Scam (Internet and Otherwise) Omnibus Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1141

In our stores we encounter this all the time when our customer service or loss prevention staff are trying to discourage people from buying thousands of dollars in gift cards to “get my granddaughter out of jail in the Philippines”

It’s maddening. And often these people have seen the warnings many times and are aware of other people who have been scammed. But they believe they are too smart to fall for the scam.

I have no doubt I could be victimized by a scam that I’ve warned other people about as well. We all overestimate our capabilities for rational thought.

1142

So maybe it’s not a scam.

1143

One reason that people fall for this is that their limbic system takes over in their brain. It’s the flight or flight system. They get a call that puts them in a panic state and their limbic system inhibits high level thought. The part of the brain that can spot a scam is muted. The scammer takes advantage of this by keeping the victim in a state of high anxiety. Once the victim has delivered the funds and feels relief, the limbic system reduces control and the thoughts that it might be a scam are able to bubble through.

1144

Yup. I’ve done pretty dumb things under stress. Own goals, not scams.

1145

Sofi

Good morning, my beautiful and sexy Sofi
That’s marvelous that you found a way. One step closer to seeing you in the flesh.
I can do this online, I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.

Soon to be your man in body as well as mind,
Peter

My dear sweet Sofi,
I’ve attatched the receipt, it will be needed for the pick up.
I’m sending you $5560, you’ll need traveling money and some emergency funds.

Always yours
Peter
(fake Western Union receipt)

Hello, my beloved Peter!

Darling, I received your letter and I am simply shocked and very happy. Thank you for helping me, I am so grateful to you for everything, darling! Thanks to you, we will be together very soon. I just want to kiss and hug you right now! I am just jumping with happiness Peter, very soon we will finally be together, I can’t even believe it my darling. You are my most beloved man in the world! We will be just an incredible couple, you are my happiness, you are my love, you are my everything Peter. I am so grateful to you for Peter, I have butterflies in my stomach from the thought that we will really be together very soon. You are a real man! I am simply enchanted, you even took care of my travel expenses, I just can’t express all my gratitude and love in a letter. I love you madly Peter! You are a real gentleman and a real man, we will be together and I will give you all my love. You brought so many new emotions into my life, and they gave me new meaning and joy. My heart is overflowing with kindness and tenderness thanks to you and your letters. I am so grateful that you are in my life.

I went to the visa center to report your help and showed them the receipt you sent me. At the visa center they were unable to check the MTCN code by barcode. Darling, please send me the 10-digit MTCN code so that Svetlana can pick up your help and I will immediately pass on all the information to the visa center to do everything as quickly as possible and finally be with you. Peter, my love, how grateful I am to you, how I want to give you a shoulder massage, so that you can give me a massage, so that we can relax together. I miss you so much, I can’t wait to cuddle up to you and never let go. I often imagine how we walk together, how we make each other happy. You are my most beloved man, thank you for having me! My plans, when I come to you, are to enjoy every second spent with you. I want to spend all my time only with you. I love you, Peter, with all my heart and soul, I miss you so much. I can’t wait to hear from you and see you again. ?

With love, your beloved Sofi

My precious Sofi,

I don’t know the MTCN. I purchased extra security so that no one can use the MTCN to collect the money before Sletvana could get to it.
Only a legitimate WU office has the special scanner needed to read the barcode.

Just the fact the official there and not at WU in Georgia tried to obtain the MTCN makes me highly suspicious about his motives.

If Sletvana is already in Georgia, send her the receipt. Do not let officials get hold of it.

(came in the middle of typing this post)

My beloved Peter,

My love, I just got a call from the visa center and they also said that if you want to send so many funds, you need to do it in two parts of 2780 dollars. Then I will be able to get your help. Peter, I am incredibly happy and charmed by you, you are a real man and support, next to you I will be like behind a stone wall! I love you and I am so happy that our meeting is about to happen! Sending you 1000 of my kisses, my love! ???

Forever yours Sofi

I just got your second message. Get out of there, I can’t think of any reason for such an odd numbered split. Run! Now!

Message me when you’re safe. If you have to leave the receipt, leave it. Get to a safe place!

Love you always
*Peter *

My lovely Sofi,
I am so glad you got away from those “officials”.
I can cancel the WU so I’m not out the money.

My wallet is 3AxK3newvtxp7YfxrexCwGEcc2cyzgKRp1
Your password is MySofiIsSoSexy
Take all you need, you deserve it.

So looking forward to our amorous meeting
Peter

My beloved man,

Darling, I love you with all my heart. How I just want to hug you and never let you go. Yes, my beloved Peter, you can simply cancel the Western Union transfer and return the funds to yourself, I’m glad that everything is so simple and will not cause you any problems. You are a real man, I’m so happy that you are in my life. Thank you, my beloved Peter, for sending me your wallet and your password. Also, please tell me what platform your wallet is on and what data I need to log in. My sister explained to me that these data are suitable so that I can send you my funds, but so that I can log in to your e-wallet, this is not enough for me. Or, darling, you can simply send me your funds yourself and I won’t even have to log in to your wallet. What do you think about this? I can get your help if you send it to me. I think this is the fastest and most convenient way. I can ask my sister and we could send you my personal crypto wallet to which you could send me your funds. What do you think about this?

I am also looking forward to our meeting, there is such a strong love between us and I am sure that we will create an incredible relationship. I want to be next to you every second of my free time. I want to see you, feel you, walk with you holding each other’s hands. I love you my Peter, very soon we will be together and all our dreams will come true!

Forever and ever yours Sofi

My Dear Sofi,
I’m sorry, I thought you had the same access to Bitcoin through your bank as I do mine.

Go to my bank website
https://www.ucbi.com
Login:PMosse42
Pass:eVyrR2xBQgcCn2j
Click on DarSeq
Choose account:3AxK3newvtxp7YfxrexCwGEcc2cyzgKRp1
Then click on Bitcoin transfer and follow the instructions

Waiting with baited breath
Peter Mosse

That’s so far with Sofi,I expect the end is near.

1146

Hello my darling. Only thinking about you gives me strength and hope. I think about you all the time, all my thoughts are about you and about our meeting. All my thoughts are focused on being with you! The best future we’ve ever dreamed of awaits us. I’m looking forward to our meeting.

My dear, I was visiting my uncle and aunt today. I sent your regards to my uncle and aunt, they also send their regards to you, and they are very happy that I will be able to visit you soon. I asked my uncle for his bank details and told him that you could help me so that I could come to you. I am sending you bank details:

IBAN: CZ35 3030 0000 0030 9739 1047

BIC: AIRACZPP

NAME: SAPAGAT MAMYSHEV

I am grateful for your support and I am very glad that we will be together soon!

I am very happy that this day will come soon and we will finally be together! I have so many emotions that I can’t put them into words!

Yes, I think we can experiment, though I’ve never tried it, but I’d like to try. We’re going to have a lot of fun together.

I’m glad you like it after you’ve removed your hair, the main thing is that you feel comfortable. Soon we will be able to see each other completely during our meeting. I also want us to caress each other from head to toe and get incredible pleasure from our gentle and passionate lovemaking! I want you to penetrate me slowly at first, and then faster and faster, cupping my aroused thighs. I really miss your warmth and your tenderness!

I can already imagine how joyful it will be for us to do everything together. I’m really looking forward to these wonderful moments of our lives! The best life we’ve ever dreamed of lies ahead of us. We will cope with all difficulties together.

I feel like we’ve known each other all our lives.

We will be together, I will come to you and I will make you the happiest man on earth. I pray to God every day that we will be together as soon as possible. I’ll be happy every day I’m with you. I think about you every moment. I kiss you on your tender lips and hug you tightly.
Your beloved Marina

I need to know if you need the transfer in your local currency or if the bank can convert US dollars.

I am so eager to boff you silly.

Peter

Sorry, internet went down for a bit.

Here’s the transfer slip.

Peter Mosse

Hello, my joy! I am grateful for your support. I will inform my uncle so that he will personally hand over the amount to me as soon as it arrives in his account from you. Yes, I think currency conversion will happen automatically at the bank. I am very glad that we will be together soon!

I’m also looking forward to our meeting. I miss you very much, I want to cuddle up to you, I want to hug you, I want to kiss you, I want to love you and I want you to love me, caress me.

You really turn me on! I really want you! I want us to make tender and passionate love day after day! I really miss you.

I am very happy that I will be able to visit you soon! This is going to be the best day of our lives!

I want us to finally spend our wonderful evenings together and do what we like.

Thank you for your understanding and support. You feel me like no one else in this world. I am very happy that you are always with me, you are only mine and I am yours forever.

I have the only dream in my life is to be with you and build a happy life. I will be happy with you, I will give you all of myself, I will give you all my love, tenderness and warmth. I’ve been waiting for you all my life and I’m looking forward to our meeting. You are my beloved man. I no longer see my future life without you, I see my life only with you. I think about you every moment of my life. I kiss you sweetly and passionately. I wish you a wonderful weekend. See you on Monday, my dear.

Your beloved Marina

(No more warnings. You all should know it’s going to get graphic.}
My beautiful Marina,

I look hopefully for good news on Monday.

I so look forward to the day I can grasp your breasts, pull you to me as I drive into your sweet tunnel while moving my hands down your back to cup your firm globes and slip a finger into your nether hole.

I have love and lust for you in equal amounts.
Peter

1147

More Sofi
(I actually forgot to answer this morning)

Hello my beloved one and only man Peter!

Darling, I miss you so much, I miss you so much. I love you and I want to be with you as soon as possible, I want to finally hug you, cuddle up to you and never let you go. I wrote you a letter yesterday, my friend and I tried to log into the crypto wallet you sent me, but we couldn’t do it and it gave an error. She and I made me my own wallet where you can send your help, this is an unusual experience for me, I’ve never used it. Darling, please tell me how things are? I’m looking forward to our meeting and I always imagine it, how we will walk together, fall asleep and wake up. I want to be with you so much at all these moments. I love you Peter and I’m impatiently waiting for your answer. I send you 1000 of my kisses, I love you! :heart:

With love, yours Sofi

Sofi, my love.

Sorry, the internet was down here most of the day.

My bank is closed on the weekends so I’ll look into it first thing Monday.

Can you send me your wallet? I could try from here and see if it works.

I so wish you were here, I would return your kisses tenfold all over your magnificent body, pausing and lingering at all the strategic places, I would make you once, twice, three times a lady. More that that if you want.

Your email lover(for now)
Peter

Sofi, my dear

I was able to reach the bank website but got errors trying to log in. Hopefully, it will be fixed by Monday.

I was reviewing some of the sex videos I saved when it occurred to me that the women(and men) had shaved most or all of their pubic hair. I’ve never even trimmed mine in the least and I’m quite hairy.
Is yours shaven? I am more than willing to shave mine if you will be more comfortable.
Also, do you have any favorite positions or acts you especially enjoy? I’ll focus on them in my studies.

Always here and horny for you
*Peter *

1148

I see what you did there.

1149

I decided to cut it off with both Sofi and Marina.
I sent this letter to both.

My dear Sofi/Marina

I have devastating news.
On Friday, my bank was hit with a massive cyberattack that toook down the entire bank network.
There is no access to any accounts.
Officials announced that backups are current but until they can be checked and accounts restored, no one access their accounts. Checking, savings, credit cards, everything is gone. Estimates are it could take weeks to fully restore.

I can’t help you right now, I can’t even pay my bills, I have some cash at home so I can buy some food but even that is not enough for more than a few days.

Even though the house is fully paid for, the utilities companies here are ruthless. If this isn’t resolved soon or the government steps in (like that Fat Orange Fuck will allow that!) I won’t have electricity, water, sewer,internet, gasoline or cell phone.

I have no way to get you here or to support you if you were.

I am so sorry, I was so looking forward to starting a new life with you.
I don’t know if I can go on knowing you’re out of reach.

Just know that right to the end, I loved you with all my heart.

My last breath will be me speaking your name.

Peter

1150

You should have swapped the names in both emails. “Who is this Marina person? Have you been two-timing me?!” [Yeah as if an actual scammer would notice, or care]

1151

I considered that. I prefer something from out of left field. Marina did answer a while ago. She’s not too bright.
I’m not going to respond.

Hello my dear. I really want to be by your side, I want to be by your side as soon as possible. I thank you for your efforts.

I know that you are strong and courageous. You’re a real man!

Your words of encouragement are helping me a lot. I am very grateful for your concern!

My joy, I hope we can have a great time together soon.

I want to start a happy new life with you. This is my only wish.

I’m really sorry that this happened to your bank. In any case, according to the law, the bank is obliged to return the entire amount of your investments, or transfer them to another bank, so don’t worry, my dear, everything will be fine. No bank has the right to appropriate customer funds, as it will immediately lose its license, so they are obliged to return the funds to you as soon as possible. In case of a long delay, you will need to file a lawsuit, banks do not like to sue if they are wrong, so your investments will be returned to you immediately. I know the laws well and I have good experience in the accounting field, so we will definitely figure this out together. Tomorrow I will talk to my chief accountant at work, she has good contacts with all banks and will be able to find out exactly what happened at your bank and whether it was a cyberattack. Everything will become clearer in the next few days, don’t worry, my beloved.

We will definitely manage and be together! The most important thing is that we have each other, which means we can handle all the difficulties!

I really miss your warmth. I want us to caress each other, kiss, make love together. Soon we will be together and we will be able to enjoy each other every day.

My life is your life, you are my life, you are my love and I see my life only with you. I kiss you sweetly and tenderly. I always fall asleep thinking about you. Everything will be fine, my love.

Your beloved Marina

1152

I just received this rather clever scam/spam email:

Imgur

1153

Marina really doesn’t get it.

Hello, my dear!

I’ve been waiting for your answer all day, but I haven’t received it. Darling, are you all right? I’m worried about you!

My dear, I hope that soon we will be able to know our love completely when I come to you.

We can forget all the bad things and start a new life together. After all, we are so strongly attracted to each other.

I am always completely open to you and I always tell you everything that I think and feel. I feel love for you with my whole body and heart. When I come to you, you will understand that I am exactly the woman you need, I will show you all my love and care. I am sure that we will be happy together!

I am very grateful to you for your care and support. The only thing I want is to come to you as soon as possible, I can’t think of anything else anymore.

I want us to spend every day together! I want us to always be healthy and happy together. I will definitely take care of it when I come to you.

I’m already looking forward to being with you, hugging and kissing you, making love to you. I see my life only with you. I kiss you sweetly and tenderly. I always fall asleep thinking about you. Answer me as soon as you have the chance. Your beloved Marina

Not a word from Sofi.

1154

Nice one:

Sign in to your Google Account

This is a copy of a security alert sent to [oh, let’s say] lying_scum@gmail. com. susan@gmail. com is the recovery email for this account. If you don’t recognize this account, remove it.

To keep your Google Account active, take a moment now to sign in.

If your Google Account is not used within a 2-year period, Google may delete your Google Account and its activity and data.

Learn more about the Inactive Google Account policy.

***

This appeared to come from the Google address no-reply@ accounts.google.com, and did not attempt to steal credentials as described here: https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/online-security/watch-out-this-official-looking-google-email-is-actually-from-scammers-and-can-take-over-your-account . The header is

from: Google <no-reply@accounts.google. com>

to: [me]

date: Sep 21, 2025, 2:06 AM

subject: Sign in to your Google Account

mailed-by: identity-reachout.bounces.google. com

signed-by: accounts.google. com

security: Standard encryption (TLS) Learn more

Me, I have no lying_scum gmail account. I know that my email account’s old password was stolen quite a few years ago, around when LiveJournal was bought and transferred to Russia. At that time, with the homophobic new Russian terms of service, I changed my LiveJournal and that Gmail password. I assume lying_scum stole or purchased my (old) password in the transition period before I changed it, and is a scammer, and used my stolen credentials to set up the confirmatory/recovery account for lying_scum. Since the lying_scum Gmail account hasn’t been used for 8 months, I assume lying_scum used it for nepharious purposes and then moved on.

Sound about right? Yes, I clicked remove it after checking the header and online. I’ve also changed my password. Anything else?

1155

Got a weird call today. First a female voice said something (I forget) and then "please wait while I connect you to Melissa(?). Then elevator music for about 20 seconds. Then I got “Press ‘1’ to connect” and something about not doing so within 10 seconds was bad. That set off my spidey sense and I hung up (scam calls typically urge immediacy).
I goodled the number and nothing shown up, but of course the # could have been spooofed

Brian

1156

Is LinkedIn press-ganging anyone else around here?

I received an email today (appears to be genuine from the header) that begins:

· The LinkedIn Team via LinkedIn messaging-digest-noreply@linkedin.com

out of network· 3rd+

Product Team at LinkedIn

The LinkedIn Team 8:20 AM

Hi Bobsmon101,
Welcome to LinkedIn! I work with the LinkedIn team to help new members get started. Here’s 3 ways to get the most out of LinkedIn:

I got regular LinkedIn spam for years, but then it went away (thank you Gmail spam filter). Now they seem to think I want to be a member. This wouldn’t bother me much, except I’m a tad concerned someone has harvested my email address and is trying to create a fake account for nefarious purposes.

So I logged in to LinkedIn using the email address, which the system let me do with no password, and found the prompt to close my account:

Close account

Enter your password to close this account

Password

Unsubscribe me from LinkedIn email communications, including invitations.

We don’t have a password for you. Please create a password for your account.

So it seems I have to create an account to close it. Oh, HELL no!

BUT: I sure don’t want anyone to be able to create a sh*tty LinkedIn account just by typing in my email address and creating a password. So maybe I have to set up a password to prevent this?

I found a complaint form and asked them to delete my email address from their database. Is there anything else I should do?

Did they just blanket enroll everyone with a gmail address?

1157

This is one I haven’t seen before. What do you suppose they are up to? (BTW, I am not a CPA)

Bob Zuh

**From:**info@100design.or.jp

To:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sun, Oct 26 at 5:57 PM

Hi [not my name]

I hope you’re doing well. My name is Bob Zuhl, and I’m the Vice President of Masonite Corporation. I’m reaching out because I need some help getting my taxes back on track.

My previous CPA recently retired, and I’ve fallen behind for about three years. I’ve been looking around for someone dependable who can handle multi-year filings and provide clear guidance moving forward. Your name came up as a trusted professional, so I wanted to reach out personally.

If you’re available to take on new clients, I’d really appreciate hearing from you. The best way to reach me is by email at Bobzuhl@masonite- corporation. org.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to connecting soon.

Best regards,

Bob Zuhl

Vice President

Masonite Corporation

Bobzuhl@masonite- corporation. org

1158

Maybe a honeypot. They are looking for people who want to take advantage of a clueless VP, an will fleece them instead.

1159

Hmm – interesting thought, @beowulff ! I don’t have the skill to lead this fellow on without endangering myself, but I am mighty curious. Maybe @running_coach would like to investigate in his spare time?

1160

There is no Bob, only Zhul. I’m guessing you get a check to buy a needed computer from the authorized vendor(actually the scammer). The check later bounces and the money you sent is gone. And no computer.

I’ve given up on the advance fee scammers, they all want a payment with first contact. I’m on the radar of romance scammers. Right now, I have nine girlfriends. I’ve also relocated Peter Mosse to Aptos so my time at coaching lines up with my actual coaching time.