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Wham Bam Thank You Scam

How To Get $50,000 for a $200 Investment Apparently, with Great Advice From James Veitch and Joe Lycett

By Mike Singleton - MikeydredPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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James Veitch on Scammers

What Happens On Instagram Might Not Stay On Instagram

This may be difficult because I have no proof because I deleted that communication that I received.

Lots of people follow me on Instagram and a great deal of those are they that would have plied their trade as “ladies of the night” in the pre-digital age complete with cards in insalubrious phone boxes in dodgy downtown skid row areas frequented by the likes of Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski.

Hello Scam, Goodbye Scamantha

Anyway someone followed me and while they were female, pics were the odd selfie and landscapes, and that so I followed back. I then received a message, something about a Facebook / Instagram Lottery and certain people, because of their activity had been chosen to go into a draw and was I interested? I said fine and thought that would be it.

Do You Want $50,000 For Free?

Next, I got an email saying I have won $50,000 and I had to provide some information, name, address, and state, all publicly available information, so I gave it. Whenever I get things like this I wait for them to ask for money.

The next they asked, ``Do I want it as a check, cash, or a prepaid card?” Oddly no digital payment option, I said a prepaid card would be fine.

Then it happened.

Give Me $200 For Incidentals

We need $200 to send you the money.

$200 that’s rather expensive to send a card, and let’s face it you could have sent it via Paypal or on some other platform.

They said that’s the way they roll and they had no problem and a lot of happy winners, cue photoshopped image of a guy holding a big $50,000 cheque.

I told them this sounded like a scam, if you are giving money away, you never ask for money from the winners.

Cue more photoshopped images.

I suggest a perfect solution.

You have the $50,000 take my $200 delivery fee out of that and send me $49,800

Oh we can do that the money has already been packaged

Money Packaged?

Well I don’t have $200 to pay you

Pay us $100 now and then the other $100 when you receive the money

I did wonder how low they would go to get my money but said I thought it was a scam and they weren’t getting my money.

Then silence and so I deleted the correspondence.

Yes they know my Instagram account and from that can find my name and a lot more but I suspect they have moved on to some more gullible punters.

Because I took some of their time up maybe some more vulnerable people didn’t get scammed.

James Veitch, Joe Lycett, and The Scammers

James Veitch uses this justification for, shall we say, attempting to “occupy” scammers and he is an extremely funny intelligent guy who I enjoyed seeing at The Stand in Newcastle pre-Covid. I also believe Joe Lycett does similar things.

In fact, I will share videos below of them doing their thing, and James Veitch’s book “Dot.con” is a great fun read. I first saw him giving a TED talk and I was laughing as I watched it on a train journey going somewhere down south.

James Veitch Dealing With Scammers

Joe Lycett Dealing With Scammers

A Conclusion On Scamming

If you have the confidence and inclination to “occupy” the scammers please do it, it keeps them away from more vulnerable people. I did this yesterday but hope you enjoy this short story on spamming, and what to do about it if you can.

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About the Creator

Mike Singleton - Mikeydred

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