104. Inside the Mind of a Scammer: Kitboga Fights Back

In this episode of Raising Tech, host Matt Reiners talks with the legendary Kitboga, a cybersecurity crusader and content creator known for baiting and exposing online scammers. With over 3.74 million YouTube subscribers and more than a billion views across platforms, Kitboga shares how he transforms tech knowledge into entertaining education.

From fake tech support calls to impersonated Venmo accounts, Kitboga reveals how scammers weaponize social engineering, and how AI is raising the stakes on both sides of the scam war. Whether you're a tech pro or just want to keep your grandma safe online, this is a must-listen episode.

What You’ll Learn:

• How Kitboga got started in scam baiting
• The scariest scams happening in 2025 
• How scammers use social engineering to manipulate even tech-savvy people
• Why remote access software is central to today’s most dangerous scams
• Real-life examples of scams targeting people with retirement accounts, Venmo, and even treadmill purchases
• Why awareness still isn’t enough, and what we can all do to stay ahead

Featured Tool: Seraph Secure: A powerful new platform that leverages AI to proactively detect, investigate, and block scam activity. Kitboga founded Seraph Secure to take scam-fighting to the next level with automated tools that protect users before the scam even starts.

Resources Mentioned:

• Kitboga’s YouTube Channel
• FTC Scam Reporting
• Seraph Secure Handout
• More about Kitboga
• How to Identify the Most Common Scams

Find us online:
Website
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LinkedIn

Transcript

 [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of Raising Tech. Today I'm excited to introduce Kitboga. Kitboga is a content creator and founder of Seraph Secure. Kitboga has 3.74 million YouTube subscribers and over a billion views that is with a B across all of his social platforms.

I'm happy to say I'm actually one of those 3.74 million [00:01:00] subscribers and, uh, Kitboga has taught me so much about scams and a fun and entertaining way. And I've even sent some of his videos to my family that definitely reach out to me because they think that they're, uh, getting hacked at times. So thanks for joining me today, Kitboga.

Kitboga: Yeah, I'm glad to be here. And that's so cool to hear that you have even shared it with your family. That's like the dream. 

Matt R: Yeah, of course. My mom reaches out to me, it's probably at least once per month on certain things and I'm just like, mom, have you ever done that? Because like people are threatening to release videos of her.

She's like, no, I've never done that. Then like, don't worry about it. Like, you're fine. Yeah. Yeah. So Kitboga, for listeners who might not be familiar with your work, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you got. Started in the world of scam baiting. 

Kitboga: Yeah. And perhaps if people don't know so scam baiting is, uh.

A term used to essentially reverse the scam or make scammers, bait scammers into believing that you're a victim. So [00:02:00] the the concept is I play the perfect victim and try to. Waste the scammer's time, try to get information out of them, see if I can get like a bank account that they use in the US to report to bank fraud and, and law enforcement.

And then just have some fun along the way and maybe get some revenge. So oftentimes I'll uh, I'll change my voice or something to, to, to sound older. And it's been a lot of fun. It's been eight years now that I've been doing it. I dunno how, how long ago you started watching, but it's been. Eight years.

Matt R: Yeah. I went down a positive rabbit hole with you probably about three or four years ago. And, uh, I typically put you on in the background if I'm like up late doing work and stuff. So, uh, but yeah, it's, uh, it's awesome.

Kitboga: Yeah. And you asked how I got started. It was, it was kind of an accident. I just found out about tech support scams.

The, the guys who pretend to be Microsoft or something and say that there's a virus on your computer. And my [00:03:00] background in software engineering, my grandparents had Alzheimer's dementia and they had gotten taken advantage of a lot. So I heard about this tech support scam and I'm thinking. If I am a, a millennial who's on the internet all day and a software engineer, and I didn't know about the tech support scam def like my grandparents and my parents definitely don't know about the tech support scam, and that was sort of the catalyst that made me feel like I gotta do something.

Uh, I have to try to call these guys. I have to try to educate people about it to keep my family safe and other people's families safe. 

Matt R: It's always awesome when you can take that and just do like the most positive form of revenge. I would like to think, I mean, and really doing this and, uh, you know, you're, you're like a modern day avenger.

I would like to think, um, in terms of like, thank you. Yeah. And. I'm wondering like, 'cause obviously you've been doing this, you know, seven, eight years, you have mentioned and really been on the forefront of this. [00:04:00] And I'm wondering like how you've seen types of scams evolved recently and, you know, what are some of the most dangerous or sophisticated ones that you're seeing today?

Kitboga: Yeah. I would say one of the big things that have changed is the dollar amount and how aggressive scammers are it not just asking for the $500 google Play gift card or something like that. It's the, let me gain access to your computer or let me one way or another socially engineer you or basically like hack your brain and, and trick you into giving up your life savings or something.

I mean, we, we have scammers now that are, they'll imperson. TR Schwab and Fidelity and places like that and make you believe that your retirement accounts have been compromised or hacked and they and they're, they're tricking you into giving up your life savings, like [00:05:00] liquidating your entire retirement fund and sending it overseas.

And so that wasn't. As common. I, I don't think in, when I first started eight years ago, a lot of the common scams eight years ago was just go buy a gift card, which is still devastating, right? But it's just high, much higher ticket scams. And then I'll say the other big one is. There's international crime groups.

I mean, both nationally and internationally organized crime is involved. Now I've, I've even seen reports of heard on good authority that cartels and people who used to run drugs are now realizing like, gosh, the drug business is complicated. And like messy and we can get in a lot of trouble.

Scams is easy and we just do it from the comfort of our own home and we can make a lot of money. And so even like organized crime groups are switching from drugs to, to running scams, which is not, yeah, wasn't as common in eight years ago [00:06:00] either. 

Matt R: I imagine that, uh, board meeting that the cartel or some of these organized crime groups have, and like talking through that, right.

I do imagine the margins are better on the scammer side and like, to your point, right, like, it's it's wild. But how more people involved and, you know, I'm even thinking about my personal life where I've always prided myself in not getting scammed, but had someone send me. They basically duped.

My friend's Venmo account sent me a request on a Tuesday before, uh, a bachelor party, and I assumed it was for the Bachelor, some special thing and sent 150 bucks out to 'em. So, uh, yeah, I've been scammed myself. I'm a statistic now yeah. Yeah. I wonder, 

Kitboga: do you think that was out of curiosity, do you think that was a random.

Chance or do you think that they knew that you were going to a bachelor party and stuff?

Matt R: So that's, that's the question I have. 'cause I've only seen it happen once. I don't think we like posted it anywhere publicly that we were going and doing that. But it was just so the timing was so right and basically they just took my friend's picture the same name and just put it underscore [00:07:00] at the end.

It just had more information to come with like the eyes. And I was like, okay, this is like a gift. With the Bachelor and uh, yeah. Did it. And then the next morning I texted him after I hit, except he was like, what was that for? He is like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So, um, 

Kitboga: yeah. I wonder. Yeah.

That's really interesting to me. I don't wanna get you too far off track, but No, you're good. Because there's this, it kind of relates to, yeah, how much things have changed. Some of these scams are really targeted and sophisticated, and then others are just. They're sending out volume, millions of texts, millions of of emails or whatever, every day.

And I had a, a situation with my mother-in-law who knows what I do, and of course, I, I try to educate her as much as I can. She got an email from scammers pretending to be Amazon. And it said that a treadmill had been ordered for $1,500 or whatever it was, and it, and I've featured these in my [00:08:00] videos they want you to call and get a refund and it turns into this whole scam.

Well, my, my mother-in-law printed this out and thankfully, and brought it to the house, but she was so upset and thought it was real, simply because. She had purchased a treadmill on Amazon a few days beforehand. Oh, wow. Not that one. It was just a ran, but it was complete random chance. Like I get these emails all the time sent to me.

I investigate these refund scammers like every week. But it was just random happenstance that she had purchased a treadmill on Amazon, and so now she thought it was real. And was, it was like, okay, what do I do? I don't understand. I tried to call the number and it, it didn't seem legit, but anyway, I just wonder sometimes.

Is it, yeah. Was, was that Venmo request? It seems pretty targeted, but then at the same time, or they just also randomly sending out Venmos, but did your friend's face on there? That seems pretty, 

Matt R: yeah, the same the same picture. So, you know, I, [00:09:00] if I had to guess it would be some level of. Target. But you know, it's, it's tough to say.

And, um, who really knows? It might have been just been him doing that and, uh, trying to get 150 bucks outta me. Who knows. Hey. And you know, I know in the, the first answer you had mentioned about, you know, this idea of social engineering, right? And I know scammers are relying very heavily on it, and I'm just wondering like.

What tactics do they use most effectively to like manipulate their victims? And why do you think they're still so successful Despite widespread awareness? 

Kitboga: Well, I use the word social engineering a lot. I think of it almost like hacking someone's brain. It's a way to manipulate or trick someone into doing something that you want. A co, a common trope with the scammers is to pretend to be a company that you trust.

Microsoft or, uh, I mean, maybe you don't even trust Microsoft, but if you have a Windows Microsoft computer, that, that's just a a, that's some [00:10:00] buy-in there. Maybe there'll be Amazon, maybe they'll pretend to be Venmo support or something like that. A, a big one that's. And this kind of, I think, answers the question is even though there's widespread awareness about different kinds of scams, they're always adapting and, and evolving and coming up with new ways to do things.

So a really good recent example was there was a big Coinbase breach, I think maybe a year ago now, or, or eight months, six months ago. So the scammers started spamming anyone and everyone. Even if you weren't involved in the breach, they just started saying they would pretend to be Coinbase cracking Binance.

You name it. And say that your account has been involved in this breach, and if you saw the news about this Coinbase breach, or like you just saw a little bit of a glimpse of it, right on, you're watching TV or reading Reddit or something and this alarm bell goes [00:11:00] off, oh no, I'm in. I'm involved. And so when you get the text message that says you've been involved in a breach or something and you panic and call that phone number.

It's that's all it takes now. That's like, that's like a good example of social engineering I think is like you, they connected it to a real life scenario. You have a Coinbase or Binance account or whatever it was, you call the number and then they're gonna guide you through the process of protecting your funds while actually they're just gonna steal, they're actually just gonna steal all your money.

But it's that moment of. I don't wanna necessarily say a moment of weakness, but 'cause, because you can't always know what their new track tactics are, but sometimes it's just right time, right place, and they take advantage of it. 

Matt R: Yeah. And it's, it is, and I, you know, I continue to see that more and more and it's almost super interesting to see how like the checking the news and then trying to like play off that and like lean into that.

'cause like to your point of like you getting emails and texts all day, I feel like I got five yesterday about the [00:12:00] USPS can't deliver something for me. And it's just, you know, and it's just interesting how that kind of like plays. Off on some of those things. You might even not even think twice about it.

And I know, 'cause like you had mentioned when like you're dealing with these scammers, right? A a lot of them and a lot of your content too just showcases the scammers trying to gain remote access to your computer. Sure. And I'm just wondering, like, can you explain to our listeners why that's such a, a critical part of their scheme and what people should know to stay protected about that?

Kitboga: Yeah. So it's a good question be, and it, it kind of even relates to the last one about education. Because while there is widespread knowledge and education about scams, I don't know. It's certainly not enough. And, uh, o one great example is remote access. I don't, I don't think the average person on the street, perhaps even the person listening right now realizes that that scammers will try to.

Connect to [00:13:00] your computer or your phone, some kind of device. It's primarily they want to get on your desktop or laptop computer and yeah, that's such a common element of scams these days. It even goes back to what I was answering before about. Your 401k or, or retirement account? Well, these scammers, sometimes it's difficult to just tell you over the phone, hi your computer, your Fidelity account is hacked.

Please move all of the money. That's maybe that's somewhat difficult to do just over a phone conversation. But if, if they get a little bit of a way in, if they find a way you believe that you're talking to Fidelity, maybe your account's compromised, well, then they're gonna tell you something like.

We need to secure your computer and make sure that, that there's no hackers accessing your account. So let's download this tool. And what they're not, what they're relying on is, is you thinking that they're helping they're helping you, but they're gonna have you download [00:14:00] some kind of software. Maybe it's something like TeamViewer, any desks, screen Connect client, uh, you, you might be very familiar with, with these names.

That can stay running on your computer all the time, and they can connect to your computer at any time. And they use that to help facilitate the scam so they can see everything that you see on your computer now, and if they ask you to log into your Fidelity account. Now they see your balance, they see your recent transactions, maybe they see your name and whatever it is, your fidelity username.

So even if they don't scam you like right that second, maybe they even hang up. I've seen some of the better scammers saying like, your account's secure. Uh, this was just a routine checkup. And then an hour later, two days later, someone calls back spoofing the fidelity number. And says, hi, I'm calling Mark Smith.

[00:15:00] Uh, and now they have your balance and your recent transactions, and it seems so much more real. And not only that, that they're watching your computer still. So now imagine you're even more bought in because you believe that you're actually talking to Fidelity. They know everything about your account and they're still watching your computer.

And this is where, yeah, where, where scams get really, really. Scary really fast. I, I don't know how much you've run into that in your line of work with remote remote access or not. 

Matt R: Not, I know I'm putting you on the spot. No, you're good. You're good. And it's funny 'cause like I, I work for an IT company.

I'm definitely not the IT person here, so I typically reserve that for the people that actually know what they're doing. My tech, my tech support is just unplug it and plug it back in. Nice. You know, I know there's a level of remote support that we'll do, especially on the enterprise side. 'cause we need to help on that side.

Sure. But um, and it's like a 

Kitboga: legitimate tool, right? To like you [00:16:00] guys use it for the right reasons and the scammers just take advantage of it. Yeah. And yeah, it's one of those things that, to me it's kind of the elephant in the room at times because, uh, I wish I had the statistics in front of me, but maybe I can pull 'em up quick.

I wanna say it was just billions of dollars last year lost specifically to tech support stems and in the us and they, um, yeah, they rely so much on that remote connection. But when you go to the FTC website right now, or you go to fbi.gov or different places to find out what to do when you've been scammed, if you go to your bank what to do when I've been scammed, they'll tell you.

Run Windows Defender, like make sure you update your computer, but that doesn't remove these remote connections. So the other thing that we find is it increases the chances of someone being victimized multiple [00:17:00] times. Mm-hmm. We've had circumstance, we work with law enforcement and I've had on multiple occasions, Matt.

Uh, the sheriffs or police departments or whatever, say we were at someone's house responding to a call about them being scammed. And we watched the scammers, like they were filling out the IC through gov report, the victim was, and we noticed the scammer moving the mouse. And while we were still at their house, the scammers.

Called back in from the local police department number and said like, sir, we see that you just got scammed and you filled out the ic.gov report. I'm here to help. And if it weren't for the sheriff being there right now, the victim thinks they're getting help from, so it's, and it's because they were still.

Connected to the computer. Why? So even if you knew you got scammed, [00:18:00] imagine you just lost a whole bunch of money. You know, you got scammed and now you're doing everything right, trying to report it to the police or something. The scammers can just if they have that remote connection, they can just keep scamming you again and again and again.

It's really scary. 

Matt R: That is scary. Yeah, that's crazy that they're able, able do that. Oh my gosh. This is like, oh man, that's crazy. And you know, I imagine too with like scams have even gotten better with ai, right? I think, you know, using ai we always talk about like Chad, GBT and productivity and all that stuff.

But I imagine that. Scammers are using AI in both attacks, but then on the other side, I know people are using it for defensive defenses now. Mm-hmm. Which I know you are. Which is an awesome video. I definitely suggest anybody going, checking that out. But I'm wondering like, are scammers beginning to use AI bots in noticeable ways?

And then on the flip side, how are you or others using AI to fight back? 

Kitboga: Yeah. It's a, it opens up a, I don't wanna say a can of worms, but lots of things come to my [00:19:00] mind. In, in some ways, AI isn't even required because they're still doing, they're still using scam attacks that they were using 10, 10 years ago, even before I started the fake virus popup to convince you that you need to talk to Microsoft is, you know, a decade old.

And it's barely changed. On other, so on one hand I would say they don't even need ai, but which is a sad state of our awareness about scams and Right. But on the other hand, they are, I am seeing them use AI to do things like change their voice, change their accent, deep faking things. If people aren't familiar with, I think most people know the concept of deep fake, but the idea is basically changing changing your face or changing your voice.

Uh, this can be done in real time now or near real time. So I'm, this would've been a good opportunity for me to change my face really quick, [00:20:00] but I don't, I don't have it pulled up right now. But yeah, even in Zoom calls, uh, and there's been really high ticket fraud cases right now. It's usually targeting like big firms.

I, I was just talking to somebody. A, a good, a good example is. If you are the CFO or you're making some big transfer, maybe you work in real estate. I was talking to this guy who it's, it's normal for them to be wiring significant sums of money for these real estate purchases or something like that.

And, you know, get on a Zoom call, make sure everything's squared away just to verify right before you send the a hundred thousand dollars or something. They had someone deep fake the CFO and get on a Zoom, even get on a Zoom call and say, yes, this information is correct. You need to send it to this bank account.

And the accounting team sent it to the bank account. I mean, it was the CFO it looked just like, um, and so that's definitely [00:21:00] happening. Things like grandparent scams where they, the scammer calls you and says little Timmy was hurt in a car accident. Or sorry, little Timmy caused a car accident and hurt somebody, and now he's going to prison.

Now they can take a a 15 second Instagram clip of your grandkid and clone their voice. So you hear your own. Grandchild saying like, please, grandma help me. Um, I don't wanna go to prison or something. So they're certainly starting to use it. In terms of fighting back, we're, we're trying to use similar tech to sort of fight fire with fire.

One, one thing that we've been doing, which I think you were referencing, the video is running AI bots that like are trained off of some of my calls and some of my voices where they. Essentially you can have a phone conversation. Yeah, I think that's the one you were referring to, right?

Matt R: Yeah. Yeah. And I rewatched it this [00:22:00] morning. It was like honestly cracking up when the one AI bot was just talking about like his book and like how he wanted to market it and just like, was going super in depth with that. And it was just you know, comical, but also like inter entertaining and educational all at the same time.

So, uh, yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. 

Kitboga: Yeah. I'll turn a few on just in case we, we were doing some testing this morning, uh, 'cause we're, we're trying to improve them. But usually what happens is on any given day, we just have a couple phone calls going. And when we know about a group of scammers, then instead of it being like just me calling a scammer and, and trying to waste their time or trying to get information about it, you can imagine, let's say there's a call center with, you know, 10, 10 people and they're all.

Trying to convince someone, you know, to liquidate their Fidelity account or whatever, whatever, whatever example you wanna use, the fake Microsoft support place. Well now we can have 10 AI bots that sound like [00:23:00] a human, like, sound like a real person, interested in their offer, call them. And now we've had these guys spend hours on the phone with bots instead of talking to potential victims.

So. I think it's gonna be a cat and mouse game. I'm sure there's gonna be a time in the near future where it's like bots versus like maybe scammer bots versus antis scamming bots. Who knows? But we're trying to stay ahead of the game and like be at the forefront of, of fighting back. 

Matt R: I love that. And you know, and speaking on being on the forefront and fighting back.

'Cause I know you've always been a big advocate for tools and tech that can help combat scams. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about Seraph Secure and, kind of that journey and how it differs from some of the traditional cybersecurity tools, especially in the realm of, uh, prevention.

Kitboga: Yeah. Um, yeah, so my background in software engineering, like I said, so I think building tech is like second [00:24:00] nature to me. Building the AI bots. So going back to the remote connections, I think is a really good tie in. Not enough people are aware of these remote connections and there's not enough solutions for for how to stop it.

So when we first founded Seraph Secure about two years ago. It was inspired by a friend of ours had got, they, they were about to wire $30,000. Their parents were about to wire $30,000 went to the bank. And thankfully the bank teller stopped them. They said, we're pretty sure this is a scam. So they.

They called me and they said, Kit, what do I do? I know that I've been scammed, but now what? And there's a lot of emotion, a lot of fear. They're crying and worked up, and I'm trying to explain to them over the phone some of your audience might be tech related, like cyber security related.

You know, imagine describing to someone over the [00:25:00] phone or maybe you do this regularly. Exactly what to do to get a scammer off your computer. And this is someone that's not tech savvy. This is someone that's flustered who just got, who thinks they're being scammed, they're terrified of what's gonna happen when they get back to their computer.

And we're like, this is crazy. I can't, like, I'm, I'm trying to tell her how to turn her internet connection off so the scammers can't still be on her computer while we clean up her computer. And she was just, she was having a really hard time with it. We thought, gosh, we need to make a tool, like a triage type tool where like law enforcement or IT professionals or family members, if somebody gets scammed, they can just run this piece of software and clean all of the remote connections off the computer and make sure that there are no scammers on the computer anymore.

So we built that and in the process of building, and this is a, yeah, a free tool by the way. We just wanted to like. Help the world, [00:26:00] right? It didn't exist. Uh, it's still the only thing that we know of that exists to clean up after a scam. And in the process of building it, we were like, wait, why? Why only do this?

Uh. After a scam. Why? Why only do it retroactively? We could be to your term, proactive about it. So if my mom has Seraph secure running, if your family has this running, if a business has this running now when a scammer tries to connect to a computer. And install one of these remote connections, you'll be prompted with a warning that says if someone's on the phone telling you to install this tool, they're, they're likely trying to scam you and in, and it, it just will not allow them to connect to your computer anymore.

And that, that feature alone has stopped. So many scams. I'm really excited to say because, so, so many scammers rely on being able to connect to your [00:27:00] computer. See the, the big thing about Seraph has just been trying to take the guesswork away. Keeping people's families safe. Like my, my, I said in the beginning my grandparents had dementia.

It Alzheimer's runs in, in my mom's side of the family. If I'm honest, as my mom is aging, I kind of have in the back of my mind that will perhaps be uh, something that will be dealing with in the near the near future. And I don't want, I don't want my mom to, to have to come. Even close to these scammers that we're, that we're dealing with, these scammers that we're talking about.

And, and that's really at the heart of what our software does is, is making it so my mom doesn't have to stay educated about all the scam tactics. We block scam websites. We, we do the best we can to protect someone from scams. And I, I don't think there's anything out there like it on the market right now.

I know that sounds salesy, but. There's antiviruses, right? And there there's things like anti-malware or anti [00:28:00] ransomware. There really isn't a comprehensive antis scam tool. So that's why we built it. 

Matt R: Yeah, and I love that. And, um, you know, you know, I know you've got like a freemium model too, so you know, hey, it's awesome that you're able to, to.

Put out some good into the world. And it's kind of funny thinking through some of these stories you've shared where you know your loved ones are able to contact you directly, but this is like getting Kitboga and everyone's phone, right? Like they're not reaching out to you directly, but they get this extra level of.

Uh, security guidance right. To help them with that. And it's just so important. And you know, I think with the aging demographics, we're only gonna see these scams get, continue to get more intense, complex 'cause they're finding success with it, right? So mm-hmm. Why wouldn't they double down? So, 

Kitboga: yeah. And another feature we added recently is we warn you if a website is.

Suspicious. Even if we don't know if it's a scam, let's say, even if it's, I'll give you a good, good example. Uh, let's say there's a website that's [00:29:00] two days old. And you're about to get your credit card out and pay for something like that. Mm, to me, is just, there should be alarm bells going off. That, that's like a massive red flag.

So the, the UPS delivery type scams, like those sorts of, let's say they change their template and they use different language, and there's no way to like detect this with heuristics and whatever brand new, no one's ever seen it before. But it's, it's gonna be, you know, a day old. And so if you get a message telling you to go pay your bill or whatever, you're gonna get an alert that at least says, Hey, this website is like a day old.

You need to be really careful before you before you pay, like start getting your credit card out or giving your personal information away. And even that we're finding is enough for someone to, to avoid. Potential disaster, like phishing or, or something like, like a phishing attack. Even someone that works with us, they were trying to renew their passport [00:30:00] and the first result on Google when they had searched for passport renewal form or something was a fake.

Us passport website running ads on Google, and they started filling out, they like started typing their name and then all of a sudden they got their alert from Seraph Secure that was like, this website's actually three days old or, or whatever. And they're like, oh my gosh. I would've like, I would've filled out all of my information.

So I, I bring that up just to say whether they're like super sophisticated targeted attacks at an older demographic or even some like our age, any anyone can benefit from something like that. 

Matt R: Yeah. No, I love that. And I know I had mentioned before the modern day Avenger, you're like, Tony Stark building this stuff for the people, man.

So, uh, thank you. Uh, that Yeah, no, 

Kitboga: It's my honor. Yeah. 

Matt R: Yeah. And then, you know, one thing. I think your content does so well. It's just really showcasing the human side of this issue. I know you've, you know, shared this story in other places. [00:31:00] I know you've shared some stories with us already, but I'm wondering if there's any like one victim story that really stuck with you and, you know, if it reveals anything about the bigger problem.

Kitboga: Yeah. Yes. So there's a guy named Edwin who he helped. Who truly believed. So I'll try to give like a really quick story, but he, his wife had Parkinson's. He's taken care of from, taken care of her for years and to kind of pass the time together. They were really big fans of Emma Watson in, in some movies.

And so they would go on, they had, they thought they found Emma Watson on Facebook. Wow. And it was this fake, scammer pretend to be Watson. And when they were, when she was, you know, his wife is there on, on, he described it as on her sick bed together. They would both chat with Emma. It was like something they did together.

They thought they [00:32:00] were pen pals with Emma Watson and they did this for apparently like two or three years. Wow. Wife passes away and this is what gets me so like, I don't know, it's like you, you want to cry or you just wanna yell. The scammer waited until his wife passed away to like really? Sink their teeth in and start exploiting the guy.

So as soon his wife passes away, he posts about it on Facebook. Of course, now Emma Watson starts like going in for the kill and, and really being there for him and always around a top fake, Emma Watson, I should say. Mm-hmm. And they like start a little bit of a, uh, a relationship together, like a, like friends and, and then it gets a little bit more romantic and the guy ends up thinking that he.

Oh, and this is, sorry if I'm going on too long. Feel free to, is [00:33:00] he even said, he's like, my wife gave me her blessing before she passed away to, to like, to keep talking to her because she knew that I was gonna be alone. But the long story short. Because I could go on for a while, is he really believed that he was starting a new life together with, with this person that he talked to for years.

And he was putting money aside, like the, so he started like moving money to a bank in the in the uk because that's where she lives. Right. And he was gonna move there. And it was just like, I think about a, a, a few hundred thousand dollars that he, over the course of a few years had been that he had lost.

But he didn't know, he thought that he was about to move and start a new life with with this person. So thankfully we were able to help him and, and tell him about the scam and stop like further funds from being moved and get him some help. But maybe it goes to that bigger problem of in some [00:34:00] cases it's like there's people who are alone or people that like, yeah, right time, right place.

Like those scammers just. Like a, just imagine an animal like stalking its prey. Like that person was just, that scammer was a waiting for the right time to strike. I don't know. It just stuck with me. I don't know if that resonates with you or, or if it's too much for the, for theAudience. No, I mean, I audience I think it's, 

Matt R: It's real stories that people are really dealing with, right?

Like, I've seen some of those stories of people pretending to be people on Facebook and even, you know. Scamming people around our age, younger than us. Right. Pretending to be people, you know, catfishing, that was a big story. And like MTV, right? But like, people are using that as a way to like get money.

'cause things are tied up in customs and, you know, they're stuck somewhere. And, you know, this famous MLB player reaching out to me, he needs my help, so I'm gonna go help 'em. Right? Yeah. And I think, awareness is key and it's, it's sometimes tough to take a step [00:35:00] out and like realize what's going on here in some of those things.

Yeah. You know, my, my last question here for you Mr. Boa Kitboga well, you know, with so much of the tech involved right? It's, it's, it can be easy to forget that awareness is still our best defense. And I'm wondering if there's any, if there's like a few practical things people can do right now to protect themselves or their loved ones.

Kitboga: Yeah. And. You know, I'll kind of answer that starting with a little bit of something that popped into my head based off what you just said, which is I've been trying, I don't know exactly how to do this, but I've been trying to help raise awareness or get a bit of a fire going in, people that, trying to think of how to word this correctly. But I think the, if you were to, if we were to do this, Matt, if we went on the street today and started asking people about scams, I think that the, my, my assumption from talking to just lots of people about this is [00:36:00] that the, the average person doesn't realize how insidious and how targeted and how, how much of an attack it is.

So when you think of scam. I think you think of the Nigerian Prince email, and even when I was talking about that, it popped into my head 'cause I was talking about Edwin and, and uh, Emma Watson on Facebook. And I know because I've had the same reaction. I know that there's gonna be someone who hears that story and it's like, who would ever think that they're talking to Emma Watson or who would ever think that they're talking to the MLB player?

And it's like, the problem, is like that's the mentality that people have with scams and I'm trying to figure out like, how do we break that spell? How do we make, how do we educate and make people. Aware of the, of the fact that like, maybe you wouldn't fall for Emma Watson, right? Maybe you're, maybe you're not in that place where you're [00:37:00] lonely or you're not as old, or whatever it is.

Like you could, you could make whatever excuse you want. You won't fall for that Emma Watson scam. But when somebody. Says that you're, you know, maybe you're like a gamer and when someone messages you on Discord, someone sends you a Venmo, request. Exactly, 

Matt R: exactly. I thought I was above you're same thing, right?

Yeah. Like I never happened to me. Like I'm smart, I, I understand tech and it, and they got me. Mm-hmm. It's not, you know, yeah. And it, stupid tax, but I learned, right. Like, so Yeah. 

Kitboga: But I, I, even if I can, uh. At the, at the risk of even like stupid task text, it's like, when you hear the word hack, like if you told me that, if you said, Kit, I got hacked the other day or Kit, someone broke into my house.

There's this feeling that you get, I think that is. You were wronged. Like you did nothing wrong. Someone attacked you, [00:38:00] someone viciously targeted you, you and broke into your house or broke into your computer, or whatever it is. But when you say scam, I think there's this like general feeling of like, oh, you're stupid.

Like what an idiot. It's your fault. For getting scammed. You should have known better. And that's part of what I'm, I'm hope, I hope there's some way that I can help change the narrative that's like, no, these are, some of these are really targeted, really sophisticated attacks.

And like I said in the beginning, these are criminal organizations that guy who pretended to be Emma Watson weighted. 

Speaker 3: Two 

Kitboga: years before they asked for money. It's this, that scammer, it's his job, right? Like he, he hunts people for a living. And I, I don't think that's what people think of. Sorry, I'm getting, like, I get a little passionate about that because I've just talked to I wanna say like 40,000 scammers or something over the past eight, like lots of scammers.

And so yeah, back to your question about awareness is like, I, I think. Maybe that's part of the answer to that question is just [00:39:00] how, like finding ways to, to educate or, or help people be aware of, like, this is a really serious topic and maybe to get rid of some of that, even when I talk to law enforcement officers or, or, or different bank tellers, like there's this general vibe of, yeah, people come in or they're calling us 'cause they got scammed and like, gosh, they're so, I can't believe they fell for this one.

And I, I hope that we can Yeah. Get away from that. And then a few practical things you asked, okay, what could you do today? Of course I could say like, watch some KI OGA videos or, or download Seraph Secure. It's free. But, uh, apart, apart from that, I do think genuinely just talking about it, like finding ways to talk about it can help.

Um, that's why I, yeah, even saying something like watch some Ki OGA videos is maybe not, I know it sounds kind of cheeky 'cause they're my videos, but like I, I think sitting down, it can be hard to sit down. Your family, especially like your like aging, um, [00:40:00] family and say, like, even my parents, I don't wanna say to my dad like, Hey, I think you might need to know about some of this stuff because you're not as tech savvy as you once were.

But sitting down and watching like a video that's of, of mine that's kind of funny can help break the ice a little bit and it gets you, it gets you talking about it. There's also some really good Yeah, like podcasts like this or, um, I, I hope it's okay to mention A-A-A-R-P has a really good, podcast with scam stories like, so that that might be a way to just break the ice and talk about it instead of it being like, okay, we're gonna sit down and have a family meeting and discuss scams, because I don't think most people wanna have that conversation. And then it's also kind of difficult to just send an email like, mom, or, or, hey, hey buddy.

Like, Hey, my work colleague, here's the top 10 scams to be aware of this week. Like, I, I don't think most people want to get that email. So yeah, finding humor or finding, uh, like entertaining ways to talk about it, I think is, is [00:41:00] a great way to start. 

Matt R: I love it. Okay. Boa, thank you so much for spending some time, uh, with us today and just doing awesome work in the world.

If everybody was like you, we would have no problems, I would think, but, uh, just, just appreciate for who you are as a person and all that you do. So, uh, thank you. 

Kitboga: Yeah, thanks for having me on.