In the digital age in which we live, it's hard to avoid scams.
Whether it's an email offering you the riches of African royalty or a Facebook message that tries to solicit your password, there seem to be new scams popping up all around us every day.
Image created by Ethan D. Smith using resources created by mohamed_hassan and the Cinematografica font. Used under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.
Inspired by a TED talk
A while ago, I discovered two of the most brilliant TED segments I've ever seen. Presenter James Veitch shared his multiple experiences responding to scammers via email. I invite you to view both of the videos for some context, because they are absolutely two of the funniest presentations I've ever seen. Here are the videos:
If you don't have time to watch the videos, I'll summarize what makes them entertaining. Veitch decides to play along with the scam emails premises, specifically that someone wanted him to distribute a large amount of physical gold.
All Veitch had to do, said the scammer, is send money to facilitate the shipment of the gold to his location. Veitch responds by introducing all sorts of humorous elements into the conversations, including a secret code based on types of candy (first video), and a tremendous desire for a toaster (second video).
I viewed the first of these videos around a year ago, so it had been a while, but I couldn't help thinking of them when, on Sunday, I received an unsolicited Facebook message from someone I hadn't talked to in years. I answered the message, but quickly I discovered that I wasn't talking to the person whose account was messaging me.
It was a scammer who had an interesting proposition for me:
Keep in mind for these messages, the scammer's texts are on the left and my responses are on the right. This remains the same whether the texts are from Facebook messenger or Google voice.
$150,000 to maintain my standard of living? From an organization that I'm definitely not eligible to claim benefits from?
The scam warning lights went off. I quickly googled "WCAB," and of course, the first result was about the scam that has been around for several years.
My first course of action was to contact a family member of the person whose account had been accessed fraudulently to let them know, but in the meantime, it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I had nothing better to do, and the James Veitch video jumped into my mind, so I decided to play along. Maybe it would be fun:
I'm being cautious, of course, asking questions that are begged after each of these unbelievable statements. keep in mind that he stated the money was delivered via UPS. It's very realistic that the UPS person would have made him sign the entire list of winners to claim his reward, so I kept going. But how did he know it was my name? I asked...
Seems convincing.
Ok, so I know they will eventually ask me for money, but what do I have to do to submit my claim? I never had to ask this question. It was answered for me:
So it's a two-part effort. I'm sure that if I choose to text the number, it will likely be the same person with whom I'm currently talking. But I know to carry on and continue having fun, I'll need to comply.
But I didn't want to use my own phone number. I knew they already had my name from Facebook, but my phone number isn't on there, so I didn't want to hand it over. Google came to the rescue with its Voice service (which you should check out if you ever need a burner phone number), so I registered a number, had the texts forwarded to my actual phone, and decided to text the number.
Note that my responses will now be in gray, and the scammer's messages appear in green
So it looks like I'll be talking to Jennifer Jenkinson now. Excellent.
I figured since they already had my name from Facebook, I had nothing to lose by providing my name, and when I did, I received some excellent news, as well as the first thing that would be required of me:
You can just sense my false enthusiasm...
Of course I was ready. I had been at this for two hours now. We were just getting started. So I asked what information they needed from me. When I found out, I asked the natural question (and started being more of a skeptic).
That's a lot of info. I had to figure out how to draw this out and find out what the actual request was without providing any of this information.
The response that came through next began one of the funniest things about this exchange:
Dear Winner
I love this.
Dear winner.
That's how they want to address me. Not by my name or title, but by the fact that I'm a winner. I was laughing so hard at this point that I had to let my wife in on what I was doing, and she quickly read through what I had said already.
I asked these questions because I still wasn't sure how much I had won. Then they called me "Mr Ethan." Back and forth with the greetings...
Anyhow, the next response was attempting to move me in the right direction again:
$150,000!!!
There's that number again! So exciting.
Now there's something I've been omitting...
The entire time I've been texting "Agent Jenkinson," I've still been messaging my "friend's account" on Facebook. I wanted to find out how he received his winnings, so I asked:
FEDEX? I thought it came via UPS...
I was willing to let that go, but I was curious if I could get some proof of this money delivery...
He took my inquiry in stride.
Real Cash
Yes, indeed it was! There's the photo to prove it! (Yes, I realized the time stamp was current despite his telling me he had received it on Friday. Don't worry. I asked about this later.)
Well, the nice, fresh Benjamin Franklin notes were just the ticket to keep me going. So I returned to my conversation with Agent Jenkinson. I was ready to proceed.
But I thought this would be a good time to introduce a twist. Perhaps catch this person off guard...
Surely this would trip up Agent Jenkinson. They couldn't be prepared to transfer my winnings with a digital currency, right? The response was almost immediate:
Yes! So I'm going to receive the money in Bitcoin now! I'll skip over some of the next few messages, as they just include me attempting to convince them that using a Bitcoin transfer was much easier than FEDEX. I even sent them an actual Bitcoin address.
They didn't take the bait, so I finally got around to finding out what they really wanted:
So all of the previous winners had to do this as well. Hmmm..
I decided to force their hand. So I voiced my concerns and didn't respond for a few minutes to see what would happen. They took the bait:
Now that I've let them brood for about 30 minutes, I asked how much the charges would be.
So how much was it going to cost me to get my Bitcoin transfer?
I made a few other objections, even asking if they could pay me first, and then I would have plenty of money.
I also haggled Agent Jenkinson down to $500 instead of $1000.
Then, I decided to just keep things moving, so I asked what kind of payment they wanted.
Surely they wanted bank account info or a credit card number, right? The answer was surprising...
iTunes gift cards?
That's what they want. What on Earth do they need iTunes cards for?
Only one thing to do.... ask.
Enter the Motherless Babies
Where did that come from? I wasn't expecting that at all. At this point, I was laughing so hard.
The natural question was how babies are going to use iTunes cards. So I asked.
I could have never imagined the exchange that would follow:
Hilarity Ensues
Keep in mind that it's now 6 pm. I started this conversation back around 1:30 pm. It's been almost 5 hours, and we're talking about motherless babies.
Needless to say, I was intrigued by the concept of a Technical School for Orphans, so I asked for more information. Again, the result was some of the funniest dialogue I've ever had with another living person.
Worker Compensation Orphanage Home
Worker Compensation Orphanage Home
I'm dying.
Just read that slowly about three times.
Needless to say, they realized I had sidetracked them, so they tried to steer me back on course.
I, of course, ignored this last question, because I had one last question that was apparently too much for them:
Crickets
That was it. Apparently they had too much. That's all I heard from them for the rest of the evening.
But what a run it was.
Until the next morning.
That's right. They weren't done.
I thought for sure they would have abandoned ship, knowing that I was just giving them the runaround, but no!
So I took the opportunity to go down one more rabbit hole via this line of questioning:
Clearly, they still weren't deterred.
But I had one more question, and the answer may surprise you:
No way. I can't believe they actually said yes.
I had set myself up for the spike, so I had to finish:
I waited ever so patiently for a response...
Until finally:
Bummer. It didn't work.
Oh well. That's all I heard from them. As I'm typing this up several hours later, there has been radio silence from text and Facebook.
I suppose they've given up. But that's ok. It was such a wonderful experience. I had so much fun with this.
Bonus
I want to include one more exchange back on Facebook messenger with the person who originally messaged me. I asked about the iTunes cards, because that had to seem fishy, right?
This was hilarious to me.
I can't lie to you
He can't lie! This is all the truth. It's not strange at all!
Moral of the Story
This was really one of the most hilarious experiences of my life. I couldn't believe they engaged with me for hours and entertained all of my questions, albeit with terrible responses.
Like James Veitch says in the videos at the beginning of this post, it's great knowing you were wasting their time so they can't go off to scam someone else (Remember, scams like these have been successful).
Anyhow, I hope you've enjoyed reading this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.
From technologically literate motherless babies to worker's compensation, scams have it all.
Remember to protect your passwords, don't click on links that seem strange, and never provide your password to a website without first confirming you're in the right place.
If you'd like to read the entire conversations, I've provided images of them that you are welcome to peruse. I hope you'll find some other tidbits that make you laugh. There are so many laughable moments in both.
I didn't redact the phone number on purpose. If you want to have some fun, text the number and tell them you want to claim your winnings! Who knows what they'll say.
If you do have such an experience, I encourage you to document it somehow. It was great fun, and I'd love to read other ways that people cleverly waste the time of scammers.
I know this has been a long post, but I hope you've enjoyed a light-hearted look at a subject that plagues technologically-centered platforms. Let's fight scams together as we move forward into a digital age.
Be safe out there!
