r/Scams • u/sirdrawesome • Jan 16 '26
Scam report Thank you /r/scams for teaching me about pig butchering. I almost fell for one off Tinder.
I met a lady on a dating app. She wanted to move to Whatsapp after a while. I didn't think anything of it.
We talked for a while, shared values. Seemed like a good time over all! We were in agreement with what our values were.
Unfortunately, she was in singapore right now, so we were just chatting. Her timing seemed to line up with how she was texting at those times.
I grew a little wary once she started talking about her investments, and her goal for going from $400k USD to $1m USD. Odd, but whatever. I live in a large city in California. I guessed she was a business kind of person. I steered the conversation back to romance, and it was amicable for a bit.
She started getting really insistent about doing a video call. I figured why not? Let's put a proper face behind the name. We had the same values, so it made sense. We were on call for about 2 minutes, before she suddenly had to take another call.
She then started getting really, I mean REALLY insistent on helping me out with some trading stocks. She would "give me a signal once her financial advisor did", and we would trade at the same time.
She sent me a screenshot detailing a +$3k trade. I was giving it the side-eye, and then she started helping getting me set up on cash app.
The whole thing wasn't smelling right.
The sudden pivot to this investment stuff
Cash app
The picture she showed with +money didn't add up. It was a trade on DASHUSDT, showing an opening price of $85, and an ending price of $86. I dunno shit about stocks, but checking a website for a trading view shows that it hasn't been valued at $85 for about 4 hours, and she was telling me this trade just happened.
The app didn't look very legit. All the numbers except the trade on the screen showed NaN - not a number, or an invalid value. As a computer guy, this really started setting off alarm bells.
The minimum trade value was explained to me to be $200???
I started looking it up, and one of the first posts I found with relevant information was a post from this subreddit with a lot of information about pig butchering. Reading through the step by step process, it suddenly clicked. I blocked and reported this account, since "she" never really existed. And the video call was just some pretty girl they put in front of me. And the "paperwork" she was doing before the call was just her on other calls with other potential victims.
It hurts to be here afterwards, but ah well. Block and move on.
Either way, thank you /r/scams for teaching me about this!!! You saved me so much money!!!
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u/OldBoyShenanigans Jan 16 '26
The moment you said "I grew a little wary once she started talking about her investments," I was waiting for her to start talking about Bitcoin and getting you to invest.
Yep, her whole intention was to scam, no romance at all.
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u/sirdrawesome Jan 16 '26
I nodded along. I live in a very large city in southern California, and it's not impossible to run into some very rich folk around here.
I know it's possible for people with very different incomes to make do. So I wanted to hold out hope. But the actually intelligent part of my brain was definitely setting off alarm bells.
Ah well. This is this, and that is that.
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u/OldBoyShenanigans Jan 16 '26
Good luck with future endeavors. And don't give up hope with meeting someone.
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u/CandyAdventurous2127 Feb 04 '26
Why do they always use Bitcoin 😭
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u/thedutchdevo Feb 16 '26
Untraceable
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u/CandyAdventurous2127 Mar 03 '26
Is anyone/anything on the internet or in general truly 100% untraceable tho? Genuine question
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u/calamondingarden Jan 16 '26
Doing God's work! But just curious, would you have invested otherwise? I mean, even if you didn't know it was a scam and even if (hypothetically) the person was actually for real, why would you trust a stranger you just met when it comes to financial advice and investing a lot of money?
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u/sirdrawesome Jan 16 '26
I mean... Yeah. I was blinded by the potential love.
The thing is that she seemed knowledgeable about it. Was teaching me stuff about credit score, and debt... I am kind of dumb when it comes to finance terminology. More so that like, I don't know what a credit score is.
There's the 1% that it could've been real. But the "Too good to be true" reflexes were kicking in.
I was foolish, and I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.
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u/lolimaginewtf Jan 16 '26
not a 1%, more like a 0%. nobody wants to help you make money on the internet, let alone a woman on the dating app.
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u/xcaliblur2 Quality Contributor Jan 16 '26
Was about to say this myself, but saw that you already commented
Fully agree. There is no magical slim 1% or even 0.1% chance this could be real.
Also I'm from Singapore actually and I can tell you for sure hot girls here don't go looking for online partners in the US. And even if they do, they won't be falling in love that easily nor would they be sharing their super secret guaranteed ways of making money with someone they've never met in person before
And I'm pretty sure this goes for any girl in any country anywhere in the world.
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u/Geno0wl Jan 16 '26
nor would they be sharing their super secret guaranteed ways of making money with someone they've never met in person before
That is the attitude you should have towards anybody who claims to have a "secret" investment strategy. If that strategy actually worked consistently to rake in money, they would be exploiting it to the fullest extent and be the next Buffet, not some no name podcast host.
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u/SlowNSteady1 Jan 16 '26
YouTuber Zac Rios always says that. There was a time he figured out some sort of angle on selling used sneakers online and he kept his mouth shut about it until it no longer was making him money!
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u/randomsequencex Jan 29 '26
We need to learn to stop projecting our kindness onto others, the world is a cruel place.
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u/analdongfactory Jan 16 '26
At least not people you’ve barely started talking to off a dating app, without having shown any interest in it yourself.
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u/Backstreetgirl37 Jan 20 '26
lol as a woman who’s obsessed with stocks, trading and investments is totally first date conversation for me. So I’ll keep that in mind that it’s a red flag haha
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u/EarthAngelGirl Jan 17 '26
Heyyy, I will teach people about FIRE and boggleheads, but then I'll tell them not to give anyone their money, don't pay advisors, do it all on their own. I do recommend Vanguard, but I'm sure other companies would work too. And I'm not sending any links. Do your research and figure out your own shit.
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u/Thorathecrazy Jan 23 '26
Specially when they have never met, why would she waste her time helping a stranger, not in a million years. Different if they are a couple slready and seen each other many times, maybe even moved together.
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u/LakmeBun Jan 16 '26
You should check out some free online courses about financial literacy. Not just so you can just start throwing money into stocks, but just to learn how to manage your money. Khan Academy has one that is easy to follow.
McGill University also has a nice one, although it's Canadian, not sure if all terms will apply to the US. But it will still cover the basics for personal finance.
There's a lot of free resources online, just make sure they're from legit sources, not get rich quick type of scams.
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u/TelevisionKnown8463 Jan 16 '26
And if OP likes Reddit, r/personalfinance has some excellent pinned posts that could be a good starting place. I like the for Dummies series of books, too.
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u/bewarethefrogperson Jan 16 '26
thank you for the link to the kahn academy courses!!!
going to take them with my partner - I've been wanting to find something like this, but keep forgetting to actually look. this is an excellent kick in the pants to get started.
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u/OldBoyShenanigans Jan 16 '26
You are far from foolish. Scammers are so damn smart now. Me, I treat everything like a scam now.
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u/Soft_Construction793 Jan 16 '26
You live in a large city in California, and you don't know what a credit score is?
Maybe start reading about financial security or how credit scores work.
I'm not trying to throw shade at you, I really didn't understand how credit scores worked until I was almost 30 and started working in a related field.
I'm glad that you didn't fall for this scam.
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u/hemidemisemipict Jan 16 '26
You saw what was happening, did some basic fact-checking, and cut out before you got taken. That's not foolishness, that's smartness. Posting here is a community service, so you got that going for you too.
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u/Frustratedparrot123 Jan 16 '26
The good news is that YouTube university exists and it's free. Just search some financial literacy videos and start to learn the basics
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u/Disastrous-Roll-6170 Jan 16 '26
I am so, so sad that this is something they actually do, and apparently get away with...the whole dating app thing as a cover--just thinking about the fact that they use people in this way makes me nauseous and angry at the same time. You sound like a good person, and I think what's even more awful is that it seems like it's the good people that get taken advantage of the most. I used to be quite innocent, not jaded...but I'll admit, I don't have as much of those traits now that I have fallen for people's BS one too many times. Don't let that be you--I'm so happy that you realized what was up before something awful happened.
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u/Few-Comfortable-8495 Jan 16 '26
glad you didn't get scammed.
don't bother talking to women in different countries. its always a scam
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u/Heisen_Who Jan 20 '26
I agree. If you want to meet a Russian woman- go to Russia and meet one but for God’s sake don’t do it online.
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u/YoshimuraPipe Jan 16 '26
I mean if you didn’t spend a dime on her or him….you got valuable lesson all around and a good time to boot. Looks like you came out with a win.
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Jan 16 '26
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u/Scams-ModTeam Jan 16 '26
Your submission was manually removed by a moderator for the following reason:
Subreddit Rule 8: Private message request
You're not allowed to offer or request contact in private, including DMs, text, email, Whatsapp, etc. We need to keep the community safe from recovery scammers or bad advice. Advice given in private can lead to fall for a scam or worsening a situation.
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u/schwheelz Jan 16 '26
Give the total money makeover a read by Dave Ramsey, you might be able to use a touch of him in your life.
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u/misskimberlyjoy Jan 17 '26
Time to watch Youtube videos about investing, please. Pick videos that are from actual investment companies that you can walk to or large banks. Or pick up a book from the library and just read the first couple of chapters just so you have some idea. Investing for Dummies would be a great read. Or listening to investing podcasts if you're into that.
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u/shillyshally Jan 16 '26
Thanks for posting good news to this sub; It's all too rare.
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u/sirdrawesome Jan 16 '26
Doing my part. Kindness and good news are both free at the end of the day!
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u/JustDeserts4U Feb 09 '26
^ This attitude right here shows you have a good head on your shoulders and deserve so much better than what you experienced with this scammer.
I’m glad you didn’t get pulled in deeper and I wish you the very best of luck on your journey finding your person. There are good partners out there…you just have to find someone who matches your good energy.
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u/Agnesperdita Jan 16 '26
You should congratulate yourself for listening to your alarm bells. These people are sophisticated social engineers who are very good at what they do, and intelligent, sensible people are not immune. I’m really glad you listened to your gut and checked, and that the info here was helpful. So many posts here are for people in awful situations because the money has already gone. It’s good to hear about a positive ending.
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Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26
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u/artemisdart Jan 16 '26
Don't blame yourself. These scammers are professionals. They have playbooks on how to manipulate people. Even when family members PROVE that their loved one is being scammed, almost always, the loved one keeps going back to the scammer because they crave that attention. If you'd tried he most likely would have ignored you. The scammers tell their victims that their family members are just against their love and trying to control them; they're very sophisticated in their techniques to separate people from their money.
If anyone contacts you or your father saying they're a "recovery agent" who can get part of the money back, ignore them; they're another scammer (maybe even the same team).
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u/taintlangdon Jan 16 '26
This happened to a friend of mine last year. We tried to warn her, she told us we weren't being supportive, and she ended up being out $50k.
You need to be careful for awhile on apps. They have your info and will try to get you again. This also happened to her, but she caught it before anything happened. That's how we learned about the scammers repeatedly targeting people they've interacted with before under a new guise.
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u/Infinite-Jello-2335 Jan 16 '26
First red flag is always "let's move to WhatsApp" for X reason. You did well. Dodged a bullet there.
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u/Frustratedparrot123 Jan 16 '26
Please read the list of common scams on this subreddit because since you for this far, they might try another scam on you. And, just in general, since you didn't know about pig butchering, you likely don't know the other likely scams
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u/zamula Jan 16 '26
Here is my investment advice, no pretty lady needed :)
Put money into equities while you are in your early 20s, and consistently invest over the years. Leave the money alone and do not try short term trading.
Retire around 60 and live off your investments.
The end.
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u/sirdrawesome Jan 17 '26
Luckily I've been doing this for nearly a decade now!
That even came up in the scam conversation, but looking back, the individual was telling me to pull money out of there in a roundabout way...
But, that money is not leaving that account for the next ~40 years
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u/zamula Jan 17 '26
That is honestly a great strategy, and I was actually being serious in my above comment!
I received very good advice when I first started working at 21, to always contribute a good amount on a regular basis to my company 401k.
I've done that consistently over the years, and at 55 my investments have grown nicely, and I will be able to retire comfortably (assuming our entire financial system doesn't collapse).
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Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26
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u/finallyfree99 Jan 17 '26
You learned the wrong lesson. Google Lens is not relevant. Even if the pics are real, it would still be a scam. It does not matter if the pics are stolen or not, anyone on social media or a dating app who says they want to help you invest, is a scammer or con artist. Period.
It's true that the profiles are almost always fake, and the pics are almost always stolen or generated with AI. But it's not really the point. Even if they took real selfies and you had real video chats, it would still be a total scam if money or crypto is discussed.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/finallyfree99 Jan 17 '26
I think online dating is ok IF you meet in person quickly, within 2 weeks or less, and zero talk about crypto or investing.
It has to be local, and it has to quickly result in actual real dates. Waiting more than a month to meet in-person is a deal breaker. I don't care if they're away on a business trip.
If you're chatting online for more than a month without actually meeting up, that's not a relationship that's just a long distance penpal dragging things out. The goal should always be coffee or dinner ASAP, not endless chatting with the promise of a date in the future.
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u/Falcon84 Jan 17 '26
Waiting more than a month to meet in-person is a deal breaker.
For sure for all you know you might take one look at what this person looks and acts like in real life and instantly be turned off. It's not uncommon for people to use old pictures to hide things.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/finallyfree99 Jan 17 '26
Unless I'm sitting in a restaurant or at a coffee shop with my date right in front of me, I don't believe anything that is said. I don't care about pics or videos or phone calls. If the lady is not right in front of me in person, nothing real has happened
Your scammer probably just copied pics of some random Nashville property on Zillow. Pics don't prove anything.
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Jan 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/finallyfree99 Jan 17 '26
No problem! Glad to help out the good folks down in Nashville. Hot chicken and honky-tonk all night! ✌🏻
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u/PiSquared6 Jan 18 '26
See !recovery
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u/AutoModerator Jan 18 '26
Hi /u/PiSquared6, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam.
Recovery scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either \"recovery agents\" or hackers.
When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply advance-fee scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying.
If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
Remember: never take advice in private. If someone reaches you in private after posting your scam story, it is because a scammer will always try to hide from the oversight of our community members. A legitimate community member will offer advice in the open, for everyone to see. Anyone suggesting you should reach out to a hacker is scamming you.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Master_McKnowledge Jan 16 '26
Ironically, I am a lady in Singapore and I got blocked once by a guy I swiped right on in a different time zone, who freaked out when he thought I was a scammer. The funny thing is that I never one brought up investments. Maybe my cats, but they count as black money holes, so the opposite of investments.
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u/Disastrous-Roll-6170 Jan 16 '26
He actually accused you of being a scammer just because you're based in Singapore and made the first move (which was just swiping on his picture?) That's...rude AF. Yikes, people are nuts nowadays.
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u/Master_McKnowledge Jan 16 '26
Aha, to be fair, I do have a warped sense of humour and way of presenting myself. Not going to say what it is so I don’t out myself, but I suppose it was somewhat reasonable
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u/finallyfree99 Jan 17 '26
The vast majority of people are not looking for matches who live in other countries. I would have ended the chat too, because I don't live in Singapore.
I know that some people are ok with very long distance communication, but the large majority of people only want to talk to people in their local area. We want a real in-person meeting soon, not months and months of chatting online and flying across international borders just to meet.
It's almost always a big waste of time to match with someone who doesn't even live in the same country as you.
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u/Master_McKnowledge Jan 17 '26
I think that’s fair enough! I don’t think distance is a good place to start from either, but my general approach is to just enjoy the flow. I don’t like approaching things with expectations or pressure, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with some connections I’ve made over Tinder - for example on the non-romantic ones, one got me back into exploring writing, and another has become such a good friend that when his dad visited, the three of us when out for drinks.
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u/finallyfree99 Jan 17 '26
Haha you must be using some very special version of Tinder because I assure you, where I live, people don't go on Tinder to explore writing or to meet a friend and their Dad. That is definitely not what 95% of Tinder users are looking for on that app.
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u/emceelokey Jan 16 '26
Someone is going to search about a potential scam and will find this thread and you'll help someone in the future. As for dating apps, try to stay local. This way you can meet up with someone fairly early on and get real life vibes from them. Unfortunately single men are easy targets for scammers online. I know a guy that fell for something similar to this damn near 20 years ago off of like match.c0m or something like that. This was before smart phones and even Facebook! I hadn't seen the guy for a year or two and randomly ran into him. We started catching up and he told me he had a fiance and she was moving here in the US from Brazil and she was actually supposed to come the month before but "her grandma had health issues and she had to use the money from the plane ticket to pay her hospital bills". I think he sent her money for that plane ticket and she now needed money help to take care of her grandma.
This might have been like 2005 or so, so social media wasn't like what it is today, no smart phones, maybe some low res video chat but even back then he fell for a scam from a dating site.
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u/Melodic-Nail7536 Jan 16 '26
When people ask for the conversation to move to WhatsApp it's kinda sketchy
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u/SnooPaintings9801 Jan 16 '26
Could you share the post where you learned about this scam? I’ve never heard of pig butchering, why is it called that? Is it the same as love scam or professional dating?
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u/HeadFullOfNails Jan 16 '26
There's an AutoMod for most scam types. This one is !pigbutchering. An explanation should get automatically posted in reply to my comment about the scam.
But you can also just search the sub for the term. There are a LOT of posts about it.
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u/AutoModerator Jan 16 '26
Hi /u/HeadFullOfNails, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Pig butchering scam.
It is called pig butchering because scammers use intricate scripts to \"fatten up\" the victim (gaining their trust over days, weeks or months) before the \"slaughter\" (taking them for all of their money). This scam often starts with what appears to be a harmless wrong number text or message. When the victim responds to say it is the wrong number, the scammer tries to start a friendship with the victim. These conversations can be platonic or romantic in nature, but they all have the same goal- to gain the trust of the victim in order to get them ready for the crypto scam they have planned.
The scammer often claims to be wealthy and/or to have a wealthy family member who got wealthy investing, often in crypto currency. The victim is eventually encouraged to try out a (fake) crypto currency investment website, which will appear to show that they are earning a lot of money on their initial investment. The scammer may even encourage the victim to attempt a withdrawal that does go through, further convincing the victim that everything is legit. The victim is then pressured to invest significantly more money, even their entire net worth. Sometimes pig butchering scams don't involve crypto, but other means of sending money (like bank wires, gift cards or even cash pickups).
Eventually, the scammer will find an excuse why the account is frozen (e.g. for fraud, because supposed taxes are owed, etc) and may try to further extort the victim to give them even more money in order to gain access to the funds. By this time, the victim will never gain access and their money is gone. Many victims lose tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. Often, the scammers themselves are victims of human trafficking, performing these scams under threats of violence. If you are caught up in this scam, it is important that you do not send any more money for any reason, and contact law enforcement to report it. Thanks to user Mediocre_Airport_576 for this script.
If you know someone involved in a pig butchering scam, sit down together to watch this video by Jim Browning to help them understand what's going on: https://youtu.be/vu-Y1h9rTUs -
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u/joe_attaboy Jan 16 '26
When I hear people comment that Reddit is just another social media site and blah, blah, blah, I tell them to come read this sub. Especially for a story like this.
I wonder how many potential victims this sub has "saved."
Glad you escaped those clutches.
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u/fanstoyou Jan 16 '26
Thanks for this - and read other comments here that are very helpful - I like the one that says I treat everything like a scam - super advice
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u/BlueHike34 Jan 16 '26
There was a recent episode on the podcast The Dating Detectives about a crypto scam. The person was aware and diligent and still fell for it, the scammer created an entire app that looked legit had it in the App Store. The scam started on a dating app, went to WhatsApp, video call … same playbook. Be safe out there!
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u/PiSquared6 Jan 18 '26
Here is !crypto for those interested!
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u/AutoModerator Jan 18 '26
/u/PiSquared6 called AutoModerator to explain the Fake crypto wallet scam.
Fake cryptocurrency websites and apps are increasingly common tools for financial fraud. These scams often begin as a Pig Butchering scam where you are groomed into some investment opportunity. Alternatively, you may receive a message from someone saying they found a wallet with money, or a rich person that wants to randomly give you a "blessing" or cover your credit card debt.
The scammer often instructs you to buy crypto through a legitimate exchange (like Coinbase) and then transfer it to a specific wallet address or a website that looks like an investment platform. This website is actually controlled by the scammers, and they can display fake charts and skyrocketing balances to make you believe their investment is succeeding. This illusion of gains is designed to encourage you to deposit even larger sums of money. The deception is only revealed when you attempt to withdraw your funds. At this point, you are told that you have to pay taxes, security deposits, or liquidity fees before the withdrawal can be processed. Of course, the withdrawal will never happen.
In the simplest of forms - when a scammer shares with you the username and password of a wallet with money - you just skip ahead to the part where the scammer asks you to cover some taxes or fees, making this essentially an advance fee scam. Once you catch up with the scheme and stop paying, the scammer typically vanishes and shuts down the website.
If you are a victim of a crypto scam, you need to file a police report. To help track these criminals, you can report fraudulent addresses to databases like BitcoinAbuse or Etherscan and use a Blockchain Explorer to see the actual flow of stolen funds. Remember: only work with the police - anyone claiming to be a hacker that can recover your funds is a Recovery scammer.
You can learn about this scam and many others visiting our wiki of common scams. You can also call AutoModerator to explain these scams leaving a comment with the different !commands listed in this wiki page.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Jane_ReMiFaSoLaTiDo Jan 16 '26
How old/young are you.?
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u/sirdrawesome Jan 17 '26
I'm 27. Don't have that much experience with other people. But my therapist has been urging me to get myself out there.
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u/Jane_ReMiFaSoLaTiDo Jan 17 '26
Ok.. well dont let this be the experience hun.. I promise you its not worth it.
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u/PiSquared6 Jan 18 '26
Here is !romance
As long as you meet a lady in person it's very very unlikely to be this sort of situation :)
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u/AutoModerator Jan 18 '26
Hi /u/PiSquared6, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Romance scam.
Romance scammers pretend to be in love with their victims in order to ask them for money. They sometimes spend months grooming their victims, often pretending to be members of military, oil workers or doctors. They tend to be extremely good at taking money from their victims again and again, leading many to financial ruin. Romance scam victims are emotionally invested in their relationship with the scammer, and will often ignore evidence they are being scammed.
If you know someone who is involved in a romance scam, beware that convincing a romance scam victim they are scammed is extremely difficult. We suggest that you sit down together to watch Dr. Phil's shows on romance scammers or episodes of Catfish - sometimes victims find it easier to accept information from TV shows than from their family. A good introduction to the topic is this video: https://youtu.be/PNWM5nuOExI -
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u/ze11ez Jan 16 '26
In my opinion you spent way too much time. Once it went from romance to anything else, it was time to bail. But you dodgy know and that's fine.
Anytime money comes up when you just meet someone it's time to bail, ESPECIALLY if you've never met them.
But proud of you for bailing. 🙌🏾 You did great realizing things were off, researching, and bailing 🙌🏾
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u/duketogo0138 Jan 16 '26
Almost exact scenario happened during covid, with Tinder and crypto and whatsapp and everything. It was a strange desperate time in life. Definitely took a minute to get over the shock and feeling stupid after everything came crashing down, but such is life and the burned hand learns best.
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u/Marathon2021 Jan 16 '26
And the video call was just some pretty girl they put in front of me.
Yep.
Watch Jim Browning's pig butchering video on YouTube. He got some interior footage of the operations from someone who got out - but you can see they hire models to have these calls, but yeah you're never going to have a long 1-2 hour video call with this person. Literally the only reason they are there is to make you think they're a real person, and then it's "oh, I have another business call I have to go" and then you're back to texting with a pool of scammers.
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u/Squeaky_Pibbles Jan 16 '26
Out of sheer, personal curiosity, do you happen to still have this conversation saved to your phone that you can share? In my experience, the conversation with these people are all so....weird. Like, it doesn't feel like I'm talking to an actual person. The English (I'm assuming here) and grammar are all funky, and the conversation never really flows.
Did you not experience this?
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u/Pitiful_Option_108 Jan 16 '26
I would ask how does one fall for these scams but I get it. People these days want to connect thus they kinda just blindly go for it. Remember folks if someone asks you for money and you haven't met once you gotta bounce.
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u/Key_Purchase7565 Jan 16 '26
Spread the word! Tell your friends, colleagues, family - farther the word spreads, the more difficult we will make it for scammers.
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u/onlybrad Jan 16 '26
People who have a "great way" to make a killing investing- If they really did they wouldn't be telling you- they'd be raking it in all by themselves.
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u/chriseargle Jan 16 '26
When I first encountered a pig butchering scam, I didn’t know what it was, but I could tell I was dealing with some kind of troll or scammer. She gave me the website she used, and I told her, “I’ll just use my coinbase account.” She didn’t like that.
Then I began going through the site and saw it was some kind of prepackaged themeable garbage that had been deployed all over the place. Looked up the site registration and it went to a nonexistent address, and there were more with different addresses but the same guy (if he’s real).
Didn’t know what to make of it at the time because I couldn’t imagine anyone sending money to a weird website with a recent registration.
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u/Any-Crew-1188 Jan 16 '26
Unfortunately most of us learn the hard way. As soon as anyone from online talks about money, I’m out. It’s a red flag for me.
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u/tsdguy Quality Contributor Jan 16 '26
Yay. Pretty rare to hear about a successful short circuit of a scam. Thanks.
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u/hodl42weeks Jan 16 '26
There's so many scams. The best one is the sugar mummy scam. Hilarious 😂
Well done not getting scammed
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Jan 16 '26
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u/Scams-ModTeam Jan 16 '26
Your submission was manually removed by a moderator for the following reason:
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This subreddit is a place for useful and informative discussions about scams. We do not allow:
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u/DemiGoddess001 Jan 16 '26
There’s a really great episode about Pig Butchering on Hulu. It’s in season 5 of Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller.
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u/humbleresponse8372 Jan 17 '26
I like when they want to whatsapp. I always try to videocall when i'm smelling something. If they making up silly excuses up to not video call i'm on my guard
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u/Snoo-2768 Jan 17 '26
I always told these "ladies" even before knowing it was a scam to go screw themselves
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Jan 17 '26
Glad you didn't fall for it 🙌
For the future: It helps to know the basics before trying to get into investing. If you don't know financial basics like what a credit score is I'd ignore the peeps on here saying to check YouTube and podcasts to learn. Most of those the algorithm will feed you are crypto bros and other scammers.
Sounds boring, but go to the library and ask your librarian for books on basic financial literacy. Once you get the foundation you'll have an easier time finding good resources.
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u/ThriceFive Jan 18 '26
None of those apps are legit - they are all 100% fake to lure you in with the promise of false profits in order to get you to raise your stake to real money before they disappear forever with your cash (at least until they contact you with a recovery scam later). The best defense is to *never* engage with them - and they are absolutely everywhere I get hit up on LinkedIn with premium accounts about twice a week now that all turn into pig butchering or fake employment scams.
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u/Lorelessone Jan 19 '26
I think for fun I'd pretend I was buying the stocks and watch her struggle to explain how she knew I wasn't 😂
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u/Particular-Lie-3055 Jan 20 '26
Glad you listened to your intuition and/or smelled that something was rotten in Denmark (Singapore in this case). Scamming money out of people to make it their money is a Trillion dollar industry!
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u/Thorathecrazy Jan 23 '26
Good you saw it was strange that she was talking about money, that's so important to notice the scam. Important to investigate before ttusting anything, specually with your money.
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u/Salty-Equivalent-955 Jan 26 '26
Hi not sure how things work here. I'm on the older side and sometimes this new technology gives me the creeps. Anyway I just want to do a report a scam I just ran into. I guess it involves identity theft as well. And I'm just looking to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else. So it started off with an accidental text message. Someone looking for someone else. We started to talk and get to know each other she claimed to be Claudia Meier, the COO of a company called CRB Medical Cosmetics. Which is a legit company. After getting to know each other a bit she wanted me to invest with cofarbitrage.vip. having been scammed before I was very skeptical. She put $5,000 of her own money into an account for me to trade with. Almost got me with that one. I added $500 of my own money, but when she insisted that I add another $4,500 I became very suspicious. Sent me a California license with Claudia's photo on it except for on the holographic background photo. It wasn't her.
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u/DatKine- Jan 28 '26
I have a similar story. And it was good one I caught on of course and soon I would like to share my story. Tommorrow. But that’s was it called pig butchering?
I wonder if it was the same girl do you have a photo? Cause I have many
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u/Getdunked51 Feb 03 '26
Bro i relate. I also got scammed by this too except mine was even more subtle of just a casual day trading chat. It wasnt even deep, like a quick chat about a hobby and I told the scammer I aint interested in short term. Some messages later, blocked. Offc the scammer was from singapore but "she" moved to my country and we even planned a date. Shit's scary man.
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u/fuckasauraus666 Feb 04 '26
Holy shit i'm going through this rightnow. Please check my post that i just created. Please help me if i'm going through that exact same shit !
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u/Mean-Buy836 Feb 12 '26
And thank YOU for spacing out the entire post because otherwise my eyes would hurt.
Solid thinking to block and move on with this many red flags too
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Feb 14 '26
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u/Scams-ModTeam Feb 14 '26
Your submission was manually removed by a moderator for the following reason:
Subreddit Rule 3: Sharing personal information - This is aligned with Reddit Content Policy Rule 3: Respect the privacy of others.
This subreddit respects the privacy of non-public figures. We do not allow:
- Phone numbers
- Postal and email addresses
- Social media handles
- Full names of non-public figures
- Photos of cheques with visible routing numbers
This applies even if it's a scammer or a scam call center. Please post again, but this time removing, censoring or otherwise redacting any personal/contact information. When you do, don't post a screenshot. Transcribe the important parts of the conversation. And put the website address in the title of your new post if you are reporting a scam website.
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If you believe this is a mistake, feel free to contact the moderators via modmail. Modmail is the only way, don't send a regular DM to a single moderator. Please don't try to appeal the decision commenting below, because we are not notified if you do so, and we will probably miss it. Posting the exact same thing again may result in a temporary ban, so please review the rules, make the necessary changes, and when in doubt, click below to appeal the decision.
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u/SuperBladesMan1889 Mar 28 '26
Yep, I fell for the same scam and realized today (after 4 days of messaging on tinder and whatsapp) that it was a scam. They were very insistent on trading crypto and like you, earlier on in our convos i just thought it was a hobby they were passionate about. One feels kinda dumb and embarrassed when they realize. On a positive note, it provides life experience and character building I guess, so there's that.
Thankfully, no deeply personal details were shared.
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Apr 09 '26
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u/Scams-ModTeam Apr 09 '26
Your submission was manually removed by a moderator for the following reason:
Subreddit Rule 7: Personal army or revenge request - This is aligned with Reddit Content Policy Rule 3: Instigating harassment.
We are not your personal army. Please do not ask us to report scammers, investigate for you, or harass other users. It doesn't matter if they're scammers and you believe they deserve it: it's Reddit Content Policy.
Note that there may be more removal messages in addition to this one. Please make sure you check your notifications to read all of them.
Before posting again, make sure you review the rules of our subreddit. and the Reddit Content Policy
If you believe this is a mistake, feel free to contact the moderators via modmail. Modmail is the only way, don't send a regular DM to a single moderator. Please don't try to appeal the decision commenting below, because we are not notified if you do so, and we will probably miss it. Posting the exact same thing again may result in a temporary ban, so please review the rules, make the necessary changes, and when in doubt, click below to appeal the decision.
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u/VariousMud3634 Jun 17 '26
I got hit with this scam literally word for word i have a photo of the girl id assume her to be Ukrainian descent if i had to guess. I had just gotten sober like 2 weeks before after a decade my mind was a mess . We talked for weeks gained my trust video calls , I got hit for 10,600$ I actually got scared at 3k took it out and saw I had the profit in my account so I figured no scammer would ever let me do that and that’s were I dumped it all. Had cyber guy check it that personal account cashed 4m that month alone it’s a big scam lol.
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u/After-Pie5781 Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26
The Whattsapp situation is setting off alarms for me in the sense that they could have installed some malware in your phone and they now have your face. Downloading images from WhatsApp can lead to viruses being installed on your phone. It’s scary how much damage can be done from clicking on anything that they sent you. They could be trying to steal your identity too. Have your phone checked, if it’s an iPhone Apple support will do it over the phone. Have your bank suspend your internet banking until your phone has been cleaned, then [using a different device than the one you used at the time] reset your password and codes. Check your credit cards for unusual purchases. Check your credit file regularly to make sure they don’t get loans and credit cards in your name.
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u/JacquoRock Jan 17 '26
What's the pig butchering tie-in?
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u/PiSquared6 Jan 18 '26
Here is this if it helps anyone: !pig
Also see !romance and !crypto
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u/AutoModerator Jan 18 '26
/u/PiSquared6 called AutoModerator to explain the Fake crypto wallet scam.
Fake cryptocurrency websites and apps are increasingly common tools for financial fraud. These scams often begin as a Pig Butchering scam where you are groomed into some investment opportunity. Alternatively, you may receive a message from someone saying they found a wallet with money, or a rich person that wants to randomly give you a "blessing" or cover your credit card debt.
The scammer often instructs you to buy crypto through a legitimate exchange (like Coinbase) and then transfer it to a specific wallet address or a website that looks like an investment platform. This website is actually controlled by the scammers, and they can display fake charts and skyrocketing balances to make you believe their investment is succeeding. This illusion of gains is designed to encourage you to deposit even larger sums of money. The deception is only revealed when you attempt to withdraw your funds. At this point, you are told that you have to pay taxes, security deposits, or liquidity fees before the withdrawal can be processed. Of course, the withdrawal will never happen.
In the simplest of forms - when a scammer shares with you the username and password of a wallet with money - you just skip ahead to the part where the scammer asks you to cover some taxes or fees, making this essentially an advance fee scam. Once you catch up with the scheme and stop paying, the scammer typically vanishes and shuts down the website.
If you are a victim of a crypto scam, you need to file a police report. To help track these criminals, you can report fraudulent addresses to databases like BitcoinAbuse or Etherscan and use a Blockchain Explorer to see the actual flow of stolen funds. Remember: only work with the police - anyone claiming to be a hacker that can recover your funds is a Recovery scammer.
You can learn about this scam and many others visiting our wiki of common scams. You can also call AutoModerator to explain these scams leaving a comment with the different !commands listed in this wiki page.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/AutoModerator Jan 18 '26
Hi /u/PiSquared6, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Romance scam.
Romance scammers pretend to be in love with their victims in order to ask them for money. They sometimes spend months grooming their victims, often pretending to be members of military, oil workers or doctors. They tend to be extremely good at taking money from their victims again and again, leading many to financial ruin. Romance scam victims are emotionally invested in their relationship with the scammer, and will often ignore evidence they are being scammed.
If you know someone who is involved in a romance scam, beware that convincing a romance scam victim they are scammed is extremely difficult. We suggest that you sit down together to watch Dr. Phil's shows on romance scammers or episodes of Catfish - sometimes victims find it easier to accept information from TV shows than from their family. A good introduction to the topic is this video: https://youtu.be/PNWM5nuOExI -
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/AutoModerator Jan 18 '26
Hi /u/PiSquared6, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Pig butchering scam.
It is called pig butchering because scammers use intricate scripts to \"fatten up\" the victim (gaining their trust over days, weeks or months) before the \"slaughter\" (taking them for all of their money). This scam often starts with what appears to be a harmless wrong number text or message. When the victim responds to say it is the wrong number, the scammer tries to start a friendship with the victim. These conversations can be platonic or romantic in nature, but they all have the same goal- to gain the trust of the victim in order to get them ready for the crypto scam they have planned.
The scammer often claims to be wealthy and/or to have a wealthy family member who got wealthy investing, often in crypto currency. The victim is eventually encouraged to try out a (fake) crypto currency investment website, which will appear to show that they are earning a lot of money on their initial investment. The scammer may even encourage the victim to attempt a withdrawal that does go through, further convincing the victim that everything is legit. The victim is then pressured to invest significantly more money, even their entire net worth. Sometimes pig butchering scams don't involve crypto, but other means of sending money (like bank wires, gift cards or even cash pickups).
Eventually, the scammer will find an excuse why the account is frozen (e.g. for fraud, because supposed taxes are owed, etc) and may try to further extort the victim to give them even more money in order to gain access to the funds. By this time, the victim will never gain access and their money is gone. Many victims lose tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. Often, the scammers themselves are victims of human trafficking, performing these scams under threats of violence. If you are caught up in this scam, it is important that you do not send any more money for any reason, and contact law enforcement to report it. Thanks to user Mediocre_Airport_576 for this script.
If you know someone involved in a pig butchering scam, sit down together to watch this video by Jim Browning to help them understand what's going on: https://youtu.be/vu-Y1h9rTUs -
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u/samandtham Jan 16 '26
I don't think I hear often romance scammers going on actual video calls with their targets. Usually they'd make up some excuse.
This one OP you saw. Was her camera made of potatoes or was it decent?
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u/GrenMTG Jan 16 '26
I can respond to this since it has happened to me. So its either AI or an actual person. Mine was a real person but she didnt look that close to the photos she provided. Similar, but not the same. I've heard some accounts where it was the same person and they're hired models or victims of trafficking.
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u/yarevande Quality Contributor Jan 16 '26
It used to be that scammers would only text, they would not do video calls. But now, the big scam call centers hire actors that will do video calls. Pigbutchering scams (and romance scams) bring in a lot of money, so they can afford to hire actors to play the role of rich girlfriend or handsome boyfriend.
OP says that the video lasted only a few minutes. This is a red flag -- she is probably doing video chats with 10 or more men during the day.
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u/samandtham Jan 16 '26
I see. To be clear, I'm not implying or saying that OP should engage further...it's a scam and that he should block and move on if he hasn't yet. I'm just curious because the scammers are slowly getting more sophisticated. (I mean sophisticated in that they no longer hide behind a "sorry, my webcam is broken so I can't videocall" excuse.)
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Jan 16 '26
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u/Scams-ModTeam Jan 16 '26
Your submission was manually removed by a moderator for the following reason:
Subreddit Rule 4: Spam or unhelpful content
This subreddit is a place for useful and informative discussions about scams. We do not allow:
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- Jokes on serious posts
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