Tracking Scammers with Wayne May

Many of us have seen James Veitch's comedic YouTube videos of him interacting with email scammers. Today's guest shares how he helps real-world victims of those scams and he has participated in taking down criminal enterprises.

Wayne May is the owner of scamsurvivors.com. He began as a scam baiter in 2005 before concentrating and helping the victims of scams. Scam Survivors was created in 2012 by Wayne along with a small group of like-minded volunteers. He has appeared in the media worldwide as well as being a guest speaker at the IDate conferences discussing romance scams.

Wayne shares his many experiences working with email scams, sextortion, and romance scams. We also discuss specific things you can look for when receiving a spammy email and how to research and check it out for yourself. Awareness and education are the keys to helping more people.

Show Notes:

• [01:01] - He created the Scam Survivors website fifteen years ago when he was looking for something fun to do.
• [01:52] - He started as a scam baiter and fell into working with romance scammers. People would write to him and ask for his help.
• [02:41] - He went from having fun with scammers to really helping the people who were being scammed or thought they were being scammed.
• [03:57] - When receiving a scammy email a scam baiter would write back and ask for more details instead of deleting the email. Then you can post the information online to warn other people.
• [05:41] - It is important to get the scammer information out there so the public can find it.
• [07:21] - Wayne isn't seeing a lot of new scams. Instead, he is seeing variations of old scams.
• [08:07] - The first step in getting the site taken down is to get as much information as you can from the scammer. He then sends all the information to the hosting company in the hope that they will take down the site.
• [10:41] - Wayne shares about the horrible sextortion situations he has seen.
• [13:39] - Wayne shares other experiences dealing with minors.
• [13:58] - You don't give scammers money.
• [16:57] - He hopes that they have so much success that all the scammers stop. In reality, they hope to get more people involved and educate more people.
• [17:45] - Wayne's site has a forum where you can share spam emails and they will check them out for you.
• [19:08] - They try to get as much information as possible because then they can do more about it. You need their email address, not just their name.
• [20:19] - The emails are often repeated because they are scripts.
• [20:52] - People can do the same checks and searches they do at home.
• [22:02] - One telltale sign is inconsistency in language or grammar.
• [23:01] - As soon as anyone asks for money you know it is a scam.
• [25:17] - He does not use cash baiting because you are not getting the scammers money you are actually getting some other victim's money.
• [26:38] - Wayne has a book called The Stupid Scammer Files where he shares the stupid things that scammers say.
• [27:31] - Wayne shares some examples of stupid things scammers have said.
• [30:15] - If you get these emails, come to their website and post them to help other people that don't realize it is a scam.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.

Links and Resources:

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• Have I Been Pwned
• Scam Survivors
• Wayne on LinkedIn
• The Stupid Scammer Files
• Stupid Scammers Website