Earlier today I was contacted by someone on Facebook who took interest in a post I had made on my business page about a dumpster fire I had crocheted for my husband’s desk at work. After a brief conversation I had more or less pinned down that the person was a scammer. I used to scam bait creeps like this all the time, and scare them by sending them their locations back to them, so sniffing them out has become pretty easy for me.
That being said… I figured it was a good time for a PSA about scammers. I know some of us look at these things and think how can people get scammed when it is so obvious, but some folks genuinely don’t know. So, these are just some things and resources I use when I think someone is trying to scam me.
Many people think that just because you’re the seller you can’t be scammed, that is far from the case. There are a SLEW of buyer scams, especially on Facebook. The most common that I see are:
QR Code scams: this scam is a payment type scam where they will say that they need you to use a QR code for them to be able to receive payment. These will usually lead you to a phishing website, which are websites that get you to enter your information only for it to be stolen. If someone sends you a QR code to take a payment, chances are it’s a scam.
pre-paid shipping label scams This is never advised because they can make the shipping label out to anywhere in the world, meaning they can open a complaint saying they never got the item and you don’t have the proof, or they could have used a stolen credit card to pay for the label.
Stolen credit card scams
-**things to look out for**-
- Check the profiles.
Does this person have a really, and I mean REALLY weird name like, in my situation William Amen.
Is their profile picture stolen? Many of these scammers tend to use 1 of 3 kinds of profile photos. No photo at all, a basic one like a rose or cartoon character, or a stolen image of someone. In which case you can copy an image and paste it into the google image search to reverse search the image online, If it comes up on a LOT of accounts that don’t belong to the same person I would personally cut contact immediately.
What about the other images on their page? Are those also stolen?
Check their friends list. If they have VERY few friends that’s a little sus, especially on Facebook. For example, this person had 62 friends, their about said they were from and lived in Nashville, Tennessee here in the US. However, ALL of their friends were from Lagos, Nigeria.
(Side note, Lagos, Nigeria is a hot spot for online scams like this. Much like how India is a hot spot for phone and email scams like Norton. Please keep in mind, these are beautiful countries filled with great people who also dislike these people! They can’t help that these hooligans decided to set up shop in their backyard.)
- red flag behavior -
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Let’s pretend you made this big huge beautiful blanket and you price it for $200+ ( i know we have a pretty big European and UK community here so that’s 176 euros and 150 pounds for y’all) you did the work, you deserve the pay. Someone comes along and has an IMMEDIATE interest in it. I mean like 2 seconds after you posted it and someone wants you to message them off site about the sale? They already have the credit card number and address ready. This is a sure sign they’re a scammer, this kind is usually the type to try and use a fake credit card number. They want this done off site so it is less traceable, and as quick as possible so they can get the item before the person who actually owns the card can figure it out. Then when they do you’re out your hard worked on blanket, and the money.
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This leads me to the next thing, anyone trying to get you away from the website your trying to sell from is immediately suspect. A lot of these types of scammers are trying to lead you away from the safety of your current website and onto something that will steal your info, again this is called phishing.
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This one isn’t always a sign, and more of something that can help you determine if someone is trying to scam you because you already have red flags popping up. If someone is claiming to be born and from let’s say just because I am from here America, this person I was just chatting with claimed to be from Tennessee, but didn’t speak English that well and had a lot of typos in the chat.
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This is a newer one in recent years. using AI for the examples and references they send. Luckily for most of us folks it is fairly easy to spot AI crochet and AI patterns. The stitches look weird in some places, the fibers of the yarn just look too clean, the pattern doesn’t make sense etc. If the picture looks even slightly off I recommend running it through an AI scanner (You can see the image my scammer sent me, it really is one of those the more you stare at it the more you see wrong with it kind of photos) I personally like sightengine.com. Go to their website, at the top of the screen click on product, and then upload the image to the scanner, and it will be able to give you a good idea on if the image is AI or not. It will even tell you which AI is the most likely to have made the image.
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They are pushy. This is something that is also a hit or a miss, but I feel it is more of a hit than it is a miss. If you tell someone no and they push you anyways, or if they message you multiple times in a row asking for answers to their questions. Some folks get flustered by this and may miss certain things that would otherwise point out how scammy the person is. Most reasonable people will accept a no and move on. A scammer will try and force your hand.
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question avoidance, when you ask pointed or specific questions and they completely ignore those questions. Especially if the question has an obvious answer or response.
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@OzellBelle mentioned another good scam is they will tell you that they sent the image through paypal but the payment won’t send due to you not having a paypal business account.
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someone else (I couldn’t find the comment) also mentioned wanting to pay by check is another big red flag that can go wrong in a lot of way.
What happened with my scammer was I had made a post on my fb business page, and as I said I had posted a little dumpster fire creation for my husband. It wasn’t for sale, just a little image for the post. This person messaged me complimenting my work wanting to know if the item was for sale (their English was odd, and the post clearly states it was a gift to my husband so red flags 1 and 2). I told them it wasn’t, and it was a gift for my husband. They then asked if I could make them one. I told them no as I did not own the copyright to the pattern and therefore could not sell the creation. They then ask “What if I give you my pattern to use.” Which I found as an odd way to phrase it. I tell them provided they can prove to me they own the copyright to the item, and they send me the pattern to review to make sure it isn’t AI I would work with them. A few hours go by and finally they send me an image of this 2 headed looking cow plush and begin pressing me for answers on if it is possible, how much, how long, etc. I tell them so long as they can prove copyright then yes, however this is an image not a pattern and I would need the pattern first to review to make sure it isn’t AI. They respond by saying “It is not AI ma’am I promise you.” and then when asked where they got the image from said “my friend made it and they are out of town.” “Do you want me to send you another pattern?” I responded “parts of the image look off, the stitches look funny. Even then you have yet to send me a pattern, this is just an image not a pattern.” By that point I had looked at the image and ran it through the AI scanner and gotten back that it was positive for being AI generated. At that point I decided to just cut the conversation, block him from my page, and report the account for scam like activity. That being said, I think we all know how good Facebook is about getting these people off their platform, which is why I made this PSA. Any who, thank you guys for coming to my ted talk, I know we have some younger folks on here who may not be privy to some of these kinds of things, especially as you step into the world of selling your makes online. I highly recommend following scambait youtubers such as
Jim Browning
Scammer Payback
Kitboga
Pleasant Green - he deals with a lot of these kinds of scams.
They provide a lot of helpful information on how to not get scammed, as well as other fraud and reporting resources. Also I find their videos rather entertaining.
Edit: I wanted to edit just to add I feel like folks are getting too caught up on whether or not this is or isn’t AI imagery when that’s only a fraction of the equation. I have good reason and good authority to believe it is AI. I have shared this in comments, but just to explain, my husband has built several AI and I had him look it over. He pointed out pixel clumping in the nose and stitches that look to go in the opposite direction (I also updated to include what image I believe they used as a base image) he explained how AI works. It takes what you give it, breaks it down into noise, and then based on prompting it takes that and puts it all back together removing and adding its own data, which is how you can get an image to look fairly similar to a starter image. He also explained that data sets, which are free and readily available online, can influence how realistic an image looks.
In the end it doesn’t matter whether the image I got sent is AI or if it was stolen somewhere else. That is far from the part that we should be focusing on. The image isn’t the ONLY reason I cut the conversation it was the overall feel and responses I was getting. As I said above I used to scam bait as a hobby, I’m used to how these conversations look and start. I used to talk to these creeps, and had ways to get the locations of their device, the IP, and even what device and browser they were using. I’m fairly experienced in dealing with these kinds of people. Even if it wasn’t AI, and this person got the image off the internet somewhere obscure. The fact that I explained to them that wasn’t a pattern, they insisted it was, then when prompted to show me where they got the image they couldn’t tell me and simply said a friend who was out of town sent it is far more sus than whether the image is or isn’t AI
Which worries me, AI is getting better, some of them can produce images like this if you know what you’re doing and the data sets the AI has. If people are getting caught up on whether an image is AI or not they might miss these other things or are willing to give the person a pass. This wasn’t posted as a debate on whether the image I was sent is or isn’t AI I made it to caution people on some red flags you may find while you’re out there in the wild. And things to look out for.
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It’s important that we all stay aware & alert when it comes to these kind of things.
