This post is an excerpt from Forbes 30 under 30 Millionaire Chris Kelsey's account of his "biggest scams":
Stupid people like to say I am a scammer because of many different, stupid reasons and they’ve always been wrong. I have actually scammed before, but not from the things that people have accused me of doing.
- E-Whoring
In May 2013, I googled how to make money online from scamming (not those exact words but something to that extent). E-whoring was one of the first things I saw that appealed to me due to the possibility of making a lot of money from it. I read guides that talked about going on adult chats while pretending to be a girl, and selling picture packs or cam shows to them.
I went on an adult chat site (I don’t remember the name, nor do I want to) and said I was selling picture packs. Some people added me on Skype, and some weird guy said he’d pay me $30. I took some random picture pack from online and sent it to him. I got up and ran around the room because it was pretty much the first time I made money completely on my own.
I kept trying this for the next week but had very little success. I wanted to take it to the next level so I learned more about VCWs. They were videos that you could play on your Skype screen and click different buttons to prove you’re real. The VCW that I downloaded for free from a random hacker forum would show a woman sitting on the chair, and I could click “wave,” “blow kiss,” and other stupid things. They were live recordings of a woman who was paid to record her different actions for the sake of making a VCW. VCW stands for “virtual cam whore” which I actually did not know until today.
I began offering cam shows while pretending to be a girl on the chat. Once they’d add me on Skype, if they seemed serious, we’d start a skype call and I had the VCW playing so it showed a girl on the screen. I kept a piece of paper so I could block the top part of my screen so I couldn’t see whatever weird shit the potential buyer in the skype call was doing.
Usually they’d ask me to do different emotes and sometimes they’d ask for an emote that I didn’t have in the VCW, so I’d try to click a similar emote to make it possibly look real. I would say that I did it but it was laggy as the reason why they couldn’t see it properly. If I failed this test, I wouldn’t get their money, and sometimes I could tell they just wanted to stay on the call as long as possible, so then I’d hang up and block them.
The most I ever made selling cam shows was $250 in a night, when I was 16. I only accepted Amazon gift cards instead of Paypal because it was harder to refund. I read on the forums many horror stories of other e-whorers (lol) losing money because of Paypal refunds.
I would sell cam shows for whatever price I thought I could get. Once they sent the first gift card, I’d tell them it didn’t work and to send another. This worked about 50% of the time and it doubled the money. I’d place an order on Amazon as soon as possible just incase they tried to refund the gift card.
Once I received their money, I would either block them or troll them. If I wanted to troll them, I usually made the cam show look like it was about to begin. I would then spam click to repeat one of actions over and over and finally played this video.
At one point it started getting harder to make money because my VCW was free and dozens of people were using the same VCW on the same adult chat websites. I decided to mention that my VCW was an underage girl. Once they’d start talking to me, I’d say that they needed to give me $100-$200 or I’d report them to police (I never actually reported them). It usually didn’t work because they’d just block me but I did get $180 one time. I could’ve scammed for more money but I really hated blackmailing people as it pushed my moral boundaries. I likely tried the blackmail idea around 5–10 times before I stopped and I always tried my best to do it without really scaring them or harming them. If they ever seemed extremely scared I would backtrack so that they wouldn’t get too scared (as I said, I really hated doing this).
I only made around $3,600 in total but I was enthralled to have made this much on my own at 16. I used the money mostly to buy designer clothes or random things I wanted. My “e-whoring history” has been a running joke between my friends and I.
- Amazon Replacements
In the beginning 2014, I had already quit e-whoring and I was looking to find the next way to make money. My friend told me about how you could call Amazon and say that your package never arrived. I tried it with an iPad and it worked. I sold it on Craigslist for a few hundred bucks, and I was amazed.
I joined a social engineering forum online and a guy was advertising that you could buy one item and get up to 3 more for free. I eventually learned the process. You would buy the item (it had to be sold by amazon), then tell them that it came broken. Each time the replacement arrived, you’d give a different excuse (although sometimes it worked even when I gave the same reason).
I had different kids from my high school receiving packages at their addresses for me. I also found houses for sale and sent them there, although this was risky as sometimes the packages were lost or sent back to amazon (because the mailmen sometimes don’t deliver to “empty” properties).
On one amazon account, I received 8 Macbook Pros for the price of one. Besides Amazon, I would order items from other websites and say they didn’t arrive. While the most I made in one month was $8,000 profit, I also had received thousands of dollars in free designer clothes.
I also found a glitch (due to the help of the social engineering forum) to receive unlimited Xbox One replacements on the Microsoft website. I only ended up receiving about 8 Xbox Ones before they fixed the bug.
A website called Zagg allowed you to add products to your Zagg account and click a button saying it is broken. I wanted to test how well it worked so I added 20 headphones to my account and reported them all as broken. I then sent it to a house for sale. They all arrived at once but I ended up giving them away because no one wanted to buy them.
In August 2014, a kid I sent items to stole my Macbooks and threatened to fight me at school. I didn’t care if he tried to fight me, but I was worried that if he fought me, the school would ask the reason. So I went to the school first saying I sent packages to his house and that he stole them, and now he’s trying to fight. They ended up not caring at all about that, and instead put me under police investigation.
A cop came to school interviewing me about why I sent packages to different people’s houses. I told him that I was ordering things for my friends who couldn’t receive packages at their own houses. I never heard from them after that and if I do, I don’t really care.
- Fiverr Flyer Distribution Scam
I originally wanted to start a flyer distribution service by hiring Fiverr flyer distributors. I eventually realized that all of them were scams, despite having hundreds of 5 star reviews. I decided I’d try it myself.
I posted a service on Fiverr offering to distribute 50 flyers at Stanford University for $5. As I received each order, I’d print a flyer and take a picture of it around my house. I ended up receiving $200 custom orders for 100,000 flyers. I got rated as a top seller on Fiverr and was featured on the front page.
Most of the people gave top reviews because they didn’t assume someone would be lying about posting the flyers (especially with photo proof). I didn’t feel extremely guilty about this scam as every person needing flyers distributed would’ve likely had no more than two responses if the flyers were actually posted. I’m not saying that to justify the scam, I literally mean that the offerings of the flyers sucked so bad.
I forgot to hide the EXIF data of the images and one person traced it by my house. They wrote a bad review saying I wasn’t actually posting at Stanford.
Each time I received a negative review, I would accuse the person that posted the negative review of asking me to post extra flyers for free. Since Fiverr allows the sellers to have the last response on a bad review, it would always make me look innocent. I sometimes made $500 in a week doing almost nothing.
- Credit Card Fraud
I posted a credit card fraud guide in December 2017 and was heavily investigated by the FBI (before and especially after I posted it). I was never interviewed or told I was under investigation but many weird things happened including my fiance’s car getting searched. They would also call in to businesses (like Best Buy) before I’d arrive so that they could be prepared to arrest me if I bought something with a stolen card.
Credit card fraud feels like having unlimited money. I spent $5,000+ with a credit card that I paid $15 in Bitcoin for. I used some of the money I made for myself and gave the rest of the proceeds away. If you are in a time of need and want to make a quick buck, this is a great way.
With that being said, I never did it to small businesses as that is screwing over regular people rather than banks. When you use a stolen card to buy something or send money, it is safe to assume that the business will lose their money once the original card owner reports the fraudulent charge (although some are protected by insurance). If you do this at Walmart, that’s fine. If do it to a mom and pop restaurant, just remember you are likely screwing them over and they will lose money (this is why I focused on big businesses only). As a side note, be careful with stores such as Target and Walmart as they specifically look out for credit card fraud. Eventually you will be flagged and can be at risk for getting caught.
Once I got out of my bad financial situation at that time, I stopped doing it. I don’t see it as a longterm way of making money. It is a great feeling when it works out as it feels like a casino but with a much more likelihood of making a profit.
Credit card fraud showed me the massive flaws of our current banking system. Its popularity has drastically increased as people are realizing how profitable it can be. I know in the near future people will not need to commit credit card fraud because our economy will have been fixed. Until then, keep swiping.
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