A friend of mine who is connected to me on Instagram stated he was starting an online business and asked if I would look at the draft website he was working on and critique it. I’ve done that before for other people. I think we all can use constructive criticism with our ventures. People know I give honest feedback. Regardless of what I think of someone personally, I can separate those feelings and give a fair and honest review.
I told him I would look at it. He said he’d text me the link. As an aside, I realized it wasn’t really the person I thought it was. I could tell right away from his language skills. My friend is the type of person to always type in complete sentences, even online – even when texting. He doesn’t use slang or abbreviations the way many people do online or via text messages. It was obvious it wasn’t my friend. I’ve noticed this before when scammers messaged me.
So anyhow, he said he would text me the link to his website. I wasn’t sure if he really meant text, since he didn’t have my number. My friend had my number, but I knew the scammer didn’t have it. I then received a text message around the same time he messaged me about the text, asking that I paste it in the Instagram chat box so he could see if it was correct. I guess he figured I was too naive or ill-informed to realize it was a password reset link. I know a lot of people fall for that trick.
With the TFA* or MFA** settings most people are using nowadays, scammers have to try and get more creative to perpetrate their frauds. Sometimes, I string these scammers along and waste their time if I’m not too busy. That particular day, I didn’t feel up to it, so I instantly blocked him and went on about my day.
I have often researched this phenomenon. People are tricked a lot in this way, not only with Instagram but also with many online accounts. That’s a common ruse scammers use to access your bank accounts, your Amazon account, or your mobile phone account too. They attempt to access your account and they ask you either to copy and paste the link or they ask you for the access code you received via text or email. Some unsuspecting consumers just do as asked without scrutinizing what they are doing. Some have even said as soon as they did it, they had a knot in their stomach letting them know it was a mistake. But by then, it’s usually too late.
Unfortunately, there are many variations scammers use to try and get access to your accounts. Some people get their all their money stolen because they aren’t paying attention and they share too much information with these scammers.
While I was preparing this article, I encountered another one, yet again on Instagram. That goes to show you how often it goes on. A cloned friend’s account inboxed me, just with some light banter back and forth, the typical type of “How are you? How have you been?” conversation. It wasn’t unusual to chat that way with this person, since the friend went to my undergraduate alma mater, though we were in a different graduating class. This clone used the same profile photo as my friend has on his, a photo of himself holding a newborn baby boy. It was his nephew, but the scammer probably didn’t know that. Most of them are not as sophisticated as that to research whoever it is they are impersonating. They are in too big of a hurry. Some do take that extra time and can be quite convincing. But most don’t bother because people (the victims) are generally trusting. That’s why scammers are so successful at defrauding people.
So, I said to him, “You’re a new dad, huh? Congratulations. That’s awesome.” My friend has a fierce tongue. If it had really been my friend I was chatting with, he would have said something like, “You know that’s my nephew. You must have bumped your head boy; are you drunk or something?” But instead, he said, “Yes sir. I’m a proud dad.” That’s when I knew for sure he wasn’t really my friend. If you’re being dumb or saying something dumb, my friend would quickly tell you.
This scammer cut right to the chase and mentioned how he was stuck in West Virginia, his wallet was stolen, and he needed money to get back home to DC.
“Can you loan me $100 so I can buy a bus ticket home and get something to eat? I’ll pay you back tomorrow once I get home.” I played along.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You never paid me back last time.” My friend never really borrowed any money. I only said that to further confirm that it was a scammer. Again if it were my friend, he would know he never borrowed money from me. I only was baiting this scammer. “You scammed me before. I don’t want to get scammed again,” I told him while laughing my butt off.
“I promise. I’ll repay you this time,” he said. “I’ll pay you back the amount from last time and this time too, sometime tomorrow. I’ll pay you back double.”
Okay first of all did you catch all the red flags? When people say they are stuck somewhere, they lost their wallet, and they promise to pay you back double, it’s a good bet it’s a scammer. If you borrow money from your friends, do you ever pay them back double? No, I didn’t think so. I don’t either.
Being stuck somewhere with no access to their money (either because they lost their wallet or because their account is frozen) or promising to pay you back double what they want to borrow are all common scammer motifs. The one thing that made this scammer stand out from most of the other scammers I have encountered is, his grammatical skills were impeccable. He didn’t use incorrect punctuation or misspellings like I often see with many scammers, and he used complete, grammatically-correct sentences. So, it might not always be easy to realize the fakes. That’s why red flags should only be considered as indicators. The presence of red flags doesn’t always mean scammers, and the absence doesn’t always mean they are authentic. You have to look at the big picture.
Well, I digress. I didn’t carry this out any further. I stopped replying to him, I reported the account to Instagram, and I blocked him. I also alerted my friend about this scammer. About an hour after I reported it, I got a notification from Instagram informing me the account was taken down.
People really need to pay attention and never become laxed when dealing with someone online, especially with people you don’t know, or don’t know well. But even if you know them, still be careful. As you see with my situation, scammers may present themselves as your friend or your cousin or your mom, or someone familiar to you, but it’s not really them. The imposters may use the account to trick you into giving them money or getting into your account — which is what that scammer was trying to do to me.
The Mind's Eye - Musings of Will Saunders 