👀 Do you want to know a fun trick? 👀
Let's say one day you receive an ask from a user asking for money for insulin. You check out their blog and they have an image on it of them, a small story, and a link to their PayPal.
You feel like something's a bit off, but you aren't sure what.
Here's where this fun little trick comes in!
First, lets use a typical (known scammer) ask as an example:
Here's the plain text of this ask so everyone reading can follow along and try what I'm about to do themselves!
Hi! I am desperately in need for help. I need my insulin to bring my blood sugar back down. It’s $450 That’s all I need. I’m not asking for a windfall, just a little help, please. Be blessed 💓🙏🙏💓 DONATE AND SHARE.
Now, we are going to take one sentence from that ask, and we are going to put it into quotation marks and then use Tumblr's search function with it.
For this exercise, we will use the sentence "I need my insulin to bring my blood sugar back down." Remember, we will be using quotes and all! This is so tumblr knows to look for that exact phrase.
Do not hit enter! Instead, click the "search for" option that pops up.
From there, you will be able to see every post that contains that exact sentence! Asks and submissions included! It's best viewed by "latest" and you can use the filter to narrow it down by a week to view the most recent asks/submissions sent by scam accounts using this script.
In the example we're using it for, it can show you if the ask that was sent to you has been used by past scam accounts or not, which in our case, it's been sent to a lot of different people in the past by different accounts using different names and pcitures.
Talk about copy pasta!
(note: this gif was only 8 seconds due to tumblr's upload limits, i know it doesn't show much but you get the gist :p)
Also note that this trick is preferably only good for accounts that ask for PayPal only and are relatively new. (ie a month-week-day old)
I don't suggest hunting after gofundme/chuffed/mutual aid accounts as that's not something either @kyra45 or myself will touch when it comes to 'vetting the legitimacy' of.
Trust your gut if something feels fishy, and don't be afraid to do some digging with your newfound quotation search powers! You can even use more than one sentence too if you want, or even individual words like "paypal" "donation" together in the same search!
That will show you all the posts with the word 'paypal' and 'donation' in it, how cool is that!
You can find more information on Tumblr's search and filter basics on their official help page.
I hope this helps people identify scams, and possibly even find things they may be looking for they might have forgotten about!
Stay safe, and continue to help others avoid scams by spreading awareness. :)
Take care and have a beeutiful day!
-Bee
