Scambreakers Vol. 1

When it comes to wasting scammers' time, there's a lot of popular youtubers going around but I think Veitch takes the cake in terms of classic scammer breaking.

I get a lot of text messages from people I don't know. Even when I lived in Japan, I would go through seasons of getting one or two "job offers" a day for a few weeks at a time.

That's the one that's hot right now, the job offer. It starts off with "I saw your resume on Indeed..." even though I've been out of the job market for a good eight years, or the even more vague, "Do you have time to talk about it?" which might have plausibly come from a friend that I forgot to add into my contact list.

I was getting increasingly irritated by these text messages. There's a strong feeling of helplessness when all you can do is hit BLOCK, especially when you know that there's another ten thousand scammers who already have your number, and even these jerks probably can keep your number and cycle THEIRS out to something different.

So, not that it will do anything, and not that I'm any James Veitch, but I decided it's time to have a little fun back before I hit the block button.

Yes, I'm aware that by responding I will get my number flagged as "active" and cycled in more frequently. Yes, I'm aware that I may only be talking to a bot. Yes, I'm aware I may be training a bot's responses.

On the flip side, I've switched from being the victim to being the one in charge of this crazy riverboat. Instead of having adrenaline spikes when I get a text message, and flipping to rage when I see it's just a scammer, I get this evil little grin on my face.

Here is an acceptable target for absurdist mischief.

Here, I buy myself a shred of agency.

Enjoy.

Special edition: one day I wanted to see how far the conversation would go. I think I won this one.