Just a little FYI about the scammer from earlier, guys!

[Prometheus]

I'm aware that earlier, we had a romance-scammer using two accounts to send out PMs to people.


Thankyou, all of you, for the reports that you've sent. This topic is just to let you all know that it's been dealt with, and that both accounts have been eliminated (from what I can see, it looks like SONY dealt with the first one, and I dealt with the other), to save us from having to mark any more of them as completed.


Thanks for your attention.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Hey, where was my romancing , apparently I'm not worthy. :mellow:

 

[Prometheus]

They were working through the alphabet! The reports we got covered people in the symbols (first in the members-list), A's, and B's range. As of yet, there haven't been any further reports, so I don't know how far into the alphabet they actually got.

 

[Nintendo]

It was probably just hakmanplayer wanting some lovin' :wub:

 

[EvilDragon]

Ooooh, damn, and I thought somebody finally did like me

 

[Fzero]

Ah they got as far as the "E"vil Dragon ..... I must've been so close then

 

[Asmo]

Hey, where was my romancing , apparently I'm not worthy. :mellow:

I got 2! Must be my suave avatar.

 

[Prometheus]

It was probably just hakmanplayer wanting some lovin' :wub:

It was a scamming script with known origins in West Africa. It's fairly unusual, but not unheard-of, for them to pop up on forums occasionally. I've seen a couple of these in my time.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Nigerian scam ?

 

[Prometheus]

^ A variant on Advance Fee Fraud, yes, though not always from Nigeria. Scammers have communities all over the world.


Typically, a romance-scammer will send out notes in scattergun fashion on websites with a social angle (primarily dating sites, but also Facebook and similar, and, occasionally, forums), posing as someone looking for a relationship. After hooking a victim, they can spend some time (or not) establishing a false relationship, and ultimately claim that they need money to be able to join the victim in their home-country - or for medical fees for their child, vets' fees for their pet, a loan because their workplace has been late in paying them and they're a bit short on funds this month, and so on - often it's a mix of disasters.


Sadly, it tends to go on and on until their victim realises that they've been had, and even then, some victims of this and similar scams are so invested in them in various ways, that they may either have a hard time believing that it was all a lie, or outright won't believe it and will remain a victim. It really is horrible, and some of these sorts of scammers are very, very good at what they do, unfortunately.

 

[ZXDunny]

Ah, bollocks. I knew this username was a mistake.


D.

 

[Nintendo]

I once received an email from a Nigerian scammer...but then I emailed them a pic of my behind and never heard back from them after that.

 

[2bit]

Sony that ... is hilarious I'm lmfaoing if people still say that never been big on text speak