Financial Scammer Catfish
Red Flags
- They don’t want to voice call as you will hear their accent and bad English. There are exceptions and these are French speaking Africans from the Ivory Coast. They pose as Europeans and also use the children to talk to victims.
- They don’t want to video call. There are exceptions and this will usually be a recorded video which they have stolen with the pictures. They will play it to the camera and claim bad internet connection when they can’t answer questions.
- English will be poor and broken. You will see mistakes in grammar and sentence structure. It will seem ‘off’.
- All scammers have a sob story. This gives them opportunity to gain your sympathy and build a bond. They will also have many troubles they need your help with.
- They will often claim to be military, doctors or some other trust worthy profession. They will also claim to be working out of their home country. Key words on profiles will be honest, trustworthy, loyal, caring, looking for love, widowed, divorced, God fearing.
- Photos may have been photoshopped to hold your name as ‘proof’ it’s them. Also, but not always, the photos they have stolen may appear in reverse image searches. There are lots of free apps or platforms to do this. Google image search and Yandex are some of the best.
- After building your trust, they will test the water by asking for either a small sum of money or i tunes cards etc. Larger sums of money can follow as well as requesting phones and SIM cards.