Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rosie Okumura. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Rosie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

I am a voice actor and YouTuber with a very specific niche: Scamming Scammers! I got into all of this all because of my mom receiving a scam call in 2019 where they took hundreds of dollars from her. They were posing as Microsoft Windows through an internet pop-up saying she had a virus on her computer. I wanted revenge, so I called them to drive them crazy and waste their time so they couldn’t call other people who didn’t know better. I was also able to call the bank and get her money back in time (fewf!). Ever since that first call, I started going live on different platforms pranking scammers using different voices and then publishing the videos on YouTube.

In less than a year I hit 1 million subscribers on YouTube and have been creating this kind of content ever since. There are so many different kinds of scams, and with technology and AI advancing, the scams are getting more intricate and clever by the day. Since these scammers are likely never going away, I like to take a preventative and educational approach to my comedic videos.

I also work with a group of volunteers who help with victim outreach and reporting scammers to authorities. One of the wildest stories was finding out that an 80 year old woman lost nearly 1,000,000 dollars over the course of 2 years to a lottery/sweepstakes scammer. Her along with many other victims usually are not able to fully recover financially from their losses, but we do everything we can to help. *”Last year, scams cost consumers $8.8 billion, which is a 30% increase over 2021’s total of $6.1 billion. In both 2023 and 2022, investment scams accounted for the most losses, causing more than $4.6 billion in losses last year — a 21% increase over $3.8 billion in 2022″*. My goal is to educate people on how to avoid being scammed, while also making them smile and laugh with my prank calls to these scum-bags!

* Source: https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/people-lost-billions-to-scams-last-year#

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of what I do is helping victims, whether it’s directly or by cheering them up by making them laugh. I get lots of messages each day from victims who can’t get their money back from a scammer, but love to watch me stick it to them in general!

How’d you meet your business partner?

What I do is called “scam-baiting”. I’ve met and collaborated and become friends with other scam-baiters as well: Trilogy Media, DEYO, Jim Browning, Kit Boga, and more! The more the merrier with this niche. We are sort of like internet vigilantes!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rosieokumura.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irlrosie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/irlrosie
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@irlrosie
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@irlrosie

Image Credits

Chanelle Barona (first headshot)