After reading an article today about scams I became very discouraged. Has something that has helped us stay "connected" and avoid being obsolete leading us to our ultimate demise? I am probably being sensitive/paranoid, but out of the top 10 scams I have probably been contacted with two of them. And that's just what I am aware of! Years ago before I ever heard of the Nigerian scams I was contacted by one. Fresh out of college I was still young enough to be naive and I ended up giving him my name, address and telephone number. I always felt it was too good to be true so I did a google search of the e-mail title and found out it was a scam so I "played" with the person/punk on the other end. After a few e-mails of me telling him I have never had a real friend and I considered him my "best bud in the world" and that I was questioning my sexuality because I never felt so close to another man and I hoped he felt the same way I felt enough was enough and informed him that I sent an e-mail to the TBI (tennessee bureau of investigation) with all of the e-mail exchanges, etc (which was true). Needless to say I never received another e-mail from him, or from any other Nigerian scammers for years but they magically reappeared again recently. Anyways, since I gave him my name, address and phone number should I be concerned? I always thought that since I never gave him my bank info, routing number, etc I was safe but I read today they can use your name against you as well. Thank you and I apologize for the long post.
Hi and Welcome,
While it is certainly not ideal that you have given your information to a scammer, it is not the end of the world, it would have been much worse had you sent money,
Sometimes these scammers will make use of your identity to scam others, there is nothing you can do to stop this now nor are you likely to ever know they are doing it so dont lose too much sleep unless you have really upset this individual as we often do
I prefer to focus on the fact that you recognised it was a scam before losing any money to these criminals, well done
Please share any details of the scam with us, it may well prevent others losing money.
One last thing, what you did with your "best bud in the world" was called scambaiting, there is a community devoted to this very practice just next door at www.419eater.com they will be happy to teach you about safe baiting if you ask nicely, safe baiting could be described as "Annonymously annoying the crap out of a scammer by email and or phone for fun and adventure, while wasting the scammers time and keeping them from real victims" a very addictive sport so dont say I didn't warn you