KENTUCKY - "I'm tired of the constant grind," conveyed bank fraud perpetrator Hank Ketchum. "There's gold in it, but I'm sick of the prospecting. I want an easier scheme with a high payout!"
Luckily for Hank, he discovered that certain YouTubers were prone to being scammed on the products they would unbox and describe. Why they did this, he had no clue, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.
The bigger, the better, thought Ketchum. Within a few days he implemented fake online postings for various toys and collectibles. Stock photos would have to do until he got some hits.
A week later he was responding to a $100,000 order for Pokemon cards. They were supposed to be ultra-rare first edition cards, nostalgia from the 90s that would be embraced by the unboxing followers.
Ketchum didn't have any Pokemon cards. He looked around his place and called a few friends. He was able to compile a variety of cards into some fake Pokemon card wrappers and a box. Playing cards, baseball cards, and others were sent to the famous unboxing YouTuber, Unwrappy. A wire for $100,000 was sent to the scammer’s account. Hank Ketchum had succeeded. But the story wasn't over.
Unwrappy, receiving the wrong cards, proceeded with the unboxing. With his entourage of aspiring YouTube stars, he proceeded to unbox and unwrap the goods (or not-goods in this case).
"Something is not right!" he exclaimed. "Does this look right to you? Oh man, I spent $100,000 on this! What are these? DIGIMON CARDS?! I don't want Digimon cards! PATAMON?! What is a PATAMON?"
The video went on recording, capturing all the emotion and faces that Unwrappy could muster. A week later he had 10 million views. People couldn't stop watching the excessive amount of money he spent to get a box of nearly worthless cards. And Hank watched it all unfold. All those views were appealing to the fraudster.
"Time to double down on this. Instead of continuing to defraud them, why not just pretend to be scammed and record my reaction?" Hank Ketchum decided right then and there that he would be a YouTube star.
Ketchum's channel followed the formula of unboxing videos, except that in all of them he would pose as being scammed. The videos caught on pretty quick. On the one hand Ketchum was indirectly educating the viewers to be careful when buying things online. But on the other hand, he was glorifying the scam even though it was all fake.
By the time others began to copy Ketchum's tactic, he had made a cool million and had secured his place in online video history.