A new level of sophistication for scammers
 

A fan and housing is advertised over in Pelican Classifieds. I was surprised it hadn't sold so I posted I would buy it if available, seller is a long time Pelican, I recently sold him a decklid actually. So not 10-20 minutes after my posting and the seller confirming "it's yours" with a post, I got a text from an unknown number though I knew it wasn't the seller's.

The scammer's phone number is 409-422-6008 for google reference

What's interesting is it is either some relatively decent AI or some guy is monitoring Classified ads on Pelican and has a database of phone numbers and probably emails too such that they can send scam texts like this one.

The text was pretty good though obviously foreign both in tone and content:

I'm texting you about the SC fan housing part# 930 106 101, I got your comment now, I should send you my payment details.

Send me your shipping address.

The 930 106 101 was in blue and underlined, I didn't click on it and have deleted and reported the text as spam.

This is pretty alarming.


What is even MORE alarming is the scammer texted me again after 20+ minutes of me not replying saying "Are you there?"

Thank God most of these are off shore. The "Chingrish" and other examples of poor English are always the giveaway (we all remember the old Nigerian scams, just how funny some of them were). They are going to get better at that as well, though.

I've had many discussions with bi-lingual friends and family regarding "fluency". My own mother, born German and living here for over 60 years, still spoke "Germish". Either sentence structure, grammar, word choice, or whatever. You could always tell she "wasn't from around here", even if just reading her written word. It's a delineating factor that we just can't shake, no matter how good we are.

Thanks for the warning, Shaun.

yeah, I remember as a little boy my mother when she lost her temper would start yelling at me in German.

Edit: and when she was giving me driving lessons when I was 15.

I am so tired of the scams. I get several emails daily that are pure BS>. I have an old email that is 90% scams. FedEx is trying to deliver my gift. Mcafee says my antivirus has expired. Africa has a pill to make my dik bigger. On and on and on.

We got a call the other day on the land line (yeah we still have one of them) and the caller ID said it was So Cal Edison. Figuring it might be important I answered. Turned out it was some contractor spoofing their ID and doing cold calls. We rarely answer our phone now unless we know who is calling via the ID. I don't know my cell phone # so can't give it away to people. I'm sure that cuts down on the BS calls a lot.

This guy at 409-422-6008, just texted me referencing an item i asked about letting me know he wanted to make a deal on it. Dont even know how he got my number. Beware

I've heard/read that the mistakes are intentional. Make them "close" but with just enough mistakes that it weeds out the smart folks, but make the mistakes small enough that it doesn't unduly alarm the rubes that don't "get it" or greedy folks that think they are getting a deal that's too good to be true thinking that the seller is the rube.

It's easy to imagine that the scammers are unsophisticated, but it seems that they are far more sophisticated than we imagine. I suspect that like anything where someone has discovered you can get paid without actually producing anything, that many/most of these are now run by organizations that are highly efficient and sophisticated and make millions every year doing various scams.

It puzzles me that they don’t try harder. Maybe they assume we will eventually become inured to poor English and won’t bother to improve.
Lots of Amazon product descriptions are written in bad Asian English and they must know by now their product would sell better if the description was written in bad American English. But they don’t bother to hire a translator.

If you look at my post just above yours, you'll see that there's a reason. If they are too good with no mistakes, they'll potentially grab a whole new, smarter set of targets that will ultimately not fall for it, and will end up wasting their time. I've heard/read that they intentionally leave in little mistakes to catch just the right target group that is easier to take advantage of.

How do they get phone numbers to text to here on the forum?

My s/o's part time employer just got an email addressing her by name and requesting that my so's direct deposit be moved to a new bank and provided routing info. Lucklily they didn't spoof the email addy, but they did use her name. Happened not long ago with settlement funds as well-they're a title company-they got email from "seller" changing routing info for several hundred k-luckily the company requires a signed form. Some very sophisticated hack.

They probably have a "service" that's probably similar to google voice or other VoIP services. They are in another country, but are paying for lines in the US (kind of like having a cell plan with no cell phone). And the line that they are using for voice and text is tied to network connectivity out of India (or wherever they are).

I work in IT for a very large bank (one of the largest). Everyone in the bank is required to go through "cyber security" training once per year, and they even send fake "hacking" emails throughout the year to test folks. Most "hacking" is done by searching websites and the Internet for employee names, sending emails and placing calls to the various names. It's not that hard to get names, numbers, emails these days via the Internet (LinkedIn, etc...). And exactly what you describe is always mentioned in our "training".

There is a relatively new technique called smishing - where hackers send what looks like a legitimate work related SMS (with an important/urgent topic) to your cell which has a link for you to sign in using your work credentials. It might state that a meeting has been changed and log in to get the new date/time - or even that fraudulent activity has been detected and for you to log in and change your password. Of course the link is controlled and monitored by them - so once you log in - they've just gotten access to all of your credentialed systems access.

I received two scam txt messages back to back this morning. They must think we're idiots.

they're hoping, and they'll keep going until they find them all.

I suspect the people that are doing this have very few options. Many years ago I worked for a time in Bangalore. I stayed in a gated area with 24/7 security. Everywhere you looked there were people and the cops were always busy.

Thanks Shaun. This same scammer reached out to me because I responded to an ad for some wheels for sale. He wa pretending to be the seller. Gave me the same # you posted above. 409-422-6008. His email shows as Jacob Richard

I asked him to send me a photo him and the wheels, but no reply. I asked him pointed questions regarding some details I messaged him thru pelican and he didn’t have those details. At which point I knew it was a scam.

Again, unless they have access to your PM’s how are they getting your cell phone number?

Photo with something in the foreground showing today's date.
Something that isn't easy to PS or AI.
(AI will catch up eventually and be able to do segments)

"I just need to make sure the ad is real". A rational person will understand.

Mom's lost dog ads did get ones looking almost exactly alike though. Almost perfect. They spent some time on it.
Multiple 'personalities' were used. "Oh I cant send no pikter cause i Dont know computer stuff. Here is a routing number"
And vague correspondence stringing it along back and forth to the point of exhaustion.
They were looking to get to her instead of me.

You should (as you probably have) read the instructions.

Have you guys reported this to Pelican IT?

I am pretty dumb, lets just say you click on it then what? what would be the next step for them to try and get money our of me or is there anything else?

^^^ there are plenty of guys over on Classifieds who have sent scammers money for parts never received.

(from memory) A few years ago a member here lost about $18,000 to a scammer (the scam didn't happen on Pelican).

I don't remember the exact details but a 911 was advertised online and he sent the money direct before seeing the car IRL.

I'm not sure I understand what happened, can you explain a bit better?

I operate a sizable ecom business and always on the lookout for new scams.

Nothing special we need to look out for, just some dirty people? I can take a pic of a fender or grill fro a car off the street and advertise it over the net or on a for sale form. Ask for money and never send the part only because I never had it to begin with. Nothing special we need to lookout for? I would never buy a car or any large item from someone that's not a company over the net.

They placed the ad.

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Clicking will probably do nothing bad, just call the number. It's your phone that highlights an sms message if it looks like a phone number.

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