Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2016 12:04:57 GMT -5
Hopefully saved. He's going to proceed more cautiously now at least. I think it's pretty blatant but... Not a super interesting story, but I needed to share it with someone lol.
So I met a honey online and we've been talking for a few weeks.
Where does she live?
Minnesota. She's had a rough life. She used to live in Ohio, but then both of her parents died so she moved in with her uncle. But now she's talking about coming here. Because of me!
... Has she asked for any money?
Just a bit. She can mostly cover the ticket.
*explains online money scamming*
He then takes me to her ad. The original has been removed by craigslist (red flag, not just removed by user), but 'luckily' he left his computer on for the past three weeks and never closed the tab.
Title: Seeking love
Truth,
Yadda yadda, typo, yadda yadda, looking for a real man and not someone who just wants a warm bed, yadda yadda, age 25 looking for age 35 - 50. The ad was posted in our city/state (which is far from Minnesota).
That right there is a red flag. Age 35 - 50. That means one of two things: 1) This person is looking to scam people with money, or 2) she's a gold digger looking for a sugar daddy. Either way, that's not good for you. You're 24 and poor.
Huh. I guess that's kind of weird. She knows I'm 24 though.
Does she know that you work two jobs?
Yes.
Does she know they're low wage and that you're poor?
No.
Okay. So she's probably thinking that you have more money than you do.
That doesn't fit the context at all though! She says she -has- a good chunk of money coming her way. She sounds a lot better off than I am.
She may just want to sound like a good investment. I mean why would she put looking for age 35 - 50 otherwise? That's a whole decade older than her and more. Try telling her that you're poor but that you work really hard, and see if she's still interested.
Yeah that's me... I don't know though. And what if she still sounds interested? That means I'm good right?
It could also mean that enough time has been invested that it's worth trying to get that money out of you later.
He isn't convinced. I decide to dig deeper. First I try googling her image, and then I try flipping it. I explain that, if an image is being stolen to scam people with, it may first be flipped so that the original isn't found (idk if it actually fools google, but it's what I would try if taking pics to scam with). With her name added as well, we pull up an image tagged as being similar (quite distinct - different photo, same person). The first and last name he knows her by match the new picture of her.
After a long sigh: Okay. Okay, so this means it's not a scam right? She's a real person. We couldn't find the photos she gave anywhere, but we did find the same person with a different photo and she's real.
I concede that the person we see is probably real, but that it could still be bad news for him. He tries to help by bringing up another picture - her google hangouts photo: it's not the same as the profile we see. I immediately search her first and last name in googlehangouts plus and find the profile he's messaging. This profile has hardly any visitors (the other had many), and all of the people who had her in their circle are males (mostly older ones). For the record, her other profile was a normal mixed bag follower wise.
The implications of that are pretty obvious. I explained it to him anyways. No direct link back to you you, or an imitation of a real person, etc. Not good news. I point out that even if this account is used solely for legit dating and not for more shady things - a few of the men were quite old and unattractive.
He's still very uncertain. Uncertain, yet unsettled.
Okay. Time to take this to the next level... I bring up the craigslist post and copy a large chunk of text (with the typo). Quotes, paste, search! There are ~five results.All Most of them are dating related. One is a post on craiglist in another city (removed by craigslist, no surprise). Another goes to some dating site. The page can't be viewed without creating an account. I felt too lazy to change the user agent string to make his browser appear to be a search engine, which was able to view a page with the above text, but the URL itself indicated a user located somewhere in Africa. Really, pretty informative stuff as far as URLs go. Good enough for me. There's another result for a google plus page with a different name - but it doesn't exist anymore.
Okay. I'm going to be honest. We've found a lot of red flags. I've gone from suspecting, to expecting, to being positively certain that this isn't any good.
It'd be unlikely, but it's possible that someone else could have had the same text.
... No. Nobody else is going to have typed those sentenced -with- the typo too.
I demonstrate how "the sun rose over the craggy horizon" has no results, and it's a -much- smaller text segment in comparison. Edit: I think I actually googled 'rise' opposed to 'rose.' Either way though.
Okay... so what should I do from here?
I don't know. Um, I mean, whatever you want I guess? I tend to avoid things like this instead of approaching them, so I'd probably just block and not touch it. That's just how I am though.
So he decides to continue things. He agrees to take caution, and perform these steps/tests: 1) Ask to have a conversation over the phone instead of just texting (she said her phone didn't have a webcam when he asked about video chatting previously), 2) Bring up driving down to her, picking her up, and driving back opposed to giving money for a ticket. It'd be a really long drive, but it'd still be cheaper (considering that our town is small, and most of the towns in the state are small compared to the US at large).
So I met a honey online and we've been talking for a few weeks.
Where does she live?
Minnesota. She's had a rough life. She used to live in Ohio, but then both of her parents died so she moved in with her uncle. But now she's talking about coming here. Because of me!
... Has she asked for any money?
Just a bit. She can mostly cover the ticket.
*explains online money scamming*
He then takes me to her ad. The original has been removed by craigslist (red flag, not just removed by user), but 'luckily' he left his computer on for the past three weeks and never closed the tab.
Title: Seeking love
Truth,
Yadda yadda, typo, yadda yadda, looking for a real man and not someone who just wants a warm bed, yadda yadda, age 25 looking for age 35 - 50. The ad was posted in our city/state (which is far from Minnesota).
That right there is a red flag. Age 35 - 50. That means one of two things: 1) This person is looking to scam people with money, or 2) she's a gold digger looking for a sugar daddy. Either way, that's not good for you. You're 24 and poor.
Huh. I guess that's kind of weird. She knows I'm 24 though.
Does she know that you work two jobs?
Yes.
Does she know they're low wage and that you're poor?
No.
Okay. So she's probably thinking that you have more money than you do.
That doesn't fit the context at all though! She says she -has- a good chunk of money coming her way. She sounds a lot better off than I am.
She may just want to sound like a good investment. I mean why would she put looking for age 35 - 50 otherwise? That's a whole decade older than her and more. Try telling her that you're poor but that you work really hard, and see if she's still interested.
Yeah that's me... I don't know though. And what if she still sounds interested? That means I'm good right?
It could also mean that enough time has been invested that it's worth trying to get that money out of you later.
He isn't convinced. I decide to dig deeper. First I try googling her image, and then I try flipping it. I explain that, if an image is being stolen to scam people with, it may first be flipped so that the original isn't found (idk if it actually fools google, but it's what I would try if taking pics to scam with). With her name added as well, we pull up an image tagged as being similar (quite distinct - different photo, same person). The first and last name he knows her by match the new picture of her.
After a long sigh: Okay. Okay, so this means it's not a scam right? She's a real person. We couldn't find the photos she gave anywhere, but we did find the same person with a different photo and she's real.
I concede that the person we see is probably real, but that it could still be bad news for him. He tries to help by bringing up another picture - her google hangouts photo: it's not the same as the profile we see. I immediately search her first and last name in google
The implications of that are pretty obvious. I explained it to him anyways. No direct link back to you you, or an imitation of a real person, etc. Not good news. I point out that even if this account is used solely for legit dating and not for more shady things - a few of the men were quite old and unattractive.
He's still very uncertain. Uncertain, yet unsettled.
Okay. Time to take this to the next level... I bring up the craigslist post and copy a large chunk of text (with the typo). Quotes, paste, search! There are ~five results.
Okay. I'm going to be honest. We've found a lot of red flags. I've gone from suspecting, to expecting, to being positively certain that this isn't any good.
It'd be unlikely, but it's possible that someone else could have had the same text.
... No. Nobody else is going to have typed those sentenced -with- the typo too.
I demonstrate how "the sun rose over the craggy horizon" has no results, and it's a -much- smaller text segment in comparison. Edit: I think I actually googled 'rise' opposed to 'rose.' Either way though.
Okay... so what should I do from here?
I don't know. Um, I mean, whatever you want I guess? I tend to avoid things like this instead of approaching them, so I'd probably just block and not touch it. That's just how I am though.
So he decides to continue things. He agrees to take caution, and perform these steps/tests: 1) Ask to have a conversation over the phone instead of just texting (she said her phone didn't have a webcam when he asked about video chatting previously), 2) Bring up driving down to her, picking her up, and driving back opposed to giving money for a ticket. It'd be a really long drive, but it'd still be cheaper (considering that our town is small, and most of the towns in the state are small compared to the US at large).
