In recent months we have explored some initiatives that seek to disrupt or at least hamper the activity of online scammers who pose as official technicians. However, the same fraud can take different forms. One of the most fear-inducing is that of "agents" representing the US tax authority, but the Reddit user "YesItWasDataMined" decided to fight back. He created a script capable of calling the scammers 28 times per second, recorded the process and shared it on YouTube under the campaign Project Mayhem. The result is spectacular.
The IRS Scam
The Internal Revenue Service of the United States, better known by its original acronym IRS, makes it quite clear through its official communications: "If you are surprised to hear from us... then it's not us." The US tax authority uses very specific means of communication to get in touch with those it considers in default, therefore anyone receiving a phone call from an agent threatening to initiate legal action or make an arrest should know that that "agent" is actually a scammer. Unfortunately, in almost four years, more than ten thousand victims were recorded, who lost together a sum exceeding 54 million dollars. Authorities on the other side of the pond can do little more than warn the population, but there are some people with the ideal resources to give the scammers a taste of their own medicine...
The video belongs to Project Mayhem, an initiative led by Reddit user "YesItWasDataMined". His YouTube channel received more than 27,000 subscriptions in less than 72 hours, and has accumulated one and a half million views spread across just two videos. After listening to a voice mail accusing him of committing tax fraud, YesItWasDataMined proceeded to write a script with the ability to bombard the scammer's number maintaining a rate of 28 calls per second. With such speed on his side, YesItWasDataMined not only prevents these nefarious elements from continue scamming people, but drives them crazy in the process. The insults in Hindi and English do not take long to arrive.
The second video of Project Mayhem repeats the process, but this time attacks fake Microsoft technicians asking for gift cards worth $200 in iTunes (?). The most interesting thing is that after taking down that number, they began to respond "agents" of the IRS as well, and others from a supposed "research division". Project Mayhem received thousands of requests for the code of its call flooder, but the potential for abuse is too great. Instead, what YesItWasDataMined did was start a small campaign on Patreon, and the donations will be used to finance a new attack on scammers (each call costs one cent). Fantastic, pure gold. We hope Project Mayhem can stay online for a long time.
