This guy went the extra mile to scam the scammers and people loved it

There are two ways you can respond to someone trying to scam you. One way is to get a little bit irritated, delete the message, and move on.

The other way is to be a little bit more gung ho and take on the scammers at their own game. And this response – by someone called @Boris over on Twitter – wasn’t just a little bit gung ho … it was a lot gung ho.

And people loved him for it.

1.

I created a fake company to play around with spammers, and it is just such a joy to use, and you can use it too.

A thread:

I receive an email from a scammer/spammer. Like this: pic.twitter.com/l3IvTckIig

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

2.

I reply with this standard text: pic.twitter.com/o0OtSthbPN

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

3.

When they email [email protected] they get an OoO reply, which looks like a real message: pic.twitter.com/iZXOkqhR9y

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

4.

Bill tells the scammer talk to Helena next, who forwards them to Theresa, then Martha and they end at John. John is missing some essential attachments so sends them back to Helena.

I created all these fake personas and wrote their replies.

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

5.

The idea is that’s every minute these scammers/spammers spend wasting time on this endless look, they won’t spend on scamming more people.

Such a joy to see them take the time to email each next person. And you can try it too! Send an email to [email protected] as a test.

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

6.

Or, next time you receive spam reply with this:

“Please forward this email to [email protected], and delete my email, as I’ll be changing jobs soon, and this email address will no longer be active.”

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

7.

“Bill Whiskoney is a senior partner at Nordic Procurement Services, and he handles our budget and will help you further or introduce you to someone who can.”

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

8.

if enough people would do this, it would quickly become uneconomic to spam and scam. It only works now because they can email millions of people and only the gullible reply.

If thousands of people would reply it would be too much work to go through all the replies.

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

9.

I even created a fake website at https://t.co/RvheuarGeX 😂

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

10.

Every now and then I’ll check into the fake gmail accounts to see how far some scammers came into the loop, and I’m delighted to tell you they go all in… 😂

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

11.

Next step could be a gmail plugin so that when you get spam/scam you can simply click one button and it:

1: auto-replies with the standard text
2: adds the sender email to a filter
3: next time the same sender emails it sends an OoO with “I no longer work here”

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

12.

Another improvement would be more domains and more generic names/accounts so you can decide to which one you send scammers.

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

13.

Oh, the emails get more frivolous and weird at every step. John, last one in the loop, is very unprofessional, but in a kind and sympathetic way. Send [email protected] a mail to see what I mean. He’s last in line so doesn’t get a LOT of attention.

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

14.

This will only work if LOTS of people use it so do retweet 👏👏👏

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 12, 2021

15.

This concept is partly inspired by Lenny. Would be great if we could build a virtual email Lenny: https://t.co/sU1XZgCRWN

— Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@Boris) February 13, 2021

Scamtastic.

Impressive levels of response https://t.co/AKf9pkNVLO

— Mike Collins (@MIKECOLLINS99) February 16, 2021

This is the best. https://t.co/OEqoEchU22

— Erin Biba (@erinbiba) February 16, 2021

Even if you don't read this entire thread, the next time you get spam from some scammer, just do this

“Please forward this email to [email protected], and delete my email, as I’ll be changing jobs soon, and this email address will no longer be active.” https://t.co/CgTUOAcmQy

— Anand Sanwal (@asanwal) February 12, 2021

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This scam ‘victim’ played the scammer at their own game and it’s a very satisfying read

Source Twitter @Boris Image Pexels