How I Snared a Nigerian Scammer Before Breakfast (and You Can Too)
Twenty-five years ago, when I worked as a Visiting Scientist in the Educational Technology Research Group at BBN, one of our distinguished managers was the late Beverly Hunter, who came to us after a stint at the National Science Foundation.
Sadly, Beverly died a year and a half ago at age 77.
Thus I was startled, two days ago, when I received a message purporting to be from Beverly on Facebook Messenger.
Two days ago also happened to be the birthday of her widowed husband, Hal. So my first guess was that some family member had fired up an old computer and inadvertently logged on with Beverly's credentials. That hypothesis was quickly dispelled when the person on Messenger claimed to be Beverly.
To make a long story short, my correspondent on Facebook Messenger who was impersonating a dead colleague of mine turned out to be a Nigerian scammer using a newly created Facebook Messenger account, pretending to be Beverly Hunter.
He connects to FB Messenger from a mobile in Nigeria and tries to induce Beverly's friends into texting a scam operator about obtaining grant money for "old school and retired people as well as disabled people."
I busted him. Here is a screenshot of my conversation with the Nigerian scammer pretending to be Beverly Hunter.
P.S. Update: As of this morning, the fake Messenger account has been deleted by FB.
Sadly, Beverly died a year and a half ago at age 77.
Thus I was startled, two days ago, when I received a message purporting to be from Beverly on Facebook Messenger.
Two days ago also happened to be the birthday of her widowed husband, Hal. So my first guess was that some family member had fired up an old computer and inadvertently logged on with Beverly's credentials. That hypothesis was quickly dispelled when the person on Messenger claimed to be Beverly.
To make a long story short, my correspondent on Facebook Messenger who was impersonating a dead colleague of mine turned out to be a Nigerian scammer using a newly created Facebook Messenger account, pretending to be Beverly Hunter.
He connects to FB Messenger from a mobile in Nigeria and tries to induce Beverly's friends into texting a scam operator about obtaining grant money for "old school and retired people as well as disabled people."
I busted him. Here is a screenshot of my conversation with the Nigerian scammer pretending to be Beverly Hunter.
P.S. Update: As of this morning, the fake Messenger account has been deleted by FB.
posted by Moulton | 11:32 AM
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