Scammers know how to win people’s confidence, hence why they’re also called ”con artists”. Many even form close relationships with their victims. Often, they first charm you with shows of wealth, talk you into giving them yours, then give good excuses as to why they can’t give it back.
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One day at work, I got a call from a number that I have never seen before. I hung up the first time, but I got a call back immediately, so I ended up picking it up. Once I got on the phone, the scammer posed as a police officer from the Philadelphia police department and claimed that my identity has been stolen and has been mixed up with drug trafficking, money laundering, etc. I immediately thought this was a scam, and asked him how do I know he was legitimate, and he told me to look up the number that he had called from and gave me his badge number. Now looking back I realized that he had spoofed the number and if I had tried to hang up and call back, I would have known that it was a scam, but I only did a quick lookup on the phone number and thought that this was a legitimate call and I actually was in legal trouble.
The fake police officer then transferred me over to a fake federal agent who said that the attorney general is going to put a freeze on my account and I need to transfer the money to one of the active agents working on the case. He said this case was confidential and I need to not tell anyone, so throughout the day I kept quiet to myself as I just ignored the sea of reg flags. I googled every piece of information he gave me and even tried to justify why I couldn’t find some of this information. To this day, I still don’t know why I did what I did, but I ended up transferring $27,500 to these fake agents. During these conversations he even stayed on the line with me the whole time for over 8 hours in total. Now that I think about it, he was using this to stop me from validating, so if I had just hung up or talked to someone, I would have known.
I am still deeply suffering from the consequences and I kick myself everyday. I don’t think I am a foolish person, but at that moment, I definitely wasn’t in the right state of mind, and I wished that I could have kept a clear head.
I hope that sharing my experience here can start the healing process so that I can eventually forgive myself.
I was scammed by an individual in Detroit, MI named Moses Mims. Moises Mims was a fellow online marketer and Facebook friend. He has been a friend since at least 2018. I told him that I just got fired two days prior. He told me that if I send him some money through PayPal, he would let me join his company and let me work for him at $100/hr. Unfortunately, he kept on asking for money, which he still is doing as of right now, claiming that the money is going towards processing fees. Unfortunately, I lost almost $2000, including $1000 that my mom gave to me in the form of a check that was supposed to go towards me paying off part of my student loan debt. I was also temporarily kicked out of the house because my mom found out that I gave the money to the scammer named above on March 11. While I was homeless, I told Mims that because of your actions, this is what happened, he still asked me to wire him more money for the processing fees. As of right now, my mother let me come back to live with her, but I can no longer drive where I want. I can only use the car to drive to work and tutor a high school student. Additionally, I can only sleep on the floor downstairs, and my mother does not trust me in regards to finances, or in general. My credit card account was closed since the balance was too low and debt too high. I told Mims about my dilemma, but he kept on asking for more money. I have been pushed into deeper debt because of this scam and have no idea what to do next. I ended up falling for an advance-fee scam regarding an investment that actually does not exist.