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Scam of the day – December 1, 2024 – Meta Takes Down 2 Million Pig Butchering Accounts

By Steven Weisman, Esq. on November 30, 2024

I have been warning you about romance scams for many years. More recently I have been warning you for the last few years about the myriad of scams involving cryptocurrencies. In the last few years a new scam combining the romance scam and cryptocurrency scams surfaced about which I have also warned you since 2018.

Romance scams generally follow a familiar pattern with the scammers establishing relationships with people, generally women, online through various legitimate dating websites and social media using fake names, locations and images. The FBI has issued a warning about a new trend in romance scams in which the scammer tells his victim that he or she has inside knowledge about cryptocurrency investing and directs the victim to a phony website that purports to be a legitimate cryptocurrency trading site. Not long after "investing" in the cryptocurrencies provided, the victim soon finds that there is no investment and that she or he has lost all of the invested money. This scam originated in China in 2019 and is called sha zhu pan or pig butchering in English. The name is derived from the practice of luring in victims, "fattening them up" by convincing them to continually "invest" more money and then stealing all of the money.

The scammers initially contact their victims on dating or social media apps and pretend to develop a close relationship. After a while the scammer informs the targeted victim that he or she is making a lot of money investing in cryptocurrencies and suggests the victim download and use a cryptocurrency app used by the scammer. Generally, the victims are lured into investing more and more money by what appears to be both dramatic increases in the value of their account and their ability to withdraw some of their profits. However, once the victim has been persuaded to invest larger and larger sums of money, the scammers steal the money and the victim is left with nothing.

The Blockchain Data Platform Chainalysis issued its 2024 Crypto Crime Report in which it found that big butchering romance scams increased last year by 8500% from incidents of the crime in 2020.

You might be surprised to learn that typically the victims of this scam are highly educated people. Unfortunately, they also are targeted because they may have also recently gone through a divorce or some other personal difficulty. While the victims are people of all ages, most victims are anywhere from their mid-30s to their early fifties with the average loss per victim averaging $121.926 with one victim, according to the IRS losing two million dollars to the scammers.

Meta recently announced that it had taken down 2 million Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger accounts this year used for pig butchering scams with most of these accounts based in Myanmar, Laos, the UAE, the Philippines and Cambodia.

TIPS

It is important to remember that you should never invest in something that you do not completely understand. This was a mistake that many of Bernie Madoff's victims made. Cryptocurrency scams quite often involve complicated language and investment terms that is purposefully unclear in an effort to confuse potential investors from understanding the real facts. You also may want to check out the SEC's investor education website at www.investor.gov. Scammers can be very convincing and it may sound like there is a great opportunity for someone to make some money, but you must be careful that the person making money is not the scam artist taking yours.

Also, the apps used in the pig butchering scam may appear to be legitimate, but they are not found on official app platforms such as Google Play or the Apple App Store. Do your homework before investing in cryptocurrencies and only do business with well established cryptocurrency exchanges. Never invest merely because of the recommendation of someone you may have met online.

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its been many hours of memories and introspection for me.

gonna listen to the bible and rest.

may God protect you and keep you and bless you in your comings and goings.

Good nite. Sweet dreams. HUGS>

Just had to say it 
Peace and good health to all

I am not really introducing myself as my account is horsies and I just forgot the password.  Sharon could you possibly help me with this?  Thanks and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Gobble.  If you want to DM me we can figure it out that way but I have no idea where to start.  That account is the one i was always dming you on and woiuld really love to get it back so that I can help the community some more.

Thanks and happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and a great holiday season. 


regards Eddie

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Scam of the day – November 26, 2024 – Gift Cards are a Scammers Best Friend

By Steven Weisman, Esq. on November 25, 2024

Scammers are big fans of gift cards because they are easy to purchase, easy to send to the scammer and impossible to trace to the scammer. According to the FTC, consumers lost 228 million dollars to gift card scams last year. It is not even necessary for the scammer to be in possession of the actual gift card to use it. Sending the gift card numbers or taking a picture on your phone and transmitting it to the scammer is sufficient for the scammer to use the gift card to buy things that can then be sold and converted into cash.

In many instances the scams involved scammers posing as large companies or government agencies such as the IRS demanding payments. It is important to remember that no legitimate company and no government agencies asks for or accepts gift cards as a payment method so anytime you are asked for a payment by gift card, you can be confident it is a scam.

In an interesting development, the FTC noted that Target gift cards were the most popular choice for scammers with scammers asking specifically for Target gift cards in twice as many instances as the next most popular gift card and even when the gift card requested by the scammers was not a Target gift card, the scammers asked their victims to purchase the particular gift cards at a Target store.

TIPS

Although it is impossible to stop payment on a gift card or trace the user after the scammer has used it, if you recognize immediately that you have provided a gift card to a scammer, you can report it to the issuer to cancel the card. Here is contact information for some popular gift cards.

Amazon

Call 1 (888) 280-4331.
Keep the Amazon card itself and your receipt for the Amazon card.
Learn about Amazon gift card scams and how to report them. Click on “Contact us.”
Google Play

Report the gift card scam to Google.
Keep the Google Play card itself and your receipt for the Google Play card.
Learn about Google Play gift card scams and how to report them.
iTunes

Call Apple Support right away at 1 (800) 275-2273. Say “gift card” to connect with a live representative.
Ask if the money is still on the iTunes card. If so, Apple can put a freeze on it. You might be able to get your money back from them.
Keep the iTunes card itself and your receipt for the iTunes card.
Learn about iTunes gift card scams and how to report them.
Target

Call Target GiftCard Services at 1 (800) 544-2943
MoneyPak

Report gift card scams to MoneyPak.
Keep the MoneyPak card itself and your receipt for the MoneyPak card.
Learn about MoneyPak gift card scams.
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8 hours of the Word of God to listen to and sleep whilst learning about God and His Mercy.

Parachute ‘D.B. Cooper’ hijacker used in 1971 may have been found
An FBI artist's rendering of so-called D.B. Cooper, who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon, and demanded and received ransom money upon landing in Seattle, then parachuted into the woods and was never found again. (FBI)
An FBI artist’s rendering of so-called D.B. Cooper, who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon, and demanded and received ransom money upon landing in Seattle, then parachuted into the woods and was never found again. (FBI)

By THERESA BRAINE | tbraine@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News
PUBLISHED: November 25, 2024 at 2:55 PM EST

The parachute used by the hijacker known as D.B. Cooper to leap out of a Boeing plane with $200,000 in cash after taking the passengers and crew hostage more than 50 years ago may have been found.

Sunday marked the 53rd anniversary of the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. aviation history. Now, years after the FBI declared the case inactive, the agency may be having another, informal look, examining evidence that has recently come to light, reports Cowboy State Daily in Wyoming. The evidence is a parachute found in an outbuilding on the family property of Richard McCoy II, whose children have long suspected their father was Cooper, they told the outlet.

The unassuming-looking man who would come to be known as D.B. Cooper bought a one-way ticket on Northwest Orient Airlines from Portland, Ore., to Seattle under the name Dan Cooper on Nov. 24, 1971. Just after the craft became airborne, Cooper handed a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb, then flashed a briefcase full of crisscrossed wires and other items. He demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills, which were given to him upon landing in Seattle. The 36 passengers were released in exchange, and Cooper demanded the plane take off again, along with several crew members, destination Mexico City.

The hijacked Northwest Airlines jetliner is seen in this Nov. 25, 1971 file photo as it sits on a runway for refueling at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Nov. 25, 1971, in Seattle. (AP Photo, File)
The hijacked Northwest Airlines jetliner is seen in this Nov. 25, 1971 file photo as it sits on a runway for refueling at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Nov. 25, 1971, in Seattle. (AP Photo, File)
Just after 8 p.m., though, Cooper leaped out of the back of the plane with a parachute and the ransom money, and disappeared into the night between Seattle and Reno, Nevada. Years later, three bundles of bills from the heist washed up along the shores of the Columbia River. After a years-long investigation yielded clues but no definitive answers, the FBI closed down the case in 2016.

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McCoy, who is known to have pulled off an almost identical heist five months later, over Utah, has long been on the FBI’s shortlist. He was arrested for that, broke out of jail, and was eventually killed in a police shootout.

The mystery has tantalized many over the years, spawning books, documentaries and even a conference. Gryder, an aviation-obsessed YouTuber who is a retired pilot and skydiver, has been documenting his search on his YouTube channel.

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McCoy’s grown children, Chanté and Richard “Rick” McCoy III reached out to him after the death of their mother, Karen, in 2020. They had held back before then because they suspected she was complicit.

The FBI did not immediately answer the Daily News’s inquiry on Monday.


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i rent one floor. another tenant is beneath me.
by law, if the snow comes, my car just sits in driveway, other tenant uses hers.

am i obliged to shovel the driveway with a partial broom i found to clean the driveway?

or is the landlord responsible for same?

anyone know?

and i am permanently disabled no hope of recovery. God, why did u take Dennis?

May the Lord bless you and keep you from being alone, from tragedy and may u have a glorious family filled holiday season.

I got me Prince Harrison and My God.

HUGS.