Wrong Number Text Scams, Whatsapp. Be Careful! Almost Got Scammed!

About a week ago a got a text message from some number I didn’t recognize asking something about if I am coming into work today. I figured they accidentally got the wrong number so I told them they may have the wrong number. They apologized and said they would treat me to coffee if I was in the area. I said I was far away but thanked them for the offer.

I thought this was a friendly exchange but little did I know at the time, it was just a common set up for what is known as a wrong number text scam which the scammer will try to befriend you to gain your trust over time and then eventually try to convince you to invest money into a scheme which you will end up losing money.

Anyway so they continued the conversation and I guess I was intrigued enough or just willing to make a new pen pal so I continued to chat with them. Soon they asked me to transfer our conversation over to Whatsapp. I asked why and they said they were using a work phone that other people use. I didn’t have the app but it looked ok so I downloaded it to the phone to continue the conversation.

As the days went on she shared more about herself including pictures and videos which seemed to be real. I was still a bit skeptical so I started looking up the phone numbers and the images but nothing turned up so it seemed legitimate. 

It soon became apparent that she was very wealthy. She said she had her own jewelry business and that she also makes money by investing in the gold market. She spoke about this investing several times and mentioned that she could teach me to do it if I was interested. 

I was still considering that this was possibly a scam so I knew I did not want to invest any money, but it was tempting especially since she apparently was very good at it. She said her aunt was her mentor and taught her about investing. 

About a week in, the relationship was going well. We chatted several times a day and we seemed to be getting along great. I really thought I got lucky by randomly getting into a conversation with a stranger who just happened to be beautiful, single, and rich. Of course this should have clued me into the fact that it was probably a scam, but I wanted to believe it was true. 

Even certain examples along the way that seemed a bit odd and didn’t quite check out, I brushed off and kept believing that this could be the real thing.

I told me sister and she immediately said it sounded like a scam. She sent me examples of common scams and honestly the descriptions matched up with what I was dealing with so I started to get a little more cautious.  

I started to dig a little deeper and search for terms like “wrong number text scam” and “gold investing scam". Examples on Reddit started popping up and I was shocked by what I found. There were tons of examples of pretty much exactly the same set up leading to a scam!

It starts with an innocent wrong number text and they keep chatting back and forth to gain your trust. They ask you to move over to Whatsapp to keep chatting. They mention that they are rich from investing and offer to help you get involved with it. Once you agree to invest money with them, it turns out it is a scam and you lose your money.

I was lucky I discovered it was a scam before it got that far so I did not lose anything. I told myself I would not put any money into it in case it was a scam but I will admit, the idea of it was tempting. I was really believing this person and starting to take their advice and direction on big decisions which is pretty scary considering it was all fake.

I believed this relationship was real for about a week until I discovered the similar examples online. I consider myself a pretty tech savvy person who is well educated when it comes to tech scams. I have seen many examples of it online and taken a lot of cyber security courses as well, and even with all of that, I still managed to get pulled into one of these scams.

It is really sad that there are people out there doing this, taking advantage of people with the sole intention of stealing their money. They are preying on innocent people who are often seeking out a relationship and they exploit this for their own personal gain. I was lucky I did not lose anything in this interaction but many people out there get further into it and end up losing a lot of money.

I wanted to share this example of what happened with the hope that it will help others not fall victim to the same scam. Be careful out there. If something seems too good to be true it is!