Scam alert!

[marylander1940]

[marylander1940]

I think we have talked about similar scams by folks pretending to be escorts also, but this time is someone pretending to be a client. 

I guess he was about to ask him to get the card and take a screenshot of it while he is still on his way by Uber. 

We must never avoid the "idiot factor", in this era of immediate fulfillment an imbecile could actually be at home taking care of his child while craving an escort to come see him right away instead doing that before or after baby-sitting his own child... but in this case it was clearly a scammer. 

[marylander1940]

If you think this should be added to previous threads on scams by gift cards, please report and proceed.

[marylander1940]

[marylander1940]

The escort was simply playing with him wasting his time

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

I don't understand...What is the Question?

[SecretProvider]

This is a scam network has been doing for years. They are based in Nigeria. It's a whole syndicate with teams of people working. When they message using whatsapp or signal they always use business accounts. 

They work on two fronts - one is setting up fake accounts on RM and getting clients to send large deposits. 

The second arm of the scam is to contact providers - They message pretending to want a booking - do all the right messages - then when you are 10 minutes away: suddenly they tell you they need you to pick up a drink and type of card to 'occupy their children.' They need you to send it to them before you come up. 

This happens to us almost WEEKLY.  I have thought about starting a thread with them to show why I require deposits now. 

The other line we get is "i love your pics and I am an artist and I want to use them in a mural! I can pay you for the rights, i just need to pay you by cheque,......i will send you cheque, you deposit it and then you can send me half of it."

"hey i am looking for a text buddy,,,,, will you be happy to take allowance of $500 a week"

"hey I am looking to make a 3 hour booking!"  

They message us almost daily. Sometimes more than once a day. As soon as you ask for a deposit they disappear.

Edited 1 hour ago by SecretProvider

[marylander1940]

1 hour ago, marylander1940 said:

 

1 hour ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

I don't understand...What is the Question?

which question? 

It was a scam!

[marylander1940]

6 minutes ago, SecretProvider said:

This is a scam network has been doing for years. They are based in Nigeria. It's a whole syndicate with teams of people working. One whatsapp or signal they always use business accounts. 

They work on two fronts - one is setting up fake accounts on RM and getting clients to send large deposits. 

The second arm of the scam is to contact providers - They message pretending to want a booking - do all the right messages - then when you are 10 minutes away: suddenly they tell you they need you to pick up a drink and type of card to 'occupy their children.' They need you to send it to them before you come up. 

This happens to us almost WEEKLY.  I have thought about starting a thread with them to show why I require deposits now. 

The other line we get is "i love your pics and I am an artist and I want to use them in a mural! I can pay you for the rights, i just need to pay you by cheque,......i will send you cheque, you deposit it and then you can send me half of it."

"hey i am looking for a text buddy,,,,, will you be happy to take allowance of $500 a week"

"hey I am looking to make a 3 hour booking!"  

They and they message us almost daily. Sometimes more than once a day. As soon as you ask for a deposit they disappear.

I never thought this had to be explained!

I'll keep your post in mind next time we talk about this subject! 

[JB_Studio38]

1 hour ago, SecretProvider said:

This is a scam network has been doing for years. They are based in Nigeria. It's a whole syndicate with teams of people working. When they message using whatsapp or signal they always use business accounts. 

They work on two fronts - one is setting up fake accounts on RM and getting clients to send large deposits. 

The second arm of the scam is to contact providers - They message pretending to want a booking - do all the right messages - then when you are 10 minutes away: suddenly they tell you they need you to pick up a drink and type of card to 'occupy their children.' They need you to send it to them before you come up. 

This happens to us almost WEEKLY.  I have thought about starting a thread with them to show why I require deposits now. 

The other line we get is "i love your pics and I am an artist and I want to use them in a mural! I can pay you for the rights, i just need to pay you by cheque,......i will send you cheque, you deposit it and then you can send me half of it."

"hey i am looking for a text buddy,,,,, will you be happy to take allowance of $500 a week"

"hey I am looking to make a 3 hour booking!"  

They message us almost daily. Sometimes more than once a day. As soon as you ask for a deposit they disappear.

The tactic is annoying as fuck. The only way I found to avoid it: don’t post your phone number as “public”, and only do for registered users. The system will usually filter out fake bot accounts before they can actually contact you directly.

The caveat to that is, less clients may be able to reach you because not everybody is signed up as a client to see phone numbers. I’ve gone back to leaving my number public because I have 2 phones to help. But it’s annoying everytime it happens. Another example of why there needs to be a better system in place.
 

This does remind me of couple months ago when I was in Florida, I saved a client from a $2,000 scam in which the “executive chief officer” of APPLE/CHASE BANK claimed to call him, along with the FBI, saying his account was hacked and that he needed to go to Best Buy (poor company, being the target of scams lol) with his laptop to have them clear the lock.

I drove him to Best Buy 20 minutes away, and he got there and they asked for 4 separate $2,000 gift cards. He tried to buy it, but Best Buy said there was a limit. When he came out and told me that (all the while on the phone with the scammers, who sounded like from India): I told him HANG UP THE PHONE NOW. And let’s go to Chase Bank to speak to someone. They were trying to get him to not tell me all the details, but had I known I would have immediately told him hangup, block the number and contact the # of the customer service for Apple and Chase.

(it was one of those fake, “your account is hacked emails from “Apple” and he opening it, called them etc etc)

Turns out, his account was never hacked. But he almost brought and sent $2,000 of gift cards. I took him to Chase Bank because he was recently in an accident with his regular car (But in Florida a golf cart is kinda like a car lol).

He ended up thanking me with dinner, a bottle of wine and an evening session. I was like damn, sometimes we can really do good for people that they don’t know we can do. 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

1 hour ago, marylander1940 said:

2 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

I don't understand...What is the Question?

which question? 

It was a scam!

This is "Questions About Hiring", so naturally I thought there was a question ❓ ❓ ❓ 

[marylander1940]

1 minute ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

This is "Questions About Hiring", so naturally I thought there was a question ❓ ❓ ❓ 

You're welcome to report this thread and suggest moving it to another forum.

 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

7 minutes ago, JB_Studio38 said:

The tactic is annoying as fuck. The only way I found to avoid it: don’t post your phone number as “public”, and only do for registered users. The system will usually filter out fake bot accounts before they can actually contact you directly.

The caveat to that is, less clients may be able to reach you because not everybody is signed up as a client to see phone numbers. I’ve gone back to leaving my number public because I have 2 phones to help. But it’s annoying everytime it happens. Another example of why there needs to be a better system in place.
 

This does remind me of couple months ago when I was in Florida, I saved a client from a $2,000 scam in which the “executive chief officer” of APPLE/CHASE BANK claimed to call him, along with the FBI, saying his account was hacked and that he needed to go to Best Buy (poor company, being the target of scams lol) with his laptop to have them clear the lock.

I drove him to Best Buy 20 minutes away, and he got there and they asked for 4 separate $2,000 gift cards. He tried to buy it, but Best Buy said there was a limit. When he came out and told me that (all the while on the phone with the scammers, who sounded like from India): I told him HANG UP THE PHONE NOW. And let’s go to Chase Bank to speak to someone. They were trying to get him to not tell me all the details, but had I known I would have immediately told him hangup, block the number and contact the # of the customer service for Apple and Chase.

(it was one of those fake, “your account is hacked emails from “Apple” and he opening it, called them etc etc)

Turns out, his account was never hacked. But he almost brought and sent $2,000 of gift cards. I took him to Chase Bank because he was recently in an accident with his regular car (But in Florida a golf cart is kinda like a car lol).

He ended up thanking me with dinner, a bottle of wine and an evening session. I was like damn, sometimes we can really do good for people that they don’t know we can do. 

I'm glad you were able to help this man, and I'm glad he spent a portion of what he was ready to send to the scammers on you!

[SecretProvider]

18 minutes ago, JB_Studio38 said:

I was like damn, sometimes we can really do good for people that they don’t know we can do. 

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