Digital Nomads

This is Part II of our Unmasking Market Place Scams. If you haven’t read the first one, please read this first: UNMASKING MARKETPLACE SCAMS – Digital Nomads (digitalnomadsonebyte.com)

Since writing the last article, I have been waiting for a PayID Scam to come through so I could see how they work and screenshot our conversation. It’s been a long wait…..but finally…….a message from “Sabine”. I have been waiting for this moment for weeks. I wonder if this is how the scammer feels when they think they have hooked someone. Do they get excited like I am right now?

The conversation starts out pretty normal. She asks for the condition of my lounge and asks where I’m located. Then she hits me with wanting to pay via PayID telling me her uncle will pick it up because she is out of the city. She clearly hasn’t done her research, or she would know that Maryborough is not a city. 🙂

So, I give her fake details and a fake email address, and she tells me that she is proceeding with the payment. I’m in the middle of watching a movie at this point so I put her off for a bit so I can see if they catch the bad guys. I receive the email and ask what it means. Sabine makes up some crap about MY account not being a business account, so SHE’S asked to make an additional an additional payment to upgrade MY account. WTF?!?!

She makes said payment and asks me to check my emails. At this point, the movie is finished, the bad guys are caught, and I want to have a shower, so I tell her I have to put my daughter to bed and will check once she’s asleep. I get out of the shower to hear my phone ringing! Yes, that’s right, she is trying to audio FaceTime me! Like what the actual F#*K?!?! I give her a bit of a serve about calling me when I am trying to put my Terrible Two child to sleep, and I get the reply “Oh sorry about that My bad”.

She “blah blah blah’s” about how she has transferred $1000, and I need to transfer that back to “an agent” then I will get $1900 paid to me. She’s very impatient with me and sends me “????” if I don’t reply fast enough to her. I then claim that I don’t have the money as I’m on my own with a baby. She asks me how much I have in my account to see if she can help! Once I tell her I only have $200 and I’m selling all my furniture to pay rent and feed my baby, she tries to take my last $200. AND makes it look like she’s doing me a favour! I’ll be fully credited back of course. So, no worries.

Despite me trying to deal with my with baby and an annoying ex, Sabine is only concerned about her money. I was having fun but I’m tired now, so I want to go to bed. Sabine is boring me. After I tell her my child has vomited and I’ll talk to her in the morning, she is still trying. But I’m tired so hopefully, you get the idea of how the scammers work by now. Don’t ever send money to anyone.

UPDATE

This morning I woke up to an email threatening legal action. I know this is fake, but I could imagine that may be scary for some people. Check out the pictures of people being arrested! Hahahahaha. This made my morning.