Facebook Messenger Scam

BowdonUK

BowdonUK

BowdonUK

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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
 

arknor

arknor

arknor

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Uther said:
Sounds genuine tbh, but who knows these days, scammers get ever more elaborate.
Click to expand...
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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GreatAuk

GreatAuk

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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
Click to expand...
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.
 

FloppyPoppy

FloppyPoppy

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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
Click to expand...

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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