Beware Facebook “friends” hawking opportunity
I spent 10 years deluding myself and a few others that I could make a living / get rich by trading stock options and futures. Anyway, I finally came to my senses and stopped trading such items, fortunately before I attracted any “friends” on Facebook or any contacts I made through Google ads (i.e. none).
But at least I was transparent, going as far as blogging my story for its last 3 years. I do plan, somehow, to pay back those I harmed with my trading delusion, including my long-suffering wife.
I avoided Facebook for years, but on leaving trading I wound up working with a group on a niche real estate system … whose main group was on Facebook. So I sighed and rejoined.
I “friended” people I knew and made some new real estate acquaintances. Then one day I got a strange message from my old friend Roger.
“You have to take a look at this; I got $50,000 from this government program and I think you could qualify too!” Ok, sounds good … please send details.
“Well, you can get $50000 by sending in a $1500 processing fee and other amounts up to $900,000 by sending in a $9000 fee.” Uh, Roger? Can you call me about this? Something doesn’t look right about this.
“I have laryngitis right now and my doctor said I should stay off the phone.” OK …
Finally I called Roger … and he didn’t know anything about the messages; his account had been hacked!
Then this past week I had another acquaintance ping me on Facebook … I don’t know this guy as well as I know Roger, but he seemed reasonable and intelligent. And then he started in on some government program that he got $50,000 from … and since Roger’s hack there has been a raft of pandemic-related programs and whatnot. But I had this guy’s phone number and called to make sure it was him. It was!
He told me to text my interest to this particular number, which I did; the person responded immediately, asking for the sort of personal and income information that might be used to qualify one for such a deal. I responded honestly, that I had been living on unemployment for 4 months but just got a well-paying contract job … nonetheless, I was “approved” …
The text message continued … “you can choose the level you want; send $1500 and get $50000 back …” the same bogus thing that the hacker was promoting! But this from a guy I thought I knew!
Both the guy and the person behind the text were very interested in me sending in the “processing fee” and I decided that the max I would put up just to see what would happen (I thought there was a 99.75% chance that I would be “ghosted” by both of these when I put in any money at all) was $200, and if Mr. Moneybags was so convinced of the program he could come up with the other $1300 … no, he couldn’t.
He also couldn’t get me on a live Zoom call showing me the $50K deposit hitting his bank account … what he did instead was send me a picture of a box of cash open on somebody’s doorstep.
I blocked him on Facebook and deleted the text number and all messages behind it …
I am still flabbergasted that this guy apparently has as his extra retirement income the plan of harvesting what suckers he can from the fringes of his Facebook feed …
I’m sure he’s not the only one, though … watch your back and bank account, folks!
