Trying to Scam Myself?

With the police involved, I thought I should take action

About four months ago, I was contacted by a detective with the Davenport, Iowa Police Department who said that this woman was scammed out of of a lot of money by “blacktailstudios dot com” and understandably, neither of them were very happy about it.

Eventually, I did convince them that my website was actually one letter different than mine, and she was apparently the victim of a complicated, but shockingly common grift from an overseas scammer.

“The Grift: A scammer pretends to be me or Blacktail Studio, engages with my audience on social media, and informs the victim that they’ve won a prize (usually something big like a table). The catch? They tell them that the only thing they need to cover is the shipping cost.”

Her money was still gone nonetheless. And as much as the internet loves those teary eyed good deed videos where they surprise some upper middle class couple with a new backyard. Well, what I love about the internet… is messing with scammers.

So, I devised a plan and created a fake Telegram account under the alias "Jim Thompson” (a fictitious retired school teacher) to track down a scammer who had been impersonating me with a fake "Blacktail Studio" account.

… and it began with a straightforward question: "Hey there, you contacted my wife on Facebook saying she won a prize?”

“I created the illusion that the payment is on the way...”

Honestly, my favorite part of this whole process is completely wasting their time. It's practically become a hobby for me at this point. The more time I can make them waste, the more I can negatively impact what they are doing.

This is where things get entertaining.

With each message, my goal was to figure out how to keep the scammer engaged, so I could continue to waste their time.

By the end of it, well.. I don’t want there to be an end to it. I am still conversing with him/they to this day.

I decided to let the scammer know that I could drop the cash off at their house.

I decided to have a bit of fun and invited the scammer out to dinner - just to confuse them. I suggested meeting at a popular local pub… my treat of course!

I convinced the scammer that they had received a payment by sending a fictitious PayPal receipt that I had created, But I wasn't done just yet.

I had toyed with the idea of having some sort of ending to this scammer conversation where maybe I have some sort of big reveal, where I tell him who he's actually been conversing with this whole time, but thought about that, and I probably wouldn't even get any response from him, and he would most likely just delete the conversation thread and change his telegram number.

And there is not a lot of fun in that.

Whereas, if I keep it going, I can enjoy myself just wasting this scammer’s time.

So, I encourage any, and all of you, maybe one or several thousand of you, to engage with them and see if you won a prize and maybe keep him busy for the next couple of months.

I have two telegram addresses for this same scammer. I encourage you to waste a bit of his time, just like Jim. _

Telegram address: @blacktail_studio_management_team and @blacktailstudiowoodworker

UPDATE: I now have evidence that the scammer I have been talking to is the same person(s) who scammed Teresa in this video. After giving her the table she posted the three of us with the table on Facebook. Shortly after, my scammer sent me her Facebook photo and said that was the table he built for me. So there would only be one reason a random scammer would follow a random lady in Iowa. Anyway, get out there and waste their time!