This YouTuber Exposes Scammers By Posing As Vulnerable Grandma and Makes Them Cry
Imposter scams have skyrocketed in the recent past with scammers swindling millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims. The most common victims of these scams are the elderly who are technologically behind. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) warned last year that Americans over 60 lose about $28.3 billion every year, and only about 1 in 10 of the scams are reported to authorities. Amid the grim situation, YouTuber Neld Harris has taken a different route to expose scammers by posing as a vulnerable grandma and hacking into their systems.
Harris, who runs the channel ‘ScamSandwich’, even hacks into the cameras and reveals the scammers’ faces, locations, and tactics, delivering results to the world in a move comparable to a digital Robin Hood. Harris' videos combine exposé with humor, and they have become a YouTube hit.
Here’s How Neld Harris Exposes Scammers
Harris is the pseudonym of the YouTuber, who is a 30-something man, according to The New York Post. He declined to reveal his identity to The Post out of safety concerns.
In his operation, he poses as an 80-year-old, tech-illiterate widow from Dallas, who plays along with the scammers’ elaborate attempts to take over her computer, install malware, and convince her to give them money.
“I make surrealist phone calls to scammers to bait them into ridiculous situations using voice altering software, fake banks, and fake gift card redeems,” Neld told The Post.
According to Harris, he finds the scammers by either Googling phrases like “Zelle support” and calling their 1-800 numbers, or sometimes they contact him, thinking they are targeting an unsuspecting grandma.
Harris keeps the scammers online for hours playing along with their tactics. These scammers are mostly computer-savvy Indian con artists who work with detailed scripts. However, Harris tests their patience by responding slowly and stupidly to their commands. The scammers often instruct the old grandma to go to a CVS or Walmart and purchase gift cards worth thousands of dollars.
The scammers, who pretend to be American or Mexican, are often torn down to the point of tears by Harris. Some of them even end up swearing that they will leave the business of conning if he leaves them alone, Harris told The Post.
This usually happens when Harris hacks into the computers of the hackers and destroys all their data by installing a dangerous virus. Thus, giving a taste of their fraud to the scammers, Harris gains control over their webcams and live stream videos of them.
Harris then reveals that “she” knows where the scammers are working from telling them their precise location which is often Indian cities or places in the West African countries. He also tells them that their group chats and personal chats are also accessible to him.
In one surprising case, Harris caught a scammer into a woman’s DMs, before unleashing his powerful viruses on their computers to ruin their ability to scam people. He even threatens to contact their innocent families and reveal their true identity.
All of this puts the scammers in shock and often elicits rude responses in Hindi or Punjabi abandoning their façade of being American or Mexican.
Harris' channel contains dozens of his scam-the-scammers videos which often get millions of views. Since he went online in January 2023, he has gained over 90,000 subscribers on YouTube.
