Transcription

There are scammers everywhere. From YouTube comments, to phone calls. I even have scammers pretending to be me at this point. Yeah, my name is Kid Burger. How many videos have you made now, Kid? My YouTube videos are many. I don't even know. Why do you wear the glasses though? The glasses are really... I think the glasses are like off-putting. They're kind of ugly. If I want to do something to fight back, there is not enough time in the day for me to just talk to all of them myself. So my team and I built a trap that would keep them occupied even while I sleep. Welcome to the EasySend automated system. Our award-winning platform is set up to allow anyone with a code to easily withdraw and manage funds. The concept is pretty simple. I give a scammer a fake Bitcoin gift card or a receipt, and they think it's going to be easy to redeem. In their mind, it's a board game with no obstacles or challenges and free Bitcoin in the end. They've already won. In reality, my team and I have designed a series of challenges and obstacles that make this literally impossible. Just one last thing. How would you rate your experience today? That guy has spent over five days playing. I was not expecting that. That's five times 24. We're talking real-life days. This scammer is so convinced he's going to get this fake Bitcoin that he once visited the website 40 days in a row because he truly believed he was going to get Bitcoin. That doesn't exist. We built the ultimate mouse trap. Well, scammer trap. And they're obviously not playing a board game like this. He's been sucked into this fake Bitcoin-themed website where we log every little interaction. Every day when this guy gets on the website, we keep track of exactly what he does, what support tickets he tries to open, what captures he has to solve, what loading bars he has to painstakingly wait for. And at no point will he ever receive Bitcoin. This isn't just one scammer. It's hundreds of scammers. And over the past few months, I am happy to report that we have been able to waste 60 days worth of their time. 1,440 hours are gone. They will never get that time back. They have been sucked into this lie thinking the Bitcoin they stole is this close, but they are never going to get it. It literally doesn't exist. And I want to show this to you, but I have to give you a little context. Lately, scammers have been using Bitcoin ATM machines as an easy way to take money from their victims. Once you insert cash, you can send money directly to their wallet, and it happens pretty quickly. At the end, they ask you for a receipt because sometimes they have to verify a few things. It typically has a QR code. We've done all kinds of stuff to make them angry, like pretending we completed the maze. But ultimately, the scam ends when they get this receipt. And that got us wondering, what if the 1-800 number on the back of a gift card or the QR code on a receipt took them to our website? What if we tricked them into registering an account with a phone system that keeps them on hold forever just because they think they're about to get Bitcoin? Well, that's what I told my team anyway. And then we built it. Okay, they do visit the website. Speak to me whenever you have to on this number. Oh, my God. Okay, yeah. You want me to hang up? Is that what you said? No, no. I don't want you to hang up. No, no. I want you to be online. Don't hang up. Don't hang up? Yes. Okay. Yes, don't hang up. Just come back home and keep me on the line. All right. He's on the website. He entered the code. Keep me on the line. Don't hang up. One of the first obstacles we built for scammers was this fake capture system that uses AI-generated art. If scammers want to claim their Bitcoin, they would have to pass this test in order to log in. 50% of the time, the scammers would lose. Literally, like, it's just a 50-50 shot. A scammer pretending to be Keanu Reeves saw this picture. When asked how many nuts there were, he responded, It is uncountable. Or another scammer was asked to estimate the wave's height in meters and simply responded, 32 feet. Some crypto recovery scammer said it was a beam balancer. Or balance beam? Clearly has no idea what this thing is. Most of these captures are open-ended. Like, which car is the fastest? Is it the pink one? The green car? The red car? Which, frankly, I'm not even sure is a car. We asked scammers what the dice roll was, and the fake Elon Musk wrote 8, and then 1,232, and then followed by 1,322. We accepted that answer, but it makes no sense. How many nuts do you see? One nut? No nut? These nuts? Nah, I'm kidding. Which, I don't know how you get that answer. Reminds me of this fake crypto scammer who said, I don't play chess. In between the captures, we would put obnoxiously long loading bars. And by the time they finally get to their online dashboard and their account is registered, they could have easily wasted 10-15 minutes. At this point, a scammer is eager to put in their bitcoin wallet because they're anticipating a huge payout. But every time, we tell them that there's an error. Oh man, I guess you can't withdraw your bitcoin that easily. But thankfully, we have customer service representatives standing by 24-7. If you can navigate our phone tree. I didn't understand. Please listen carefully. Option 5. I didn't understand. Please listen carefully. Option 5. I didn't understand. Please listen carefully. Option 5. I didn't understand. Please listen carefully. Like at one point, it asks you to verify the code on the receipt. And no matter what you say, we always get it wrong and tell you that you have to talk to a human. Your current wait time is between 10 and 19 minutes. There are 13 callers ahead of you. You're then told that you're like 5th in line and maybe your estimated wait time is 10 minutes. But there is no one waiting for you. So you enter into this queue with hole music. Really good hole music. And every few minutes, in order to make sure that they're paying attention and not just putting the phone on speaker, we ask them to say something ridiculous. Please let me know you're still there by saying, colorful comrade. Colorful comrade. Buttered bicycle. Motorbicycle. Friendly furniture. Friendly furniture. I'm still here, okay? You guys are making me go crazy. To prevent automated calls. I'm still here. I'm still here, you motherf*****. Super smelly, though. I have hundreds of hours of scammers saying stuff like this. And somehow they believed that it was legitimate. But what really inspired us to continue was moments of panic, like this guy. Purple pig. I didn't hear anything. Purple pig. Let's try once more. Purple pig. To prevent automated calls. Purple pig. I didn't hear anything. Please call back when you have your full attention. Purple pig. Purple pig. He had spent days calling into our system, was on hold for over an hour, and then was hung up on. Because the system didn't understand him saying purple pig. And there's something perfect about that interaction. But there needed to be more. Please let me know you're still there by saying, resourceful rattlesnake. Resourceful rattlesnake. Sizzling smorgasbord. Sizzling smorgasbord. Spherical object. Sizzling spherical object. Strong snollygoster. Strong snollygoster. Curious Kyrie Gregorio. Hello? Hello? Just one last thing. Please tell us how we did. How would you rate your experience today? You guys are an idiot. I can't imagine waiting on hold an hour, let alone hearing a fax machine at the end. But we built a bunch of different endings, and they are hilarious. Hello? Like in this one, somebody answers and you can hear the call center, but no one's responding. Because no one's there, bro. That's why no one's talking. He sounds sad. Nobody's picking up my call. I don't know how anyone could hear that, you know. EasySend supports you. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. You know what's up? They said I should send them email. Oh, God. Somebody that will please support something, something. Oh, f**k. I've not heard the name well now. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. Oh, f**k. I've not heard the name well now. Hello there, this is Kristen Kornfield on a recorded line. Sorry about the long wait. Corporate laid off half our staff and it's been a madhouse over here. I see you have a wallet address pending. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm having a wallet address pending for my withdrawal. Hello? Yeah, hello. Can you hear me? You call for days and then hold for an hour. Hello, caller. Are you on the line? Yeah, I'm on the line. I'm having a withdrawal pending. I can hardly hear you. Hello, can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me? I'm having a withdrawal pending. I can't tell if you want to confirm or cancel the new wallet. No, no, no. I want to confirm the wallet. Confirm, confirm. Hello? Hello, I said I want to confirm. Confirm the wallet. As I am not getting an audible response, I need to end this call. Sorry. Hello, hello. Thank you for choosing EasySend. Just one last thing. Please tell us how we did. You are scammer. You are a scammer. What? That's ironic. How can I help you today? Hello, hello. I am trying to redeem Bitcoin. Okay, let me take a look for you. Okay, so have you set a passphrase for this account yet? I'm not using a passphrase. I have a QR code. Hello? Hold on. Hello? So you'll need to speak to someone at withdrawals to get that set up. He's been on hold for so long, too. Hi, you've reached Joanna Frond from the withdrawals escalation team. I'm not at my desk right now. Please leave me a message and I'll get right back to you. Hello, I'm trying to make a withdrawal. I have a QR code and I have a code and I put in a wallet address online. This mailbox is full. Your message could not be saved. Just one last thing. Please tell us how we did. How would you rate your experience today? Fuck. Goodbye. Adios. Peace, bro. This dude's been on hold for hours and hours and hours. And then this particular call, an hour in. Just one last thing. Please tell us how we did. How would you rate your experience today? But I love it. I don't know what that says about me. Goodbye. I was not expecting that. This mailbox is full. Your message could not be saved. How would you rate your experience today? Very, very, very, very bad. I'm trying to call for the past 30 days now. I'm not seeing anybody to respond to me. I didn't really like the service at all. I've been here to withdraw. I set my word freeze and I'm not getting my withdrawal yet. I'm doing stuff right now. Poor scammer. Every review we received was negative. Perhaps that's because the customer service reps were fake. And then when I would answer the calls, it was even worse. Like I said, the system is working as intended. We have hundreds of callers who've gone through the system and it's worked flawlessly. This is the first time. I definitely don't want to make you upset. Take it easy. Looks like you did call 40 days in a row at one point, though. All right. It doesn't help to have a temper tantrum, okay? What you do is you would select in your dashboard that you want to withdraw. You just click the button that says withdraw funds. Have you done that yet? I'm going to get on to the next caller then because I do have about 150 callers. Would you mind rating our service on a scale of 1 to 10? How likely are you to recommend our service to other people? Don't cry. Don't cry. I shouldn't cry. When was the last time you tried to withdraw the funds? You were only supposed to be on the phone for five minutes? Do you want to do this right or do you want to go back to the gauntlet? It's up to you. It looks like your longest hold time was one hour and 10 minutes. Are you willing to beat that record today? After that, I put him back on hold. He waited three hours for nothing. We recently started asking scammers to verify they're human by drawing things. I'm just curious, what do you think this is? If you guessed a worm lifting up a rock, you'd be wrong. If you guessed a snake with an afro, you'd be close. It's actually supposed to be a snake wearing a hat, which a few scammers did a decent job with. They're not terrible. One's kind of cute. We asked them to draw these images and it's just a 50-50 chance to get it right or wrong. So this guy was supposed to draw a cube. I don't know what these things are, but they're for sure not 3D cubes. What do you think this is? A cute little mouse? It's supposed to be a rat. Remember, these are multiple scammers trying to draw a rat to prove they're human to get Bitcoin that doesn't exist. It's absolutely absurd. This is a crow lifting weights. And here's some robots. You get the idea. One scammer wrote to us saying that it is literally impossible to complete the human verification. To make things secure for the scammers, we told them they would have to set up a passphrase that required random entropy. The only way that we could generate this passphrase is if they complete this maze. This maze might look simple, but it's very hard. I spent like 10 minutes trying to do it and I could not complete it myself. Sometimes we actually have to make it easier for the scammers. Ask him what the problem is. Oh, what's the holdup? Is it a server issue? Is it a courier issue? Are you seeing an error on the page? If you see an error, you can call our automated phone system. The problem could be sometimes people don't take their security quite as seriously as they should. Well, he might not have a mother and we need the mother's metadata. That could be the case. That could be the case. Did it ask you for your mother's maiden name? No, it did not. The only thing we can do is call our automated phone system. Do you need help completing the maze or are you going to try to do that on your own time? I need help. I have not done it before. Can you tell me how to get it done? What corner of the maze are you on? Describe it to us. What does it look like? If I was a mouse, where's the cheese? It took this scammer 127 tries to complete the maze and then we reset it. So he had to do it again. At one point, I started telling scammers the best way to withdraw their funds was to put their phone on airplane mode, which if you don't know, would just make them hang up. So I'm saying if I put it in airplane mode, I might have lost my connection. That's what I'm saying. Not if you do it right. I don't want to lose you on the phone right now. Sir, do you want to follow the steps that I'm trying to help you with or not? I'm just here to help. A lot of customers find success switching to airplane mode so that they're not interfering with anything. That's the first step. The way to reset all your settings in the in the system here. It should be fine. All right, just count down from 10, 10, 9. You got to say it out loud, though. Got him. When we originally designed this, it was supposed to be funny and just waste scammers time while I sleep. And we've definitely met that goal. But a few unexpected things started happening. Because they trust the system so much, they would enter in very valuable wallets. Sometimes the wallets had hundreds of thousands of dollars passing through them. And I would be able to work with Kraken's fraud team to investigate and see if we could get things shut down. To give you an idea of the scams that we're disrupting and reporting, over 280 Bitcoin have passed through some of these wallets. That's millions of dollars of fraud. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. One night, I received a message from Kraken support telling me that someone had called in asking about their Bitcoin stock and seemed really confused. This woman gave Kraken my email address and username. At this point, we're trying to get in touch with this individual and explain what's going on. But she's not answering her phone call. Until one day, the scammer had her call the fake Bitcoin hotline. Please note that this call is being recorded. Transfer Bitcoin. If you do not wish to be recorded, please hang up at this time. Transfer Bitcoin. An old woman who had been scammed for six years called in our system. And we were able to walk her through everything that's happened and get her the help that she needed. I'm happy that I can help because they would just keep doing this. We'll make sure that none of these guys can get on your computer again. And then we'll sort through what we need to do next. Since then, a few dozen victims here in the U.S. have called in the system, and we've been able to help them. We've been able to call and explain what's going on with the scams and get them connected to the people that they need locally to pick their lives up again. Everything has changed. What started off as a joke has become very, very real. I just gave you the history of what's happened with this tool, and it has far exceeded my expectations. The next handful of videos on the channel are going to walk you through some of the crazy scenarios of scammers that have been in the system and victims that we've been able to save. And this has been one of the coolest projects that I've worked on over the past handful of years. If anything, I hope that this has inspired you to get out there and try stuff. This was a random idea that we had that we thought might even be funny and now has turned into something much bigger than I ever could have imagined. And thank you again to the team at Kraken for supporting me and my team to be able to build stuff like this and the fraud team over there to be able to help investigate all of these wallets and scammers that are coming in. It truly means a lot to be able to have a partner like that fighting back against these scammers. If you want to learn more about Kraken and their security, check out kraken.com. Until then, I hope you have a chance to pursue something that you find meaning in, something that you're passionate about, because who knows what it will turn into. And as always, know that you're valuable and that you matter. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai