Facebook Messenger Scam

Everything checked out yet you blocked and reported him!?

I think he was genuine. I had a friend from school that we've been friends on fb but apart from at the start haven't communicated for years.

Then he must have seen me on messager and messaged me. We talked about old mutual interest, mainly old computers, and then he was trying to get me to accept an invitation to the Temu site, which I believe is a site similar to ebay. I didn't accept it as I was suspicious of the site, and it felt kinda insulting that he would be that presumptuous.

But that's how some people are. The Internet can make people think they are closer to each other than they are. It's why all these romance scams work.

I suspect the guy was genuine and really was asking you for £20.

I wouldn't have given it him even if genuine. But then I'm a cheapskate :D
 
Uther said:
Sounds genuine tbh, but who knows these days, scammers get ever more elaborate.
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easy to write a script cough "AI" Cough that scrapes someone's profile and link timeline moments to specific people I guess.

scammers are just really tech savvy and usually work out of office buildings in india etc as if it's a normal IT business
 
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arknor said:
easy to write a script cough "AI" Cough that scrapes someone's profile and link timeline moments to specific people I guess.

scammers are just really tech savvy and usually work out of office buildings in india etc as if it's a normal IT business
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That's what I was thinking, could it just have been an AI chatbot given a prompt including all the information that could be scraped by a script from Facebook and messenger history?

Feels like we're at the point in chatbot development that it could well start fooling people...

Then again an old 'friend' just trying to drum up a bit of cash to fund a drug habit or whatever is maybe still the more likely option.
 
SexyGreyFox said:

www.fox19.com

Scammers posing as old friends on Facebook Messenger, fraud group says

How to avoid falling victim to this new Facebook Messenger scheme.
www.fox19.com www.fox19.com
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Scary! social engineering scams have come a long way. Fortunately i’m not convinced many “scam houses” / large scale scam groups would have the mental capacity to actually pull something like this off. I imagine it takes a little time and effort to compile in information to convincingly appear like someone from your past.

Compared with the typical scam emails/messages on messenger or market place this is quite sophisticated.

edit : that said, similar to sextortion / love scams they may start by asking for £20 in a few months it might be thousands. Only difference i can see with this is they don’t have anything to use against you other than your own emotions.
 
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I just had a scammer contact me, I have a monitor up on Facebook marketplace for £200 had some guy message me that he was interested. Asked if I’d take bank transfer and wanted my bank details. I’ve been told before that there is no real danger giving out bank account and sort number so wasn’t I really suspicious.

Then he said he needed my email address, so I gave that out too. Next he says he’s sent the payment and to check my email. Well I’ve got access to online banking and can see no payment was made.

Checked my email and received an email purporting to be from Halifax saying that a payment attempt had been made from a premier account and that as I didn’t have a premier account I’d have to do something in order to get the payment.

He then asks to see the email I’ve received at this point I realized he was a scammer and just said if you want it you’ll have to pay cash. At this point communication ended.

What a bloody nerve some people have got!
 
Neither a borrower nor a lender be. If any of my old Facebook mates asked for a loan I would hunt them down and beat them with a large stick.
 
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Goodie said:
Your response feels kinda harsh without more legwork on your part tbh
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In hindsight, I was perhaps a little hasty. And I absolutely should have done a video call (it didn’t even cross my mind).

I have a client in Cyber Security and I have an interest in ML/AI/LLM type stuff, so I’m very conscious of the potential for things like this. Maybe I should have added “paranoid” to the first sentence of the OP. :o

You start second guessing stuff, like “was that odd phrasing human error, or was it a dodgy bot”.

I unblocked him and within five minutes he was asking for money again. And, like I said, one of our other friends sent cash and he just started asking for more.

So it looks like it wasn’t a hack/scam but it’s still a situation I don’t want to be involved in.
 
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