Scam baiting: History and Key Facts

Scam baiting (or scambaiting) is a form of internet vigilantism primarily used towards advance-fee fraud, IRS impersonation scams, technical support scams, pension scams, and consumer financial fraud.

Scambaiters pose as potential victims to waste the time and resources of scammers, gather information useful to authorities, and publicly expose scammers. They may document scammers' tools and methods; warn potential victims; provide discussion forums; disrupt scammers' devices and systems using remote access trojans and computer viruses; or take down fraudulent webpages. Some scambaiters simply call scammers to annoy or anger them by wasting their time dealing with a scambaiter, therefore reducing the scammer's time to scam potential victims. Some scambaiters are motivated by a sense of civic duty, some simply engage for their own amusement, and some are a combination of both.

Source and attribution

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