Seth Alvo is the face of the YouTube channel Berm Peak. He regularly subjects bikes to unusual tests, for example trying to surf with a cheap fatbike or pull a 650 kg trailer up a hill with a tandem. The US-American's videos are viewed millions of times.

In one of his latest posts, the challenge is a new one: How does the Berm Peak team get hold of the guy who is contacting bike companies on behalf of Seth Alvo to get them to send him their products.

AI, namely ChatGPT, seems to be helping him with this. The emails match the tone of the well-known Youtuber pretty well, and the concept proposals that the scammer makes to the bike companies seem well thought out. Seth says it himself: you have to know him personally to recognize that an email is not from him. Alvo is also convinced that only an online marketing professional can expose the fake YouTube statistics.

The scammer gets careless

It is also clever that the scammer initially only writes to companies that Seth Alvo is not in contact with. Nevertheless, some become suspicious and write to the influencer by direct message to ask him whether an email they have received is really from him. Others do not and send e-bikes and other material to an address that is not that of the content creator. He estimates the value of all the products that bona fide employees have sent to the crook at 50,000 dollars. Over time, the fake Seth Alvo becomes careless and tries to win over companies with whom Alvo is in regular contact. Gradually, Alvo's team came across dozens of bicycle brands that had received mail from the scammer.

With the help of victimized companies and the police, they finally managed to catch the suspect in Greensboro, North Carolina. He has not yet been convicted and is therefore presumed innocent. In order to take the bikes that the officers discovered on him, they have to hire a truck. The fact that he managed to catch a suspected online fraudster for once is, of course, also due to the fact that he was not after payment details or other digital loot, but had bikes delivered to an address. Nevertheless, it took a lot of investigating to catch the impostor, as can be seen in the video.