Hello, friends.
A few times in the past few years, I have received a message out of the blue from someone I have never met before. They may be listed as a local, or someone who lives on another part of the planet entirely.
Despite giving no indication that I am an escort or looking for a sugar daddy, they will pop up out of nowhere, offering to pay my rent, all my bills, and give me lots of money for shopping, because they want to be my sugar daddy. I'm disabled, and my little family often struggles with money. What a godsend of an offer, right? They even say we don't have to have sex unless I'm comfortable with it and want to.
But you see, friends, they aren't real. Now, often there is an actual person behind the scam. It's not something a bot can do- these sorts of scammers have to earn the trust of their victims, and form some sort of bond. But they ARE scammers.
With covid-19, the war, and so many economic troubles happening right now, there are many people who are absolutely desperate. People who don't know how they will eat this month, or have heat during snow storms, or even be able to remain housed at all. Desperation leaves people grasping at straws, and more willing to overlook red flags, because they need a lifeline so badly.
Hope is a cruel weapon, and these motherfuckers wield it SO well.
Oh, they love what they see of you. You're exactly their type. They want to treasure you, cherish you, spoil you. They want to make all your financial problems go away. They offer you $5k a month, plus travel and all kinds of perks, on top of paying your bills and rent.
Then one of a few things happens:
1. The most obvious. They need your help paying some sort of transaction fees for the money to go through. Wait, what? But they're the wealthy person wanting to send YOU money, why do they need you to send them something to make it work? Nope. Scammer. Don't fall for it. They will take that money and run.
2. They will deposit money to your bank account. Wowee, look at that! There's money in your account! It must be legit, right?
NO. Do not immediately trust that this is so. They use stolen credit card money. It WILL be taken back out of your account when the person/company it was stolen from catches up and contacts their card company. Go to 5.
3. They will send you a check or money order. You will deposit it in your account, and have some money available before it clears. Don't spend that money. Wait. If it is a scammer, the check will bounce. The money order will turn out to be fake. Go to 5.
5. They will suddenly want you to spend a smaller amount of that exorbitant amount of money they send you. Surely you can afford that now, right? Nope. They will frame it, perhaps, as a test of "loyalty." They will want you to prove your "loyalty" or "affection" by spending money on them. They may say they have a relative they want a gift spent to, and ask your help with it. They will tell you they temporarily overspent, or lost their wallet or something, and will totally be wealthy again very Soon(tm) but in the meantime, please send some money back to them? Probably in the form of a gift card, which is easy to trace.
6. Whoops, you sent them money or gift cards, and then the check bounces, or the stolen credit card money is removed from your account, and on top of that, you are also charged for whatever money you spent on them. You're not getting that back. You've been scammed. They have your money now.
Please be careful, my loves! These scammers are becoming more and more prominent on the internet. They may be located anywhere in the world- Russia, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Florida, or any number of other places. Anywhere. They are very difficult to track. Their numbers are legion. Some work alone, and some work for vast criminal networks of scammers and money launderers. They will use guilt, threats, emotional blackmail, and even threats of outing you or harming your loved ones to try to extort more money from you.
Your best bet is always meeting people who are local members of your kink community, who have been vetted, and whom you can check the reputation of. People who are known, or who can provide references from people who are known- and be sure to check with those people in a confidential conversation. Take your time getting to know anybody. Protect yourself.
And remember, if it's too good to be true? It probably is. Anyone who gets angry about you checking references or asking to vet them through others confidentially is not someone you want to tangle with. If they have no one in the community who is willing to speak well of them in a space where they know it won't get back to the person? Ask yourself why. If that person won't let you have a confidential conversation with anyone about them, ask yourself why? What threat of reprisal are they holding over someone's head?
But, I digress. These scammers are almost never actually members of our community. They are predators. Parasites. They might learn how to talk the talk, but they are not a part of our family. They are here to steal from us and hurt us. If you see these clear behavior patterns-
*a stranger nobody knows,
*who doesn't have any meaningful interactions with people online, either, just "following" a ton of random people all over the world,
*popping up out of the blue,
*offering you a ton of money without even knowing you,
*or getting to know you and then offering a ton of money-
*pressuring you really hard to then spend some of that money ON them in some way-
Report the conversation to the moderators of the site that you are on, so that they may investigate it properly. If it is happening in discord, report the behavior to the discord moderators.
Let's watch out for one another and keep our communities safe.
