Scambaiting is a topic that is mostly covered by YouTubers and media outlets from time to time but did you know there are scientific approaches to it as well? As the final part of my Bachelor’s degree and probably the first scambaiter ever, I wrote my thesis about scambaiting. The title is “Application of crowdsourcing platforms for fighting telephone scams” and researches how crowdsourcing platforms such as our telephone platform BobRTC make an impact on fighting scams. On over 50 pages (including the literature references and appendix), my thesis also gives an overview of existing literature covering scams, tech support scams in particular, robocalls, and crowdsourcing methods.
Using BobRTC as a case study, I interviewed five scambaiters and four scammers about their experiences and motivations and other questions related to the effects of scambaiting. As part of the qualitative research approach, the interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using software to code them and find themes which then were extracted as results and interpreted.
