I wonder if anyone has indeed donated/disbursed their lottery winnings, out of the sheer goodness of their heart (and/or they don’t need it, see it as a temptation to be avoided, etc.). How would that differ from the text in the OP?
I’ll need $200 so I can pay the librarian to give me the answer that I will pass on to you for a small transfer fee.
Theorem: If you are even asking if it is a scam, it is.
I got one this morning; it even came with an .ng address (which I assume is Nigeria) that claimed my company (I have no company) was being audited and I should click here ti get the details. Grammar was atrocious too.
If you have an overdraft facility, or if you are able to get a personal loan, or if you have access to someone else’s funds that you could ‘borrow’ to pay a scammer’s advance fee, they will press you to do it. They will willingly drive you into debt, or into crime, so they can profit.
Purely anecdotal, but I used to work for a lawyer/accountant who had a medical doctor client that fell for it. It seemed desperation for money clouds judgment.
Nobody is at their best at every moment of their lives, and people who are highly skilled and smart in specific fields can be innocent babes in other areas of human activity. I’m currently on a bit of a crusade against the whole ‘victims are stupid’ (’/and deserve to be scammed’) thing.
I’ve been talking to scam victims about their experiences - they come from all walks of life; they are distributed across all age groups (another stupid myth is ‘only boomers’); I’ve spoken to one recently who is in a life-and-death job role where acute thinking is required and mental competence is frequently tested - not a stupid person by any reasonable standard.
Scammers spray out a huge variety of scam scenarios, and people generally fall victim when they are in a situation or state that has already ‘primed’ them to accept the story, often through no particular fault or action of their own.
Life Goal: Create a scam even Mangetout falls for.
Just find something that looks vaguely food-like. He’ll try it. Even better if it comes in a can.
Great speaking voice!
Not exactly the same thing, but MacKenzie Scott (ex-wife of Jeff Bezos) has given away billions in the past couple of years to hundreds of organizations, and scammers have pretended to be her or her representatives, trying the same scam. (Paywalled NYT article here.)
Yeah, I’ve seen a fair bit of that - if anyone gets in the papers for philanthropy (or just for being wealthy), scammers will impersonate them (often badly). I have emails in my collection, offering me vast sums, from both Jeffb Bezos and Bills Gate.
A ha! Jokes on them! I’ve got no credit and no bank account!
I believe it was a Kitboga video where that scammer told him to buy the cards to give them rather than pay for his medicine.
Perhaps in the form of a massive yacht?
I’ve had that too - my scam victim character had been saving for a lifesaving heart operation and the scammer basically said “look, the operation is not tomorrow, so send the money; next week you will be rich”
Good God. How can anyone sink that low?
An acquaintance of mine fell for a similar scam, and he’s not generally an idiot (and is in his thirties). I think it sort of made it harder to deal with, because he really didn’t want to admit that he had been conned by quite a simple scam - he insisted the police must be in on it because they said they couldn’t do anything.
I received a spam text less than an hour ago, asking to buy my house.
As I’ve been a tenant all my life, I doubt my landlady would approve.
But as a fer-instance, here’s the verbatim text, including all [sic] errors:
Blockquote
Hi this is Sam at we buy homes nation. We have reached out to you to check and see if you would be interested in selling your Home Kindly respond to this text if so. Thanks and make it a great day!
Blockquote
Okay, “Sam,” good luck with all that.
(ETA: wow, I messed up the formatting.)
“Kindly” is a sign it’s been sent from India.
But IIRC a lot of the older “Nigerian” scams were actually sent from just a few companies based in the Netherlands - physically based there with people on the phone from there, rather than anything actually in Nigeria. The Nigerian thing was playing on racial prejudices, where the victims would (even if they didn’t realise it) have a stereotype of Africans as being less educated then them, therefore less able to con them.
Kitboga (playing his Edna character) had one dude who threatened to come and shoot “her” husband.
Another one (kidnapped relative scam) claimed to be the head of the FTC and would have the grandson chopped into pieces if the grandfather didn’t pay up.
Jesus. Doesn’t give you much hope for humanity, does it.