As I have been browsing the internet looking for new trucking videos, I have been running into a new scam that I thought all of you should know about. Most of the readers of this blog know that there is a current oil boom in North Dakota. Shale oil is being produced at a rate ten times that of previous years. Due to this boom, thousands of people are pouring into the state in search of work.
And as with all things business-related, there are trucks involved and jobs for truckers. By now, you are probably thinking: so where is the scam? Here is the problem. A number of YouTube channels have been set up from a variety of countries, each with the same purpose. That purpose is to promote some website that claims to have North Dakota oil jobs or North Dakota trucking jobs. As to the validity of the job boards themselves, I have no information; however, I would not click on the links. They could always be viruses or phishing attempts.
Anyway, back to the scam. So on these YouTube channels, the operators of the channels are posting hordes of pirated videos, many of which are from popular YouTube trucking channels. I know personally that some of Jerry Ott's videos from Big Rig Talk and Matt Lynch's videos from 1776 Filmz have been placed on these channels.
I am constantly on the lookout for these channels, so if you get a YouTube message from TheJEF26 or a Twitter DM or tweet from TheRoadRunner2k, this is not spam. I am working to thwart this problem one channel at a time.
If you get such a message from me, go to the bottom of the pirating channel's YouTube homepage and click the report button. You can flag them for violating your copyright, and these channels should be shut down. My whole goal with this post is to inform you as truck drivers with YouTube channels that your videos may be being pirated by YouTube scammers.
Keep the shiny side up, and we'll see you down the road.
