Matt Bergwall: Return to Sender | 200

When Matt Bergwall arrives at the University of Miami in the spring of 2021, he’s young, tech-savvy, and bored. After discovering a vulnerability in corporate refund systems, he turns it into a multimillion dollar scam that quietly siphons money from some of the world’s biggest corporations. Matt spends the stolen cash on designer clothes, luxury goods, and lavish vacations. But as the scheme grows, it catches the attention of a scammer-turned-FBI-informant tracking refund fraud online, setting off a chain of events that leads to Matt’s arrest and the collapse of his high-flying lifestyle. Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah, what is the lamest thing you've ever done to seem cool?

• 0:10Sarah Hagi?

  Oh, my god.

• 0:13Sarah Hagi?

  Honestly, I feel grateful because I have three older siblings who really would make fun of me if I did something out of character. But I do remember once buying, like, something so ugly as a kid, begging my parents for it because I was like, this is, this is cool. And just like, kind of feeling guilty about it after.

• 0:31Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 0:31Sarah Hagi?

  I don't think I've really done that a ton in my life, to be honest. I don't know. But I feel like maybe I've just buried it very deep down.

• 0:39Scaachi Koul?

  I do have to admit that there was a long time where I think I fell into like the guy's girl trope. Like, I drank a lot of IPAs, and I'll never get that time back.

• 0:47Sarah Hagi?

  Wow, you as a guy's girl is sending a chill down my spine.

• 0:51Scaachi Koul?

  Can you imagine?

• 0:52Sarah Hagi?

  I can't imagine you pandering to men.

• 0:56Scaachi Koul?

  I, I learned a lesson pretty fast.

• 0:59Sarah Hagi?

  That's scary. I am so glad that that wasn't a long phase in your life.

• 1:04Scaachi Koul?

  Just a couple of minutes. Well, I'm asking because today I have a story for you about a scam artist who got into the game all because he was sick of being a dweeb. He wanted people to like him, and money was an easy shortcut. It's the origin story for a lot of villains, but somehow, this one includes several more Rolexes.

• 1:26Scaachi Koul?

  It's 2022, and reformed cybercriminal Brett Johnson is sitting down for a routine check-in with FBI agents in Alabama. Brett's in his early 50s. He's pretty easygoing, even though his broad shoulders, full goatee, and permanently furrowed brow give him a much more serious look. Back in the early 2000s, Brett went by the alias Gollum Fun. The Secret Service dubbed him the "original internet godfather" after he helped build an online network called Shadow Crew, basically a precursor for today's dark web. He and the 4,000 Shadow Crew members committed all kinds of cybercrimes, including identity theft, credit card fraud, and company data breaches.

• 2:07Scaachi Koul?

  At his peak, Brett was pulling in around half a million dollars every month. That lasted until he got arrested for buying counterfeit cashier's checks. Brett served 90 days in jail, then flipped and started working for the Secret Service. He agreed to help them infiltrate the same kinds of online forums he used to run. In exchange, they let him out on a $10,000 bond, put him up in an apartment, and gave him 50 bucks a day in cash, which is way less than he was making as a cybercriminal. It only took him two weeks to start double timing them. Brett filed false tax returns, collecting thousands of dollars a week. He also started talking to a New York Times reporter about writing a book. The feds rearrested him, and when they let him out on bond,

• 2:50Scaachi Koul?

  he immediately ran away. Here's how he described it years later on the Lex Friedman podcast.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  I was on the run for four months, stole $600,000. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, the night before I'd stolen 160K out of ATMs. The next morning, I woke up, and there's my name, U.S. Most Wanted. And that gets your attention.

• 3:13Scaachi Koul?

  The announcement also exposed Brett's work with the Secret Service, and being outed as an informant put him in serious danger. So he did what any most-wanted criminal would do. He fled to Orlando and spent six weeks going to Disney World every single day.

• 3:30Sarah Hagi?

  Okay, Disney World is one of the most... It's basically a police state.

• 3:35Scaachi Koul?

  He's hiding in plain sight.

• 3:36Sarah Hagi?

  He's hiding in plain sight at a place with the most cam... like, as many cameras as a casino or prison.

• 3:41Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, well, eventually, the authorities did track him down at his timeshare and hauled him back to prison. After one more failed escape, he finally decided to turn his life around. He reached out to one of the FBI agents who helped catch him and basically said, "You got me. Now, can I have a job?" And the agent said, "Yes." Brett rebuilt his life and became an FBI consultant, helping the feds catch a new generation of cybercriminals.

• 4:09Sarah Hagi?

  Boo.

• 4:10Scaachi Koul?

  Truly, boo. The cop of cops, right? Well, lately, Brett has been tracking a new trend in cybercrime: refund scams, where people buy products online and then create fraudulent returns so they can keep the products and the money. By Brett's estimate, newbie scammers can make $10,000 a month. Tracking these guys down isn't hard for Brett. The scammers aren't even trying to be subtle. They're bragging in unencrypted chat rooms on Telegram, posting screenshots of orders, sharing drop addresses, even using their real names. It's sloppy. Brett flags hundreds of scammers for the FBI. But there's one user in particular who stands out, a guy who goes by the name MXB

• 4:53Scaachi Koul?

  and runs an operation called UPS Now. From what Brett can tell, UPS Now is facilitating thousands of fraudulent returns. If they can shut this group down, it'll send a message to everyone else. Refund scamming has consequences. But this big scary mastermind they're chasing? He's not the next Brett Johnson. He's Matthew Bergwall, a scrawny college kid in Miami who's trying to be cool and is in way over his head.

• 5:32Scaachi Koul?

  From Wondering, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Haggy. And this is Scamfluencers.

• 5:46Scaachi Koul?

  When Matt Bergwall arrived at the University of Miami in the spring of 2021, he was smart, bored, and desperate to seem cool. He'd grown up worshipping successful tech bros and believed that internet culture, plus disruptive tech, crypto, and NFTs, was the ticket to mountains of cash and cachet. So when he discovered a vulnerability in the corporate refund system, he turned it into a multimillion-dollar scam that defrauded some of the world's biggest corporations. He used the stolen cash to buy luxury goods, designer clothes, and wild vacations. But this college kid wasn't quite ready for the final exam. And when his scheme requires real work, the kind you can't fake, Matthew's gonna earn himself a big, fat F.

• 6:31Scaachi Koul?

  This is Matt Bergwall: Return Scam to Cunder.

• 6:39Scaachi Koul?

  It's 2013, and 11-year-old Matt Bergwall is holed up in his bedroom, hunched over a glowing computer screen. He looks like a middle school Timothy Chalamet knockoff: skinny, floppy brown hair, sharp jawline. And he's a smart kid, maybe a little too smart. Matt's growing up with his sister and twin brother in a wealthy Connecticut suburb. His dad, Eric, is a real estate executive, and his mom, Donna, was a VP at Chase. He comes from money and wants for nothing. And Matt is a natural with tech. When the rest of his peers are playing video games, he's actually building the servers that host them. Here he is, years later, on the Dharma Unfiltered podcast, talking about why he started it.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  I really started with a game called Minecraft. I was young, and I had a bunch of friends that wanted to play on a private server. So as the control freak I was, I was like, I'll figure out how to make a server for us.

• 7:34Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, that's really cool. That is impressive. I'm interested to see when it turns into crime.

• 7:42Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he's gonna use it for evil. Well, in high school, Matt graduates onto something bigger, building a more complicated custom server for a grand theft auto gaming community. He later claims that he had a team of 10 developers working under him. At this point, he's just a high schooler messing around online for fun. But then he launches a true side hustle, flipping Instagram accounts, likely with money he got from his parents, no questions asked. Here's how he explained it to the Dharma Unfiltered podcast.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  I would buy an Instagram account, let's say for $1,000, and invest money into getting more followers, into more activity, advertising the Instagram account and other Instagram accounts that I manage in order to grow the activity and then sell it for $1,500. So that was kind of my first glimpse of making money.

• 8:31Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it really sounds like he's ahead of the curve when it comes to a lot of these like, online money-making schemes. Again, that are like, maybe a bit sus, but pretty much legal.

• 8:41Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, exactly. And around school, rumors start swirling that Matt's doing even shadier things, like selling discounted Spotify premium accounts, crashing school computers with malware, hacking into security cameras, and even changing his friends' grades. We don't know if these rumors are true, but he was reportedly bragging to his friends about doing vigilante hacker shit. He loved the status his computer skills provided him. He would throw parties and buy everyone alcohol. But eventually, his friends start to worry that he'll get caught and land in serious trouble, and they convince him to cool it. By this point, 17-year-old Matt has spent years soaking up online culture, from crypto trading and gaming the markets, to the myth of the young tech genius, like

• 9:26Scaachi Koul?

  FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Of course, this is before FTX collapses and Sam gets 25 years in federal prison for stealing customer funds and defrauding his investors. Matt just sees the vision: dream big, be brash, get people to believe in you, and make several fortunes. But before Matt can become the next world-famous tech entrepreneur, a personal tragedy knocks his life completely off its axis.

• 9:57Scaachi Koul?

  It's December 2019, Matt's senior year of high school. He's staring at his laptop, but this time, he's not coding or hacking, he's polishing his LinkedIn profile. After his friends' intervention, Matt's gone straight. He's still a student, but he's also gotten a full-time job, working 40 hours a week at a financial services company. He interned there over the summer, and they brought him on as a software engineer. When Matt commits to something, it's full steam ahead. It's like he wants to zip past being a kid and become a Web 3 capitalist as soon as possible. On LinkedIn, he brags that his role is, quote, "truly a full-stack project, managing design, development, and project management."

• 10:41Sarah Hagi?

  You know, I'm starting to not like him based on these words, like "Web 3 capitalist."

• 10:47Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, we're getting into word salad territory for sure.

• 10:51Scaachi Koul?

  And we also don't know what his parents thought about his overly ambitious work path. But given their own success in the business world, they probably supported Matt's choices. And maybe they even encouraged them. As a legacy at Dartmouth, his friends and family had expected him to go to an elite private college. But Matt doesn't want the stuffy Ivy League experience. He wants to be a techno trailblazer and chase that new money hustle. So Matt sets his sights on the University of Miami, where he plans to double major in computer science and management. At this time, Miami is the unofficial crypto capital of the world. It's attracting all kinds of digital players and wannabe influencers.

• 11:32Scaachi Koul?

  To Matt, they probably seem infinitely cooler than his parents' New England friends. Matt's ready to leave Connecticut for Florida. But then, his world turns upside down. Because halfway through his senior year, right before the holidays, his dad dies. Matt and his siblings knew their dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer eight years earlier. But they believed he was managing it well. So when Eric went in for a relatively routine surgery, no one expected anything unusual. The procedure itself went smoothly. But Eric had complications post-surgery. And not long after that, he died from sepsis. The loss completely blindsides Matt.

• 12:14Scaachi Koul?

  In an Instagram post around this time, Matt writes that he doesn't know how he'll ever move on. Grieving and feeling lost, and with COVID in full swing, Matt decides to take a year off from school. He stays close to home and keeps working at the financial services company. He even takes on a second full-time job at a Boston crypto startup. Matt says he feels like he needs to prove his perseverance and grit to his late father. But it seems like capitalism might also be serving as Matt's coping mechanism.

• 12:44Sarah Hagi?

  I don't think this is obviously the healthiest response, but it is super common for people to go super hard in work when tragedy strikes, right?

• 12:54Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, and one thing Matt does learn from working 60 hours a week is that he doesn't want to work for someone else. He wants to be out there pushing boundaries and building something great. Only then, he thinks, will he make his dad proud. Soon, Matt is itching for more than Connecticut has to offer. Miami, with its promise of sunshine, nightlife, and the cutting edge of the financial and business world, keeps calling. Matt's college experience is about to test just how far he's willing to go to make his dad proud.

• 13:29Scaachi Koul?

  It's fall 2021, and Matt has been at the University of Miami since last spring. The school and the city are exactly what he's been looking for. Since the pandemic, libertarian-leaning tech types have been pouring into Miami, including the founders of PayPal, Shutterstock, and Cameo, and tech super investor Peter Thiel. Miami's mayor is branding the city as a Web 3 utopia, talking about accepting tax payments in Bitcoin and investing city funds in cryptocurrency. It's exactly where Matt feels he should be.

• 14:02Sarah Hagi?

  This is hell, you know? Like, this is the formation of hell on earth. These things coming together, these forces coming together in Miami.

• 14:11Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I mean, Matt's honey is our vinegar. And Matt has been working hard to fit in. He might have felt well off back in Connecticut, but Miami is a whole different ballgame. Here, he's a very small fish in a very glitzy pond. The people he's trying to befriend are rich. We're talking bottle service at nightclubs, yachts on the weekends, designer, everything. So to keep up, Matt has shed his East Coast preppy vibes for Miami style: flashy, colorful, and shameless. Tonight, like so many nights, he's at a nightclub with friends. Light strobing, bass thumping. Even though he's underage, he got in easily. Apparently, he's great at schmoozing, and he seems to know the bouncers at all the hottest clubs,

• 14:56Scaachi Koul?

  and his friends love him for it. Since he took time off before starting school, he's a year older than his fellow freshmen. So even though he's only 19, he seems mature and put together to his peers. And he leans hard into the whole tech guru persona. Matt goes to professional networking events in the city where he plays into the idea that young people are just inherently skilled in the startup tech world. According to his friends, Matt claims he invested in a local beverage ordering app and a concert promotion business, and that he's managing more than $1 million in assets. But it's unclear whether any of this is true. There's one venture we know about for sure, an NFT project called Skeletal Cats. Here is a screenshot of the art.

• 15:41Sarah Hagi?

  I hate this so much. You're reminding me of that terrible, terrible time when people were talking about NFTs and trying to explain it. And you're like, so it's not real? And they're like, yeah, but what is real? And you're like, shut the fuck up!

• 15:54Scaachi Koul?

  Right. And can you describe the art in question?

• 15:57Sarah Hagi?

  Uh, no.

• 15:59Scaachi Koul?

  I'd like you to do it anyway.

• 16:01Sarah Hagi?

  Okay.

• 16:02Scaachi Koul?

  It's part of your sentence.

• 16:03Sarah Hagi?

  It's like what you would do on Microsoft Paint. It's like these cats and they're kind of, you know, wearing eye patches and they're different colors. It's unremarkable. It's something that you would doodle. It requires zero talent. It doesn't matter. I hate it. It's stupid.

• 16:19Scaachi Koul?

  Well, it seems like all these investments are paying off. Matt zips across campus on an electric skateboard, and on Instagram, he poses next to what appears to be his brand-new Matt Gray Tesla.

• 16:31Sarah Hagi?

  You know, this is just like one of those pictures that young guys post. It's him, and he's wearing a t-shirt with a blue blazer and matching blue pants. He's wearing sunglasses, has some chains, a watch. These other two guys dress similarly are posing behind him. It's the kind of thing that young men think will impress people, and sometimes it works. But it's embarrassing to look at.

• 16:53Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, and there's a lot of this going around. One friend posts a photo of Matt lounging in a yacht's hot tub, shirtless, sunglasses on, red solo cup in hand. The caption reads, "Boat fit for a Bond felon." And Matt replies in the comments, saying, quote, "Sometimes you need to play the part." And that's exactly what he's doing. But to keep up with Miami's elite, Matt is about to throw himself into a scheme that sounds almost too good to be true. It's Christmas break 2021. Matt's back in Connecticut with his family. But over in New Jersey, another young aspiring entrepreneur is building his empire. Andrew Zung is even younger than Matt. He's still in high school, but online, he's developing quite the name for himself

• 17:39Scaachi Koul?

  under the alias HaCoop. Andrew recently made an interesting discovery. He found a way to hack into the backend of UPS, the shipping and delivery company, and change their data without them knowing. With this newfound access, Andrew sees an opportunity for some light refund scamming. Sarah, do you know what a refund scam is?

• 17:59Sarah Hagi?

  I don't know if this is what they're doing specifically, but I do know sometimes people buy stuff from online retailers and either it was never sent or it got delivered to a wrong place and then they get a refund. So I'm guessing it is something like that?

• 18:13Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, and honestly, it's something that the average consumer might do and not even on purpose. Like, it could just be an honest mistake. You order something online. It says it was delivered. You can't find the package, so you let them know, and they send you a refund, only for the item to show up the next day. But you've already gone through the trouble of getting the refund, so, you know, who cares, right?

• 18:31Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, exactly. And it's happened to me before where I've purchased something or been sent something twice, or you know what I mean? Like, companies seem to just be, have a really relaxed policy if it's too much of a headache.

• 18:42Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Sarah Hagi?

  Where they'll, like, refund you and you're like, wait, but I didn't send... You know what I mean?

• 18:46Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 18:46Sarah Hagi?

  So I could see how it's ripe for scam.

• 18:50Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, there are scammers who are doing it on purpose. They do it at scale, too. So basically, they order something expensive and then they request a return. But instead of actually sending it back, they fake the return. It's called an FTID, or Fake Tracking ID. The online scammers pull this off in a few different ways. They send an empty box with an altered shipping label to a location near the warehouse, so it registers as received. Some scammers write the address in dissolving ink, so it vanishes in transit. And others recruit an insider to change the return status from within the system. But Andrew doesn't need an insider, because he is the insider, thanks to his UPS backend access.

• 19:34Scaachi Koul?

  In December 2021, he launches a secured chatroom on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, and starts selling his services. He calls the grift UPS Now. Customers pay him to manipulate UPS's shipping data on the backend so it looks like they returned their purchase when they didn't. In exchange, he takes a cut of their refund. The service takes off fast. Soon, Andrew has hundreds of customers, and there are two main types: refunders, who pay upfront for one-off scams. They generally just want free stuff, like a TV. But then, there's the resellers, who buy bulk scams at a discounted rate. They make their living reselling the stuff that they've faux returned.

• 20:16Sarah Hagi?

  OK, yeah. I feel like this is kind of like a shady black market business model that has existed in some form forever, but like, is digital in this way.

• 20:27Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, and you know what? Eventually, online companies will claim the UPS Now scam cost them $8 million. In late December, a new refunder uses UPS Now for the first time. He goes by MXB. And while Andrew doesn't know the guy's real identity, we do. It's Matt Bergwall. Matt and Andrew don't seem to think that this scam puts them in much danger of being caught. In fact, Matt is about to double down, hoping UPS Now can help him solve all his problems and make him rich in the process. But he'll soon discover that running a business, even an online underworld crime ring, can be a real pain in the ass.

• 21:18Scaachi Koul?

  While Andrew is launching his refund scheme over Christmas break, Matt's family suffers another loss. That December, Matt's grandfather dies, just a year after his father. His mom isn't working, and Matt later says that when he returned to Miami, he was focused on making as much money as possible to take care of her. Around this time, Matt starts an investment firm and names it EJB, his father's initials. In February 2022, he submits fake scans through UPS Now. He steals a $600 electric skateboard, a pair of $80 Rebox, and a $350 Samsung 43-inch TV. According to court documents, he allegedly kept those items for himself. Then, a couple of weeks into his illegal shopping spree,

• 22:03Scaachi Koul?

  he and Andrew somehow get in touch. We don't know how it happened, but at some point, Matt agrees to buy UPS Now outright. He pays Andrew $150,000, and just like that, he's a small business owner. And it doesn't seem like Matt did any due diligence before making this purchase. He didn't even bother to write up a contract between him and Andrew. Overnight, Matt becomes the new head of a thriving underground business with several full-time employees. But the reality of his new position isn't quite as glamorous as he might have imagined. He's now responsible for processing refund scam requests coming in from hundreds of customers. And in case you forgot, Matt is still in school.

• 22:45Scaachi Koul?

  He's doing all of this on top of a full course load and social schedule. He's a sophomore now, trying to balance it all. But it's a lot harder than he anticipated. He's really struggling. And in what might be a scamfluencers first, he decides to get some help. Around the same time he takes over UPS Now, Matt goes to see a University of Miami counselor. He complains about dysregulated sleep, although he doesn't mention that he's likely up late running an illegal shipping theft ring. The counselor notes that Matt is showing some symptoms of hypomania. Hypomania is a state of elevated energy and mood: euphoria, irritability, racing thoughts, reduced sleep. And while it's not full-blown mania,

• 23:28Scaachi Koul?

  it can still lead to impulsivity, grandiose thinking, and risky behavior.

• 23:34Sarah Hagi?

  I feel like this is something that's pretty common for people who go as hard as someone like Matt does, where it's just like running on fumes, not sleeping, probably self-medicating in so many different ways, a lot of success happening. It just seems like it's the perfect conditions to be manic.

• 23:52Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, exactly. And throw in some seemingly unresolved grief, and it is a bit of a mess. Matt keeps going back to see the counselor over the next few weeks. And each time, she flags the same symptoms, especially grandiosity. Eventually, she suggests that Matt see a psychiatrist to better address his growing problem. Meanwhile, online, Matt's grandiosity is on full display. Under his alias, MXB, he brags in the Telegram chatroom about how great his operation is. He says, quote, "Our infrastructure is that of a legitimate company." And while this might sound like an average tech bro bragging about his latest venture, it's pretty reckless for Matt, who's straight up owning his fraudulent behavior.

• 24:36Sarah Hagi?

  I think, you know, we see very often in these tech stories how the lines are kind of blurred between what is fraudulent and what is legal or will get you in trouble. And he's so young and clearly thinks so highly of himself. I think this is something that I could see a young person doing.

• 24:55Scaachi Koul?

  It's got 20-year-old written all over it, that's for sure. All the while, Matt's still indulging in his own return scams. And they keep getting bolder, like the $41,000 Rolex he claims to send back, but keeps instead. He's clearly in over his head, but it seems like he's trying to justify his choices and make the most of it. But as his customers become more and more demanding, Matt's mental state deteriorates. And his doctors in Miami are growing concerned that something deeper is going on.

• 25:28Scaachi Koul?

  It's March 2022, about a month after Matt bought UPS Now. Psychiatrist Dr. Nicholas Sikachowski is on the phone with Dr. Katherine Holder, a psychologist at the University of Miami. They share the same patient, Matt Bergwall. Matt has admitted that he's struggling and needs help, but he isn't being fully honest about why. As far as we know, Matt's doctors aren't aware of his online grift. They just think he's an overworked, stressed college student, something they've seen plenty of times before. But now, Dr. Holder is concerned that there might be more going on. She tells Dr. Sikachowski that she's noticed changes in Matt: elevated mood, erratic sleep. And from what she can tell, he's spending a lot.

• 26:11Scaachi Koul?

  The new Rolex on his wrist, the electric skateboard he rides to her office. It isn't clear whether Matt opened up to her or she simply observed these changes. But to Dr. Holder, it seems like he might be tipping into a manic or hypomanic episode. The symptoms all line up.

• 26:29Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, as you mentioned, it is super rare for anyone that we've covered to seek out legitimate help. It's weirdly heartening to know that at least two people are clocking what's happening to Matt.

• 26:41Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's a small mercy.

• 26:43Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 26:43Scaachi Koul?

  Well, Dr. Sikachowski agrees Matt is showing troubling signs. His official diagnosis is still anxiety and depression with some attentional issues. But he's worried it could be more serious, something like bipolar 2 disorder. But he can't be sure without a more detailed family history. So a week later, Dr. Sikachowski calls Matt's mom, Donna. During their conversation, she mentions that her own mother, Matt's grandmother, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For Dr. Sikachowski, this confirms the risk. Matt may very well be on the same path. But Matt's doctors are missing a critical piece of the puzzle because he's not just a struggling college student. He's running an $8 million fraud operation.

• 27:28Scaachi Koul?

  And the impulsivity they're so worried about? Online, it's only accelerating.

• 27:35Scaachi Koul?

  It's the spring of 2022, only a few weeks since Matt bought UPS Now. But already, he understands why Andrew wanted to sell the operation. The customers are demanding, annoying, and unrelenting. Matt's already had to facilitate thousands of fraudulent returns. By April, that number will be around 10,000. And his customers want constant updates, always questioning when their scans will be ready. In the chatroom, Matt snaps back that he doesn't have time to answer every impatient question. But one day, Matt admits in the chat that the site is facing a real problem. UPS might be catching on to the scheme and patching up his hacks. But he doesn't want anyone to panic.

• 28:18Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah, can you read the message he posts in the chatroom to his users?

• 28:21Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, he writes, "If people freak out like they did last time claiming the world was burning, I won't be as transparent with you guys. We are the only service currently up and running for UPS instant scans. There is quite literally no alternative for you guys to go to, so just be patient. We are fighting a company with hundreds of employees whose sole purpose is to prevent the fraud we are doing."

• 28:45Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, that is extremely crazy to put in writing.

• 28:49Scaachi Koul?

  It's kind of funny to use, like, HR language in your scam message.

• 28:53Sarah Hagi?

  And be like, listen, they are fighting the fraud we're trying to do, so we need to really buckle up.

• 28:59Scaachi Koul?

  Like, relax. Well, Matt is overwhelmed. According to later statements, he wants out, even though he's only been running UPS Now for about a month. But he sunk $150,000 into the company, and he feels like he has to make that money back. Plus, he probably doesn't want his mom to find out what he's done. But by the end of March, barely a month into running UPS Now, Matt's reached a breaking point. He posts that he's, quote, "literally going to scream." Four days later, he announces that he sold UPS Now to another fraud outfit called iFruit Services.

• 29:37Sarah Hagi?

  It seems like the scam isn't the worst part about all this for him. It's not the thing that's weighing on him the most. It's literally just like having a job and running it the way people have to do all the time. Imagine he worked customer service, it would be over for him.

• 29:51Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he had to do a job. And just like that, Matt is out. We don't know exactly how much he sold UPS Now for, but it appears to have been at a loss. Court documents will later show that Matt's net profit for the UPS Now scam, after paying all his business expenses, was only about $21,000. Matt naively believes he can cash out, walk away, and leave the whole mess behind him. But what he doesn't realize is that it's already too late. He's on the federal government's radar. This brings us back to the Alabama FBI field office, where reformed cybercriminal Brett Johnson is sharing his latest updates with agents.

• 30:33Scaachi Koul?

  He's been tracking a ton of refund fraud across Telegram chat rooms, including UPS Now. With Brett's help, the FBI combs through online networks, piecing together threads and building a list of some 300 scammers. One of the larger players is a refund fraud ring known as Rec. On the Rec message boards, its leader claims to have over 33,000 customers who've stolen more than 100,000 orders through fraudulent returns. And many of these orders are getting placed through Amazon, full disclosure, our parent company. And Amazon is finally starting to realize what is going on. Amazon later files a lawsuit and claims that between June 2022 and May 2023, they lost millions of dollars in the fight against these scammers.

• 31:18Scaachi Koul?

  The company is determined to put a stop to it, and they're actively trying to shut Rec down.

• 31:24Sarah Hagi?

  You know, again, it's not really shocking that people found a way to exploit the system, even on like an individual level or in an organized way. But I think it's just really shocking how big this got for so long before anything really happened. Like, we're talking about just a few years ago, this crackdown happening.

• 31:42Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, exactly. And Matt's not even one of the top dogs. He's just one participant in a world of rampant online fraud, and he got out of the game relatively quickly. He only owned UPS Now for about two months, and after he exited, he went back to focusing on his investment firm. But he'd been brazen about his involvement, enough to get on Amazon's radar. The company gave authorities information about Matt to help with their investigation. And the feds don't care to discriminate. They're gearing up for a major anti-refunding sweep called Operation Charge Back, aimed at dismantling as many refund fraud networks as possible. But first, they're about to bring the full force of the federal government down on Matt.

• 32:37Scaachi Koul?

  It's the summer of 2023, and two college kids are vacationing in Dubai, stretched out in an infinity pool.

• 32:45Scaachi Koul?

  One of them is 21-year-old Matt Bergwall, with a Rolex on one wrist and Cuban links on the other. The second person in the pool is his girlfriend. Her identity has been kept private, so we'll call her Ariana. She's a blonde sorority girl from the University of Miami, and apparently, she is way out of Matt's league. Maybe she likes his personality? Either way, it seems like she definitely likes the life that she gets to lead with Matt. He's likely paying for her trip to Dubai, and after this, they're off to Tulum. They both flood social media with evidence of their travels: selfies, pool shots, desert excursions. According to one of Matt's friends, Matt claims he can afford trips like these because his VC firm's investments are paying off.

• 33:30Scaachi Koul?

  But his friend is skeptical. It usually takes a few years before VC firms pay big. It's possible Matt is the exception, or maybe he's pulling money from his refund scam or just running up his credit card bill. Either way, it's not clear if Ariana knows about Matt's time running UPS Now. But at some point, he texts her, quote, "Refund fraud is the safest type of fraud." But when Ariana gets back to campus in the fall of 2023, she hears a rumor that a student has been charged with orchestrating a multimillion-dollar cyber scam, and that they could face up to 45 years in prison. Some of Ariana's peers wonder if it's Matt. And sure enough, in November 2023, the news becomes public. Here's an NBC News South Florida report.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Former U M student Matthew Bergwall was named in this unsealed federal indictment. The 21-year-old is now facing conspiracy to commit computer and mail fraud, and substantive mail fraud.

• 34:28Sarah Hagi?

  Oh shit. I mean, this does come crashing down in a big way. I feel like usually there's like hints of investigations in someone's life, but this is all really happening at once.

• 34:40Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's bad. And Ariana tells her sorority sisters that everything will get sorted out and that she and Matt will be fine. But spoiler alert, they're not. At some point after Matt's indictment, he and Ariana break up. Meanwhile, in the scammer chat rooms, Matt's former UPS Now peers are spiraling. If Matt got caught, does that mean the feds are already in the chats? Is everyone next? They speculate, panic, and vanish from the forum. Soon, their fears prove true. The FBI launches Operation Charge Back. They're sweeping crackdown on refunding crews. And that December, Amazon files their civil lawsuit against Rec. But Matt won't be able to slip away easily because the feds aren't just making

• 35:25Scaachi Koul?

  an example of refund crews, they're making an example out of him.

• 35:32Scaachi Koul?

  It's Thanksgiving 2023 in the Bergwall home, but the holiday feels hollow. Four years earlier, when Matt's dad was still alive, the holidays were something to celebrate. Now, 21-year-old Matt doesn't know what his future will hold. He's no longer a University of Miami student, and while a sympathetic judge, who happens to have a son around Matt's age, allowed Matt to spend the holidays with his family in Connecticut, he'll soon have to face the music in court. Once Thanksgiving and Christmas are over, Matt returns to Florida, where he meets with lawyers. He seems ready to put the whole thing behind him. That following summer, Matt pleads guilty to mail fraud conspiracy. The charge carries a maximum penalty

• 36:12Scaachi Koul?

  of 20 years behind bars, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervision afterwards. In the months leading up to the sentencing, Matt scrambles to clean up his mess in an attempt to reduce his prison time. In a very unusual move, he pays $1.5 million in restitution upfront, about $38,000 more than what was required. He wants to demonstrate his remorse, even though no one asked him to overpay. To do it, he took out a high-interest personal loan from a business associate with a monthly interest payment of $12,500. So he is really overpaying.

• 36:50Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I understand the impulse to be like, I'm going to show how serious I am by overpaying, but also you don't know what the judge is going to do. You can't manipulate this in that way.

• 37:01Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's odd and ineffective because even though the court acknowledges Matt's effort, they say that it's not enough. The judge considers ordering Matt to divest himself from all business activity and basically stop using computers altogether. So eager to make the judge happy, Matt cuts ties with a Swiss engineering firm that had recently hired him as a consultant. Matt's mom, Donna, begs the judge to give her son a light sentence. She's hoping for something like extended probation with home detention. By this point, Matt has been officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and he's working through it with medical professionals. Donna worries that if he goes to prison, he might not have access to the drugs that he's been taking, and that his mental health will only get

• 37:44Scaachi Koul?

  worse without proper psychiatric care. The court takes it all into consideration, but in the end, the judge decides that Matt needs to feel the consequences of his actions. In July 2025, Matt is sentenced to 12 months and a day in prison, a sentence that's about three times longer than the time he actually spent scamming. He's due to be released at the end of May 2026. Today, Matt's LinkedIn is still active. His current employer is listed as stealth with a simple foreboding description. Building something in secret, more info to come.

• 38:22Sarah Hagi?

  Sarah, this story, I feel like, has been haunting me. I saw this TikTok the other day of a woman who bought a Lego set at Target, and the little bags were just full of dried noodles.

• 38:32Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. So I've been thinking a lot about these chargeback scams. Yeah, it's weird because I don't know where this kind of stands now, but I feel like it's not something that's possible to completely stamp out. You know, it's harder and harder to speak to a customer service person now. Everything is AI. I think it's going to be easier to manipulate than ever. Yeah, I mean, I would generally like to view this scam as mostly victimless because the people he was ripping off were like big corporations. And I don't really feel that sorry for them. But he was also like a well off kid who was doing it for no reason, only because he just wanted more stuff than he was already given or had access through his family. He wanted women to like him.

• 39:17Scaachi Koul?

  He wanted people to like him. Like, that's loser behavior.

• 39:19Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 39:20Scaachi Koul?

  If you're gonna do a scam, it has to be for a reason better than hopefully people will like me. That sucks.

• 39:26Sarah Hagi?

  I feel like for someone like him, especially at his age, he probably didn't see it as a real tangible scam, you know? So often when we talk about these scammers, there's a level of tactile scamming almost, like forging a signature or forging this and these kind of tangible amounts of money and like physical effort. But I feel like if you're just doing all of this on a computer, it's easy to pretend it's not really happening and that there won't be a consequence, kind of like online gambling, you know?

• 39:56Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I just think he was young and probably manic enough to be like, it's numbers on the screen, nothing really matters.

• 40:02Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. It's funny too, because he really wanted to work for himself. And then he kind of discovered what all freelancers find out, that like being your own boss is going to careen you into having a nervous breakdown.

• 40:13Sarah Hagi?

  Like, yeah.

• 40:13Scaachi Koul?

  He gave himself way more work. We find this on this show all the time. People who do way more work on this scam than if they had just like gotten a regular degular job. He could have been like a weirdo, like investment banker. That's a fake job, but it's a job that's allowed.

• 40:29Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 40:30Scaachi Koul?

  There are lots of legal scams available to this guy.

• 40:32Sarah Hagi?

  It's so interesting to see young people kind of going through the motions of like real life. Or like how annoying work becomes, especially coming of age during COVID. There's like a whole world he doesn't know about. He's never worked retail. He's never worked at a call center. He's never like had to deal with like true management. He's never had to be management or learn what that is. It's interesting that like the thing that really got him down was how life just happens.

• 40:58Scaachi Koul?

  It's also tragic that his version of prison is just like staying offline.

• 41:02Sarah Hagi?

  Literally, Sachi, I was like, put me in jail.

• 41:04Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, that sounds great.

• 41:05Sarah Hagi?

  Let me commit a crime where the punishment is no screen time.

• 41:10Scaachi Koul?

  I would love if a judge took my phone.

• 41:12Sarah Hagi?

  I'll become a beautiful genius.

• 41:14Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 41:14Sarah Hagi?

  I'd be the coolest person.

• 41:16Scaachi Koul?

  I guess the lesson is like, if they could legislate taking our phones away, we would be unstoppable. But we just need someone to do it.

• 41:23Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, there should be, listen, in my world, where Sarah's a dictator, getting to a certain number of screen time hours means you go to jail, which is no more screens.

• 41:34Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:35Sarah Hagi?

  I feel like the lesson is, you know, a prison sentence might be a blessing in disguise.

• 41:40Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, what is solitary if not just time with your own thoughts?

• 41:52Scaachi Koul?

  This is Matt Bergwall, Return Scam to Sender. I'm Sachi Cole.

• 41:56Sarah Hagi?

  And I'm Sarah Haggy. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were New York Magazine's The Package King of Miami by Ezra Marcus, CT Insider's Former Miami Student From Darien Pleads Guilty In Multi-Million Dollar Fraud Scheme by Peter Yankowski, and the New York Times's Amazon Suit Claims International Ring Stole Millions In Fraudulent Refunds by Emily Schmal.

• 42:25Scaachi Koul?

  Alex Burns wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggy. Olivia Brierley is our story editor. Fact checking by Gabrielle Jollet. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Freeze on Sync. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Janine Cornellow and Stephanie Jens are development producers. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our senior producers are Sarah Enni and Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marshall Louis for Wondery.

• 43:06Scaachi Koul?

  Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.