It Appears That I Was Targeted In Either A Pig Butchering #Scam Or A Romance Scam On Mastodon
Before I do anything else, let me explain what a Pig Butchering Scam is. Wired will help me with this part:
Pig butchering scams originated in China, where they came to be known by the Chinese version of the phrase shāzhūpán because of an approach in which attackers essentially fatten victims up and then take everything they’ve got. These scams are typically cryptocurrency schemes, though they can involve other types of financial trading as well.
Scammers cold-contact people on SMS texting or other social media, dating, and communication platforms. Often they’ll simply say “Hi” or something like “Hey Josh, it was fun catching up last week!” If the recipient responds to say that the attacker has the wrong number, the scammer seizes the opportunity to strike up a conversation and guide the victim toward feeling like they’ve hit it off with a new friend. After establishing a rapport, the attacker will introduce the idea that they have been making a lot of money in cryptocurrency investing and suggest the target consider getting involved while they can.
Next, the scammer gets the target set up with a malicious app or web platform that appears trustworthy and may even impersonate the platforms of legitimate financial institutions. Once inside the portal, victims can often see curated real-time market data meant to show the potential of the investment. And once the target funds their “investment account,” they can start watching their balance “grow.” Crafting the malicious financial platforms to look legitimate and refined is a hallmark of pig butchering scams, as are other touches that add verisimilitude, like letting victims do a video call with their new “friend” or allowing them to withdraw a little bit of money from the platform to reassure them. The latter is a tactic that scammers also use in traditional Ponzi schemes.
Though the swindle has some new twists, you can still see where it’s going. Once the victim has deposited all the money they have and everything the scammers can get them to borrow, the attackers shut down the account and disappear.
As for the romance scam, the RCMP will help me with that:
A romance scam is when a person creates a false identity and pretends to have romantic feelings for a victim to gain their trust and affection for the purpose of obtaining their money. The scam usually unfolds like this:
Step 1: Fraudsters research potential victims online, including reviewing their social media posts, to develop a tailored strategy for each victim and improve their chances of success.
Step 2: After developing an online relationship and gaining the victim’s trust, the fraudster usually fakes a scenario where they need quick money — such as a crisis or an investment opportunity.
Step 3: The scammer then requests money, cryptocurrency, gifts, or investments. They might also send money to the victim to build further trust or engage the victim as a money mule or courier in an illegal transaction. Eventually the victim becomes aware of the scam, many times after they’ve handed over thousands of dollars, at which point the fraudster stops communicating with them.
So with those explanations out of the way, let me explain why I feel I was targeted in one or the other type of scam.
Early today I got this message over Mastodon after I got followed by this person:
Now I was immediately suspicious right out of the gate as this fits the hallmarks of either type of scam. But in the interest of science. I played along. But at the same time, I poked around this Mastodon profile. In short:
They had been a member of Mastodon since October 2023
They had 14 posts.
Those are sort of red flags. But I needed more evidence to confirm what I was suspecting. And after interacting with this person for a while, I got it:
Scammers will often try to take you off the platform that you meet them on to a place like Telegram to continue the conversation and lead you down the path to separate you from your money. Thus this confirmed that this was some sort of scam. As a result I blocked this person on Mastodon. Honestly, I am surprised that something like this hasn’t happened sooner on Mastodon. Or maybe it has and I wasn’t aware of it. I say that because these scams are easy enough to perpetrate on other types of social media. But the decentralized nature of Mastodon make it way easier to pull something like this off because if a scammer gets caught out, they can set up another account on another Mastodon server and try again.
Regardless of what social media platform that you use, you need to be aware of this sort of thing so that you don’t become a victim. And now, back to your regular scheduled programming.
This entry was posted on May 29, 2024 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
It Appears That I Was Targeted In Either A Pig Butchering #Scam Or A Romance Scam On Mastodon
Before I do anything else, let me explain what a Pig Butchering Scam is. Wired will help me with this part:
Pig butchering scams originated in China, where they came to be known by the Chinese version of the phrase shāzhūpán because of an approach in which attackers essentially fatten victims up and then take everything they’ve got. These scams are typically cryptocurrency schemes, though they can involve other types of financial trading as well.
Scammers cold-contact people on SMS texting or other social media, dating, and communication platforms. Often they’ll simply say “Hi” or something like “Hey Josh, it was fun catching up last week!” If the recipient responds to say that the attacker has the wrong number, the scammer seizes the opportunity to strike up a conversation and guide the victim toward feeling like they’ve hit it off with a new friend. After establishing a rapport, the attacker will introduce the idea that they have been making a lot of money in cryptocurrency investing and suggest the target consider getting involved while they can.
Next, the scammer gets the target set up with a malicious app or web platform that appears trustworthy and may even impersonate the platforms of legitimate financial institutions. Once inside the portal, victims can often see curated real-time market data meant to show the potential of the investment. And once the target funds their “investment account,” they can start watching their balance “grow.” Crafting the malicious financial platforms to look legitimate and refined is a hallmark of pig butchering scams, as are other touches that add verisimilitude, like letting victims do a video call with their new “friend” or allowing them to withdraw a little bit of money from the platform to reassure them. The latter is a tactic that scammers also use in traditional Ponzi schemes.
Though the swindle has some new twists, you can still see where it’s going. Once the victim has deposited all the money they have and everything the scammers can get them to borrow, the attackers shut down the account and disappear.
As for the romance scam, the RCMP will help me with that:
A romance scam is when a person creates a false identity and pretends to have romantic feelings for a victim to gain their trust and affection for the purpose of obtaining their money. The scam usually unfolds like this:
Step 1: Fraudsters research potential victims online, including reviewing their social media posts, to develop a tailored strategy for each victim and improve their chances of success.
Step 2: After developing an online relationship and gaining the victim’s trust, the fraudster usually fakes a scenario where they need quick money — such as a crisis or an investment opportunity.
Step 3: The scammer then requests money, cryptocurrency, gifts, or investments. They might also send money to the victim to build further trust or engage the victim as a money mule or courier in an illegal transaction. Eventually the victim becomes aware of the scam, many times after they’ve handed over thousands of dollars, at which point the fraudster stops communicating with them.
So with those explanations out of the way, let me explain why I feel I was targeted in one or the other type of scam.
Early today I got this message over Mastodon after I got followed by this person:
Now I was immediately suspicious right out of the gate as this fits the hallmarks of either type of scam. But in the interest of science. I played along. But at the same time, I poked around this Mastodon profile. In short:
Those are sort of red flags. But I needed more evidence to confirm what I was suspecting. And after interacting with this person for a while, I got it:
Scammers will often try to take you off the platform that you meet them on to a place like Telegram to continue the conversation and lead you down the path to separate you from your money. Thus this confirmed that this was some sort of scam. As a result I blocked this person on Mastodon. Honestly, I am surprised that something like this hasn’t happened sooner on Mastodon. Or maybe it has and I wasn’t aware of it. I say that because these scams are easy enough to perpetrate on other types of social media. But the decentralized nature of Mastodon make it way easier to pull something like this off because if a scammer gets caught out, they can set up another account on another Mastodon server and try again.
Regardless of what social media platform that you use, you need to be aware of this sort of thing so that you don’t become a victim. And now, back to your regular scheduled programming.
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This entry was posted on May 29, 2024 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.