GhostInTheMachine
Member
- Nov 5, 2023
- 36
Almost got scammed on Discord by somebody who added me that I mistook for an IRL mutual of a friend of mine. TL;DR the only reason I added them was because they were mutual friend of somebody I trust, and they took time to chat me up before hitting me with the scam. The scam itself was strange as it wasn't the usual set-up that I've seen before, and while I had my suspicions the entire time, I kept putting them off because "This person knows M, I'm sure it's fine". Well they tried to hit me with check fraud, but fortunately before their scam could come to fruition, my friend got back to me and confirmed that they did not know this person despite being mutual friends with them. My bank also put the check on hold and I will be going down to my local branch tomorrow to tell them to cancel the funds.
I feel foolish for not listening to my gut on it being a scam, and a lot of the obvious signs that slipped past my mind are now obvious in retrospect. This scammer simply got lucky and got me as I was coming out of a depressive episode, and I was feeling generous today. Their pitch was that they owed some college fees and needed me to deposit a check for them and then send them the money. I've seen this scam before, but they deviated from the usual red-flags of wanting the money sent back via gift-cards, wire transfer, crypto, etc. They agreed to have me send the funds via Zelle (an official money transfer app that is partnered with many official bank chains), so that also factored in to me feeling more secure this wasn't scam because in that case there's a digital trail to follow the money and get it back. To put it frankly, this scammer was not particularly good at their scam, but I was also not particularly diligent in my security.
I have compromised most, but not all of my full legal name, and my email. The email is easy enough to replace, albeit annoying to have to switch so many accounts. What bothers me more is I sent them pictures of myself (not lewd or anything, just normal pictures) and now I know those pictures and my name will be used to scam other people. I told my friend to immediately block that person, and to cull their friends list of people they don't closely know. Had they never had that mutual friend icon, I would never have given it any time of day, but that was all it took to make everything else slip by. If anybody experiences anything similar to this, IT'S A SCAM!
I luckily have not lost any money, but having my identity partially compromised is depressing because this would be the 2nd time my identity was stolen. It happened before randomly (I assume due to a data breach) with my deadname, and now my dumbass just unwittingly fucked up my new name. I quite like this new name and I hate the idea of having to change it to resecure my ID. The fortunate thing is that my credit is still frozen from the last time I had it stolen, and I have NO plans on unfreezing it.
I feel foolish for not listening to my gut on it being a scam, and a lot of the obvious signs that slipped past my mind are now obvious in retrospect. This scammer simply got lucky and got me as I was coming out of a depressive episode, and I was feeling generous today. Their pitch was that they owed some college fees and needed me to deposit a check for them and then send them the money. I've seen this scam before, but they deviated from the usual red-flags of wanting the money sent back via gift-cards, wire transfer, crypto, etc. They agreed to have me send the funds via Zelle (an official money transfer app that is partnered with many official bank chains), so that also factored in to me feeling more secure this wasn't scam because in that case there's a digital trail to follow the money and get it back. To put it frankly, this scammer was not particularly good at their scam, but I was also not particularly diligent in my security.
I have compromised most, but not all of my full legal name, and my email. The email is easy enough to replace, albeit annoying to have to switch so many accounts. What bothers me more is I sent them pictures of myself (not lewd or anything, just normal pictures) and now I know those pictures and my name will be used to scam other people. I told my friend to immediately block that person, and to cull their friends list of people they don't closely know. Had they never had that mutual friend icon, I would never have given it any time of day, but that was all it took to make everything else slip by. If anybody experiences anything similar to this, IT'S A SCAM!
I luckily have not lost any money, but having my identity partially compromised is depressing because this would be the 2nd time my identity was stolen. It happened before randomly (I assume due to a data breach) with my deadname, and now my dumbass just unwittingly fucked up my new name. I quite like this new name and I hate the idea of having to change it to resecure my ID. The fortunate thing is that my credit is still frozen from the last time I had it stolen, and I have NO plans on unfreezing it.
