Jet! Here is a reminder ask to talk about your scam experience, if you want to!
Anonymous said:
It's probably not the weekend anymore, but I'd still be up for hearing about your scammer story if you feel like telling us. Thanks.
SO LET’S TALK ABOUT THE DAY I COMPLETELY FUCKING FELL FOR A SCAM. This tale could also be called, “Did Jet Wolf Learn A Lesson About Sometimes Being Too Keen To Fix A Problem? Probably Not!”
It was a beautiful morning. The sun was out but the temperature still cool. There was no ominous warning signs that I would later interpret as ignored omens of poor decision making. Nothing so clear and grand. It’s just me.
I’d gotten up early for some reason or another. In a perfect world, “getting up early” would be a rare enough occasion that I would be able to mark it, but this is not this world and that is no longer my life. (”But Jet Wolf!” you may interject in your boundless participatory enthusiasm. “If you’re now getting up early that often, wouldn’t it just be your regular getting-up time and not early at all?” To which I must reply, “I got up too early this morning for you and your logic, shut the hell up with your goddamn enthusiasm.”) So there I am, trying to wake up in preparation for whatever reason I”d had to get up early, when an email pings into my inbox from Mike’s father, asking for my help.
This isn’t a new or unusual situation, is part of the problem. I’m tech support (for many assorted flavours of “tech support”) for a fairly large sampling of people, and Hubby’s dad is one of those. I note that he’s sent it to more than just me, and so assume it’s also gone to Mike. I say assume, because the list of recipients has been bcc’d.
Should this have been my first red flag? YES. Did I dismiss the weird choice as the sender accidentally using the wrong field? ALSO YES.
The email mentions Mike’s dad isn’t feeling well (mental note made to have Mike check in later), and Mike was busy getting ready for work, so I decided to just take care of it all myself. See previous re: Being Too Keen To Fix A Problem. I write back, and ask what needs to be done.
I get a reply almost immediately: he needs help ordering Google Play gift cards.
Another red flag goes up. What does Mike’s dad need Google Play gift cards for? He’s still using an iPhone, and is otherwise on Windows-based PCs. Again, I wave away my own concerns. It could be for his grandson/Mike’s nephew. It could be for his girlfriend or one of her kids, it could be for a friend. It could be almost anything! Except possibly a scam! That never occurs to me for even a second!
On reflection, that’s part of the insidiousness of the whole deal. I wanted to be helpful, AND I didn’t want to be nosy or rude. If I’d been slightly less the former or more the latter, I might’ve listened to myself and not just strolled gamely forward, pretty much ASKING how I can make life easier for my scammer to scam me.
Which I basically do by replying, “Sure, I can do that. How much did you need on the cards?”
My “father in law” replies saying he needs two, $100 each, and sent to some other email address. I DID NOT ASK A SINGLE CLARIFYING QUESTION DESPITE HAVING SEVERAL OF THEM. I dismissed them all, either because I decided it was none of my business, or because I made up some answer to my own question. Again, there were so many opportunities for me to have stopped this, and I refused at every single turn.
I did what I was asked. Happily! I’m so helpful! I’m easing Mr C’s frustrations! I’m taking care of a nuisance so Mike doesn’t have to! It’s far too early for me to be conscious, but what a great way to begin a day! Jet Wolf is a useful little maiden!
Then like ten minutes later, I’m sitting there and “.....shit.”
I go into the basement, to Hubby’s makeshift Covid Funtimes Home Office, and am like, “Heeyyyyy soooo you maaaayyy want to call your dad..?” Explain the whole thing, Hubby immediately calls but can’t reach his father, and I’m now pretty much 99% positive I have NOT begun this day on the pleasing note I intended.
Fast-forward a bit. I’ve talked to Google Play customer service and received a whole lot of sympathy but no actionable solutions. I move to filing a claim with PayPal. PROBLEM: PayPal themselves, mid-transaction, are like “Do you REALLY want to spend two hundred bucks on untraceable gift codes that you’ll send to an email address you’ve never heard of before? We’re gonna send you a text message to confirm all that and have you specifically and manually agree that you want to complete what clearly seems to be a very bad idea to all of us here at PayPal.”
“YES I DEFINITELY WANT TO DO ALL OF THAT :D “ I text back, like the fool I am eagerly attempting to be that day.
Mike eventually gets a return call from his father, confirming that his email had been hacked and hijacked, and everyone in his contact list was sent the same plea for help. HUBBY WAS A KIND SOUL AND DID NOT ASK IF ANYONE ELSE HAD FALLEN FOR IT BECAUSE GUESS WHAT INFORMATION I REALLY DID NOT WANT TO KNOW
In the end, PayPal both said they’d found me to be a victim of fraud, and also completely culpable for the whole thing, which I want to be mad about, but honestly: fair. They also, however, reversed the charge while telling me they wouldn’t, SO I DUNNO. As of this writing, they haven’t reversed the reversal, so maybe there was a spark of luck in all this for me, after all.
BUT THAT IS THE STORY OF MY SCAMMING. my lesson in all this is to not be so eager to fix someone else’s shit that I dismiss my own concerns about said shit.
My other lesson is that a gin and tonic is calorically equivalent to a beer, but that’s a slightly different story branch.
