Thou shalt likewise not scam
Jan. 4th, 2026 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseYesterday's surprise correspondent was, indeed, not a romance scammer. Or, at least, not in my case he wasn't (though I do now have reports that he was trying to be overly flirty elsewhere).
Nope. He was an investment scammer, as it turned out.
We were having a pleasant enough conversation when he suddenly said he needed to check his e-mails because he was expecting a withdrawal notice from some metals company or other. Which I thought was odd; why would he give me that information? It wasn't relevant to the conversation in any way. I expressed a certain amount of puzzlement, and he explained that he was an investor in this company, gave me a link to their website, and invited me to check them out. I thought "now why on earth would I want to do that?"
Then the penny dropped, and I told him, very politely, that if he was thinking of trying to persuade me to invest in them, the answer was no. I explained that I don't take investment advice online, and I was sure he understood.
Had he been innocent, he'd have responded in one of two ways. He would either have said, "Oh, don't worry, I wasn't going to try that - sorry, I can see what this looks like, I didn't mean it like that!" Or he'd have said, "Oh... well, I'm really excited about this and I think it's a brilliant opportunity, but I totally understand why you'd be cautious." He didn't do either of those things. Instead, he got angry and... get this... actually demanded an apology. What, for taking basic common-sense safety precautions online? I hadn't been rude to him. I hadn't even accused him. His own conscience had done that.
So I just didn't respond, and after a bit he said he would "have to stop responding" and stormed off in a huff, and I thought... good. That will save me the trouble of telling you I want no more to do with you.
Pro tip: if you are unwise enough to try scamming people on Discord servers, do not compound that lack of wisdom by including a mod in your attempts. (And it's not even as if it's unclear that I'm a mod. I have a big shield symbol next to my username on that server.) If you do that, you will get reported and thrown off the server. That was what happened to him; and it turned out he'd also been DMing a number of other people, one of whom had told him he was using an awful lot of flirty emojis to someone he knew to be a married stranger. He vanished abruptly after that.
So I am now about to alter my Discord bio to make it clear that I am not looking for a partner and I do not take investment advice online. Then maybe they'll leave me alone in future.
You know... I should not have to do that.
Nope. He was an investment scammer, as it turned out.
We were having a pleasant enough conversation when he suddenly said he needed to check his e-mails because he was expecting a withdrawal notice from some metals company or other. Which I thought was odd; why would he give me that information? It wasn't relevant to the conversation in any way. I expressed a certain amount of puzzlement, and he explained that he was an investor in this company, gave me a link to their website, and invited me to check them out. I thought "now why on earth would I want to do that?"
Then the penny dropped, and I told him, very politely, that if he was thinking of trying to persuade me to invest in them, the answer was no. I explained that I don't take investment advice online, and I was sure he understood.
Had he been innocent, he'd have responded in one of two ways. He would either have said, "Oh, don't worry, I wasn't going to try that - sorry, I can see what this looks like, I didn't mean it like that!" Or he'd have said, "Oh... well, I'm really excited about this and I think it's a brilliant opportunity, but I totally understand why you'd be cautious." He didn't do either of those things. Instead, he got angry and... get this... actually demanded an apology. What, for taking basic common-sense safety precautions online? I hadn't been rude to him. I hadn't even accused him. His own conscience had done that.
So I just didn't respond, and after a bit he said he would "have to stop responding" and stormed off in a huff, and I thought... good. That will save me the trouble of telling you I want no more to do with you.
Pro tip: if you are unwise enough to try scamming people on Discord servers, do not compound that lack of wisdom by including a mod in your attempts. (And it's not even as if it's unclear that I'm a mod. I have a big shield symbol next to my username on that server.) If you do that, you will get reported and thrown off the server. That was what happened to him; and it turned out he'd also been DMing a number of other people, one of whom had told him he was using an awful lot of flirty emojis to someone he knew to be a married stranger. He vanished abruptly after that.
So I am now about to alter my Discord bio to make it clear that I am not looking for a partner and I do not take investment advice online. Then maybe they'll leave me alone in future.
You know... I should not have to do that.
