I have a very active twitter with more than 35K followers, and I get messaged a lot. Usually by SEO experts and such trying to get me to hire them or people hustling their gigs. But I also get scammers.
I always ignore the scammers, as it’s usually pretty easy to pick out the online hustlers, but for the life of me I just decided I could not ignore one particular online huckster. I decided to have some fun with them.
It was quite obvious that I was being contacted by a fake account. The first clue: They were using pictures of an internet model named Jen Bretty. The real Jen Bretty has a Twitter with more than 600,000 followers, as well as a very active Instagram account.
you will find dozens of fake Jen Bretty accounts.
This hustler put themselves forward as a high end escort, and they “just happened” to live one town over from my location. (What luck!)
I was quite well aware from the word go that it was a fake account. The
next red flag? Asking for my billing address, which is really odd thing to ask
for if they were supposed to be a real escort.
FYI: The billing address I gave them? That’s the address of the Reno Police Department!
I decided to work this scammer with a Star Trek theme. I was
wondering if they were going to be able to catch my angle. You know,
see if they were Star Trek nerds!
They asked for pics of “my coins”, so I did a quick Google
search for Star Trek images and sent them a pic of “Gold pressed
latinum.” (For you non-Trekkies: Standard currency favored by Ferengis!)
They were asking for billing address and bitcoins because they’re trying to get me to
send them a “deposit” for their escort services. This is a very common online scam.
Usually this is done on escort listing sites, where they put up fake pics, respond to queries
as if they were a legit escort, and then ask for a deposit, usually via Venmo or Cashapp, to
“Confirm the booking,” AKA sending them money and getting their cash without doing anything else.
(Quatloos = A form of currency in an oringal Star Trek episode Gamesters of Treskilion.)
Now I’m calling them out. Legitimate escorts will meet in
person for monetary exchange. I ask them why can’t we just meet
in person and I can hand them my Star Trek currency.
I already know how they’re going to answer.
Throwing in yet another Star Trek reference!
Throwing out more references. I misspelled
Kanar though. (Left off the ‘r’ at the end.)
Honestly, if you’re not down with Star Trek, this
probably won’t seem very funny. But if you are…
Trolling a scammer with Star Trek references just wouldn’t
be complete without one Klingon reference!
They asked to see a pic of me. I sent them this!
That’s when I was accused of being a scammer. The nerve!
They finally started expressing frustration at my shenanigans. So
I just went ahead and accused them of being flim-flammers!
Obviously these people were not at all down with
the street when it came to Star Trek references!
Kalganids = Other fictional Sci Fi currency. Not Star Trek though!
They decided to work me again, asking for pics of my credit card.
(So NOT a red flag, right?) I found this pic of a generic Star Trek
credit card, which is just a fake example card.
I finally decided to come clean and let them know
I knew they were a fake by sending them a link to the
actual Jen Bretty!
I thought it was very interesting that they turned up the
charm and kept trying to work me for money, even after I accused
them of being fakes and scammers. It’s like, really?
Here I am baiting them some more. They just have
no clue to any of these Star Trek references.
And that phone number? Go ahead and
call it! You’ll be glad you did!
I finally dared them to meet, and make all kinds of Star Trek accusations!
It was not long after this that they blocked me.
Yes, I did report their profile for being a fake.
But I had to have some fun first. I just hope that these people didn’t
actually scam some poor suckers out of their money.
That was a fun read!