(8 Minute Read)

5 December 2025 / Written by guest author Becky Holmes, author of Keanu Reeves is Not in Love with You

<aside> 🗞️ TL;DR. Throwing digital spanners in the global scam machine is what AVIEL does, and at its core is ensuring our spanner throwing is done responsibly. In this post we teamed up with anti-scam celebrity Becky Holmes to help us explore the myriad viewpoints on so-called ‘scam baiting’ and how best to do it in a way that keeps the protagonists solidly in the “heroes not villains” camp.

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The subject of scambaiting has often been debated within the counter fraud community, and every so often the subject resurfaces. The latest resurgence in discussions has come about because of the increasing awareness of trafficked victims living in Southeast Asia in scam compounds run by transnational organised crime groups. There is growing concern by many that scambaiters ‘wasting the time’ of these victims may result in the brutal punishments we know the trafficked victims receive if they don’t meet their daily targets.

Counter fraud powerhouse (and personal hero of mine) Erin West is the founder and president of Operation Shamrock, which aims to ‘educate, mobilise and disrupt’ scamming operations. She is relentless in her pursuit of justice for victims of so-called pig butchering scams. A few weeks ago *she posted on LinkedIn,* “the more I see posts about messing with scammers the more it occurs to me that you may not know who is on the other side of the phone. You’re monkeying with someone who is likely sitting in an industrial compound in Southeast Asia who is sleeping 10 to a room and working 16 hours a day. They are beaten if they don’t make their quotas. They get denied food, water and sleep. We are under attack by Chinese organized crime syndicates laser focused on stealing a generation’s worth of wealth and causing chaos. And they are doing it on the backs of the slaves you are teasing.”

To date the post has received nearly 500 emojis of ‘like’, ‘support’ and ‘insightful’. It also received 87 comments, the majority of which were supportive of her humane approach to the subject, a number of whom going so far as to say it is unethical to engage with someone that could be contacting you from a scam compound. However it also generated some angry responses, including those that said scammers should not be afforded empathy whatsoever and baiting them is precisely what we should be doing.

As someone whose book came about initially because of my own baiting activities I became intrigued and made it my mission to spend a couple of weeks talking to people in the counter fraud world about the ethics of scambaiting. There was quite the spectrum of views. More than one person told me that it should never be done as it is racist given that a lot of scams originate in less developed countries. One person even told me it should be made illegal with no exceptions.

On the other end of the spectrum was a prominent figure in the counter fraud world who told me he supports baiting in every conceivable way as “a scammer is a scammer is a scammer". He told me that he couldn’t care less if someone is being held against their will, they still shouldn’t “make themselves part of the problem”.

Given that my interest was initially piqued following Erin West’s LinkedIn post, I arranged to speak to her. It transpires that she is rather more central in her view than the extremes. She reinforced that she is vehemently against people playing with those trapped inside scam compounds. However she said she sees some people doing a genuine service through using baiting to highlight the growing threat of fraud. Erin herself recognised scambaiting legend Jim Browning, who usually focuses on baiting Indian call centres, as someone who genuinely disrupts and slows down fraudsters

Jim Browning is very popular - his YouTube channel has over 4.4 million subscribers. He tracks and identifies scammers, usually those claiming to be technical support, government agencies or deliveries, then exposes them live on video which he posts online. He told me he thinks what he does has been so successful because everyone has a bit of voyeurism within them so when people see a video of someone being challenged they are more likely to feel uplifted by it, and therefore remember it, than receiving an ‘educational’ leaflet from a bank.

In addition to being entertaining and educational, Jim passes relevant information onto law enforcement.

Not just for giggles

The fact is, no matter how entertaining it is watching people get the better of fraudsters, the intelligence a lot of baiters gather about how the scams work and ways to disrupt them, is often invaluable and it has gained some prominent recognition on stage at important counter fraud events. At this year’s Global Anti-Scam Summit in the US there was a panel dedicated to scambaiting featuring some of the world’s most famous in that field: Jim Browning, Kit Boga, Rosie Okumura and Pierogi.

Victim advocate Tracey Grummett collaborates with a team of voluntary scambaiters and says, "through the information obtained via scambaiting, we are able to identify emerging trends in fraud and share insights that have directly contributed to preventing financial and emotional harm to potential victims”.

Tracey was keen to make the point that the people she works with know precisely what they are doing and are equipped to take exactly the right security measures to ensure their own safety.

This is something that a lot of us in the industry worry about when it comes to the general public having fun messing with fraudsters - admittedly how I naively first started. For example, someone intentionally letting fraudsters onto their Facebook page by accepting a friend request and then enjoying making fun of them is unlikely to be aware that during this time the fraudster has access to their friends and family, photographs that they can use for identity fraud and other personal data such as birthday, place of birth. It is a dangerous game.

Anna Rowe, co-founder of not for profit victim support service LoveSaid, brings up another point: “Casual scambaiting by individuals should be discouraged as it can unintentionally teach criminals to refine their techniques.”

I wholeheartedly agree. I have seen so many screenshots on social media of people playing with fraudsters then telling them at the end that they know they’re a scammer because, for example, “English people don’t say ‘hello dear’ to people” or “the location on your profile still says Ghana”. I want to shout “you’re teaching them how to be better!”