Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Scammer Got Exposed By a Youtuber

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Youtuber Pierogi aka Scammer Payback along with fellow Youtube channel Trilogy media work together to expose and dismantle a $65 million dollar mutinational fraud ring.

An all-new season of the secret lives of Mormon wives is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Mom Talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are dancing with the stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. That is huge. But all the cool opportunities could close apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.

My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So this YouTuber actually did something pretty badass. Now the guy's name is Parogi, and Parogi's around 34 and he's living in the U.S., and this guy really hates scammers, like he wants to bring them all down.

In fact, he hates them so much that he has a whole YouTube channel called Scammer Payback. And he uses this channel to expose online and like phone scammers and to try and protect innocent victims from being conned out of their life savings and whatnot. It's actually pretty cool. So one day in 2020, Parogi, I guess he gets an email or like a pop-up ad or something telling him that he's owed a refund of $500 from Amazon. And of course, he knows this is a total scam. And he is not going to let this slide.

He's going to try and bust the people who did it. So he invents an alias and he pretends to be a 79-year-old elderly woman named Vivian Rogers. And he uses a voice modifier to change his voice. and everything. So he calls the number that the scammers gave him in their fake email or whatever. And he pretends to be this elderly woman. I'm doing fine, Dan. Nice to meet you. I'm Vivian. Thank you for helping. So I'm supposed to be getting back $499. And so he eventually ends up talking to this guy, Ben. And Ben claims he's the senior manager in charge of getting her the refund, but in reality he's just another scumbag scammer. So Ben has Perogi log into the bank account where he wants the refund to go.

Now, I'm assuming part of the reason the scammers do this is to see how much money the person has in their bank account so that they can see how much money they can scam out of them. So do one thing, grab a pen and a paper handy with you. Oh, handy. Right down the available balance. Yes. And write down the available balance which you have into your checking account. Then Ben has Parogi type in the amount he's owed, which is technically $499, but they rounded up to $500. What is that? This is the refund form which you need to fill this and complete the refund. Okay, ma'am.

I can't even type, honey. You just need to put $500. That's it. Okay, $500. All right. Now, this is where Ben gets really sleazy. He intentionally types in $5,000. See on the screen it says $5,000.

You just need to put 500. That's it. Okay, 500. All right. You spell transferred wrong. Oh, I'm not typing it anything. It's from the server itself. But he blames this typo on Parogi.

Did you put 500 or $5,000 in the banking server? I put $500. Are you sure? Yeah. You can just double check the banking server. I put 500, honey. You saw me. I didn't put $5,000.

I put $500. Oh, my God. Ma'am, you can see over here. highlighted in white since 5,000. And now that he has convinced this poor elderly woman that she's made a typo, he starts to manipulate her by telling her that he knows that she's an honest person. And he basically says he knows she'll return the extra money to them. Okay. So I can trust you with my money, which you got into your account, right?

So then Ben tells Parogi that it's going to be his responsibility to get their money back to them. But also that they conveniently don't accept checks. So Parogi needs to mail the money to him in cash. And this is their entire scam. To make some poor elderly grandma believe that she accidentally transferred this company too much money and then asking her to return the extra money. That's how it works. Not only that, this asshole attempts to convince Parogi,

pretending to be an old woman, that she also owes them a totally different refund. that I don't even have time to get into. So when all is said and done, Ben wants Parogi to go to UPS and send him $35,000 in cash to the address he provides, which, sadly, I'm sure a lot of elderly people fall for this and do it. And then Ben and his scam company will take the money and the victim will never see them or the money ever again. But of course, that's not what's going to happen. Because these scammers aren't dealing with an elderly victim.

They're dealing with Parogi. A guy who deals with these con men all the time, a guy who has made it his mission to bust them. And that is where these scammers screw up. Because in order for Parogi to mail them the $35,000 in cash, they need to give him a mailing address. And they do. Ben gives him a mailing address in the San Francisco area. So now Parogi has an address and all the information he needs. needs to not only catch these assholes, but to also get their faces on camera.

And that is where Parogi teams up with these guys, Ashton and Art, aka Trilogy Media. And Trilogy Media, they also have a YouTube channel, and they also make videos about busting scammers. So Parogi collaborates with them, I assume because they live closer to the target. And so instead of sending the package of cash, Parogi has the Trilogy Media guys, go to the address that Ben gave them on the phone. So these two guys, Ashton and Art, they go to the San Francisco address in person. And surprise, surprise, the location is not a business.

It's just sort of a house. And Ashton and Art actually find the guy who lives there. And they start grilling this dude about this package. Because I need to give this package to Hans. Okay. Do you have an identification we can release the package? Yeah. This is from Vivian Rogers.

So Vivian Rogers sends to Hans. Now, the package is addressed to someone named Hans. But of course, there is no real Hans. So as soon as this shady guy says that he's Hans, they confront him. Because now they know that he's in on the scam. Do you know what is inside? I don't even know. It's actually one of my friend.

Listen, inside is supposed to be $35,000. That's what you're expecting, right? That's what you're expecting. So this is a scam. And of course, this dude doesn't admit that he's done anything wrong, but Ashton and Art are not about to let this guy walk away from this. So they finally give him an ultimatum. You have two options right now.

We either get law enforcement here right now or you can talk to us. We're not law enforcement, but we'll get them here in five minutes, and we have no problem doing that. But the guy still doesn't come clean. He makes it seem like he's not actually one of the scammers that he's just the guy who collects the money for them and that he's actually scared of the people that he works for. Anything happen? Can I call you guys?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. They probably have guns. I don't know. I want they to chase down me and kill me. And Ashton Art don't actually know it yet. But in reality, this is not just a guy who collects the money. He is himself a scammer. He's actually a Chinese national whose name is Ji.

And just by himself, he's scammed like $1.8 million dollars, mostly from elderly people. And because Ashton and Art get GE to give them his driver's license when he signed for the package, they now have his real name and from the footage they have his face. So they take all this video footage and information and they decide to tip off the feds. And as soon as the feds get involved, they launch a huge investigation into GE and the whole scam ring that he works with. And they estimate that just this scam ring alone has stolen more than, $65 million from senior citizens in the U.S. And so anyway, bam, federal agents arrest GE.

And I don't have a mugshot, but here is a picture of him posing with stacks of cash like a douchebag. And so as of 2025, feds have charged 28 members of this scam ring. And I guess as of right now, all or most of these turds are just waiting for their trials. So shout out to these YouTubers for bringing down a whole scam ring. That's pretty awesome.