Wasting a scammer's time.

[thecdnhermit]

So lastnight, just after 11pm, my wife started getting texted by a scammer. It appears that they somehow found an old address of ours and put together an image of a fake Facebook Messenger conversation where my wife responded to some questions in process of applying for money. They started with this fake screenshot (which I don't think came through right away), and then said "Hello", "It's this Ms thecdnhermit", at which point my wife showed me the messages and I took over. I've simply included all the screenshots. Personal or possibly identifying info has been censored.

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I left them hanging and went to bed. This morning my wife's phone rang, and she hollered for me: it was the scammer calling! Ballsy!

Even though I'd planned to continue the game this morning, since he called, I simply called him out on his scam. He attempted to argue and say he was legit and after a couple arguments from him, I simply hung up on him. We haven't heard from him since. I think my wife blocked the number anyway, but of course, being a generated number, that's easy enough to get around.

Interestingly, he had an Indian accent, just like most of the scammers in videos from Scammer Payback. It was actually watching Scammer Payback that gave me the idea to mess with him like this. Of course I don't have the resources to track these guys down, but at least I probably wasted this guy's time for about two and a half hours lastnight.

[thecdnhermit]

So this afternoon my wife messaged me a picture of a fairly generic document with a supposed business name at the top and asked me to look into this business.

When I got home after work I got more details: my wife's mother had happened on someone on Facebook who claimed to sell new and used mobility scooters for anywhere between $200 and $700. My mother-in-law showed me the conversation to that point, and I instantly saw the telltale signs of a scam.
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There are four pictures of different mobility scooters there, and each of them has a completely different background. Random scraped images, of course.
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A legitimate business wouldn't just hand over a copy of the document with someone else's info on it.
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Now the scam really shows up. Cheap scooter to draw the person in, but this fee has to be paid up front before the sale can be completed. Yup, so legit!
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The start of that last message is where I got home and convinced my mother-in-law that it was a scam. So she typed up the next message and after the next response, I took over. My main goal at that point was to get them to "leak" the type(s) of payment they would take.
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And they didn't disappoint! I reported them as a scam to Facebook, took the screenshots of the conversation, and then blocked them.

Sadly, my mother-in-law believed them at first so gave them her real name, phone number, and address. Which of course is why I had to erase that info in the images. But at least that info is semi-public info already, and she didn't give any other info which could lead to identity theft, and asked me about it before actually trying to send them any money. I convinced her that if something similar happens in the future, if she wants to feel it out, use fake info at first. It's much easier to then say "Hey, I thought you were a scam so I gave you fake info, now that I know you're legit, here's my real info!" than to take back your real info after it's out.