Isabella / Kathy (1:53)

I'm Isabella.

Alex Salmon (1:54)

I'm Daniel. We saw your profile on multiple job.

Rebecca (1:57)

Markets, multiple online recruitment agencies.

Alex Salmon (1:59)

Be a great fit for our current part time remote position.

Isabella / Kathy (2:01)

You'll receive $720 after three days.

Alex Salmon (2:04)

$100 to $500, $1,000 per week or more. If you're interested in joining us, please.

Jonathan Hill (2:10)

Text us at 1-278- the reason you're getting so many is because unfortunately they work.

Veteran Scam Victim (2:17)

As a veteran, I thought I was pretty immune to the scams, but I got an email saying that you can make all this money working at home. Just send us your information and we'll send you back a check. Check about $500. And then they wanted 200 back and I sent them the money, which was through Bitcoin or Amazon and cars or Whatever. I did that. And then two days later, my bank said the check was fake and I was out there. $200 I had sent them.

Jonathan Hill (2:49)

Being scammed can feel really embarrassing, but you should know that if it's happened to you, you aren't alone. Last year, the FTC received nearly 250,000 reports of text scams. Americans lost about $500 million to them. I'm Jonquin Hill, and this week on Explain It To Me from Vox, we're going to figure out what the deal is with these scams, how they're pulled off, who's pulling the strings, and what can happen when you take the bait. Now, Alex from earlier, who replied to that text message job offer, he's actually a reporter for Slate, and he said yes to that job so that he could write about it.

Alex Salmon (3:33)

When I said yes, when I wanted this job, they were like, someone will reach out to you on WhatsApp and they'll train you.

Jonathan Hill (3:38)

And that someone went by the name of Kathy.

Isabella / Kathy (3:42)

My name is Kathy and I'm a coach from Interleave. I just received a notice from Alaina, who works in the recruitment department that you are looking for a remote part time job.

Alex Salmon (3:52)

She would text me basically every day.

Isabella / Kathy (3:54)

Being like, let's do the training. Let's get started on this. This is the best version of yourself. Like, you're gonna realize your wildest dreams.

Alex Salmon (4:02)

She was like, pretty versed in the grind set. Then one day I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize.

Isabella / Kathy (4:08)

And she was like, it's Kathy from Interleave.

Jonathan Hill (4:12)

Oh. And from the jump, she was what I would call a micromanager.

Isabella / Kathy (4:18)

She was like, what is going on? Do you want this job or don't you?

Alex Salmon (4:21)

And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I'm so, I'm so sorry.

Isabella / Kathy (4:25)

And she was like, let's get going.

Alex Salmon (4:27)

Okay, yeah, sorry, my bad. From then on out, she would call me. Like, we were in touch and she was a real person.

Jonathan Hill (4:36)

So you take the job. What was the job? What did they have you doing?

Alex Salmon (4:41)

They told me in broad strokes that like, what we were doing was juicing. Play counts for, like low performing songs on spot effectively. You know, there would be all these album covers and you would click in the middle of this three by three rubric. And I mean, that was ultimately it at a very basic level. I was just clicking in place over and over and over again. I think it was like, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. 90 times. That was a completed task. I did three of them a day and that was sort of it.

Jonathan Hill (5:11)

Were you actually kind of working?

Alex Salmon (5:14)

It's great. It's a great question. It took me a really long time to figure this out, but it is a job that people do and it is like, it is something that exists. I think it was just ultimately sort of like a mock up of that to justify the actual scam, which was. Which is finally far cruder and much more elementary.

Jonathan Hill (5:32)

And how are you getting paid in all of this?

Alex Salmon (5:35)

Yeah, so this is where if I wasn't going into this, Eyes Wide open, this probably were like, the red flag starts showing up. They were like, you're going to be paid in cryptocurrency, you're going to be paid in bitcoin. You know, you have to have a bitcoin wallet.

Jonathan Hill (5:49)

So Alex set up this wallet and he was told that in order to move on from task to task, he'd need to maintain a minimum balance.

Isabella / Kathy (5:57)

You need to ensure that the account balance is at least US$100 to reset the next set of tasks.

Jonathan Hill (6:03)

And he figured, why not? He was crushing this job.

Alex Salmon (6:06)

Kathy was like, you did such a great job at this training. You encountered this thing called a bunble bun bull. And the result of which is that someone needs to put up $200 to refresh the account because this great thing happened, which is very hard to explain.

Jonathan Hill (6:21)

Um, I think we gotta pause. Cause what is a bun bull?

Alex Salmon (6:27)

I thought she was saying bundle at first, but she was adamant and continued to text me that it was a. It was a bun bun bull. B U N B L E. According to Kathy, a bun bull was like if you get lucky and you happen in the course of your clicking to click onto a song that that's like so low performing that they can put multiple songs together, then you hit a bumble bumble. And what happens is that you have to put up some money to buy more something to clear up the account. But the great news is you get that money back and then way more money when it comes time to cash out. That was sort of the day in, day out of it. It was like, do a lot of clicking, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Numbers go up. And then every once in a while I hit a bundle. And then I would say, you know, hey, we need a couple bucks. Might have been like $19, I think was the first hit. And I was like, all right, you know, I gotta see this thing through. Like, I'm happy to patch in $19. So I'd buy that amount in bitcoin and I would send it over, and I had to prove that I'd done it. Yes. And they would refresh my account. They would congratulate me for my great work, and then I would go back to doing it. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Yes. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, CL. Slightly more money I had to fork over. And I would do that. Yes. Sometimes it was because if I wanted to level up and get more work, I had to put more money in. It was never, like, totally explained as to why that was required. I did this job for a while, and then I was like, okay, time to cash out. But then every time I tried to cash out, there was always a problem. I would put in my Bitcoin wallet, and then they would say, like, oh, you didn't. You didn't clear this with the right person. Like, Kathy would say, if only you had told me you were cashing out, I could help you. And then she would be upset. She'd be like, no, no, now it's too late. You can't cash out right now. You have to go back to work.

Isabella / Kathy (8:18)

When you are done, remember to tell me, and I will teach you how to get another reward.

Alex Salmon (8:28)

I think I was on for about six weeks, and there came a time when I was out $96 at that point. She asked at that point for $300. And at that point, I felt like, I've seen enough. Finally, I was not ever able to cash out. I made many attempts. They were not very well received, and crucially, they did not work.

Jonathan Hill (8:51)

Alex told Kathie he wanted out. He also finally told her he was a reporter writing a story about scams. Kathy seemed undeterred by that. She still wanted him to stay in the scam. As for Alex, he figured losing 96 bucks made him a lot luckier than other people.

Alex Salmon (9:10)

You have to, unfortunately, you know, know that, like, the idea that you might be sending your boss money via cryptocurrency or any sort of other alternative currency, you know, gift cards have become a big part of this. Like, those sorts of things should concern you. Like, if you have a job, you're probably not sending money to the job. There's a lot of shame around it, too. I think that once you get down these things, you're like, how could I possibly fallen for this? And not wanting to believe that you've fallen for it actually makes you go deeper.

Rebecca (9:39)

Mm.

Alex Salmon (9:42)

You know, like, the few things that exist, the few law enforcement agencies that exist to combat this stuff, like, they've seen a hatchet taken to their budget to their to their staff, to their administrative capacity. You can report this stuff to the ftc. It's unlikely they're going to be able to do that much for you.

Jonathan Hill (10:01)

Did you ever hear from Kathy again?

Alex Salmon (10:03)

Kathy will pop up, I want to say once a week, and we'll say.

Isabella / Kathy (10:08)

Hello, what's going on?

Alex Salmon (10:10)

The tone changes all the time. It goes from stern and scolding to encouraging and concerned. But she still will call me sometimes. I'll get phone calls from her as well. So ongoing? Certainly.

Isabella / Kathy (10:22)

I hope you're okay. Why'd you leave? Come back to work.

Jonathan Hill (10:30)

So that's how these scams play out. And on their face they're pretty absurd. They're even kind of funny. But if you dig a little deeper, it gets really dark. That's next. Support for Explain it to Me comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Some questions need more than a quick search, the kind where you want to really understand what's happening, not just get a basic overview. That's where Claude comes in. Claude is an AI thinking partner designed for people who enjoy digging deeper. It lets you upload documents, explore multiple perspectives, and piece together the context that might make complex topics finally makes sense. Claude can analyze documents up to 200 pages, search current sources with proper citations, and work through problems step by step. What makes it different is how it explores complexity with you. Rather than rushing to simple answers, it helps you connect scattered information and understand the deeper patterns. Whether you're researching for work, trying to understand current events, or working through personal decisions that matter to you, Claude matches your curiosity and commitment to getting the full picture. You can try Claude for free at Claude AI explainitome and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

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Jonathan Hill (13:06)

We're back. This is Explain it to Me. I'm jq and today we're trying to figure out what's up with all these text message scams and who's behind them. Matt Burgess writes all about privacy and information security for Wired, and he's reported on one of the main actors in the world of texting scams. It's called the Smishing Triad.

Matt Burgess (13:30)

Yeah, so over the last three years or so, this group called the Smishing Triad has emerged as one of the most prolific senders of scam messages. And they are one of several groups of scammers that are known as smishing syndicates. And they've been estimated to be sending 100,000 messages per day. They have around 200,000 malicious websites that have been linked to them. And these Smishing syndicates in general, they develop their own software and they sell it to other cybercriminals who may be able to use that software to then go and scam people further in almost in a plug and play style way. And I think some of these Chinese language phishing scamming groups have actually been estimated to be making around a billion dollars in the last couple of years.

Jonathan Hill (14:14)

What are the odds that you or I have gotten a text from the Smishing triad? Like, is their reach that big that, you know, they're probably in my phone right now?

Matt Burgess (14:24)

There's a good chance of it. The Smishing Triad has been linked to scam messages in more than 120 different countries. And a big one that they do is impersonating in the U.S. the U.S. postal Service.

Jonathan Hill (14:35)

A text message from the postal Service. Wow. I didn't even know they had my cell number.

AT&T Announcer (14:40)

They don't. And they don't send text messages about unclaimed packages.

Matt Burgess (14:45)

But around the world, they have also impersonated banks.

Jonathan Hill (14:49)

Police say in just the last week, in fact, a handful of people have lost nearly $100,000 to this scam.

Matt Burgess (14:56)

They've impersonated cryptocurrency platforms.

Alex Salmon (14:58)

It looked like it's from Coinbase sharing a withdrawal code. It felt like someone was trying to.

Matt Burgess (15:03)

Take money from my crypto wallet. E commerce, healthcare, law, enfor all Kinds of different organizations that may want you to take action, such as clicking onto a website to confirm some details or to get your parcel sent back to you. They are constantly evolving and constantly adapting their software, becoming like targeting more different organizations or impersonating more different organizations.

Jonathan Hill (15:26)

What is smishing? I'm not going to lie. When you say it, it sounds really adorable, but it is not cute. What is it?

Matt Burgess (15:34)

So, yeah, many people may be familiar with phishing to email accounts. Really, when you're talking about smishing, that is just the SMS text message equivalent of that. But I would say with smishing, because it is via text message and straight to your phone, you will have something that is pinging up. Some of these scam text messages are very successful because they are straight direct to you that you might. You may be out and about and see a message come in and then like respond to it, click on the link straight away without thinking about it. So there's real, that direct sense of urgency with a text message that you don't get with an email or another type of phishing scam.

Jonathan Hill (16:11)

So all of these scam texts are being sent, like just so many messages. How are they doing this?

Matt Burgess (16:19)

When cybercriminals are collecting phone numbers or other contact details, they can be purchasing these on underground markets, on forums, potentially from data breaches, where we've all seen people having their details linked elsewhere or possibly even data brokers. And then when it comes around to them sending the messages, they're quite often using automated software on a device such as a laptop or a computer, where they can have multiple sort of virtual phones running on their screen at the same time and send out multiple thousands of messages from those accounts.

Jonathan Hill (16:51)

All right, so that's how these texts get to our phones. But I want to get a sense of how it looks to the scammers. Let's say I get a text and there's a link and I click on it.

Matt Burgess (17:02)

What happens when you click that link? You'll end up on a website. So if this scam message is coming from, allegedly the U.S. postal Service, you will end up on a website that looks like the US Postal Service. You'll end up on a website that looks like the bank that scammers are trying to impersonate, which want you to enter your personal details. They might want you to enter your name, your postal address, your bank account details, your financial details. And then the scammers will be collecting these pretty much in real time.

Jonathan Hill (17:35)

Okay, let's say I get the text, I don't click anything. But I block the number. Will these texts keep coming? Like, is there a way to stop this?

Matt Burgess (17:44)

You're not going to get text from that same number, but you may get texts from another number or another account that is trying to scam you. So I think that the scale that these scams are happening, people are going to continue to receive scam messages pretty much like on a very frequent basis.

Jonathan Hill (18:01)

I'm curious what tech companies are doing. You know, Apple, Google, they have millions of their own users at risk. What are they doing about it?

Matt Burgess (18:11)

I think there are a few players that are involved in trying to reduce the amount of scams that are happening around the world. So you could, you've got the telecoms firms, the companies that own the networks. These websites have to be hosted with a domain company, so those domain companies can be better at blocking scam websites as well. And then, yeah, you got Apple and Google and other mobile providers as well. A lot of them now are using on device machine learning to be able to detect the kind of language that is used in these scams and they are able to better classify some of these scams from happening. I think that they are getting better, but this is a problem that is still affecting everybody very frequently. So there's more to be done in that space.

Jonathan Hill (18:52)

You know, every era has its own scam. Why are tech scams so widespread right now?

Matt Burgess (19:01)

They're quick, they're successful, they're making money from them. And I think that because we're all on our phones all of the time and we're getting messages and notifications, it can be easy for anybody to click on these links and enter their financial details. I think as well. I think once scammers find something that will work for them, whether it is a romance scam or an employment scam or anything else, then they'll keep doing that until it does.

Jonathan Hill (19:27)

Vlog coming up, the horrifying employment scam on the other side of that text thread.

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Jonathan Hill (21:01)

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Jonathan Hill (21:43)

If you find that you're a victim of a scam, you might call Erin West. She was a prosecutor in California for over two decades and and after seeing so many people get their money taken, she decided to do something about it. She started an organization called Operation Shamrock, and she's investigated scams coming out of Cambodia, Myanmar, all over Southeast Asia. And she found the people on the other side of the phone. Just a heads up, there are some descriptions of violence coming up that might be upsetting to some listeners.

Rebecca (22:16)

I met someone named Small Q. And Small Q is a Ugandan man. Small Q was working in a Internet cafe in Uganda. He's 23 years old, and a fellow Ugandan came in and asked him, I know you're making $100 a month working here. I can get you $1,000 a month in a live work facility in Bangkok. You'll be doing data entry. And so Small Q went through the interview process. He did two interviews. He did a typing test. He was delighted to hear that he got this job where he would literally be making 10 times what he made. So he told his brother, I could give this a shot or I could die poor in Uganda. And when he arrived in Bangkok, they took his phone, they took his passport, drove him for hours and hours, and ultimately he found himself in a gated, massive walled community with large dormitories and the men with AK47s at the gate told him, you're a scammer now this is your job.

Jonathan Hill (23:26)

So it sounds like the people who end up being the scammers are actually victims of an employment scam themselves.

Rebecca (23:35)

That's exactly right. This is one of the first times in history we've got this tremendous massive global crime where there are victims on both of sides sides of it. And so inside these rooms where the scams are happening, people are in fear. That's the horrifying piece of this that people don't understand. On the other side of that text is likely a victim who has been human trafficked to be there.

Jonathan Hill (24:01)

Aaron, you've been to some of these compounds. I'm curious, what do they look like, what do they feel like?

Rebecca (24:08)

It's really horrifying. They are massive, 10 story tall buildings that are residential. They, they often have bars on the windows literally to keep the people from jumping out. It's dozens and dozens along the Moi river in Myanmar. It's hundreds in Cambodia. It's dozens in Laos. The scale of this is incomprehensible.

Matt Burgess (24:37)

Wow.

Jonathan Hill (24:38)

And who's behind these massive compounds?

Rebecca (24:41)

Chinese organized criminals are no strangers to the gambling industry. And in combination with a road that China was building in Cambodia, Chinese organized criminals thought we should fill this area with casino towers. But Covid hit and so when their casino towers sat empty, they had to pivot. So they decided they were going to do this. That's when they started the human trafficking angle on it.

Jonathan Hill (25:10)

I want to get back to the story of Small Q. When people like Small Q arrive, what happens next?

Rebecca (25:17)

His day then becomes, okay, you're a scammer and you are living your life on the awake hours of the United States or whoever you're targeting. And Small Q's day would then be to report port to a long table of people just like him forced to be working on a desktop computer and 10 phones. And the way it works is there are different roles within this facility. So when you come in, you are one of the people who is is trying to locate new contacts, new clients. They call them. Once you've been there a while, you elevate to becoming a chatter. And when you are a chatter, you have. They call it their model, their profile that they use. And every day they submit at the end of the day to their boss what their character will be doing that day.

Jonathan Hill (26:13)

It sounds so oddly corporate.

Rebecca (26:16)

I'm glad you picked up on the corporate nature of this. You're on a team and there's very much a corporate incentive strategy for what's happening there. So if Small Q were to be able to be successful and scam money from someone, that's a big win. Sometimes there's fireworks for the massive scorers. There can be treats offered. So, like a karaoke room staffed with attractive women and liquor and cigarettes. It's the carrot and the stick approach.

Jonathan Hill (26:50)

What happens if these people don't meet their quotas?

Rebecca (26:54)

It's horrifying. So Small Q is. Is not the only person I'm in touch with. I'm in touch with another Ugandan that I refer to as Sam. If he doesn't make his quota, he is not allowed to have food. He's beaten. He's beaten with an electric baton. There are sexual consequences for women. There is a. There is something called the dark room. There is a metal bar that's attached to the wall where you are handcuffed to the wall and beaten, and then you are placed in a room where you are hung by your arms for three days. We're talking about war, crime level, torture that is happening to people and all.

Jonathan Hill (27:40)

Of that because you didn't scam enough because you didn't hit the quota.

Rebecca (27:45)

Yes.

Jonathan Hill (27:48)

How do you get out of these scam jobs? It sounds like you can't just quit.

Rebecca (27:55)

You really don't get out. And that's how they've managed to accumulate hundreds of thousands of people inside these walls. There are others that when they ask, how do I get out? They're told they can pay a ransom. And the ransom is frequently. Could be anything from US$3,000, 10,000, 20,000. If they are able to get that money, there are ways that their escape can be brokered. But ultimately, Small Q was able to get home. He stole a phone from one of the bosses. He was able to contact Madame Betty, who is the High commissioner for Uganda, and she was able to help him and 23 others get home. But the mental toll is massive.

Jonathan Hill (28:50)

Individually, you get these texts and now you have this information, and all you can think of, like, is, oh, no. Like, there's a person being harmed on the other end of the phone. I just wonder, is there anything individual people can do? Like, what do you. What do you do?

Rebecca (29:06)

Everybody understands that there's a scam problem right now, but I don't think that everybody understands that this is not going to stop, that this is operating in full force with no friction. And I think for a lot of people, when you hear this story, you think, oh, Aaron, that sounds awful, but that is on the other side of the world. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do about this. So here's what you're supposed to do. You are supposed to tell everyone you know about this, point out what is happening, and point out that people globally are losing everything they have.

Jonathan Hill (29:46)

It seems like no matter where you are in the world right now, there are people struggling to make a living and our digital existence makes that really easy to exploit. If the government can't do anything about it and tech companies aren't able to stop it, then it may be up to us. Stay vigilant, don't reply and don't click. All right, that's it for this week's show. We've got an episode coming up about housing. The market is not in the best shape right now, especially if you're trying to buy, and we want to hear about the creative ways you're meeting the moment. Maybe you're thinking of going in on a house with friends or moving to a community that better suits your needs. We want to hear all about it. Give us a call at 1-800-618-8545 or email us@askvoxvox.com and if you want to support the podcast, become a Vox member. When you do, you help us make this work. And you also get to listen to this show and all other Vox podcasts with zero ads. There are a bunch of other cool things that come with it, too. You can join and find out all about it by going to Vox.com members. If you do it now, you get $20 off. This episode was produced by Peter Malinon Rosen and Ariana Aspuru. It was edited by Ginny Lawton with help from Jolie Myers and our executive producers Miranda Kennedy. And fact checking was by Melissa Hirsch with engineering by Adrian Lilly and Brandon McFarlane. I'm your host, Jonathan Hill. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye.

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