“Congratulations! You’ve won the new iPhone. To claim your prize, click on this link and follow the instructions.” Someone somewhere someday has received a message similar to this. Actually, every person with a phone has received some version of this at some point. And unfortunately, many fall victim to such scams and end up losing a lot.
Which is exactly what the team behind the Youtube channel ‘Deeveeaar’ is trying to stop. Run by a guy in his 20s known as DVR, Deeveeaar was created out of the frustration at the lack of action taken against online scammers.
He put together a team of skilled people and decided to fight back, call flooding and accessing their computers to uncover evidence, and personal information to report them:
Speaking to the Bored Panda, DVR says he started off with some pranks and scam baits and soon started picking out the weakness in their scripts. The information collected of the scammer is sent to the respective authorities.
However, they are aware that most of the time no action is taken using the given info. He says:
“Because we know there likely won’t be action taken, we do take justice in our own hands a little. We mess with their computers and place their photos online, we want to make scammers feel afraid. I want to make them feel vulnerable, and send a clear message that “you can scam, but you can’t hide“.”
Recently they took down someone from Kolkata while under the guise of a sweet, naïve, and helpless old grandmother. Check out this video to see them toy with the scammers for a while before taking over their computer:
Wow, granny got skills, yo! And guess what?
The grandmother’s voice was played by DVR’s girlfriend! She was right next to him guided along by sign language and through text instructions via chat. Meanwhile, a teammate of theirs from another part of the world controlled the computer.
Bet those scammers have learned their lesson. Respect your elders, people! Oh, and also, don’t try to scam anyone.