Scammer panics, begs for mercy after Delhi man uses ChatGPT trap to capture his photo and location

Courtesy: Reddit screenshot

It is not every day that a scammer ends up begging the person he tried to cheat. But that is exactly what happened to a young IT graduate in Delhi, who decided to fight back in a way the scammer never saw coming, as per his Reddit post.

The story began with an unusual Facebook message. Someone was pretending to be his college senior, now an IAS officer. The impersonator claimed that a CRPF friend was being transferred and wanted to sell expensive furniture and appliances at extremely low prices. The scammer even asked for his number to “coordinate” a quick sale. Something felt off. The real senior already had his contact. So he checked directly with him and got instant confirmation: it was fake.

Soon, another message arrived, this time from a number using an army profile picture. It included photos of the supposed goods and a demand for payment through a QR code. That was enough to confirm the scam. Instead of blocking the scammer and forgetting about it, the Delhi man decided to turn the whole situation on its head.

He told the scammer that he was having trouble scanning the QR code and needed a moment. While the scammer waited, thinking the sale was still on, the Delhi resident opened ChatGPT and asked it to create a very specific webpage. He wanted something that looked like a simple payment upload portal, but the page would quietly capture the visitor’s GPS location and take a photo through the device’s front camera. With the code ready in minutes, he hosted it and prepared the trap.

He then sent the link to the scammer, telling him to upload the QR code there to “speed up the payment.” Trusting the fake portal completely, the scammer clicked.

The results came instantly. The page sent back the scammer’s live coordinates, IP address and a clear front-camera photo of him sitting at his desk. The Delhi man wasted no time. He sent the scammer his own photo along with the exact location details.

That is when everything changed. His phone was suddenly flooded with calls from different numbers, all belonging to the same scammer. The man who had been confidently pushing for money only minutes earlier was now panicking, apologising and begging not to be exposed. He even promised to quit scamming altogether.

The Delhi resident knows the scammer will probably be back at it soon, but the moment was still deeply satisfying. As he wrote, catching a scammer off guard felt like stealing from a thief, and sometimes, that small victory is enough.