How I Got Scammed Online

I got scammed online once. The experience has stuck with me many years since and completely shaped the way I conduct myself online.

How did another reasonably cautious person get scammed?

Here is the story. Back in the late 2000’s… I was researching English bulldogs. At the time I wanted one so badly. I thought they were the best of dogs to have, so I was looking for a way to get one. The issue I found in my research is that this breed is rather expensive as a puppy. I wanted a male puppy.

After several months of searching, watching YouTube videos well into the early morning hours being entertained by them, I realized the cost was beyond my pocket. So, I could either give up or find an alternate way to get one. I chose the alternate way. Big mistake.

Enter Craigslist. Now back then I did not know an internet scam from the truth and as I looked through the ads for several days, I finally found a seller who had not one, but two, for sale at a more reasonable price. Yaay! I reached out to the seller right away via email to get more details.

The Scam

The seller and I corresponded for another week or so about details of the puppies. This seller was not local, in fact [he] was out of state so that raised the question of how the puppies would be safely transported to me. He laid out all the details about the passenger flight and answered all my questions in a way that I suspected nothing.

Next was, how does the seller receive payment? Here is the juicy black Angus steak of it. The seller told me that he would accept payment via Western Union and gave me all the details for where to wire the money. The cost of the two puppies was $700. Only $700, for two! I am getting the deal of a lifetime on purebred English Bulldog puppies. I agreed to transfer the funds.

The next day I withdraw the money and head to my nearest WU station and attempted to wire it, no good. Then I thought, I will try again Monday. Monday comes and I tried it again, no luck. At this point, I am starting to feel a way and asked myself, “ What if I send this money and he doesn’t hold up his end?” Then I thought, “naw… he seems genuine and I really want these puppies”. Later that week on my lunch break I went into a grocery store and was still not able to transfer the funds! What the heck? I reached out to the seller to make sure I had the information correct and I did.  I tried it again the same day and it worked. Whew, thank goodness! I was so excited to get my puppies and I went home to make sure the seller received the payment. He did. Great! He gave me assurance that he would be sending me the flight details in a couple of hours in an email…

I never received those flight details. What I did get was an email gloating about how foolish I was that I’d just given away $700 to somebody on the other side of the planet who did not know grammatical American English.  I was livid, devastated, and I felt good and fooled. I could not believe that I had fallen into a trap of deception.

The Signs

Looking back on that incident, I can see where my ignorance and misplaced trust led me to it. I did not know people scammed for a living online. It never bleeped on my radar intellectually. However, intuitively, all the bells rang. I chose to ignore them out of my desire to finally have an English Bulldog puppy. So, what were some of those signs or red flags I should have heeded, you ask? Here they are:

1. As I stated before, the language the seller used in the email was grammatically incorrect, but I excused it with ‘English is probably not his first language, no biggie’. Now that I know better, those emails were classic scammer emails, every red flag was flying high from the header on.
2. Craigslist in the 2000s. Enough said.
3. Payment before delivery with Western Union or any money wire transfer service.
4. The Universe was sending me so many “Girl, DON’T DO IT!” signals I am amazed how I was even able to disregard them at all. The fact that I could not send the money on three separate occasions should have been all it took. But no, I persisted.
   • I have a three-strikes rule with certain efforts or people. If something does not work out after the third attempt, let it be. Forget it and move on. It simply is not meant to be right now. I did not follow my own rules and it cost me, not only financially, but psychologically.

The cosmic realm was looking out for me and I did not even realize what was happening. Pay attention to your intuition, if it does not speak right, spell right, look right, or feel right – get away from it. Your spiritual self is warning you there’s trouble ahead if you keep on that path of doom.

Scams Present Day

Today you can find all manner of online scams for anything you have or have not thought of. For example, The Nigerian Prince scam was huge in the 90s and 00s and is actually still going today even though the scam has been exposed!

If there is something you want or need online or in life generally, it is likely that someone has figured out how to scam people for money for it.  They are way more sophisticated than earlier times, but the signs to spot them are still there. Everyone is not a scammer, some people just make mistakes, but you must become aware of what to look for. Listen to your gut.

Be wary of emails you are not expecting to receive, especially spam. Do not open or click on links from any sender addressing you directly or indirectly who you do not know.  Delete them, do not respond to them. You did not win an online lottery. You did not forget your password at Amazon or at your bank. You did not reach out to a recruiter about that random job. You don’t need to hurry up and click the link so you won’t miss that fake deal.

My rule of thumb is if I did not initiate the communication in any way, it goes in the bin. I trust no one.

There are other ways you can guard and protect yourself against email and online scammers in the next couple of posts. Share them with your family and friends. One more thing before I close this: DO NOT under any circumstances, email your personally identifiable information to anyone. That includes passwords or verification codes. Reputable companies are not going to ask you to email (or text) data they already have access to.

For now, here are some helpful tips from the Federal Trade Commission – Consumer Information on what you can do if you have already been scammed online 10 Things You Can Do to Avoid Fraud.

I hope the story helped you. Be safe in cyberspace.