On identifying that the text was from a scammer, the software engineer made an amusing conversation with them and it went viral.
As the world is increasingly relying on online communication tools and digital platforms for everything from shopping to banking and paying bills, scammers are also lurking around and coming up with innovative ploys to swindle unsuspecting people. Things have reached a point where businesses have to warn their customers about fraudulent messages, but one witty bank customer, who goes by u/Global-Letterhead-88 on Reddit, decided to shut down the scammers with humor. Being a software engineer, the customer identified that they were being scammed and decided to get back at the cyber-crook with a hilarious revenge.
In their Reddit post, the techie posted snapshots of a conversation with the scammer. The post titled "Unexpected customer" showed the scammer pretending to be a representative of the techie's bank, sending a message asking them to update their identification number, failing which their bank account would be disabled. There was also a link attached to a message which could be mistaken for an authentic communication from the bank at first glance. But the techie was aware of these cyber frauds and responded with an "Okay." But, the scammer on the other end persisted with the demand for the person to click on the link and update the identification number.
The customer used humor and quick thinking to point out the obvious flaws in the scammer's ways. "Easy to find that it is a scamming website. I am a software engineer. I can help you to redesign the page," the techie wrote back. The scammer was probably taken aback and asked, "Really?" and the software engineer offered to redesign the fake net banking website exactly like the bank's original one for the scammer. But when they charged the scammer a fee of around $240, the swindler agreed and asked the techie to send a sample website through WhatsApp.
Sharing the updates in the comments, the software engineer mentioned that they had indeed responded to the scammer's request but in a twisted way. "I had sent him a video of another fake banking site by pretending that it was my site. He had tried calling me twice and I rejected him with a text. I'll call him tomorrow," the user explained. The techie also attached snapshots of the chat where they pretended to be a "multinational company offering clone apps," along with videos of fake banking sites. Having scammed the scammer, the user wrote, "I am planning to create a scene, like FOMO, to make him pay." Eventually, the software engineer updated that the scammer went MIA, deleting his WhatsApp and website, and was also unreachable by phone.
People were amused by the bank customer's experiences with a scammer. "Bro scam the scammer. Tell him you will redesign, take the money and then block him," suggested u/rexa_0x. "Point to be noticed: Software engineer is trying to help scammer and they will do 50-50," quipped u/Individual-Hat-7185. "I have done this. Then I told them there are better ways to scam. Just send 5000 and I will show them. Never replied back," added u/rcorum.