Scamming Innocent People
By Rachel
@RachelleDD (823)
Canada
November 6, 2019 11:46am CST
So yesterday I got a message from a good friend of mine, she asked how I was doing, and I told her I was good. She asked me if I "had heard the news about the Snow Grant Foundation".
I knew as soon as she asked this that someone had used her image, creeped her Facebook to find her friends and started sending them messages pretending to be her. I told her I hadn't sent the e-transfer I owed her for a painting I had commissioned her to paint for me....(not true)....just to see where this person would go with it. The initial question about the Snow Grant Foundation wasn't mentioned after I asked her if she would like me to etransfer her the $1200 I still owed her. She told me her email was acting up, asked if I could purchase two "Google Play" gift cards at my local Walmart, to take pictures of front and back and send them in messenger.
I know that we can all be a little too trusting sometimes, this foundation would have been a link to a webpage to try and obtain my banking information, or any personal information to possible use in the future.
Canadians are scammed out of millions of dollars every year, every time I see something online I'll share it to Facebook to at least warn my friends. The latest scam going around here is someone calling to tell you that you owe Revenue Canada taxes, and they are sending the police to arrest you. I was witness to a very distraught elderly man at my bank a few years ago trying to withdraw $13,000, and cried at the teller window because he wasn't suppose to tell her "why" he needed the money. as he had been threatened. He was instructed to take money from bank, buy gift cards and then send the card info the caller!...who he still had on the line on his cell phone. The teller asked to speak to the caller, and told the caller they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to hurt an elderly man. The man left the bank, but was not 100% convinced it was a scam. The teller gave him contact info so he could call Revenue Canada. The scammers are getting very smart, spoofing real government agency phone numbers, so it truly looks like a legit call.
I haven't personally been scammed, but I know a few people who have been. What sorta person do you have to be to do this to someone?? Have you ever been scammed? What is the most outrageous scam you have heard about?
2 people like this
2 responses
@akalinus (40440)
• United States
6 Nov 19
If you got that message, I think it is a scam. When I get a message like that, I tell my friend they have been hacked and to change her password. Never engage in those conversations. It is someone using your friend's name to rip you off. Turn your friend off in chat if she does not or cannot change her password.
@RachelleDD (823)
• Canada
6 Nov 19
I knew it was someone pretending to be my friend, maybe I shouldn't have engaged with them, but I had enough conversation to show my friend, as well as post to a local "Beware" group. I also reported the conversation to Facebook even tho it doesn't seem like they do much to prevent it There are seven more pics, Mylot would only let me upload one. :) thanks for responding.
1 person likes this
@akalinus (40440)
• United States
6 Nov 19
@RachelleDD I laughed at the suggestion to buy gift cards and send photos of the front and back. Do they you were born yesterday?
@RachelleDD (823)
• Canada
6 Nov 19
@akalinus I think etransfers can be traced, he/she was smart enough for that I suppose lol
@paigea (35684)
• Canada
9 Nov 19
Those thieves are horrid. And so hard to catch, it seems.
I get the Revenue Canada call sometimes. And the one that my computer is malfunctioning.
I've seen at one store a big sign by the iTunes cards explaining that Revenue Canada doesn't want payment that way.
That bank teller did a good job convincing that man not to send the money.
A convenience store clerk here couldn't talk an elderly man out of buying ITunes cards so she called the police.
They came and convinced the man not to buy them.
A short time later, they had a call to another convenience store and it was the same man trying to buy the cards.
@RachelleDD (823)
• Canada
9 Nov 19
Seems Canadian immigrants are targeted the most, because they don't really know the difference in Canada and are scared into paying in fear of deportation. So many have lost their life savings to these thieves. I think they busted a big scam thing in India a while ago, but they keep cropping up. So sad.
1 person likes this
