this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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hey everyone. i'll cut to the chase:

be careful of users like https://lemmy.world/u/Sadbunny3. we met 18 days ago and privately messaged each other a few days before exchanging contact information. i thought her speaking style was "odd" but not off. conversations flowed logically, past texts were referenced and thread replied to.. everything seemed rather genuine. this person appealed to me as somebody wanting a friend. we shared interests and then our personal lives. over the next few days i was told that this person wanted to help me out of my financial predicament that i confessed i was in.

i pushed back. i brought up how i felt uncomfortable, how i was disbelieving in their kindness, and they reassured me every step of the way that there are good people out there and sometimes good things do happen. they agreed with me that there are tons of bad actors out there, but they wanted to convey their seriousness to me, and that they weren't pulling my leg.

it took me another day or so to be willing to have them walk the walk. they asked how much my expenses were and started adding up totals. again, i called attention to the fact this was very, very strange. i didn't understand why somebody who knew so little of me valued me so much. in a way, i wanted to believe this was possible. i wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, a new friend was that generous.

lol

lmao

guys

no

as they were setting things up today they told me they were going to ask their accountant to wire me money (this was supposedly a therapist which explained their gaps in responses). i said ok thinking still that this was not going to happen. then, they informed me they had to send a check and blah blahFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK...noooo i'm so dumb godddddd!!!!! i said nahhh, not comfortable giving out my address. then they hit me with a "ohhh it'll be an email that is quick, easy, and convenient!" y'know, the way people talk to each other?

18 days. they pursued me for two weeks. i called them out and dialed their number until they answered. silence on the other end; not a single sound other than breathing. i blocked them and came to Lemmy to see if they were trying to message me or others. nope! and guess what? they stopped making public posts 18 days ago. they got me. they didn't need the account anymore.

i was floored. i have avoided many, many scams online. i ultimately prevented my first but it got uncomfortably far. i trusted someone i shouldn't have when there were red flags early. however, i didn't know those were red flags now in 2025. somebody not having the most fluid way of texting can be explained, but now i have to consider that a tell if things don't add up. idk just make sure you are being more skeptical nowadays, please. don't get scammed like i almost did.

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[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

They took the cat picture, or may be the same poster as Dawin on Reddit. Reverse image searched the cat image they posted, was posted here 3 months ago. The profile says they are a coin collector from Malaysia. Obviously no way to know that's actually the same person.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cat/comments/1kovlx6/tom_peaceful_face/

[–] chosensilence@pawb.social 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

ahh.. daaaaang. reverse image searching the cat, good shit. see? i know of those tools but i haven't felt it necessary to use or make it second nature to question a picture. i felt there were people online doing that enough and it was OK to take the lead from them. now i have to do this shit too lol.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I wouldn't have thought to do it without you saying you were tricked and someone else saying they paid the cat tax. My brain immediately went to thinking, wait do scammers really pay the tax or do they scam the tax lol

[–] chosensilence@pawb.social 5 points 2 days ago

oh i bet this dude paid. he's invested. i am certain that's his reddit account because he is typing more natural to his understanding of English. when we were texting back and forth he was using an LLM to mask that, but i did catch a couple grammatical or phrasing errors.. but i didn't think "i'm clearly getting scammed" because of that, because people just type wrong. people are different. it's something to note but didn't ring all the alarm bells.