Pig Butchering Scams: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Why HN readers recommended it

Offered as an accessible, well-made explainer to share in threads on scam texts, crypto fraud and scam compounds.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

LastWeekTonight

Topic

pig butchering scams

Format

commentary

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

5

HN mentions in dataset

10

Recommendation years in dataset

2024–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• John Oliver did an excellent explainer about how pig butchering works. [VIDEO] (apologies if the YouTube link has geographic restrictions, don't know if it does)

• [VIDEO] It's well worth the watch, but tl;dr: it's a long-con scam. They invest as long as it takes to establish a relationship with you, and then engage you to do something (crypto mostly, apparently) involving cash online. They will say they made a bunch …

• These pig butchering scams play the long game with their victims. It's crazy. The payoffs are huge as well. These are just some of the stories I have heard through various mediums (ie, podcasts, news stories, media segments) - Kansas bank CEO charged with $50M …