Scammer Payback, also known by his nickname "Pierogi", is an American
YouTuber and
streamer
Streamer or streamers may refer to:
* a person who streams online on an internet platform like twitch or youtube
* Pennon, a small pointed flag
* Streamer, a kind of confetti consisting of strips of paper or other material
* Streamer, a common nam ...
who specializes in creating content about
scam baiting against
phone scams. Pierogi works against a variety of scams over the phone, such as
technical support scams,
refund scams,
social security scams, and
IRS impersonation scam
An IRS impersonation scam is a class of telecommunications fraud and scam which targets American taxpayers by pretending to be Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection officers. The scammers operate by placing disturbing official-sounding calls t ...
s.
Career
Pierogi previously worked as a cybersecurity professional. He launched his YouTube channel "Scammer Payback" on May 15, 2019, focusing on high-production scam-baiting content in which he pretends to be a scam victim by portraying a variety of characters with the use of a
voice changer
The term voice changer (also known as voice enhancer) refers to a device which can change the tone or pitch of or add distortion to the user's voice, or a combination and vary greatly in price and sophistication. A kazoo/didgeridoo can be used as ...
to waste the scammers' time and distract them. While distracted, Pierogi uses his expertise in cybersecurity to infiltrate the scammers'
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
s from his
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
, and proceeds to delete their files and gather their location and information to expose and use against them.
Throughout his career, Pierogi has been able to stop numerous scams in progress and give money back to scam victims.
He is known to read out the scammer's real name and location that he has discovered through the process.
[
Pierogi has been in a number of collaborations with other content creators, having worked alongside ]Mark Rober
Mark B. Rober is an American YouTuber, engineer, inventor, and educator. He is known for his YouTube videos on popular science and do-it-yourself gadgets. Before YouTube, Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years, where he spent seven y ...
, Trilogy Media and Jim Browning.call center
A call centre ( Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American spelling; see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. ...
dedicated to scam baiting. Named the "People's Call Center", its participants consisted of Pierogi and several other scambaiters who spent one week at the call center monitoring scam call centers, wasting the scammers' time, and preventing people from getting scammed.
See also
* Scam baiting
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scammer Payback
Living people
Hackers
Fraud in India
YouTubers from Florida
Social engineering (security)
Internet vigilantism
YouTube channels launched in 2019
English-language YouTube channels
Unidentified people
Hacking in the 2020s