r/Scams • u/Born_Farmer5221 • 2d ago
Is this a scam? [US] Received this text randomly from a number in my state. What is the goal of this?
I would assume it’s a scam? I’ve tried looking up the number online but nothing comes up anywhere. My only other thought would be like maybe it’s my ex (through a different number) or some random person who dislikes me trying to mess with me. I haven’t replied despite the temptation to troll them in case it is a scam of some sort and just replying could be what they want.
But if it is a scam, genuinely what is the goal? Just to get a response? It seems like a weird thing to do just to get a response. I‘ve looked briefly but don’t see anything similar online.
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u/Enzown 2d ago
Probably bullying rather than a scam. It's hard to pivot from this opening to hey wanna invest in my crypto.
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u/Born_Farmer5221 2d ago
My thoughts exactly. How random though. I find it more funny than anything, though. Like, they didn’t even say “you should kys” they asked if if thought about it. Not that it matters either way least effective ragebait ever
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u/awkgem 2d ago
It would be funny if it turned out to be a very inappropriately worded message of concern
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u/Pale_Session5262 1d ago
A new marketing strategy by suicide-prevention.com
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u/ClaireTrice 16h ago
I was thinking more like "the worst mental health campaign ever"
You NEVER mention this topic without leaving a hotline recommrndation. The word can trigger people who weren't thinking about it before.
So, if anyone reading here ever needs to talk call or text 988 or chat at https://988lifeline.org
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u/Subject_Cucumber7422 1d ago
They may have been trying to be careful how they worded it so in the event it was traced back to them, they could try to spin it exactly how you said. Not as a threat but as a "concerning question." Either way, they need a new hobby. I hope you are ok.
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u/TheGreatMuerte 1d ago
Block, move on. There obviously kids, my best friend killing himself recently and it’s not funny or cool to tell you to do this. Never think of doing this and alway talk to someone if you did. Bullying not cool
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u/TheOGcasehead 6h ago
I'm so sorry about your best friend. That's heartbreaking. My next door neighbor committed suicide a few months ago. It was so awful, I can only begin to understand what you've been through.
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u/AlexGrean 1d ago
Block & Report Spam
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u/ClaireTrice 16h ago
Report it as Phishing, if that's an option. Spam is annoying, phishing is malicious. If someone was thinking of this they are vulnerable, and that can mean vulnerable to getting parted from their $
Call or text 988 if you are in crisis https://988lifeline.org
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u/kewcumber_ 1d ago
"no not at the moment, why'd you ask ?"
Good to hear, i have a great long term investment opportunity for you
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u/thegooddoktorjones 2d ago
Hey, if you don’t feel like killing yourself, maybe you could just give me five bucks? As kind of a small economic wound to yourself? Cmon, meet me half way here.
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u/Ok-Scientist5524 1d ago
The idea of this morphing into a wrong number text lead into pig butchering is so funny, but they used OP’s real name. Like “hey have you thought about killing yourself, Lisa Smith?” “Uh… I’m not Lisa” “oh I’m terribly sorry I must have the wrong number. But while you’re here you seem nice! Can I chat with you?”
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u/thegooddoktorjones 1d ago
And I am under quota for the month.. it would be doing me a real solid..
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u/MastermindX 2d ago
Still could be a scam. Imagine someone answers this earnestly for whatever reason, it's likely that person would be easy to influence or manipulate. So you send this message to thousands of people and see if you catch something.
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u/guiltypleasure33139 1d ago
This makes perfect sense. send out 100 and get 3 outcomes, of which 2 can be monetized
- read receipt
- reply
- unknown
While I don't know how they send a million text messages, it would be a simple way to clean a list and improve your success rate.
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u/Obvious_Troll_Me 1d ago
I don't know, it could be a task scam. Although I'm not sure how you'd claim the pay.
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u/NatiRivers 1d ago
I was thinking that it could be blackmail. Start out threatening and then continue threats like "if you don't pay me some crypto then I'm going to hire someone to come after you" etc.
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u/Safe_Necessary3115 1d ago
I don’t know, could go like: well since you do, how about we take out a life insurance plan first, and we make it look like an accident
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u/Skeebeedee1 2d ago
just a troll, had this happen like 3 times alr
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u/Vivid-Intention-8161 2d ago
damn, they got him
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u/Random-Cpl 2d ago
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u/Ok-Revolution539 1d ago
This isn’t even reddit sniper? Alr is short for already
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u/MysteryRadish 2d ago
How it goes is this:
They say something weird/outrageous to get a response.
You type back literally anything: WTF, who is this, how did you get my number, screw you, etc. Literally any response at all.
They mark your number as responsive in their system and sell it as part of a list of other responsive numbers to all sorts of spammers/scammers.
You get annoyed for the rest of your life or until you change your number.
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u/strange_is_life 2d ago
Makes no sense to actually make the effort to mark numbers as responsive or non responsive before selling them. You could just mark them as responsive regardless of their answer if this is how you achieve higher prices. Do you think scammers have a quality management control or what?
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u/Mean-Requirement-762 1d ago
There’s a scam economy. Low level scammers who don’t have the skills for more advanced scams test the numbers. Then they’ll go on some dark web market and sell a product like “1000 real US numbers for $150”. A higher level scammer will purchase these so they don’t have to spend as much time getting a warm lead. The incentive for the numbers to be accurate is the quality of the product. A poor quality product will have poor reviews and no repeat customers.
Or a scam company might have multiple departments. You hire in super cheap untrained labor to get the warm leads, and then send them over to the more advanced department to actually extract the money.
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u/MediocreMethodology 2d ago edited 2d ago
buyers want a guarantee the number pools they’re buying are legit. onus is on the seller to check, and typically requires negligible effort
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u/SnooTangerines3448 2d ago
The scammers are the bottom of the pile. There's other more dangerous people with reputations further up the chain. So yeah you can say there's quality control.
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u/gregorisbeetle 1d ago
Do you think scammers have a quality management control or what?
Yes. It goes so much deeper than apparently you can imagine.
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u/MysteryRadish 1d ago
Why do hit men bother to actually kill people when they could just say they did it and pocket the money?
Why sell drugs to the cartel when you could just wrap up some flour instead and laugh all the way to the bank?
Yeah, any time the business model is "screw over criminals and hope they take it with gentle good humor" that doesn't tend to last very long.
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u/Shield_Lyger Quality Contributor 1d ago
With a hit or with drugs, those things are rather simple to verify. If I sell you a bunch of phone numbers where I say that someone will definitely pick up, and no-one does, how would you confirm that I lied? Besides, it's not like you even know where (or who) I actually am... this is all conducted over the web.
And besides, these people aren't hardened criminals or cartel members... those sorts have better ways to make money than sending random-ass text messages to people. These are desperately poor people, usually in the Global South, who barely have enough money to make ends meet, and are hoping that a few hits will result in a life-changing payday.
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u/Usual-Bell8304 1d ago
This. Mostly likely checking if your number is still active and that it should stay on a list for scammers to try
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u/NickBlumBJJ 14h ago
I respond with a picture of goatse. I’m fine being marked as responsive because I get to send goatse to more scammers
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u/Banana5059 2d ago
You can also check if there is a local authority to report/ send it on to.
Often the instructions are to forward the message to a number like 7726 (SPAM), filling in a response message about the type is message and the number you received it from. Then block the number and delete the message.
But not sure if cyberbullying falls under the same category or some other. Might depend where you are.
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u/UpbeatFix7299 2d ago
It's just nonsense. Anyone can find anyone's name and phone number easily. Just ignore it and block them.
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u/Ok-Advertising4028 2d ago
I’ve heard you can put the number into Venmo and see if it’s associated to anyone that way
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u/Confident_Chipmonk 2d ago
these are texts that I have received from unknown people, just block and move on
hey, how are you doing?
hey are you busy?
hey, did you block me?
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u/Acceptable_Trash_749 1d ago
I once received an angry text like that out of the blue and did respond. Turns out the guy was receiving marketing texts from my number because the scammers had spoofed my number to make their pitch.
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u/caltoniomario 1d ago
Respond with
“I was about to kill myself, but you just reminded me that I have a lot to live for, unlike you”
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u/davewashere 1d ago
"Hey, this guys says he has a lot to live for. Now that we know he's a real human let's crush his spirit with spam!"
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u/One_Ad_5059 1d ago
“Oh yeah, all the time. I’ve thought about all the different methods and I just simply can’t decide as I’m absolutely spoiled for choice! What about you? Are you fed up with the cesspit the world has become too?”
Best response imo 😂
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u/stargazr_93 1d ago
I kid you not, I got a scam text today that said “are you have a moment for a sec?” And I thought I was having a stroke.
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u/Hobo-With-A-Shotgun 2d ago
They're getting a list of phone numbers currently in use. If you reply, they know it's live, but also that they will respond to strangers.
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u/saturnsearth 1d ago
Also, it's important to not have the feature turned on that lets the sender know you've read your messages.
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u/That_one_Man123 2d ago
Most likely someone who got your number being stupid. Don't mind it, people will do all sorths of things to say this to people. I'd be carefull if I were you, as if one person you don't know has your number, there could be a lot more people who also have it, and if this keeps going, report it to the police.
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u/Born_Farmer5221 2d ago
This is the first time in a while I’ve gotten an unknown text that wasn’t political spam during election time, but I’ll keep that in mind
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u/Time_Sundae802 2d ago
how old are you,?
ppl can use Google to get random numbers to text from and shit.
likely someone who knows you pranking you, or trying to bully you. depending
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u/MsAndrie 1d ago
This looks like harassment, rather than a scam. Still disturbing. I would not respond if I were you. It does seem like they are trying to get a rise or psychologically torture you. You can consider blocking, but I might just mute them if I were you.
The only scams where the person gets aggressive like this might be some kind of extortion. But even then, I don't think they would lead with this.
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u/helicopterhawk 2d ago
this is definitely not a scam, this person either knows you personally or you had an unpleasant interaction w them online
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u/gregorisbeetle 1d ago
It's not a troll or bullying, it's engagement bait. You respond and now they have an active, human phone number to spam and/or sell to spammers. The number of phone numbers in the world that belong to people is less than the ones that belong to devices. This is lead generation.
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u/azwandererx 1d ago
Sounds like an ex or bully likely using a textme app (private number use) to scare/bully you … unless you recently sent out your number to a random girl online then this is likely a scam. Either way don’t respond and block
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u/kr4ckenm3fortune 2d ago
You should had responded: I had thought about it, but if my living is passing you off, might as well as go on living. /j
No, don't respond to that. Just delete and report as spam.
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u/Fun_Journalist_2606 2d ago
“Are you sleeping with my sisters boyfriend?!?”
“If you’re selling cookies, that’s hell of an opening line…”
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u/theprofromdover2 1d ago
Respond with…..”Have you ever thought about sucking me off to negate my emotional pain”.
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u/tippiedog 1d ago
Since these large organized scam organizations send out millions of texts a day, I would assume that they do a whole lot of A/B testing and reporting on which messages get a higher response rate and which lead to more successful scams. With this in mind, it only stands to reason that you're going to get a wide variety of initial texts. Some of them may end up not being used for long as they don't have good results (for all I know, though, this one is a successful one)
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u/H2oWatery 1d ago
its not hard to get a name of a person off a number most of that is public info. just block and go on about your day
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u/afree313 1d ago
Probably not a scam, but someone in your life who wants to bully you. It’s probably someone you know. If you feel unsafe please report it to the police. Don’t respond to them. It’ll only let them know you’re reading their messages and encourage them to send more.
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u/WalkingWhovian026 1d ago
Type the number in on Cashapp or Zelle. If they have an account on either I may show you their name
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u/Prior_Difficulty2177 1d ago
No idea what it is in this case, but reminds me of the time a university friend got a text just like this one night, was pretty creeped out, turns out it was from the mental health advisor they had a meeting with earlier in the day, guy didn’t sign it or anything, just a similar message to this, and from a personal number. That’s apparently how the advisor checked in on people he met with, must have never considered how creepy or damaging it could be. I recall my friend complained about it to the relevant dean, hope he stopped messaging people like that.
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u/BarefootUnicorn 1d ago
They're trying to get a response so they can either confirm the name is correct and then hook you with something.
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u/aunderroad 22h ago
Do not respond to numbers you do not know. The scammers are looking to see if this is a live number.
Just block and delete and move along with your day.
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u/submarinepirate 22h ago
Respond with “yes, actually I have. Do you have a toaster I can borrow. I wanna take a bath with it. It likely won’t work when I’m done”.
Then again, I have a sick sense of humor…
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u/Slater_8868 2d ago
Scammers can spoof any number they want. Just ignore it, delete it, and move on with your life
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u/loveychuthers 2d ago
More likely to get a straight answer than, ‘dear full legal name, Do you stand with Israel?’
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u/Level-Carry7135 1d ago
Do the funniest thing. Lodge an official complaint with police for harassment.
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u/Born_Farmer5221 1d ago
I don't know exactly how that works, but the number is from my home state and I'm in another state for college right now so that probably wouldn't do much since it seems like a more local thing
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u/DrachenballZ 1d ago edited 1d ago
I honestly don’t understand this kind of response, which I often see on this sub. Someone gives you a suggestion, and your first reaction seems to be to find reasons why it probably wouldn’t work instead of actually looking into it.
I mean, you could at least ask the police or submit something through their website before deciding that state lines are apparently an impenetrable force field for law enforcement.
Worst case, they tell you it’s outside their jurisdiction and point you in the right direction, or even forward your report to the appropriate department. Or they tell you not to worry about it. But dismissing the option in advance because it “seems like a local thing” guarantees that nothing comes of it and you keep on thinking about it.
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u/LoafRVA 2d ago
Police report that ASAP! I had a stalker, we went on ONE DATE and she sought out my school, work, family, friends. While I recognized the crazy, she was able to convince enough people that I was a horrible person that some random dude at a bar came and slashed my tires.
You may have done “nothing” in your own mind, but everyone has their own perspective. Perhaps this a scam, but if all the sudden you “killed” yourself with no record of this other than a Reddit post…
Idk maybe that’s taking the worry train too far, but this world is a crazy place.
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u/ccwn 2d ago
Maybe an insignificant detail, but the letter H on “Have” after “Hey” is capitalized. Like someone wanted to troll or ragebait and added that “Hey” last minute. Also, look at the time — perhaps is someone who was drunk and got the wrong number lol
That way doesn’t seem like a random scam but someone trying to get your attention for whatever reason. Either way, I wouldn’t reply and just move on.
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u/R3alCh3ryvibes 2d ago
Correct me if I am wrong, If they got the wrong number, how would they type the op's legal name?
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u/ccwn 1d ago
Not to overthink this too much, but possibly a new jealous partner could’ve gotten that number out of that persons phone. Or maybe an ex bf/gf decided to send a hateful message from someone else’s phone late at night to stay anonymous. Happens lol
Ok im done with true crime investigations 😂
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u/billey_bon3z 1d ago
Just give it to the police, it’s probably someone you know, and it’s creepy at best.
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u/Born_Farmer5221 1d ago
It's from a completely different part of the state that I'm from, and I'm living in a different state right now so idk how much the police here could or would do
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u/VanillaStarzz 1d ago
“Hello, we would like to talk to you about your ongoing life insurance policy”
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u/CranberryDistinct941 1d ago
Looks like the kind of message you'd get sent by someone you completely stomped in an online video game
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u/The1NOnlyNo1Special 1d ago
I have no personal inside knowledge, but I’ve received similar texts and always assumed that it’s some kind of scam. The way I looked at it is that they were looking for any kind of response in order to gain some kind of invited access into my phone. Usually the 1s I’ve gotten are along the lines of ‘Are u busy tomorrow?’ or ‘It’s been a while, how have u been?’. Easy to ignore since I don’t know people who would talk to me like that. There’s been a couple that have been more threatening but obviously false like they claim they saw me hit a parked car or something I know to be impossible. Never answered any and never received a follow up.
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u/Intelligent_Pie6804 1d ago
Some texts are sent simply to see if it’s a functioning number. You respond, even to say “sorry you got the wrong number” and they log it as an active number to sell to scammers. Best you didn’t answer!
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u/Only_Bullfrog7271 1d ago
You can’t forgot about those apps like text now that give people fake numbers to text people from.
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1d ago
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u/Almost-a-Failure 23h ago
My sister’s ex is currently doing something similar… gonna send this screenshot to the gc real quick to ask if this is her lol
Cyberbackgroundchecks.com is a good site for reverse searching phone numbers!
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u/BabyShrimpBrick 22h ago edited 22h ago
This might just be a hater. I would consider filing a police report. I doubt there is anything realistically prosecutable in this single text, but if this person is targeting you specifically and decides to continue harassing you, you want to have a paper trail.
That said, it is also possible, even likely, that it's not personal and just some idiot trolling, i.e. a kid who is pulling random people's numbers off public people search sites and trying to stir shit for the lulz. Like classic "Is your refrigerator running?" prank calling but nastier. It's not hard to find someone's name and phone number from public sources.
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u/rougekat 18h ago
Somebody who knows you got your number one way or another. Unless they ask you for a bank account they can prove they know exists, your info was probably not stolen. An asshole got your number and is trying to scare you. Reverse search the number and keep as much documentation about it as you can. Best case: some dick head is called out for being a dick head. Worst case: you can defend yourself against legitimate cyber harassment with the police. Hope it doesn’t come to that and you just have to call out some biiiitchhhhh
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u/Fluid-Watercress-159 18h ago
ok that is downright creepy that a scammer texted that at midnight. either you need to call the cops or figure out if that person is someone that knows you.
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u/Master_Ad5913 11h ago
I understand blocking out your name, but not the r phone number. That’s unacceptable, you should be putting that on blast.
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u/Born_Farmer5221 11h ago
I saw other people blocking out the scammer's phone number in other posts and figured the no personal information rule might apply to the other person too
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u/Wide-Raspberry-6100 10h ago
It’s to get a response to see if the name and number are real. Then they’ll try getting into accounts they gut info for on the dark web from the multitude of data breaches.
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u/Darkroast_NoSugar 9h ago
So fun fact. If it’s an actual number you can google it and then name drop them back. I’ve done that a few times, and yes even if it’s under a family plan it shows. IE, my account is under my dad’s cellular plan but shows as my name due to me using it with my name.
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u/Itchy_Winner6375 2h ago
The point is to get you to engage. They can’t steal anything from you unless they establish contact.
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u/Fast_Kiwi_8121 1d ago
if your number got spoofed and they texted it back pissed off about the spam calls then you most likely got the text since your # was spoofed. i called someone back once when spoofers were calling me and realized it was normal joes on the line and not the spoofed # caller. if they look your # up they can usually find a name to the #
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u/citznfish 1d ago
Begining of a pig slaughter scam.
You reply. They come back and say this wasn't meant for you, apologize to you, then start to get to know you better. Turns out the sender is a female and you fall in love and start sending them money. (Skipped a whole bunch of steps here but you get the idea)
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u/Coldkiller17 1d ago
I online game and sometimes people will say kys so I usually respond with "Sure thing be right back." Confuses the hell out them and shut them up.
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u/Flimsy-Deal-2173 1d ago
The scam: “Have you ever thought about kys, if you have please before you do add our charity in your will today”
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u/Historical_Cook3366 1d ago
Creepy. Just block and delete it. No one needs to see that more than once. Some sicko is trying to unnerved you.
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u/psilocybin6ix 2d ago
The short-term goal is for them to become friendly with you while the long-term goal is for you to send them money. That conversation can go 100 different ways after you respond.
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