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This is a scammer, right? Romance or whatever.
Drez
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Please note, I'm a terribly unhelpful mixture of dense and intuitive when romantic intent is even a remote part of any social equation. I also try to be as helpful as possible and I fear this is easily exploitable and I sometimes maybe overcorrect in the opposite direction because I don't want to get scammed. I'm an optimist and hopeful and I try to assume the best about people which, of course, often ends up biting me in the ass.
This started about 3 weeks ago.
I am not on any dating sites. I am on various social networking site and most of my profiles are public for numerous reasons, and will remain so; this is the triumvirate of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Twitter is, by far, my least used social app.
A couple of weeks ago I got a random message from a woman on Twitter that I almost didn't even respond to at first because it was such an odd occurrence. Just a couple of hellos and such at first, nothing deep or romantic/flirtatious. Anyway, I responded and exchanged some pleasantries with her. Her Twitter profile seems at least somewhat legitimate. She doesn't seem to be very active, but she does have followers and follows others and her account is at least many, many months old.
A couple of red flags:
1) She asked me if we could talk via text instead of Twitter after only a couple of pleasantries. I (perhaps stupidly) gave her my number, but I wanted to play this out.
2) She almost immediately switched over to calling me "dear" and "handsome." In almost every text. This was BEFORE she even asked me for a photo or anything. Admittedly, my Twitter account has at least one photo of me publicly viewable. Like, she escalated the romance talk so very quickly. It went from "hi, tell me about yourself" to "dear" and "handsome" and "I wish I were there with you" in the span of a day of getting my phone number.
3) She peppered every conversation with light flirtation with no reciprocation on my part. I mean it was 2 weeks of calling me handsome when I was responding with "ok" or "cool".
4) At one point, she mentioned maybe talking on the phone so I could hear her voice. But I wasn't up for it that weekend and she never mentioned it again. I brought it up myself and she said something about having OCD and a specific traumatic situation regarding phones so she can't really talk on the phone. I didn't press her on it.
5) Her word choice is a bit...off, but not necessarily that off. This could just be me living in NJ/NY rather than a real red flag. See the next point for a possible example.
6) She sent this text in the midst of some random conversation: "I also pray that may God come my way and help me out in any possible calamity in the future." The word choice there - calamity? Do people use that word? Also, this is a super big red flag to me because she is saying this to me. She's talking about God, but she's planting the seed that she foresees "calamity" for her in the near future. My prophetic reaction at the time was "she's going to ask me for money, and this is her planting the seed for that."
***7) She texts me on Friday asking me how I am doing and I tell her and ask how she is doing. She says she isn't happy. I ask her why. She tells me that her grandmother (who she lives with) and who is sick (which she told me at the offset during the "what's your living situation" phase of our initial conversations) needs medicine and she (the Twitter girl) doesn't have enough money to afford it. It's for her grandmother's "breathing." This is immediately triggering for me. She didn't ask me for the money, but that's clearly what she is hinting at, and she said it's $100 - so she threw out an exact number. I immediately fire off the following two texts in rapid succession: "I'm very sorry to hear that. Doesn't her medicaid or medicare or whatever cover that?" and "I wish I could help but I cannot at this time."
She responds:
"It doesn't cover this, dear."
"Why can't you help, dear."
"This is very important to me and my grandmother."
I was literally shaking in anger and stress after reading that even though I basically predicted it.
Things that give me pause about her actually being a scammer (in other words, maybe she isn't? This is my optimism creeping in):
1) Her phone number does seem to originate from the area she claims to live in.
2) She did send me photos and google reverse image search did not find any hits.
I'm sad. A part of me is always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and try to help them out of a bad situation. If I believe her, then yeah her life has been a bit of a wreck and I can empathize and I don't want to be yet another person treating her poorly. But I'm dealing with ANOTHER friendship where I lent/gave someone money and I feel used from that situation, too, and I'm worried that maybe I'm just a fucking idiot that allows himself to get taken advantage of.
Also, to be blunt, I have absolutely no romantic interest in this person. If I had ever had any, that went out the window when she mentioned the $100. I'm willing to bet that a part or various parts of the stories she told me are true.
What I keep coming back to is that as soon as she made that comment about "calamity" (#6 above), I immediately thought "she's going to ask me for money" and here we are.
I haven't responded to her. She keeps texting me asking me how I'm doing and now she's asking me why I'm not responding.
Sorry for the long read. Thoughts?
This started about 3 weeks ago.
I am not on any dating sites. I am on various social networking site and most of my profiles are public for numerous reasons, and will remain so; this is the triumvirate of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Twitter is, by far, my least used social app.
A couple of weeks ago I got a random message from a woman on Twitter that I almost didn't even respond to at first because it was such an odd occurrence. Just a couple of hellos and such at first, nothing deep or romantic/flirtatious. Anyway, I responded and exchanged some pleasantries with her. Her Twitter profile seems at least somewhat legitimate. She doesn't seem to be very active, but she does have followers and follows others and her account is at least many, many months old.
A couple of red flags:
1) She asked me if we could talk via text instead of Twitter after only a couple of pleasantries. I (perhaps stupidly) gave her my number, but I wanted to play this out.
2) She almost immediately switched over to calling me "dear" and "handsome." In almost every text. This was BEFORE she even asked me for a photo or anything. Admittedly, my Twitter account has at least one photo of me publicly viewable. Like, she escalated the romance talk so very quickly. It went from "hi, tell me about yourself" to "dear" and "handsome" and "I wish I were there with you" in the span of a day of getting my phone number.
3) She peppered every conversation with light flirtation with no reciprocation on my part. I mean it was 2 weeks of calling me handsome when I was responding with "ok" or "cool".
4) At one point, she mentioned maybe talking on the phone so I could hear her voice. But I wasn't up for it that weekend and she never mentioned it again. I brought it up myself and she said something about having OCD and a specific traumatic situation regarding phones so she can't really talk on the phone. I didn't press her on it.
5) Her word choice is a bit...off, but not necessarily that off. This could just be me living in NJ/NY rather than a real red flag. See the next point for a possible example.
6) She sent this text in the midst of some random conversation: "I also pray that may God come my way and help me out in any possible calamity in the future." The word choice there - calamity? Do people use that word? Also, this is a super big red flag to me because she is saying this to me. She's talking about God, but she's planting the seed that she foresees "calamity" for her in the near future. My prophetic reaction at the time was "she's going to ask me for money, and this is her planting the seed for that."
***7) She texts me on Friday asking me how I am doing and I tell her and ask how she is doing. She says she isn't happy. I ask her why. She tells me that her grandmother (who she lives with) and who is sick (which she told me at the offset during the "what's your living situation" phase of our initial conversations) needs medicine and she (the Twitter girl) doesn't have enough money to afford it. It's for her grandmother's "breathing." This is immediately triggering for me. She didn't ask me for the money, but that's clearly what she is hinting at, and she said it's $100 - so she threw out an exact number. I immediately fire off the following two texts in rapid succession: "I'm very sorry to hear that. Doesn't her medicaid or medicare or whatever cover that?" and "I wish I could help but I cannot at this time."
She responds:
"It doesn't cover this, dear."
"Why can't you help, dear."
"This is very important to me and my grandmother."
I was literally shaking in anger and stress after reading that even though I basically predicted it.
Things that give me pause about her actually being a scammer (in other words, maybe she isn't? This is my optimism creeping in):
1) Her phone number does seem to originate from the area she claims to live in.
2) She did send me photos and google reverse image search did not find any hits.
I'm sad. A part of me is always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and try to help them out of a bad situation. If I believe her, then yeah her life has been a bit of a wreck and I can empathize and I don't want to be yet another person treating her poorly. But I'm dealing with ANOTHER friendship where I lent/gave someone money and I feel used from that situation, too, and I'm worried that maybe I'm just a fucking idiot that allows himself to get taken advantage of.
Also, to be blunt, I have absolutely no romantic interest in this person. If I had ever had any, that went out the window when she mentioned the $100. I'm willing to bet that a part or various parts of the stories she told me are true.
What I keep coming back to is that as soon as she made that comment about "calamity" (#6 above), I immediately thought "she's going to ask me for money" and here we are.
I haven't responded to her. She keeps texting me asking me how I'm doing and now she's asking me why I'm not responding.
Sorry for the long read. Thoughts?
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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God, it’s so easy to play me. Even now I’m still entertaining the remote thought that she’s somehow genuine and stressing about just ghosting on her because I have hang ups about being ghosted on myself.
The fuck is wrong with me
Everyone has to be vigilant for this. No one's immune and it can come from seemingly innocuous places.
:bro:
For now.
The scammer didn't choose you. They sent (and are still sending) out hundreds of these things on Twitter. You just happened to be someone (probably among many) who responded. The good news is you caught the scam before you lost any money, which means the scammer didn't get the actual thing they wanted. The fact that they caused you emotional turmoil doesn't matter to them which is why these types of scammers are absolutely despicable.
Also the fact that they wanted to talk over the phone and then suddenly didn't points to this being a team of scammers and that 'alluring lady voice' isn't always available, so try to stop envisioning the scammer as some poor soul who really needs your help. This is an entire operation that relies on playing the numbers to find victims. Report their number and twitter account then walk away. Don't try to engage them, it's all too easy for someone to decide to continue fucking with you because they're bored.
Also be on the lookout for this! You may have ended up in the "almost got 'em" pile, and with having linked public social media (and your number) the same team might try to hit you with other scams down the line.
You entered the conversation willing to offer good faith, while their only goal right from word one was 'how do we manipulate any responder into giving us realbucks?'
To quote Wargames 'The only way to win is not to play.'
I just woke up to a text from the other person I mentioned in the midst of all this - the one that I had to tell in no uncertain terms not to ask me for money anymore - begging me for $20 and saying they need it to get something to eat and that they literally cannot eat without it.
I've been acquainted with this person for many, many years now so I gave them a little more leeway than the rando I started this thread to discuss, but it's just too goddamned much at this point. I've given this person more money than you can fathom, especially considering how insignificant our relationship actually has been over these years.
I don't know what to do. Someone is begging me for $20 and saying they can't eat. This is how it started in April with this person, but then $20 became them asking me for money every 3-4 days and then a sob story about how their phone is going to get turned off and how will they ever find a job if they can't pay their phone bill? and I stupidly helped them out of that. I don't even want to explain how much I gave them without the prospect of ever being paid back.
My first action when I got this text was to turn off iPhone notifications for texts from her. I feel like I have two options:
1) Ignore her forever, though we do have mutual real life friends right now and we're connected on one social media platform.
2) Respond, send her exactly $20, and tell her that I'll be blocking her number as I asked her not to reach out to me again for money.
In the off chance that I actually am the only thing standing between her and starvation, is that second option excessively cruel? I just can't be responsible for some 31 year old. I'm 40. I don't have a kid. I don't have a wife. I have me and my own fucking problems, financial and otherwise. And I don't want anything to do with this person anymore. But I also don't want her to starve and I don't want to be unnecessarily dickish.
Thoughts?
edit: The thing is, it literally upsets me every time she texts me. 15 minutes ago, I was napping and happy. Now, my entire emotional state is thrown off because she's asking me for money again. Maybe a part of this is on me in managing my own emotions, but I need to excise her from my life somehow and I need some kind of closure on all this.
I hate to say it but the "drug" thing did cross my mind at some point. I don't want to judge anyone but "ask for 30-50 dollars every 3-4 days" kind of triggered that thought for me.
Anyway, I just muted her texts for now.
Edit: to be more helpful.
My wife is easily manipulated because of her wonderful heart. She's started sticking up for herself more in these take take take situations and I can tell she feels better about herself in general.
I'm sorry you have to put up with this but seriously, don't be afraid of just a flat 'no' with no need to explain yourself.
There's nothing you can do for them at this point that will fix them.
And when finally get a therapist, this is definitely one of the myriad topics that I am going to bring up.
The last cash I gave one of my brothers was $100 to buy a Christmas gift for his kids, 10 years ago. Who knows if any such gift was bought? I told him, this was the last time I would ever give him so much as a penny. He still asks, but I remind him, and that’s the end.
You are not a bad person Drez, the fact that you feel bad shows that you have empathy. Don’t stop being caring because these people took advantage of you. Like Enc said, when they ask for help, offer to help connect them with people that can help them. Trust me, they will leave you alone real quick when the spigot is turned off.
This is exactly what I thought. I gave her a few hundred dollars a month ago and she needed more in 3 days.
It's very easy to judge yourself, but overwhelming emotions tend to distort the picture. So even if reaching out to these other friends isn't a possibility do try to be aware of when your emotional state is perhaps skewing your perspective and keeping you from seeing reality as it is. Coming here to get feedback is a good choice, but don't let it stop there! Work on using the supports around you and practice being mindful of when you would be better served by reaching out to others.
I would expect once the topic is broached, you are far from the only person in your shared friends group frustrated with being seen as a source of income. And if everyone realizes this, word will spread and eventually that person will face a wall of people realizing their behavior and will have to adapt to making money their own self like the rest of us.