Online Dating Scams

That seems rather odd to say doesn’t it?

It’s not that the farmer is scamming you. Rather, the scammer is farming you! Your personal information that is.  The scammer puts out an ad, and just collects the phone number, or emails that respond to him.  Later they are used for a campaign of sorts.

What’s Going On here…

A reader sent me a heads up. He had contacted a girl whom he thought was legitimate. He did not hear back from her. Then about 8 hours later, he got a message from “USPS” that said his package didn’t make it before the holidays and he could schedule it and get a refund.

He sent the number to me, so I went thru the same routine. I contacted the “girl” and pretended to be interested in a date. Sure enough 8 hours later, I get the same message:

Note that I used a Text Free burner number when contacting them.

My Immediate reaction

This is a shimpment scam.  The reader recognized it as well so good for him.

A shipment scam, is named such because of the ruse used to get you to fall for the scam.  Underneath it could be many scams, including…

Get your credit card

You are eligible for a refund, so  you give them your credit card.  In reality, the fine print says you are signed up for a monthly subscription to just about anything. Often it is a low quality online dating site, or adult site.

Get your User ID and Password

You are redirected to a site that looks like USPS, or FedEx, or UPS, or Amazon, or, or, or, …  So now, as soon as you do that, the scammer logs on to the real site and orders some cool stuff.  Or knowing that your user ID and password are often the same from site to site, they have your user id and password to many sites.

Malware

You are tricked in to downloading malicious software.

In All Cases

You are being exposed to Identity theft.

If you only click on the link, then a few things happen

1. They know your cell phone number – when you clicked the link, you confirmed it for them.  Quite nice of you 😉
2. They know your IP Address which tells them approximately where you are, including your zip code.

If  you type  your name in to a form, then they have your name, number, and zip code,  they can often get your address based on that, even if it isnt public, because there are address databases for sale everywhere.

If  you give them a user ID and password, well,  you get the picture.

The Federal Trade Commission has a good write up on the shipment scam here.

In This Instance

I wasn’t able to determine what they were up to.  By the time I got around to investigating, the landing site had been taken down.

All I could find was that the janotexte site was registered anonymously from Grand Caymen.

Good Luck