Now we get to the meat of Jim Browning’s Bank Login Scam video series. In this part, we get to see behind the scenes what is actually going on with the scammers computers, and how this all works.
If you haven’t seen and read about Part One, check it out here!
In part one, Jim, by playing a cooperating scam victim, was able to trick a scammer into downloading a remote access tool, or “RAT” onto their computer. This gave Jim full access to their machine, and thus allows him to see the entire operation, and even hear call audio – at least on the scammers end.
Jim begins the video by explaining just how the call center functions – how their outgoing call structure works, how they manage incoming calls and user data, and some details on just how many people are active in these operations at this time.
It’s worth noting that the scammer is using tools to simulate his IP address as being one in the United Kingdom, as opposed to showing his real location in India. Since TeamViewer exposes the actual IP of users, this works well to hide the actual location of the scammers from snooping via this hole in Teamviewer, for what it’s worth to them anyway – it’s still quite obviously a scam and anyone tech savvy enough to check IP addresses from TeamViewer would certainly know this much from the start.
In any case, Jim mentions that he spent several days listening to the scams as they happened, recording as much as he could of the events. He places a focus on one particular call when an older gentleman calls in having no idea what is going on – the scammers keep on going, explaining to them what the “problem” is (the bait they use to get people in the scam to begin with) and, with much coercing, eventually get access to their bank details – no human decency, no second thoughts about scamming an older man who has no idea what is actually going on. To them, he is just another rube to be robbed.
As you can see in the video, in this example the scammers ask for the users personal information – all of it that they can possibly get, enough for full on identity theft. Using this information, they set up an online banking account for the man, giving them full access to his bank account! They even find a way to circumvent the usual security methods set up by banks to ensure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen – just tell the man to do the code bypass work for them, acting like they are in control by providing him with the security key that he is supposed to put in to the phone, with the victim all the while not realizing what is actually going on!
Once inside the mans bank account, they begin to set themselves up as recipients for money from him! Thankfully, Lloyds Bank happened to have some extra measures that needed to be taken for such a request to be completed, but this didn’t deter the scammers – they wanted the man to go to the bank and get the required device and information for it, then relay this to them!
This was the point where Jim stepped in – he contacted both the bank and the victim of this scam attempt and alerted them to what had gone on, and helped protect this poor gentleman from losing quite possibly every cent he had available to absolute scum – scam artists.
This is, needless to say, quite the interesting video. It’s rare to see behind the scenes of such a scam, but when you do, and when you hear the reality of a victim being scammed, it’s horrible. The sad thing is, this shit goes on day in, day out, nonstop. Horrible stuff, really.