{"id":15195,"date":"2025-05-19T13:35:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=15195"},"modified":"2025-05-19T13:35:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:35:48","slug":"how-to-win-followers-and-scamfluence-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=15195","title":{"rendered":"How to Win Followers and Scamfluence People"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As soon as<\/span> Format Boy answers the phone, I recognize his booming voice. I\u2019ve spent weeks immersed in the influencer\u2019s back catalog of videos and voice notes. Format Boy isn\u2019t like other influencers: He doesn\u2019t show his face, and he won\u2019t tell me his real name. He isn\u2019t posting motivational content or seeking lucrative brand deals. Instead, he\u2019s teaching his audience how to orchestrate high-paying online scams.<\/p>\n

Format Boy\u2014as he styles himself on YouTube<\/a>, Telegram<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and X<\/a>, where he has amassed thousands of followers and racked up hundreds of thousands of views\u2014acts as an unofficial adviser to a collective of menacing West African fraudsters known as the Yahoo Boys.<\/p>\n

Typically these cybercriminals, mostly young men, work from their phones or laptops to con wealthy foreigners\u2014often Americans\u2014out of their life savings. Some have started using face-swapping and deepfakes to enhance their grifts. In one recent development, Yahoo Boys posted fake CNN broadcasts<\/a> with AI-generated newscasters designed to trick people they\u2019re blackmailing into thinking they\u2019ve been outed on the news.<\/p>\n

Often based in Nigeria, Yahoo Boys build elaborate relationships with their victims over weeks or months before they extract whatever cash they can. They\u2019re not the most technically sophisticated scammers, but they\u2019re agile and skillful social engineers. Victims in the US, UK, and elsewhere have lost millions to Yahoo Boys in recent years, and multiple teenage boys have reportedly taken their own lives after being blackmailed and sextorted by them.<\/p>\n

Yahoo Boys have their own terminology\u2014a code of sorts\u2014that helps them run scams (and potentially avoid social media moderation teams). Victims are called \u201cclients.\u201d \u201cBombing\u201d involves messaging hundreds of online accounts to see if someone responds. Scams are known as \u201cformats\u201d (hence the name Format Boy). And there are formats for all occasions. Romance and dating formats try to get people to fall in love; cops and FBI officials are mimicked in impersonation scams; Elon Musk<\/a> formats pretend to be the centibillionaire. There are investment scams, gift card scams, the list goes on. Hundreds of scripts, which can be copied and pasted directly to a victim, float around the internet. One is called \u201c50 Questions to Ask Your Client as a Yahoo Boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a whole hustle culture surrounding the Yahoo Boys. They pose with luxury cars and wear elaborate jewelry. On social media, hundreds of pages and groups, often explicitly using \u201cYahoo\u201d in their names, claim to mentor newcomers, teach them the skills they need to con people, and provide them with the tools to do so.<\/p>\n

Format Boy is one of the more prominent, or at least obvious, of these \u201cscamfluencers\u201d\u2014his posts are often flagged by cybersecurity researchers who track the Yahoo Boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be teaching you guys exactly how to make a fake video call in this video,\u201d Format Boy says at the start of his most popular YouTube video. Dramatic music blares as a deepfake video call is made onscreen. A brief text banner says it\u2019s for educational purposes only. Six of Format Boy\u2019s most popular videos, in fact, are all about creating deepfakes, with others detailing how Yahoo Boy scams work. \u201cFake video calls are very important,\u201d he says in a voice note on Telegram. \u201cSometimes your clients cannot release some information to you without seeing you physically, without seeing you on camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

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