I hope you had a great Thanksgiving Day. Let me continue with my musing. Well, it’s the day after thanksgiving, the cowboys won so I will say it was a good ending to Turkey day. I have been posting for a while but not a lot has changed on social media except the season and seem to me there are a lot more scammers and fakes working the net now. Guess what? They need Christmas money. Let’s be frank about the romance scams on social media….Scammers follow many of the influencers,
especially those who are beautiful and popular. They get their leads to us from anytime we send a like, red heart or make a
comment on their posts or reels…..The con artist see it and the games begin, they create a fake profile of the beautiful and popular influencers/models ……Yes I admit I have followed Angie Varona and Sommer Ray for a long time and probably dealt with over one thousand of them in the last five years. Did I lose some $$$, Yes, I did. In must admit that I have sometimes failed to follow my own advice in the past and broke my rule number one (1) “Send nothing of value until you have a live video chat with whom ever you are chatting with if you are inclined to help them. Do not fulfill their request for gift cards, etc. Tell them you do not send gift cards and ask them for their banking information. Chances are you will get a story about them having trouble with their bank but they have a friend who you
can send the money to and they will get it to them, chances are they will be located many many miles away from each other, trust me they will not reside in the same city. Get the information from them and if so inclined, call the receiving bank and check on the account to see if the bank has it on a watchlists, you can also do a search on the address of the account holder and chances are when you view the photos of the address it will be an office building or shopping center with a
Mailbox center. My friend, that is a huge red flag. Proceed with caution
In the past couple of month I have noticed an increase of fake profiles on Tik-tok and Threads. Ask questions, pay attention to their usage of the English language. In many instances in the course of the chat they will ask, “what are you doing right now”. Hell, the two of you are chatting. It seems like many have an obsession on “have you eaten” and “what did you have for breakfast” My answer is a v8 and a sweet roll. The one question that is a real red flag is when the ask “how is the atmosphere over there”. Who ask about the weather that way in the USA? Only the weather man on tv even mentions the atmosphere. All I can say is just keep talking and asking for the live video chat and one thing will be true is that the LVC (Live Video Chat) will not occur and the excuses will be “my phone is broken”,
Sure the one they are using to chat. They’d say they need to to purchase airtime so they can be sure they have enough minutes……Pure b— s—.
Throw emotion away and just ask yourself….Does any of this make logical sense ?.. Hell no!
I had interesting interaction last week. I will try to make long story short but may get a little long. I had some friend request hit inbox from two ladies who were well known WWE women wrestlers and both have been world champions. I am a fan of WWE and actually started watching when I was a kid when there were only three channels and they were black and white no colored, damn old days. And today I know the shows are staged but still enjoy. Sorry could bore you with a lot of stories but was friends with Jack Adkinson better know as “Fritz von erick” And he owned the Sportium in Dallas, Texas and all I can say, it was warm, smoke filled and warm beer but my tickets were always free……Back to story. I went back and forth with the two of the ladies and quickly realized that both were fake profiles and because of my knowledge of the industry I was able to ask hard questions and when one did not have the correct answers. As soon as they asked for a loan, I said good bye reported and blocked. Two days later the other lady (?) and I were chatting and actually I was asking some industry related questions when she live video called so I answered. Well, guess who it was, a scammer from Nigera in-person. Not missing a beat I said “damn you sure have changed, you have a become a man and have a very dark tan”..He laughed and admitted that he was a scammer and that this was a way to make money because in Nigeria jobs are scarce and they are forced to make a living any way they can. The country has a long history of this and yes even before the internet. Many letters were sent from there and yes I got a few….He said he just want to see who was on the other end of the chat and that he realized I was leading him on and knew more about the two ladies he was pretending to be. Was a nice young man, well mannered and proficient in English language….In parting he said he would do what he had to do and I said so will I and will continue to expose the fakes profiles either personally with the usage of Scamcatcherapp and Burtspixel and we said good bye and both hung up…Me I reported and blocked.
Currently, in my opinion the majority of scammers are coming from threads and tiktok so be wary. My point is, if a scammer from Nigeria can do a live vide chat with me. Why can not someone who is located in the USA do the same? One thing I will share about tiktok is when you are chatting with someone new on that site, just hit the send a photo Icon…Chances are you will get a notice at the top of the page saying the following: This feature isn’t available in the receiver’s country or region. If that is not a red flag then I am blind.
Everyone be safe out there……It can be a bad world on the net. It’s December, and scammers love it. They’re out for Xmas funds.
