Like, it can’t be a real person, right? Has anyone tried following the links? I’m curious how they’re scamming people. It just seems like anyone getting the same message 5 times won’t fall for being catfished, so I don’t understand what their strategy is.
I’ve received 3 Nicole messages since I’ve been on here, each one with a different photo. It’s weird, really weird. I ran the photos through TinEye and Google Reverse Image Search but I found no exact matches. The photos are blurry somewhat, which implies that they are shots taken from a video, which is a method catfish have used to evade detection. It’s also possible that the original photos have long been deleted (as far as I’m aware, this would contribute to evading detection) and the catfish is using this to their advantage.
Someone looked into one of the Nicole accounts, and on that account there was a photo of something shiny, I believe it was a buttplug, and there was clearly a reflection of an old white man reflecting off the object. Once that was pointed out, they deleted the photo. So whatever the intentions are, I’m sure it’s nothing good.
I’m guessing it’s a pig butchering scam of some kind. The messages advertise other platforms, along with a chatroom that is named “hell”. The aim is to lull a person into a false sense of security via catfishing, pretending to be the their friend or lover, and then pull a scam on them.
I think Lemmy ran out of Beans, so someone decided to make that as a joke.
The strategy is to get you onto a different platform to make instant messaging easier. They are just “advertising” on Lemmy.
Once you’re on a chat platform, they will likely attempt the Pig Butchering scam: make the target fall in love, then persuade them to send money for things like “travel expenses” or “family medical bills”. Also involves buying crypto.
A good guess but so far as i can tell they dont actually message people directly outside of the initial contact. The chat rooms are barely active but ive been idling on the matrix for days and nothing.
This makes the most sense, but I still find it odd that they would send victims to the same discord server, or friendica.
Is it always the same discord server? I got the message the other day but ignored it.
The same reason a lot scam emails are riddled with typos, follow recognisable formats (eg nigerian prince) and can be easily determined as scams. If you can spot it, you aren’t the mark. It’s a form of selection bias. If you recognise Nicole you probably aren’t new to Lemmy or the Fediverse and are a bad mark. I’d guess, I never followed the links, don’t generally follow links dm’d from random, days old accounts in general. Maybe Nicole truly is just thirsty for Lemmy friends and keeps getting banned lmao.
Honestly people that do recognize it for what it is should respond. Keep them talking to waste their time so they can’t hurt someone else.
But then you’re also wasting your own time.
If we all wasted 5 minutes we could shut down the system.
People really underestimate the power of collective action. It’s just meat based ddos.
I mean if everyone “collective action” ignored them together, no one would have to waste even 5 minutes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And theoretically, if there would be the same amount of scammers as decent people, everyone would have to waste all their time with your strategy, but with my strategy none of the decent people would waste time.
But yes I understand it of course, protecting the weak is not a bad thing.
It’s just meat based ddos.
What a fascinating sentence.
“They” will be an LLM.
Maybe. That gets expensive very fast. We should all ask for artwork.
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted. I always love talking to Indian scammers when they call about my student loans that don’t exist.
Yep, then of course this doesn’t matter :) go for it!
I already asked 2 scammers on discord for bathwater and they never took me up on it :( it’s a cruel world
yeah but it’s fun
And if you can get them to do stupid things, you can post about it here!
That easier done with more involved scams like phone calls you see YouTubers do. Especially since they likely paid for that info. Places like here there’s no buy in so it’s a volume game i imagine. If I can’t get you to another platform to buy me stuff I’d move on to the next one quickly as possible.
I had one Indian scammer use my name so I was interested. Then he asked if my email was still current and gave an email that I used like 20 years ago in middle school. I laughed and told him he paid for shitty info. It was a goddamn Hotmail account to give you an idea.
I wish I knew. I followed the link to the Matrix community, and it was just confused people and trolling NAZI’s. No Nicole, no attempt at catfishing.
I guess the scammers are also in the process of figuring out how to use the Fediverse. Give them time. :)
Yeah this is what I’m confused about, why would you send your potential catfish victims to the same place where they can talk to each other and then ignore them?
Some 7D chess I can’t possible comprehend or a really bored troll.
The point is to introduce me to my future wife so stop messaging her!!
What’s the point of any scam? To make money.
The point is I can’t even get a known scammer to talk to me :(
hi it me john mastodon can u send me 200 vbucks so i can keep making website
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Your guess is as good as mine. Some people are just crazy.
