The past couple of years Pedro and I have been bombarded with unsolicited text messages from strangers. They have fascinated me because of their specificity, ever since I received my first – and to date my favourite – of this genre of scam phishing. This is the first I remember receiving, see if you can guess why they capture my imagination:
You probably were also curious about the fact that it is so specific, sort of funny, and seems like you’ve been immersed halfway into a conversation. I am left with questions. If Emma liked her fancy golf club so much, why did she leave it in this person’s office? And why the vitriol? Had she been making a nuisance of herself? Was she bragging about the golf club, and why? Did she know she was irritating that person? Did she leave it on purpose to continue the thorn in their side?
It’s all pointless, of course, as there are no such people and no golf club, limited edition or not.
It’s a particularly clever message designed to make me believe it’s real, believe it was accidentally sent to me, and to respond with something like, “So sorry, you have made a mistake,” or “Buzz off, jerk,” or something in between. Rather, I delete and block.
I’ve enjoyed them so much that I’ve been collecting them. Pedro found out and has been collecting them for me too. He gets them in Chinese all the time. Almost every day. He sends me two screen captures. The first is the original Chinese, and the second is the translation he pulled up. They are equally as clever.
We have all seen the boring, spot-on phishing scams. The ones that attempt to alarm you, by sending an unlikely personal message to your personal phone from an international company. We all know better than to be taken in by these:
Unlike so many phishing scams, the ones I enjoy are simple and grammatically correct most of the time, and seem truly like an accidental text. They are perfect. Well, almost perfect, because there is no way to fake the empty avatar at the top, and the message at the bottom that says, “This number is not in your contact list.”
Here’s another one that made me crack up twice. Twice! This person is GOOD:
This one is good because it sounds exactly like the extremely insecure, manipulative men I dated years ago. Whiny victims, passive-aggressively asking for attention by pretending they were wounded by me. Clever, clever. I was lost in marveling about the skill here, and completely forgot to delete and block it. What to my wondering eyes should appear, but a follow up, three and a half hours later. I burst out laughing.
We get them on What’s App also:
Sometimes a message as simple as ‘hello’ is clever.
Here’s an especially good one that tugs at the heartstrings:
Just yesterday, Pedro was contacted multiple times by his annoying Chinese friend, who insists that we need to swing by and pick up some roses. I told him I’d get some airline tickets right away. We don’t want the roses to wither.
I want to thank the minds behind the silly scam texts. I wish them failure, ultimately, but I do enjoy the laughs. I hope you had a laugh or two at my collection.
Conscious Engagement 
Haha, this is hysterical! I may have to start saving them too! Admittedly, my favorites are the ones with terrible grammar! Thanks for the laugh!
I read somewhere that the bad grammar is on purpose in a lot of cases of the scam emails. I have no clue why, but research done by the criminals apparently shows that the ones with bad spelling and grammar get better responses. People are so weird. Glad I made you laugh.
Who are you? How did you get to my blog?
ha ha ha!! Nice one.
🙂
I’m glad you find them entertaining. I just report and delete. I have no more bandwidth than that. At least you both find them entertaining and sharable. I hate when some of the older folks think they are real and get sucked in.
I agree that it is the worst part: when vulnerable people get sucked in. These scammers are heartless.
Love Derrick’s response. 🙂
It took me a second, but then it was so recognizable as a scam, ha ha!!! You blogger folk are so clever. ❤
🙂
Great post! You have THE BEST attitude about this predominant nuisance of our times. I’m taking note. I don’t seem to get very many, thank goodness, but next time I do, I’m sure to remember this post and smile! Thank you!
Thank you for your encouragement. I’m glad that this particular one is a trend that doesn’t make me furious. At least there’s one! ha ha. I wish I could have the right attitude about all the things that are potentially annoying.
Brilliant, I’ve only had slightly more serious
Sounding ones here in the UK. Guess it’s vulnerable people that get sucked into these as I have no idea why anyone answers calls or texts that don’t exist in their phone book. I really want to tell these people where to go or string them along but then they have your number exists.
Thanks for your comment, Gary. And you are exactly right! I want to shoot some smart-aleck comment right back at them and let off some steam, but then they would know it was a good number. We can’t have that.
This scares me for some reason. Also, I’d be soooo annoyed if I’d be getting those on a daily basis. Blog spam is quite enough. My phone number has not been discovered. (Or in Europe they don’t do it as much?) But if I did, I’d be tempted to collect them and show them like you did. Well done. One good use of them.
Gosh I hope the scammers never discover your phone numbers! They have certainly dialed in to Pedro and me. We used to joke about a common scam last year, where we got notified that we had won either a new iPhone or a new iPad just about every day. (just click the link here to provide your bank account number and address and we will send it to you….) Our joke was that with all the free Apple devices, we were going to open a store and get rich!!