Guest post. Written By Oliver Fendley
When my high school offered us 12-graders the chance to do a month-long January internship , I knew exactly who I wanted to work with; my Uncle Frank who goes by the name FrankonFraud.
Little did I know that my internship would lead me down a deep hole of scams, rip-offs and even getting scammed myself. The whole point of the internship was for me to learn about fraud. I just didn’t think I was going to have to learn the hard way.
The Fraud That Started It All – The Baby Formula Scam
Before I started the internship, I started seeing fraud everywhere. My Aunt Elizabeth got hit with a scam the day I started.
She lives in LA where the fires hit and apparently she got scammed bad. Frank told me to call her and get the scoop, so I did.
While shopping at Target, she encountered a woman clutching baby supplies who claimed her house had burned down. My aunt’s gut screamed something was wrong, but her nice personality won out and she paid $180 at the self checkout line for a whole basket of things for the complete stranger.
Days later, she discovered everything, I mean all of it, had been returned for store credit.
“I just wanted to help her,” my aunt said, “It didn’t cross my mind she would actually return everything for cash. I couldn’t even tell my husband for 3 days about it I was horrified.”
Just Days Later, More Trouble – The Airbnb Fake Listing Scam
A few days later it was time for my high school volleyball team to travel to Arizona for a weekend tournament. Things were going just great until it was time to check into our Airbnb on Saturday night. The house was beautiful in the pics, we were excited to check it out.
We parked the car and walked up to the door and lo and behold all the lights were on and a family was living in the house. We were shocked so we sent a message to the Airbnb host we booked with to see what the heck is going on.
To make a long story short, it turned out a scammer fraudulently posted the house on Airbnb and was stealing peoples money. We had nowhere to stay! Fortunately, another parent had booked another property and we stayed there, otherwise we would be homeless.
My Uncle’s Unusual Assignment
I got back on Monday morning to start the internship. I told him about my fraud-filled week, and he gave me an unusual assignment.
“Your job this month,” my uncle Frank told me, “is to become a fraudster. I want you to go underground and research where it all starts and I want you to see how easy it is.”
He introduced me to Telegram. Its an app I’d barely heard of, but apparently its an app where lots of illegal stuff happens. And he wasn’t kidding. The first time I logged on I was like, “what is going on here?” It was like a fraud house party.
My mission was to find fraud sellers and attempt to purchase their products. What could go wrong?
My Shopping List From Hell
My uncle gave me a wild shopping list of things to buy and $500 in Bitcoin for my fraud budget. He also told me to create a “fake alias” because thats just what scammers do. So I created my fake alias – a 33 year old man called Donald Tinley.
This is the list I had to buy:
- A Fake Drivers License
- A Gift Card
- A Credit Card
- A CPN Number
- A Fake Paystub
- An Airline Flight
I had no idea where to start, so I just pulled up Telegram on my computer and started searching, kind of similar like the way Google works. I was shocked how easy it was to find all of these illegal things being sold right out in the open.
The Gift Card Success: Too Good to Be True
My first target was discounted gift cards. A seller named Wesley Edens offered Amazon cards at half price. I sent him a message and within a minute, he responded on how I could buy it.
The purchase was surprisingly smooth – $13 in Bitcoin got me a $25 Amazon card. It worked, but the ease of buying it and getting it so fast made me feel pretty weird.
I guess I was a pretty good fraudster. This was going to be so easy.
Failure. “Thats Too Cheap Mate”, Then Ghosted
Next up: discounted airline tickets. My uncle said, that the fraudsters will use stolen credit cards and buy flights for people. Apparently people get arrested trying to get on the flights when they use them.
A seller named Edward Norton promised 55-60% off flights. When I tried booking a $34 Pittsburgh-New York ticket with him, he got pissed because he said he would not make enough money.
I guess the first time I realized I was not going to be a good fraudster. Why would a fraudster pay $16 to get half off a $34 ticket?
I was aiming way too small. I needed to think bigger and more greedier!
I upgraded to a $484 round trip, but after a week of excuses about airline systems, Edward ghosted me completely.
He didn’t want to deal with a small beans fraudster like me.
The CPN Catastrophe – Burned Again By A Scammer
My next mission was to buy a CPN (Credit Privacy Number) to create a new fake identity with it.
And this was where things got really interesting. A seller calling himself Freddy Cheddar offered one for $170, but I haggled him down to $125. Like I said before, I am a cheap fraudster.
He agreed and had me send him Bitcoin. After I sent the Bitcoin, he claimed he only received $93 due to “high fees” that get taken out during the payment and I needed to pay another $32.
Uncle Frank looked at the messages and the account and he told me I got scammed. He also pointed out that there was an alert Freddy Cheddar was a “Scam”.
Problems With The Paystub – Flat Out Scammed Again
Trying not to get too discouraged, I moved on to try to get a fake paystub. This should be easy, I thought.
“THE SSN DL GUY” seemed legitimate, offering fake pay stubs for $70. After sending my (fake) personal information and the payment, he claimed I “wasted his template” and needed another $40. We negotiated down to $20, which I foolishly sent.
Then came the classic move – he claimed he never received the payment and blocked me. Ouch, this getting scammed was starting to hurt.
The Fake Drivers License – Thank Goodness For Honest Fraudsters
I stink at being a fraudster, but I had to finish this internship so it was on to trying to get a fake drivers license. So I found a guy named “Michael Robert” who said he could help me. For $200 he would get me one.
He didn’t even require upfront payment, he said I could pay half when I got a “scannable” version and other half when he created an actual physical version with video proof. To my surprise he did exactly that and I sent him the Bitcoin.
When I got the FedEx with my fake drivers license a week later, I noticed that the package was sent all the way from Nigeria!
The Credit Card Finale
My last purchase was from James Satish – a credit card with an $856.45 balance for just $30. The transaction was suspiciously smooth, proving once again that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
He sent me the card number. Would I ever use it? Heck No. I’m not fraudster. I am the furthest thing from it. With my luck, I would get locked up, and besides I don’t want to use some poor persons credit card.
Lessons From The DarkSide
This month taught me more than just how fraud works – it showed me how fraudsters think.
And what I learned is that they are greedy and don’t care about anyone but themselves. They stole from my Aunt. They stole from my coach. They stole from me. I lost $470, and they all laughed about it.
Sure I got scammed over and over again. And yes, they probably thought I was a sucker. But at least I am not like them. And I’m proud of that.
Being a scammer or fraudster means that you have to be a bad person without a heart, and thats not someone anyone should ever want to be. Even if you do make money, is it really worth it?
As I head back to regular high school life, I’ll carry these lessons with me. Fraud isn’t just some word that I hear, it’s now something I understand. And sometimes, the best way to understand the enemy is to try (and fail) to become one yourself.
Disclaimer: This internship was conducted under professional supervision of frankonfraud for educational and research purposes only. No actual fraud was conducted.
