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‘Stealing from a thief’: How ChatGPT helped Delhi man outsmart scammer, make him ‘beg’ for forgiveness
According to the man, the scammer contacted him on Facebook, pretending to be a senior from college who is an IAS officer.
A Delhi man outsmarted a scammer impersonating his college senior and tracked him down using ChatGPT to ruin his “Army transfer/cheap goods” scam.
Sharing a post on Reddit, the man said he used ChatGPT to locate the scammer and “made him beg”. The post, made under the r/delhi subreddit, detailed how an everyday scam message turned into an AI-powered operation.
According to the man, the scammer contacted him on Facebook, pretending to be a senior from college who is an IAS officer. The scammer claimed that a “CRPF officer friend” was being transferred and was selling high-end furniture and appliances at throwaway prices.
Feeling that something was not right with the message, the man said that he contacted the said friend on WhatsApp, and the whole thing was revealed to be a fraud.
Locating the scammer through ChatGPT
When the man received photos of the furniture and a demand for money via a QR code from another profile with an Army uniform profile picture, he decided to pursue the matter.
According to the post, the scammer repeatedly urged him to send the money urgently, which the man said “felt immediately wrong”. He further said that the scammer switched to urgency once money was mentioned.
The man then used a fake payment portal that he created using ChatGPT. According to the post, he instructed the engine to create a payment portal that appeared legitimate but was actually designed to capture the scammer’s geolocation and front camera image.
“I fed the AI a prompt for a simple, functional webpage,” he explained, describing how the model generated the code within minutes. He then hosted the tracker page and sent the scammer the link, telling him that uploading the QR code there would “expedite the payment process.”
The scammer fell into the trap and clicked on the link, instantly feeding the fake portal his exact location, IP address, and a front camera image, which the man said was “shockingly clear”. He then sent the scammer his own picture and location details.
Within minutes, the man said he received multiple calls from the scammer, who used different numbers, and begged for forgiveness. He shared the screenshots that showed the panic that the scammer was in at that point.
According to the post, the scammer started pleading, saying he would “abandon this line of work entirely” and asking desperately for forgiveness.
The man acknowledged that the scammer would likely “be scamming someone the very next hour,” but still admitted that “the satisfaction of stealing from a thief is crazy.”
