Context

  • I just witnessed a very unfortunate site
  • I was beside the love garden(lustgarten) where I saw a crowd of people holding cash in their hand and surrounding a man sitting on the floor saying “one two three” in German
  • at first I thought it was some sort of performance where people are having fun but I then remembered one of the first things my exchange program professor warned us on the first day
 Exactly that
  • At first I had doubts and tried to convince myself it’s not and everything is good in here. I watched for half a minute then walked away because I couldn’t bear with the discomfort with the reality of what’s happening
  • As I was walking away, my thoughts started to become more clear and rational and this is when I decided to turn back and put an end to this
  • when I arrive, I see the same group of ~6 people which confirmed that we’re dealing with scammers
  • this is where things get juicy
  • At first I was unsure of how I could stop them, should I tell the people around that they are scammers or should I point at them and stream “SCAMMERS”?
  • I ended up doing both
  • As I was doing it, I received several frowns from the scammers. At first that’s all they did. They tried to ignore me
  • I noticed several people just watching these scammers. I thought they were watching because they were considering to join but when I warn them they give me that nod signifying that they already know. Idk bout them but I can’t bear watching innocent people get scammed right in front of my eyes without doing anything about it.
  • One person tries to walk me out of the circle as if he was bout to give me a deep talk
  • I go back and continue to warn people then another one of them starts pushing me away and repeating the statement “what’s your problem” and I repeatedly respond “you’re scamming people”. He continues to ask as if that’s not a valid enough reason. Thinking bout this pisses me off so fkn much. I wanna punch each one of them in the fkn face so that it would permanently leave a mark on their face saying “I’m a scammer”
  • At some point I had to leave coz I had friends embarrassingly waiting for me lol. I unfortunately can’t stay there all day and night saving people’s money
  • I ended up doing the same thing the next day while getting recorded and this time the response was even weirder. They started sounding like sheep and clapping and basically made a fool of themselves which helped my case
  • they thought they would be able to embarrass me by doing that but I ofc was unfazed by anything they did

Feelings

  • Disappointed in humanity
    • for doing these kinds of things
    • for people not doing anything about it. Instead they’d rather watch people get scammed
  • my actions were heavily inspired by YouTubers who actively expose scammers:

Thoughts

  • I will talk to locals and see what is the best and safest way to put an end to their scamming attempts
    • what comes to mind is running past them and kicking the equipment in the hopes that a piece would break or get lost
      • obviously this is not safe. They have a split second to react and cause harm on me as I run through them.
      • I can’t guarantee that they won’t hold my leg, push me, etc.. as I am running which could be very harmful
    • a vacuum cleaner lol