Thinking of internet scams, we often think of the down-on-his-luck Nigerian Prince that needs a little of your money; a person that he’s never met, to help him get back on his feet and regain his empire. Sadly, the majority of scams these days focus on the weak, the sick, the tired and the potentially emotionally fragile. And that’s where you come in… or at least that’s what they hope.
As an author and web content creator, I see a lot of things that most of you never get to. I’m not the only one; many web hosts and webmasters are seeing it too. During Covid-19, scammers have little else to do but target people stuck at home, looking for options and feeling alone. Recently, their plan has been to look for those who have separated or are going through a difficult divorce. Looking for ways to take advantage of them. Those of us hosting blogs tend to remove these scams from their sites; but this time, we decided to share some of them for a giggle!
Recently, we deleted a comment from a person claiming to be a shaman who had lived many lives. He claimed to be able to repair your love life if you would just go to his website; (because apparently, shamanism is highly digital and up with trends?); give him your home address, some personal information about you and your spouse, and of course your money. Sure, it sounds ridiculous but many people consider options like these in tough times. And scammers love it!
On average, my website receives about 40-60 comments per day from scammers. They leave me a positive message (because they’re fans of my articles. Yay!) and then let me know about the endless benefits of CBD oil or cannabis. Then they try to hack my site. It’s true. We can see their IP trails. Always in that order, too.
We get people that also try to comment or tag our articles with offers for Bitcoin; (or whatever the phony cryptocurrency of the day is that week). Usually, they read something like “Did your spouse leave you? Are you sad and confused? Why not be rich instead?” (Of course, it’s that easy! That’s why everybody is rich, right?) “Just send your credit card info to bob@ilikestealingyourinfo.com. You will be so rich in 5 days that your spouse will be jealous”. I wish I was making this up but we really do see these things all the time.
Lonely? How about going to prison instead?
Okay, they don’t phrase it in exactly that way. But that’s what they’re really saying when they post things like: “now you can spy on your ex’s phone calls, emails, texts, and track them by GPS too!”. Hello? Creepy spouse. If you’re a person that thinks these are good ideas, you’ll likely be a great conversationalist in cell block 7. Sadly, some people do dumb things when they aren’t thinking it through rationally. Breaking the laws is NEVER your best route, especially in Family Law.
I could go on and on about these terrible scams and the people behind them, but there are too many for one article. At the core of the issue, you need to understand that whenever you’re in a vulnerable or emotional state, there will always be a hacker or scammer who is willing to exploit those moments. That’s why choosing a solid, professional and reliable family law team with a solid and reliable investigative team is so important. If it sounds like a quick fix or too good to be true, then listen to your inner voice of caution because it probably is.