Scambaiters mess with scammers so you dont have to
of ConsumerAffairsApril 23, 2025
Key takeaways
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Deceptive marketing exposed: YouTuber and self-proclaimed “scambaiter” “Ben Dover” investigates online ads falsely claiming to sell “handcrafted” leather bags by using buzzwords like “authentic” to imply quality.
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Fraud uncovered: Through reverse image searches and online sleuthing, Ben said he found that the women in the ads are AI-generated, customer reviews are fake, testimonials come from Fiverr actors, and the bags are mass-produced in China.
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Scambaiting caution: While the video is both informative and entertaining, viewers are warned that scambaiting should be left to experienced individuals to avoid personal risk when dealing with scammers.
Marketers learned long ago that consumers especially certain segments of consumers respond favorably to certain descriptive words. Words like authentic and handcrafted. These terms imply quality and value.
However, some unscrupulous marketers employ these buzzwords to sell consumers things that arent exactly high quality. A YouTube poster who uses the alias Ben Dover spends much of his time scrolling through the web looking for misleading and downright fraudulent pitches.
Ben, a self-described scambaiter, engages these marketers in a prolonged interaction until he can expose them. He recently posted the video below, describing how he saw numerous ads that had remarkable similarity.
When theyre gone, theyre gone
The ads were all for handcrafted leather bags, made by a woman who was ending her decades-long career by liquidating her inventory at discount prices. Consumers were urged to buy quickly because when theyre gone, theyre gone.
Remarkably, Ben found other sites offering the same merchandise, but showing a different woman, with a different name, who made the bags. Ben used a software tool to discover the womans image was generated by AI.
Wait, what, theres no Grace, Ben said in the video. Who, then, is making these high-quality, handcrafted leather bags?
Ben went down that rabbit hole until he discovered the glowing reviews were fake and the video testimonials were by paid actors on Fiverr. Also, the products were anything but handcrafted. Spoiler alert: they were mass-produced in China.
Be sure to watch the video its entertaining as well as informative. And one final note, its best to leave scambaiting to people like Ben, because its easy to make a mistake when engaging with a scammer.
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