I’ve encountered a few scams before, but never like the one I encountered yesterday – a live chat with a scammer on Facebook. I got a chat from an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in years who said he had been robbed at gun point and wanted to know if I could wire £800 through Western Union. I knew something was up right away when he wrote “Thank goodness I found you online”.
Instead of getting rid of the guy, I figured maybe I could nab him online somehow. I tried to keep him going as long as possible, messing with him a bit and trying to get him to click a link in order to get his IP address. After that didn’t work, I called Western Union with my fraudster still on chat, but the fraud department told me they’re “not the police” and there was nothing they could do.
So much for readiness to bust these monkeys. I grow weary of financial and governmental bodies paying lipservice to some vague commitment to protect the trusting folks from criminals. But they don’t have the first link in a coordinated response in place.
Oh well, did your heart pick up the pace a bit?
how early did you know it was fake?
I knew it was fake from the beginning. “oh man thank goodness i got you online” didn’t sound like him. Also, we haven’t spoken directly in a few years so he would have thrown in something about too.
This happened to me and some of my friends today on Facebook. Exact same MO. What a low life.
Hi,
You are so lucky you are not the type that easily falls prey to Social Engineering. I am a writer at Helium.com and I focus on Internet security. I was wondering whether you would grant me authorization to publish your experience and link to this blog so that people can read more and see the chat in pictures as helium does not allow posting pictures. I am currently writing on ‘Accessing the rise of Internet threats from Africa’ and this would make a great addition.
Regards
Alois
Hi Alois. Of course you have permission to republish!