On Game Theory, Dollar actions and turning it around on phone scammers

This post is off the usual topics for this site. Think of it as a PSA though. We think the information in it is valuable to anyone who happens across this post.

There once was a man named John Nash. He was immortalized in the public consciousness by a quasi accurate but very incomplete film called, A Beautiful Mind.

He was indeed a Schizophrenic and a genius. And he invented a new kind of psychology, or more accurately, a new model for behaviour, not just human, and arguably not even just living things, called Game Theory”.

For those interested in a truly fascinating read on the subject, and one which will enhance your understanding of human and animal behaviour dramatically, or at least it did ours, get and read the book, Moral Calculations by Hungarian mathematician, Laszlo Mero. And try to ignore his generally left of centre bent. Many people who wrote prior to the communist revolution in the West were left of centre when they had no idea what that really meant. (that goes triple for Jews)

One of the first examples of Game Theory in his book is a device called, The Dollar Auction. In summary, the dollar auction is where you convince a player to invest in something. Anything where they think there will be a payoff. Once they have invested anything at all, even a dollar and the time it took to invest the dollar, they will now have something to protect, and will invest more to protect that investment they have already made.

This explains a lot of phenomenon in life. People who stay with abusive lovers are a classic example. The endless taking of abuse is an investment in the payoff of not being abused.

Repairing a total lemon of a car to protect the money spent already to make it run, to protect the money spent to buy it.

But the one that we have all experienced is the Nigerian Money scam. At least in one form or another.

That is where a scam caller convinces you to spend time and effort to get a payoff. in the NMS it is where you get a treasure if you just pay off the various fees required to free it up and send it to you. This scam works astonishingly well and stings even very bright people. I knew a doctor that bragged (when the scam was new) that he was working on getting millions from a Nigerian Prince or some equivalent and he expected it any time now. Once he realized he had been scammed he never mentioned it again or said how much he had been taken for.

Variations of the scam are common and can be subtly different in ways that make it hard to recognize if you do not have the basics of understanding the Dollar Auction game. Again, reading Moral Calculations: On logic and human Frailty) can literally save you time money and brutal frustration and shame.

(the books has become very expensive. This is not an affiliate link, it’s just a link denuded of identifiers. See if you can find it used or maybe it is cheaper on Amazon.com instead of Amazon.ca) Just checked, yes it is.)

So it is with some pleasure I present you with this video.

The gentleman in the video below used to live stream on a relatively arcane streaming site, his real time defeat of phone scammers. he is what is commonly called, “A white hat hacker” and would humorously for us, waste time of phone scammers while actually hacking their systems, turning on their own web and security cameras and exposing them while frustrating and even sometimes getting them arrested.

We used to get notifications of when he was on air, which was when he got a scam call, and would then sit back and enjoy the show. He has a lot of equipment like voice changers and hacker tools. But all we need to protect ourselves is an understanding of the mechanism used.

He uses the Dollar Auction method back at them. So yes, a delicious layer of irony on top of the raw revenge factor. If you have been getting fewer scam calls, you have him to thank at least in part. They think they are getting a payoff at the end, EXACTLY like the Nigerian money scam. But instead they get dicked around forever. The only difference there is he is wasting time they would be using to scam you. He is not stealing from them any more than time and pride. While they will stop at never to take everything you have worked your whole life for.

Knowing the mechanism he uses, I think adds to the enjoyment of this video. And adds a layer of protection for all of us, as it becomes easy to recognize these forms of attacks on us, even if its in our personal lives, or phone scams, auto-repair and the various ways this mechanism is semi-consciously or fully deliberately deployed against us.

Below, a related video on how to mess with AI phone scam calls that anyone can do without special equipment. An issue that most likely will grow significantly in the very near future.

At least there is some minor satisfaction in that even phone scammers are being replaced by AI.

Source: https://vladtepesblog.com/2026/07/05/on-game-theory-dollar-actions-and-turning-it-around-on-phone-scammers/