I am being catfished right now!

[qualitychat]

I received a friend request on Facebook just now. This is definitely someone catfishing me. He comes from Austin, Texas but has pigeon English. He is a Marine Engineer living in Sweden. He does a very dangerous job. He is a nice looking man, he has sent me a photo. He tragically lost his wife 5 years ago due to medical negligence. Am I wrong in stringing him alone?

Tell him your next case after the murder is a very complex scanning case which involved the use of social media, long distance romance promises and a child in boarding school 😉

I get two frequently:

1. They've installed a trojan on my computer and can see I'm looking at porn websites and have caught me on camera but if I send them bitcoin they'll make an agreement with me to erase it all- a very polite email telling me not to worry, rest assured he will destroy the original copy if I do this 😆
2. Some guy in China tells me I have inherited millions from a relative in China whom I didnt know I had and if we agree it keep it secret between us and I send him money for legal fees he'll transfer my massive inheritance forth with (I have the most British name ever so not sure why they cant target people who are actually likely to have relatives native to China).
3. The usual ones claiming to be from McAffee, EE, Royal Mail, Fedex etc but sent from email addresses like: [email protected]

The third ones remind me of this:

lol,at least make a scam credible and well written. They’re a poor effort

@Zone2NorthLondon Exactly! I think the stupidity of it and the lack of trying annoys me almost more than the actual fact its a scam 😆

I get that, a polite (initially) email telling me they have recorded me masturbating to porn 🤔. But not to worry, if I send £ 1500 in bitcoins they’ll erase it, gentleman’s honour. When I don’t bite, the insult filled emails start up. I can shrug it off, but what if some shame filled person with MH problems got one of those. It’s horrible.

Its deliberate for them to be obvious though. They want to be quickly spotted by people they have a very low chance of scamming. Means they don't waste their time and can move on through the numbers to find those who might be vulnerable.

That's why engaging with them and wasting their time like the OP is actually a pretty good thing to do. Whilst she's stringing them along they are not preying on someone who might actually give them cash.

Have you all watched many of the episodes on the Catfished youtube channel?

Ohhhh I'm loving this thread. I've only had one similar thing .... obviously declared undying love very quickly, he came from California, moved to the UK for work, and was going to make his home here. I don't know how, but he knew I had a lot of pets ... he said that he did too, and he was going to move them all over here. He sent pics of himself with them .... a rather cute, fluffy dog, that was okay. Then him with a herd of deer, he was feeding them by hand - I don't quite know how he was going to fly them over, or where in Nottingham he was going to keep them 🤔. It was the third picture that was the strangest though. He'd got his arm round a boar. A fecking great big boar with tusks. What was more odd was that it quite clearly was just the head!!! It was one of those stuffed mounted heads that can usually be seen in stately homes. It was dead, without a doubt! I told him it was beautiful, and asked if it had been dead long. He absolutely assured me that it was alive, and his pet! I kept the conversation going for a couple of weeks, told him I was a lonely, wealthy lady .... had a chauffeur, staff ... the lot! He asked to marry me, and just needed a little cash injection - which he'd pay back. Also said he'd invest my money and I'd make huge profits .... yeah, right.
Then he dropped me, because I didn't send the money. Ohhhh my little heart was broken, shattered, even! Not!

My DH is Swedish! 😁

You’re so right! There’s more to it than romantic scams!
They also ‘buy’ mobiles on eBay and send some pretty convincing emails out convincing the seller the money is in a holding account and will be paid on as soon as the item is dispatched!…. I had 2 Nigerians ask me to post a mobile out to Nigeria.
They were so convincing, luckily I’ve got a suspicious mind and didn’t send anything!
Sadly when scammers come from certain countries 9 times out 10… Then people tend to stereotype and you can’t really blame them

I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, I can only assume maybe it works if you find a lonely woman who also has very poor English and doesn't know Anglo accents, but I'm then not sure how they get money out of anyone because they're going to have a hard time explaining that. 😑

surprisingly it does work. Not read the full thread so it may have been mentioned but there’s a show on YouTube called catfished and American people have handed over hundreds of thousands to these scammers.

How did you two meet? Did he send you a friends request on FB by any chance?

Americans don’t say “Auntie.” We say “Aunt.” Rhymes with “ant.”

Keep it up OP. While he's tired up with you, he'll leave someone else alone.

You’re literally proving @Lassiata point.

I can’t stand the scammers from any country but there’s no need for comments like this.

If you lack the cultural education to know there is so much more about Nigeria just say so. No need to insinuate it’s merely a haven of fraud.

😂😂😂

I don't know what happened there. I was just making a quick comment, not referring to Saltandpeppero's comment.
My phone must be having a wobbly. 🙄

I know this is a mostly lighthearted thread, but this is horrible. The poor boy and his family.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13124513/private-schoolboy-suicide-snapchat-photos.html

I had loads of these during lockdown when I played a lot of Words With Friends. They all followed the same silver fox/US military/widower/sick child/very poor English etc and, because it was lockdown and I was bored, I did string most of them along to waste their time.

The most ridiculous one said he was currently in a submarine somewhere in the Pacific, and apart from needing money for his son's medical expenses, he also needed Amazon gift cards to purchase some equipment he needed for his job.

He had no friends or family and could give no reason as to why the US military would be asking him to pay for equipment himself but he finally left the conversation when I expressed surprise that Amazon deliveries extended to submarines in the Pacific ocean.

That is absolutely horrific, that poor, poor lad.

Thank you for the reminder of how dark this stuff can be.

Does he work on an oil rig? 🤔

OP, hope you read this in time- don't give them any money!

Unless you think they've been trafficked, then pay up but ask their gang leader if you can leave a tip for your personal scammer, whatever you'd give to the person who washes your hair should do.

Unless you think they've been trafficked, then pay up but ask their gang leader if you can leave a tip for your personal scammer, whatever you'd give to the person who washes your hair should do

🤣😂🤣 Surely etiquette dictates you tip 10% of what they’ve stolen from you? Anything else would be rude and “not kind”

I had this. I told him I died in the accident and I was haunting the house and answering the phone even though the house had been sold and the new people owned it now.

LOL, I play with scammers fairly often. It's become something of a hobby. When they start boring me, generally very soon, I mention my elder son who is in cybersecurity and fraud, attached to Interpol (true, except for the Interpol part, and does travel all over the world for work), and that he will, of course, be checking him out. That usually ends it.