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This turned out ok, but this kind of text looks a lot like the "pig butchering scam" that's getting coverage recently
Pig-Butchering starts with a seemingly innocent text message, and once the scammers catch a victim, they convince them to start investing in crypto. They have the victim set up an account on a fake crypto exchange, and over the course of months, they steal more and more of the victim's money.
they convince them to start investing in crypto.
The first time someone mentions crypto to me and they seriously consider it an investment I automatically judge them as foolhardy with their money. This doubles if they try to convince me to put money in crypto. My internal thoughtis "that's nice honey. After you finish your milk and cookie, you can go play with your friends."
A co-worker of mine is super into crypto and tries to have conversations with me about it. I just smile and nod.
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I have WeChat, the Chinese messaging app and I don't really speak Chinese. It's very basic but I have friends on there. I'll get a message from a girl every now and again "mistakenly" asking if I'm a tour guide or a friend of a friend.
My Chinese sucks so I usually message back and forth until they ask for money. I think some lady kept it going for three months before she told me her uncle was earning lots of money. I ignored that and she was like: "I don't know if your Chinese is enough, but did you hear what I said about money?"
I should just flat out ignore them instead.
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There's gotta be some crazy scam that will work on me that I've never heard of. Every time a new one comes around its always something that throws a ton of red flags out the whole way. They have to be just catching people with particular blind spots
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Every time a new one comes around its always something that throws a ton of red flags out the whole way.
That's on purpose. If people like you easily avoid scams, it helps self-select your idiots. Easier to scam.
Think about it, would you rather spend a ton of effort scamming a small amount of money from a smart person, or very little effort scamming a ton of money from a dumb person?
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It's surprisingly easy to obtain lists of MAGA Republicans. Their address and phone numbers.
These people get "letters from Trump" saying he needs donations with instructions on how to donate. And they do donate! Millions and millions. Except how many of these letters are legitimate? Do they even know how to verify?
All the pieces for pulling off the easiest scam ever are in place. I mean, the man himself is a con artist and classic swindler but I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if a huge number of "donations" end up in the pockets of completely different scammers.
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If I had the technical know how, I would 100% do this. Set myself up for early retirement.
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I donāt want to say Iām immune to scams buuuut, Iām immune man.
Theyāre pros too for sure. Like, even when I try to play along they hang up on me or stop talking to me.
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It's a numbers game (pun not intended but, hey, if it works I'm alright with it) - use an automated method to send a no-cost/ultra-cheap message to millions of people, swindle the small fraction of those who fall for it.
Now that sending this kind of text message is as cheap as sending e-mails, we see this same principle applied in these as we saw with scam emails.
catching people with particular blind spots
They do, yeah. It's part of their strategy, actually. Henry Gullible doesn't ask too many questions.
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A close friend of mine was a victim of one of those last year. It broke her heart, because she met the scammer on a dating site and she thought they were a long distance couple. She took his advice to invest in crypto because she saw it as a form of bonding between the two of them, and a show of trust. She never told me how much money she lost but I imagine it was significant.
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Very similar situation with my wife's coworker. The coworker met some dude on a dating site and they connected pretty quickly. She even traveled to meet up with him in another city a few hours away by plane. Surprisingly he never showed up and claimed some lame excuse. In the end she "invested" 200k with him in crypto and POOF he was gone like Keyser Soze. So sad.
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I'm betting this actually was a scam but the initial replies tipped off the scammer that it wasn't gonna work. So the scammer played along as well. At least that's my theory.
Nothing wrong with prepaid. Postpaid seems to costs a lot more for the same service. Perfect example. I was traveling from the USA to Germany on business. I had AT&T prepaid. My coworker had AT&T postpaid. Not only was he paying $80/month for close to the same service I was paying $40, when we both went to enable roaming in Europe the costs were this:
- AT&T post-paid $10/day
- AT&T pre-paid $25/week (= $3.57/day)
I'll buy my phone outright and keep my prepaid, thanks!
On post-paid there's also the added bonus of leaking your SSN when the provider gets breached. No such trouble with pre-paid.
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I have a super old grandfathered T-Mobile prepaid plan from like... 2014? I think? Anyway I pay 30 bucks a month for unlimited talk/text, 5 gigs of high speed and infinite low speed data if that ever gets used up. AT&T tried to solicit me for a plan until I told them mine lmao
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Damn if that's a good deal they're really fucking you over there. I'm paying about $11 USD a month for unlimited calls, texts and data (Ireland) with roaming data included. I got an early deal with a new carrier about two years ago but it's ā¬15 a month for the same now.
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Not trying to get you to switch, but my current Mint Mobile plan is $20/month for unlimited talk & text and 15g high speed data. Uses T-Mobile's network. Only issue is that you have to pay a year at a time to get the price that low.
There's a AT&T prepaid plan that has that same items for the same $30/month. The AT&T one also includes free roaming in Canada and Mexico, and international texting free.
Apologies if my response came off as aggressive. That was not my intent.
We're good!
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Postpaid bakes in the price of the phone. Itās why if you do postpaid and donāt upgrade your phone immediately when eligible, youāre gettin ripped off. Itās also why they lock you in for 2 years or charge a big fee to leave. They need you to pay for the device.
Prepaid is just the cost of service, you accept the price of the handset. This lets you do things like keep a phone for 3-4 years and save money by deferred upgrades.
That's really interesting! Is it because you don't really use your phone much and/or connected to wifi? I remember how expensive phone bills used to be back when you paid per min and text, it's really hard to imagine that being an economical daily choice for many. Sounds fantastic for someone who does a lot of international travel or for long times
Thatās really interesting! Is it because you donāt really use your phone much and/or connected to wifi?
I use my phone a lot actually.
$40 a month is unlimited talk and text to and in USA, Canada, and Mexico. 30GB data at 5G speeds with unlimited at 1.5Mps after the 30GB is exhausted. That applies to hotspot usage too when you bring your own phone. It even includes 5GB of data when roaming in Canada or Mexico.
I remember how expensive phone bills used to be back when you paid per min and text, itās really hard to imagine that being an economical daily choice for many.
I remember that too! Those days are long long ago. Prepaid isn't "pay per min" like it was back in the late 90s or early 2000s. I think the reason people don't look at them is because they used to be that way. Its been unlimited plans available for more than a decade. I really don't see the point of post-paid unless you can't afford to buy your phone outright and need to spread the cost over months of service which postpaid will do for you.
Thank you so much!! That's crazy I'm going to keep this information in my back pocket for future reference! I know people it could be beneficial for
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There was a woman from the town across the lake who was absolutely convinced my Google voice number was her pastor's and she needed to pick him up from the airport. She reached out at least three times over two years. TBF, the three-digit "exchange" would have been from that town back in the landline days. I always explained very calmly that I'm sure Pastor Jeff would be very happy to hear from her but she was going to need to figure out his phone number herself.
Plot twist: Pastor Jeff's been dead and gone for years, but every time Ethel's dementia clears off, the smell of the flowers she had in her window that day returns to her mind so vividly that she's transported back to a gentler time...
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LOL, you might not be wrong.
I looked up my old GVoice texts, and she's still there! It was Pastor Walter and Deedra and it was months, not years.
And yes, younger me may have messed with her, but just a little.
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Oh thank god I thought for a second I thought that said Pastor Walter and Daedra. I was worried pastors are getting up to even more than I thought.
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If it involves a pastor it's highly unlikely to have been gentler.
Narrator: Pastor Jeff says God requires her service after long flights.
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I remember texting random dude on IM that I am <Insert name here>, so he asked me if I was some specific person with that name and we were chatting for like 10 minutes, before I decided that it's a bit asshole-ish to pretend I am some other guy, lol.