say "and it connects to your phone over bluetooth" usually means to stay far away from it, even if it's a genuine device. Because this passage usually means "and the ONLY way to get to your data is via bluetooth on your phone, using an app that demands your personal data and stores your (medical!) information on an insecure server". But they will never say that of course.
"And said app will stop existing and render your device useless when we go bankrupt, and/or brick your device when we want you to buy the new model, and/or we will start forcing a paid subscription to keep using your device whenever we want to".
Someone tried to scam me by email starting in September of this year, I was able to drag it out for over two months. I loved wasting their time.
I appreciate the call for people to check on others in their life - my grandmother was hounded for many years by a scammy company that wanted to steal every last cent from her. It can happen to anyone, even very experienced people who know all the signs can be caught off guard on a bad day.
I love the innovative heater that heats your entire house in ten seconds, designed by a 14 year old schoolboy who was tired of shivering in his schoolroom. Or this amazing fan that will cool your entire house,ditto..ditto..ditto..
And completely contrary to known laws of physics!
The really annoying thing about those ads is... electric heaters can't really be made any more efficient, because inefficiency in electrical devices typically manifests as heat. In a sense, an effective electric heater is just a device that is 100% INefficient at doing anything else.
@@AtomicShrimp if we want to be pedantic.... heat pumps move heat, and so can have "over" 100% efficiency (that energy comes from inside/outside the home of course, pesky thermodynamics)... but then again that wouldnt be described as a "heater"
Yeah, I thought about mentioning heat pumps, but the things on the scam ads clearly aren't that. As far as I can see they're just a stripped back hot air gun.
That ad and others very similar to it make up about 50% of the ads I get on Rumble. I don't know how anyone falls for them.
I always love the detail in your animations. Got a great chuckle when the British AIsles made a return
What really annoys me is the prevalence of the type of obvious scam adverts on TH-cam similar to the ones you feature. I have complained on numerous occasions to no avail. YT doesn't seem to do any due diligence on ads, and don't seem to care if they are scams, as long as they get their advertising fee 🤬
Just wait until TH-cam accepts ads from terrorist groups...
I shell out $15 a month just to watch TH-cam with no ads. It's the only subscription service I pay for and it's made TH-cam immensely better
@1998_MIN can think of better things to spend 180 bucks a year on, but respect 🙏
@@1998_MIN or just use an adblocker for free.
@@1998_MIN Please use free adblockers that have existed for decades instead of submitting to TH-cam's deliberate shakedown
Atomic Shrimp and fake flash storage scams. Name a more iconic duo. I'll wait.
Johns Warosa and Barosa? (They work in same office)
My favorite cinematic universe
Weird Stuff in a Drive Enclosure :)
Tom and Jerry? lol
@@andymerrett🏆
Honestly, as someone who wears glasses because of nearsightedness, a pair that "uses smart technology to adjust to my prescription sounds absolutely terrible. Even if it wasn't a scam, it would be an absolute nightmare as a user experience.
Yes, it would be like that driver assistance on a car that kept trying to run the reviewer into a ditch. I forget the brand of car but it was an interesting review because that wasn't the only thing it did wrong.
Especially when you're prone to migraines and have astigmatism in both eyes! 😵💫
"You will see what WE want you to see."
Another "lovely" app of recent is Gemini, which will message for you. However, when you install it and get to the "Agree" page, you see that it uses AI to write messages (not so bad) and cannot be guaranteed to tell the truth (very bad). At least it tells you it's about ready to send a message ... for now.
Thank you. I rely on your scam awareness videos to help me understand what kind of scams are happening and how they operate. I'm pretty sure you've saved me from getting scammed a number of times now. I know I shouldn't rely to your videos solely, but they are definitely a useful resource for me. Keep up the good work. You're really helping people with these videos.
Thank you for pointing out that the AI voices should point you toward cheap production, and is a potential clue that the item is a scam!
That fake government website was very realistic with the right colours, layout, text and style(except the url) so could easily be accepted as the real thing.
Yeah, also a lot of mobile browsers nowadays tidy away the address bar to make room for the content, so it's possible to land on those pages and not even see the URL
Irrelevant info, I'm traveling from Goa to Mumbai on a night train, and I'm thrilled to be watching your video at this very instant.
Bon voyage! 😊
Your spam awareness increased my salary! I got an email from my supervisor "You do good work, I would like to propose a salary increase, *if you answer right now, it'll be just in time for this month*" - Something along those lines. Of course, I took the time to look up inflation numbers and made a counteroffer. Next week, I got confirmation from HR _and_ since it was too late for this month salary, they would add it to next months payout! So, yeah, learning trigger phrases really works!
The humor of making fun of the scammers, who *do* deserve the insults, is always nicely balanced by the insistence that we not insult the people who fall for these scams, and that's one of the reasons I love the scambaiting videos (in addition to the cooking videos)
Any obvious A.I. voice ad is a no for me.
1:11 They say "500 kilobits" as if it's a point of pride...
"ensuring clarity for both near and far viewing"
*glasses only cover farsighted prescriptions*
What about reading?
Even reasonably priced storage is sometimes fake for the reasons you explain. I would always run tests on prospective storage devices and buy them from sellers with reputable return programs, in case anything fishy is occurring
Another note on cheap usb drives - The IT policy where i work (and i think in more and more places these days) is not to accept a single flash drive, the PC's will not read them. Apparently its not uncommon for them to come preloaded from the manufacturer/reseller with hidden malware, and you are literally paying to infect your PC, Laptop, Network, whatever. Its a nasty trick, but it works apparently. Trust nothing when it comes to computers, its not worth it! Good video, thanks :)
Yes, a few machines even have all USB ports locked inside. The bargain mouse or keyboard can be a security threat.
Edward Snowden used writeable CDs and a set of headphones to make it appear he was listening to music while he worked.
Breaking News: Wexit has been cancelled after Wales realises that Great Britain is actually made out of rubber.
An Atomic Shrimp scam video is the least disappointing christmas present. In fact, it is most appointing.
I always love your compassion. It is so easy to look down on people for falling for scams but your gentle reprimanding of judgement is forever heart warming. I'm not necessarily a fan of your typical scam bating videos as they often take a very aggressive or condescending stance, but you always seem like a favourite uncle giving worldly advise so thank you ❤
thank you for spreading awareness about this stuff!!! I sometimes share the info i get from your work with my grandma, hopefully preventing her from falling for this :)
one of the proudest I've been of my mum (late fifties, not the most tech literate, or at least not as much so as she used to be); she received a (genuine) call from her bank, but it was unexpected, and they were asking her for all the usual security stuff. She was unsure, and told the bank's agent that she didn't feel comfortable giving the info, and hung up. Called them back from the number of the back of her card 10 minutes later. Was very proud of her; even though the first call did turn out genuine, her caution was admirable! Though, I was actually somewhat disappointed with the bank as the lady who called my mum first didn't do anything encourage the call back, which I think really would have been generally advisable move in the context!
I have used your channel and your viewpoint as an example of how to be more understanding of why anybody can be caught out by a scam, depending on what the scam is or how vulnerable they are when they get that communication. 10:22 is another perfect point to start somebody on a more empathetic point of view.
"S.I.M." card. What saddens me is that so many people can't tell an AI voice from a real human voice.
Yeap.
I suppose this is more of what you're talking about, but just this morning I saw several ads on You Tube videos, all using that obvious AI voice, with some version of "Entity (which might be the government or it might be a big famous retailer like Wal Mart) doesn't want you to see this product or buy this product, but they can't stop you!" And then proceeds to show some janky footage of this miraculous product being used. Sometimes it's a miraculous cure for something, or some amazing device that does some unbelievable thing. I typically just skip them if I can, or mute them if I can't. But they are clearly ridiculous, to the point of being funny.
get TH-cam Revanced
Half the time I click on ads like this by accident because I'm browsing on a slow android phone with a broken touch screen. What really annoys me is that they used to be limited to dodgy or illegal sites, now they're literally everywhere, even on reputable sites and on social media where you'd expect there to be some standard of moderation...youtube, tiktok etc. are literally making money from this.
using a firefox browser with the uBlock origin extension should help you a lot, it prevents the ads from loading so your browsing might feel faster as a result. it is a very effective adblocker
Solution: use Firefox with uBlock₀ for websites, ReVanced for TH-cam, don't use TikTok.
I've never understood the "How could anyone fall for this?" rhetoric.
You clicked on a scambaiting video, you're primed to think what you're being shown is a scam. The real world is a lot less easy!
Quite right - scams in the wild are not clearly labelled
Even if it's a legitimate advert from a trusted company, I wouldn't buy it if they use these hideous AI voice generators.
TH-cam is customized by telling not to recommend videos. Since it counts as engagement, they will recommend more of that stuff.
i almost got scammed today. A random phone number texted me and wanted me to click a link because my "parcel" needed to be confirmed from the "royal mail". I blocked them
Loads of these around at the moment.
Yep, even in the USA. Love this scam. I have an account with the US post. I use it to hold mail while gone. They have a good address for me. No need to take care of a bad address.
I get the same texts; they need my Zip code to deliver a package. Except I’m in Canada and we don’t use a Zip code. (We use combination of letters and numbers)
And the fake £300 heating grant thing. I love being told, "Thank you for supporting the British government." 😂
Honestly, those two comments that you showed from people sounding surprised that that you can now allegedly find cheap flash storage both read (at least to me) a bit like those spam comments that claim someone helped them invest or get their money back from a scam or whatever. I could just be jaded but the wording just feels wrong and give me whiffs of that same kind of comment. And I wouldn't be totally surprised if scammers really do try post them to discredit videos after the fact after a "reasonable" amount of time has passed to seem genuine.
Yeah, they were a bit weird, but a lot of these comments turn into conversations where the person does acknowledge or realise that they've been looking at scam products. Unfortunately, these comments often disappear (maybe people delete them for some feeling of shame, or maybe they get other people deriding them or something) so I don't have very many surviving samples of this phenomenon that I can show.
Laughed more at the use of the borked UK map than i probably should have.
One other tip for the holy season (true the rest of the year as well): all TH-cam ads are either scams or promote at best terrible products. Avoid them.
Also all sponsorships.
6:18 that's the Jellyfish organ.
Ironically, I almost got scammed going the other direction. I needed a sub 2 GB flash drive to mod an orignal xbox as its base OS couldnt deal with strage devices bigger than 2 GB and i tried to buy a flash drive off amazon but the only thing close to 2GB were literal random assortment of unknown sizes up to 16 GB. But they were advertised as every possible size that seemingly has ever existed only for the disclamer is tiny small text super down low in the description was "storage size may vary anywhere between 1 GB and 16 GB"
Thankfully i found my old flashdrive from when i was still in middle and high school for the long long ago where a 2GB flash drive was massive and expensive and I could use it to mod the Xbox.
No S-I-M card. That was enough. Actually no being told free internet for life was enough.
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
7:18 ITS AN IRISH PERSON'S NIGHTMARE! IRELAND IS CONNECTED TO ENGLAND
Think of the poor Welsh! It looks like they've been crushed in the collision.
Eh it'll save me the ferry trip
Continental drift.
"You get what you pay for" hasn't returned because nowadays, just because you pay more, youre usually getting the same cheap stuff but with a Brand markup.
What the kids call "Shittification". S' why you might as well shop on those Grey Markets. Same slop, just cheaper. :/
buying quality items is so hard, every fucking brand sold out their association with quality to sell people crap at a premium. it's really annoying as a shopper, everything is just made from the cheapest stuff!
What adults call "the tendency for the rate of profit to fall"
16:40 That is very concerning! even more when it's almost impossible for us aa shoppers to avoid it.
Another great vid Sir Shrimp! I think the TH-cam algorithm knew you were going to upload this - it's been recommending me your other videos about these scam USB drives all week! (Either that or it watched me rewatch all of the scambaiting videos in about a week and ran out of ideas!)
I've literally just received a msg supposedly from Evri claiming I wasn't home at 09.27 today to receive my parcel I know it's a con, a) I was sitting 10 feet from the door, b) I've not actually got anything coming, besides my local Evri driver, if it fits will post it through, if it won't will lean it against door ring the bell and run away
> lean it against door ring the bell and run away
Not necessarily in that order!
Not only victim blaming super toxic and unproductive, while you should keep an eye out for those who are vulnerable, also yourself. Anyone can get scammed, even people with tech knowledge can get scammed if they make one mistake.
Pretty sure I've said this on your previous videos, but it bears repeating just as the video does:
This is why I have an PC who's entire job is testing drives before I start using them. I mainly use it for 3.5" HDDs and 2.5" SSDs to find any problems within the return window, but the principal is the same. I use badblocks and F3 (fight fake flash) both are Linux command line tools.
Thank you for a well timed video 🙂. I've shared a few of your videos with older relatives before (like the short series on not clicking on email attachments) and they've gotten a lot out of it. I fully agree that rather than congratulating ourselves on "not being stupid enough" to fall for these scams, we could help educate the people in our lives who may not be so tech savvy.
With most electronic devices now I will look at the company's actual site and if I find the product for cheaper in a physical store I will often get it from there, but only if I'm totally sure it's the same product.
Yeah, I mean, I just don't think the people who pontificate about scam victims being stupid really are as smart as they give themselves credit for, but in case they are, then they should be putting that power to good use.
Just what I needed today, these are so, so helpful. Thank you.
Sorry, "what organ is that" has me busting a lung. 20 points for line delivery.
"No contract, no S I M card". Wow that's a bad AI voice, lol. That was one of the most unbelievable scam ads I've ever seen. Download a full HD 2 hour movie in 5 seconds? I have really fast wired Internet and I can't even do that.
This is why I've been putting off buying a 2TB external SSD off amazon because I worry about running into one such scam.
Gee, maybe you should drop them a line. They're losing a customer, after all ...
16:05 I love that you used the scuffed map from earlier in the video, nice call back.
What's really depressing is the idea that even brick and mortar retailers can be selling scam slop. I guess I don't have very high expectations for Walmart but even this seems like a new low.
There's just not enough incentive to *not* scam these days. Our world is set up in such a way that those who most effectively deceive the most people are the ones who have the most power.
Consumer protections are more important than most people realize, and if corporations had their druthers, there wouldn't be any
"Our world is set up in such a way that those who most effectively deceive the most people are the ones who have the most power." ... You saw our [United States] election, didn't you? 8-)
the sandisk 2 TB ssd card is most likely real. It looks the same and is priced to match what I paid for my own. The only suspect caveat is that when I bought mine in stores there weren't color options. Though honestly, I feel like a good piece of advise for buying any sort of tech is to get it either directly through the manufacturer's online store, or buy it in person so you have a place you can return it to.
My first question for the flash drive issue is, who is buying a 2tb flash drive? What needs that amount of storage that couldn't be serviced with a portable ssd or the like. I am not saying that use case does not exist, or that external ssd's cannot be scams, but for how easy and brittle flash drives are I would not store anything more important than my third copy of unimportant text files on them.
Wow! Thank you, hate these, so glad you still do this.
I fell for the PayPal invoice scam last year when buying my husband some boots. The website was a fake version of a legitimate boot resale website and the PayPal invoice was for the same amount that the boots were purchased for so I paid it without thinking.
Later I reviewed the payment confirmation on my banks portal and it said I'd paid 89 dollars to an Italian food chain. That was sketchy enough that I went back through and saw all the red flags I'd originally missed
Luckily PayPal was able to refund me my money when I didn't receive the boots. I'd also used a credit card for the transaction so I could have filed a chargeback if PayPal didn't refund me.
7:08 "The apocalypse?? But... what happened?"
...
WALES!
I don't even have a PayPal account and got one of those emails. I called the number, gave them my full name, social security number, and mother's maiden name to prove it too. They were very helpful and promised they take care of it right quick.
Advice the end is good. Buy from the manufacturer!
And a bonus is that it might even be cheaper. (Some of my medication works this way.)
Shrimp, thanks for this! And for reminding us to watch out for others. We can all be susceptible, excellent reminder!👌
LMAO That map at 16:10 caught me so off guard
Love it
your video helped me convince my dad to avoid a USB scam earlier this year. 😥 it wasn't easy. i maybe should have shown him your video directly, i just recalled details and tried to explain. convincing him that it was too good to be true was what he eventually believed, even though he was confused on how those USB scams get their reviews. people review too quickly, it muddies the waters.
id rather lose data than money, but i also don't have a lot of valuable data. these scams are sad but part of me is relieved that generally the scenario is being out $20 and losing a video file for those USB scams.
Why aren't all of these scams thoroughly stamped on? Perhaps a naive question but is it a case that the online resellers just don't care? Are there political reasons? Lack of policing? And so on.
Probably all of those reasons as they somewhat overlap with each other. The distribution companies such as don't care about the quality of the product as long as people are buying it so they dont bother to effectively police their own stores. Politicians receive large amounts of money from these companies via lobbying so are unlikely the effectively police the distribution companies.
Simple, the customers are the sellers not the potential buyers (you and me)
I had a similar question: Why aren't the companies whose names are being used, not going after them? I mean, it's copyright violation at the very least.
@@christopherheckman7957 most of the scams are out of china and china does not have much in way of copyright protection, especially for non chinese companies.
You gotta admire Atomic Shrimp's dedication when dealing with these scammers 🙏
Speaking about scam for glasses, here on TH-cam Thailand, there is/was an ad for glasses that see through clothes. I thought that silly idea was dismissed when I was 10 years old. That is 50 years ago.
Funnily enough, according to the ad, you can see through the blouse, but not through the bra.
You get what you pay for: you could find and still can find good bargains online, but you must have your expectations right: know the full retail price and expect a 5 or 10^ discount. Maybe a 30 or 50% discount on special occasion like black Friday. But expecting a 90^ discount that is offered all year round is just unreasonable.
As always, if something is being advertised on social media it's probably a scam, if it's being advertised with TTS voiceovers it's almost definitely a scam.
When you see Chinese writing all over a advert, 🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔start ringing.
@@timwatkins3271 what if you're in China
Haha, comments on bad ai pictures are hilarious :) Person using their right hand on their left arm is just gold.
Funny that the bot narrarating the glucose monitor ad says that "taking glucose pricks is painful" when if done correctly there is little to no pain.
Says a person that is absolutely NOT a diabetic
the extremely obvious AI voice should be an instant flag that these are scams
I'm not personally vulnerable to scams, but I'm watching and commenting to help this video out in the algorithm. Hopefully everyone who needs to see this can!
Yes, and I am adding some words here along with a like and an exclamation mark!
very good of the AI to include Cornwall on the end of the UK map for once!
Shared on twitter, i mean X.. thank you 🙂👍
love that you used the new UK map in the amazon description
This is my favorite scam awareness video
I reckon TTS is especially suspicious in vases like the blood sugar level ad, where the "person" is allegedly giving a testemony of how she really uses it. I mean, I assume in most ads the people gushing about the product probably aren't completely unbiased but when it's very clearly not a human speaking about the experience it makes it seem even worse
reminds me of the time I got an update for my anti-virus on the computer, and it decided to shut down internet entirely. I suppose that is the only way to stay safe. at least from internet scams.
but then, I remind myself not to be bitter and suspect towards people in general. if someone says they are in need, or promise they will return the bike, they just need to borrow it right now to quickly go to the hospital, I'd rather be naive and believe the good in people than bitter and assume everyone is evil and lying all the time.
edit: and yes, that bloke did indeed return the bike, leaving it right where he said he would.
I received a voicemail about my "Mac purchase", "Press 1 to dispute". I wish there was a payphone still around somewhere so I could return their call and have some fun with it.
Someone with a burner phone could have some fun too. There is a story, it may even be true, that went something like this:
Scammer calls the home of someone and starts there pitch.
The voice on the other end says "Now honey please put that gun down" and this was followed by two very loud bangs and silence until the scammer eventually hung up.
A few days later the police got in touch to ask them not to do that again.
This happened here in the US where even the cats carry guns.
If you buy from a more specialized store, not something like Amazon that sells a million things from a million places, scams are way less likely as they usually have one supplier.
Funny enough Amazon is getting to a point where it's becoming so popular some items are actually more expensive than the high street.
I find this is the case with mostly household items.
Thanks for this video. Your content is greatly appreciated!
Y'know, I should look for these ads and see if they'll fit in science fiction books. This is some GREAT fiction material!
7:46 videos like these are precisely why being able to see the like to dislike ratio is so important.
Excellent and informative as always Mike (and very useful for IT numpties like me) :)
Targeted with a Temu ad before the video started :)
I just did the same "2tb USB" search and weirdly enough only three on the first page are scams (one of them even waterproof - which is nice all things considered!). Funny how different our search results can be. Wonder why?
It is weird. I did the same search too just now and I am getting quite different results - still a lot of scams in the mix, but not three solid pages of them now. It comes and goes, I guess. Also I suppose there are probably other variables in the mix such as region and previous Google search history.
ai generated ads are pretty weird but you can tell its off
There's an Amazon strike this weekend, Friday through to the end of Monday.
If anyone reading this still shops there, please do not cross the picket line, and don't place any new orders until Tuesday.
these videos help me get my parents of scammers! very very important!!
Had the glasses advert before this video! I think glooogled need an algorithm to filter out scam adverts. 🤔😂
6:09 That's obviously the Metroid organ that we all have. Duh!