Category: Pig Butchering
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How a Software Engineer Lost $1.6 Million to the Internet’s Cruelest Crypto Scam
Steve Belcher is not the kind of person you would expect to fall for an internet scam. He is 52 years old, a software engineer living in Denver, and technically literate enough to understand the underlying mechanics of blockchain. He isn’t senile, and he isn’t naive. But in November, Belcher watched his entire life savings—$1.6…
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How a Simple Text Message Triggered a $1 Million Scam
It started, as these things now almost always do, with a wrong number. A stranger texted Amos Jiang in August. The message was meant for someone else. That should have been the end of it. Instead, it became the beginning of a months-long digital relationship that would eventually drain more than one million dollars from…
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Pig Butchering Scammers Are Using Every Entry Point Possible
It started with a notification on my phone. Not a text, not a WhatsApp message from a wrong number, but a ping from Nextdoor—the app designed for finding lost cats and complaining about leaf blowers. The message was from a user named “Sloane L.” It was polite, specific, and seemingly harmless.
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“My dad is being pig butchering scammed and it’s breaking the family”
I think my father has been caught in a pig-butchering scam for almost two years now. It has taken over his entire inner world. All he talks about anymore is crypto, “breaking out of the system,” and free-energy conspiracies. He wants to make a lot of money, but only if it comes through some hidden…
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How a Romance Scammer Almost Fooled Someone Who Should’ve Known Better
He’s the kind of person who should’ve seen it coming. He works in tech. He builds cloud infrastructure. He knows what deepfakes look like. He reverse image searches like it’s second nature. When someone sends him a suspicious link, he checks the metadata, the DNS registration, and whether the IP has ever touched a malware…
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How Romance Scams Start: The Subtle Hooks That Reel You In
One day, you get a text from an unknown number. It doesn’t seem overtly suspicious. Maybe it’s a wrong number. Maybe it’s someone you forgot to save in your contacts. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the opening move in a long, calculated con. Romance scams don’t start with an elaborate sob story or a desperate…
