Someone Tried to Scam Me

[LonesomeLamp]

And technically, it was I who scammed them. Let me elaborate.

I was sitting at work yesterday; had been here maybe half an hour when I got a text from someone claiming to be from publishers clearing house saying it was their final time trying to reach me before my winnings went to the next person. I immediately knew it was a scam and decided to ignore it and pretend it never happened.....until a new thought crossed my mind. I remembered this guy on YouTube, Atomic Shrimp. He does email scam baiting. I thought “you know what, I have plenty of time. Let’s see how long I can keep them replying to me if I just agree to everything” (I was being inspired by the youtubers “just say ok” video).

Well. The text asked if I was still interested, so I said “yes.” Then I got another text telling me to contact some other person and I said “ok.” This was my plan of attack. Just say yes and okay to everything. Literally only that to everything. Except, I changed my mind at this point. The way the texts were being written, I knew that tactic wouldn’t hold up very long. I wanted to see just how far I could string them along before they gave up on me.

Oh boy, was that a great idea. I told them that I didn’t have the other persons contact info because I had everything stored on my computer and my computer crashed and I lost all the files. The person kept signing the texts “@BOARDOFDIRECTOR,” and would occasionally forget to include that (yep, totally legit smh). I asked if that was their Twitter handle or something because, as I said, I had lost all my files and had no contact information for who they were wanting me to talk to.

They did something that changed my tactics yet again. Instead of sending me contact info for the person, they sent “my” information. I put “my” in quotes because it wasn’t actually mine. The phone number was correct, but they had this other persons email address, names, home address, birthday, marital status, etc. Thus, my new plan was formed.

I continued talking to them. I didn’t correct them or say anything any different. I made myself out to be a completely helpless moron. They asked me how much I was supposed to send them. You’re running the scam but expect me to tell you how much you’re scamming me for? Ha! I said I  thought it was supposed to be like $450 thereabouts and asked them if I could do a bank transfer. This is important, as you’ll see later. They asked me to use cashapp and a debit card to buy Bitcoin. This is where I had to start treading carefully.

I mentioned that I lost my bank card and haven’t had it replaced yet. To keep them from getting suspicious, I said that I withdraw cash from my bank account every couple of weeks to buy food and stuff with, so they told me to get the money from my bank and buy gift cards. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, so I persisted that I have to have every single thing planned out at least two weeks ahead of time because I depend on other people for a ride and they’re not always available. I mentioned that even with my careful planning, I can still end up being late to work. I gave excuse after excuse as to why gift cards weren’t an option for me and the kept insisting. The trick was to occasionally toss in that the bank transfer was the easiest option for me. “If you want the cards, you’re going to have to wait at least two full weeks before I can get to a store.”

I tried so hard. I even thought I had lost them two or three times, but they eventually gave in and sent me a bank account number. Bingo. I told them that I couldn’t make the transfer right away because I was at work and the mobile website wasn’t giving me the option to make a new transfer (which it actually didn’t (I was going to modify the html to make it say that)). That was the last message sent between us.

Now let’s review what all I got from this:

First, I was volunteered potential victim information. I didn’t ask for it and there was no need for it. The dumbasses just kinda threw it out there without even verifying that i was or was not who they thought I was. I haven’t emailed the person yet in case it was tossed in as bait.

The second thing I got—the important thing—was a bank account number. I’m still in the process of trying to report it. I called my bank and they said there wasn’t really anything they could do about it. I tried calling the local FBI office, but I got an automated system that told me to call someone else, which I’ve not done yet. Once I get it reported, I’ll try to contact the potential victim to let them know. I figured that if I tried to contact them before I had the account number and the email was bait, then my chances of getting the account number would be zero.

Before you ask about what information they got about me, the only thing they truly know is my phone number and bank name. The phone number was associated with the person they thought they were talking to before I ended up with it. Thankfully, the information they had lacked a social security number. It could have ended very poorly for that person otherwise.

[Dubious]

People that get scammed, usually deserve to be scammed.

Cause, how stupid can you be?

[feralfreak]

reminds me of a scam someone tried to pull last year, claiming we won publishers clearing house and even sent us a check, BUT the check was from a different company entirely, we knew better than to believe it so we called pch and they were told about it, and i get email scammers all the time for paypal, amazon, ebay and lately coinbase, wanting my coinbase id, the joke is on them because I DONT HAVE ONE HAHAHAHAHA, i dont do crypto, think bad about it, dont want it so they got nothing to get from me.

[LonesomeLamp]

17 hours ago, Dubious said:

People that get scammed, usually deserve to be scammed.

Cause, how stupid can you be?

My dad watched a documentary about scams once. The pch scam and similar ones (including social security and law enforcement) are ran out of Jamaica. The scammers buy customer information from US businesses and then target the elderly; people who are alone and don’t usually know any better. Most of us can see it’s a scam before we even get the email/call/message, but the elderly tend to not think about it (because they get too excited or just can’t think well due to age). There are even literal gangs composed of scammers and they do have gang wars with each other. The scammers have gone as far as writing songs about their scams.

 I watched a YouTube video recently. It was actually the Atomic Shrimp guy I mentioned in the op. I’ll post a link later, but he actually responded to a question he got that covers this. It turns into a mini rant, but all his points are still valid.

 

10 hours ago, feralfreak said:

reminds me of a scam someone tried to pull last year, claiming we won publishers clearing house and even sent us a check, BUT the check was from a different company entirely, we knew better than to believe it so we called pch and they were told about it, and i get email scammers all the time for paypal, amazon, ebay and lately coinbase, wanting my coinbase id, the joke is on them because I DONT HAVE ONE HAHAHAHAHA, i dont do crypto, think bad about it, dont want it so they got nothing to get from me.

My dad got a call from someone claiming to be from pch. My dad tried to convince the guy that his boss (Steve Harvey) died the previous night in a train wreck. It devolved into my dad going into a sermon trying to save the scammers soul because the scammer is an atheist (dad called him that because he wouldn’t thank god that it wasn’t him on the train (it’s a long and convoluted story lmao)).

 

*EDIT*

Heres the video (question is at 11:20):

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by LonesomeLamp
Added YouTube video

[feralfreak]

nice of your father to try to bring him to repentance, it might have fallen on deaf ears, athiests dont want to hear about God, even though ive seen some go into comments areas of youtube videos to knock christianity(seriously, if you dont believe, fine, but dont push your shit on those with faith, have a little respect, not directed at you, just those that are like that)

[LonesomeLamp]

The sad but hilarious thing is that the scammer was talking out of his ass, as they do, but my dad kept him on edge. Scammer said he believed in god, etc, but my dad kept using that one minor detail (not thanking god he wasn’t killed in a fake train crash) against him and blew it way out of proportion each time. I don’t know if the scammer really believes in a god or not. He just wanted to get the call back on script so he could try to steal some money. I wasn’t there to witness the call, but that had to have been a life-changing moment for the scammer. He hung up eventually and called back five minutes later to see if my dad had calmed down and my dad went straight back into the act full-force and kept him on the line another five minutes. There were so many twists and turns, the scammer likely had to step outside and take a smoke break after that and triple think his decision to return to the call center.

[Cute_Kitten]

Scammers suck, but I do enjoy those youtube videos of people messing with the scammers. ?  There should be a special place in hell for scammers who target the vulnerable populations (seniors, disabled, etc)

[feralfreak]

11 hours ago, Cute_Kitten said:

Scammers suck, but I do enjoy those youtube videos of people messing with the scammers. ?  There should be a special place in hell for scammers who target the vulnerable populations (seniors, disabled, etc)

id like to see scammers sent there, without delay, i hate them all

[BabyJune]

April 15th is national scam day...sponsored by the IRS.