I just had a CRAZY scam experience!

crazy scam experience just now and it took me about 45 minutes to figure out definitively that it was a scam. So, it started with a phone call out of the blue. I received a phone call from the actual legitimate phone number of a local law enforcement agency. So, the number comes in, the caller ID matches and I pick it up and the person on the other end says, "Hey, this is the police department. Um, this is a your routine courtesy call uh because you missed jury duty yesterday and we just we've got a questionnaire we need to go through as to why you missed it. Obviously missing dirty duty is a big deal, etc., etc. The script was very long and very detailed. What starts as a courtesy call turns into, well, this is a courtesy call, but because you missed jury duty supposedly, um, you've uh you have two warrants issued for your arrest, but we can take care of that. we can go through the process. So this whole thing is taking place over the course of probably 45 minutes where little by little they're they're revealing more about it. Now they're like in addition to that there is a gag order. Uh the gag order is because this is a really high-profile federal trial. So you know we need to have you come in and you know clear everything up but we have to of course we have to stay on the phone with you. They're like we need to send you the affidavit and whatever else the the the proceedings. So, they sent me all this via email. Anyway, they've registered the domain name of usarshall service.org. Um, one of the things they sent I think came from a.gov, which is obviously it's very hard to get a.gov. Uh, but I'm on the phone. I'm like, US Marshall Service, but I went back later, I was like, it's not.gov, it's.org. Obviously, anybody can can register a dot a.org. But they go through this process. They send me the proceedings. All the documents look official. All of them have my name on them. All of them have been modified with I mean clearly they went and got official PDF documents from the court you know from the court and then had meticulously modified and put my name instead of whoever the defendant was in all of these things. So all the documents look 100% official and my name does not look doctorred. My name looks like it's official on the documents. Like I'm looking at my name. My name looks like it's on the original. There's no like weird pixelation. there's nothing that makes the documents look fake. So, we're going through this process and again, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking anything can be a scam, but at the same time, sometimes things are not a scam, right? I mean, there are legitimate sometimes law enforcement could call you. It's not completely out of the question that law enforcement could call. I'm like, tell me what where I go next. They said, "Well, you'll go you'll you'll have to go by a federal location to post bail for these two outstanding warrants, but you'll get all that money back." I'm like, "Okay, send me the locations I'm going to go to." So, they send me a bunch of street addresses. Well, I know enough about Bitcoin ATM that they they're a bunch of random addresses. These are not like federal buildings or something like that. I'm like, "This looks like the street addresses to a bunch of to the 10 closest Bitcoin ATMs. That's what this looks like." the the whole goal of a scammer is to just keep you preoccupied enough that you don't realize it's a scam until too late. I paste the URL, you know, usarshall service.gov in and it's like this this has no website. So I asked the guy, I'm like, there's no website. He's like, well, the the website that we use to send summons is different from the website that we use to send communication. Like basically that's why there's no website. I was like I was like this this website looks like a scam. I'm looking for clues, but also trying not to get left behind on this whole process they're claiming is going out. Because the back of my mind, I'm thinking, if this is real, I do need to track. If it's not real, it's all a scam. But like, how do you figure out it's a scam while staying on track? So, if it's not a scam, you're not in trouble, right? I mean, that's that's the tension of what a scammer is trying to keep you in. They're trying to keep you in that tension that even if you think it might be a scam, you're worried that it might also be real. So you can't, you're not thinking clearly. So anyway, ultimately in the bank, I was like, "Look, this is just a scam. I'm sorry, but these locations, if I drive to any of these locations, I'm going to find out it's a Bitcoin ATM. I'm going to find out that you want me to feed $9,000 into it." I was like, I just know that's how this is and like it's a scam. So why don't you just admit it's a scam? So the guy after all of this, you know, 35, 45 minutes, however long it was, of just super official and handoffs and official emails and official text messages and alerts and code sections and all this just incredibly long script that they've been guiding me through the whole time me trying to figure out, is this real? Is it a scam? Is it real? Is it a scam? It could go half the time it could have like gone either way. Honestly, it felt like it had gone either way. But of course, at the end of the day, they have to get you to feed money into a Bitcoin ATM. If you're ever feeding money into something that looks like a kiosk or a Bitcoin ATM, you're getting scammed. Don't do it. That's the dead giveaway of all scams is at some point the final transfer happens and that is it's just always a scam. So anyway, so the guy finally I was like, "Just admit it's a scam." He's like, "All right, it's a scam." He's like, and then he goes into this whole story about how his mom's in the hospital and he's trying to get money and he's got, you know, a a younger brother and two sisters and he's the only provider and he refuses to be a gang banger and running around kill people killing people and dealing drugs. So, he's taken the high road and he just scams people. And I was like, well, that's, you know, I mean, I'm glad he's not running around killing people and dealing drugs, I suppose. But I'm like, it's still wrong. He's like, "Well, but a lot of people get refunded from the Bitcoin ATM company." I was like, "Well, you're still stealing from somebody. You're either stealing from the person that you're scamming or you're stealing from somebody, you know, downstream of that." He's like, "Well, I He's like, "I know it's wrong." He's like, "I'll fully admit it's wrong." Like, you know, I just I'll fully admit it's wrong. He's like, "It's not It's hard to get real jobs. You know, basically, this is his he considers this his real job." Uh, so finally, I told him I was like I was like, "Well, look." Anyway, after I don't know, probably 10 or 15 minutes of bus talking through the fact that it's it's wrong and it's immoral and, you know, he loses a little piece of his soul every time he scams somebody and that's no way to live your life and all that sort of stuff. He claims he has no option cuz his mom's in the hospital, all that. So, finally, I I asked him if I could pray for him and I out loud on the phone and he said yes. I prayed for him and I prayed that he would be he would have the courage to give up scamming and that the point at which God that the point at which he committed to give up scamming that God would open a door for him to do something else. Um and I told him I said God is probably not going to open an alternative door for you whether your mom's real or not. And I told him this I was like I don't know if your the story of your mom is real or not even if that's true. I told him, I was like, "God is probably not going to give you an alternative to scamming until you commit to quitting scamming." I said, "That just seems to be the way it works. God's not going to drop an incredible opportunity for you in your life while you're in the middle of scamming people. You're just going to keep scamming people till you go till you end up in prison." So, I told him, I was like, "Look, you're sending me all these links to the US Marshall Service and the White House and blah blah blah. Guess what? The White House and the US Marshall Service and the Department of Justice is cracking down on scammers. I know that for a fact. So I told him I was like they're gonna get you, buddy. Like the Marshall service is gonna get you eventually. And that is just no way to live. That's no way to live. And I was like I told him I was like there is an alternative. I believe God has an alternative for your life. But I don't think God's going to show you what that alternative is until you give up scamming. Because until you give up scamming, you you do you have not exhibited the faith and trust that you believe God [singing] has an alternative. It's easy to wait for some great alternative while you're scamming. As long as you're doing the wrong thing, God tends to just let you do your thing. As soon as you make a conscious effort that you're going to stop doing the wrong thing, at least it opens the opportunity for God to provide an alternative. And that's what I told him. That's what I prayed out loud on the phone with the scammer. I prayed all of that. I was like, as long as you're scamming, you're probably going to keep scamming. As soon as you walk away from it and you commit to never scamming again in your life, never scamming anyone out of anything for the rest of your life, it opens the opportunity for God to put something else in your path that will make you feel whole and alive and where you're not going to you don't feel like you're selling a little part of your soul every time you scam. I believe God will open the door to something else, but you got to close the door to scamming first. uh otherwise there's no faith, there's no trust in any of it. But anyway, he told me at the end of the phone call he really appreciate appreciated the phone call. He appreciated me praying for him and I reiterated that I did not think that God would open the alternatives to other options until he committed to never scam again. Um so I don't know what he's going to do. Honestly, he's probably going to hang up that phone call just like he did right before I hit record on this video. He's probably going to he's probably already started scamming the next person right now. I mean, honestly, just probability statistically, he probably is. But soon as I'm off this live Zoom, I'm going to pray for him. I'm going to pray that he'll have the courage to give it up. And I'm going to ask you to pray for him. So, the scammer J. I asked him, is that Jay like the letter J or is that J A Y? He said it doesn't matter. Either one. Again, it's a fake name. So, I guess you can't misspell a fake name. But anyway, I'M GOING TO ASK YOU, PLEASE, please pray for the scammer Jay. Um, pray that God would provide him an alternative in his life. Pray that he would have the courage to stop scamming, even if it's a very lucrative business. And even if he feels like in exchange for selling a little piece of his soul every time, that he's making good money. Um, so anyway, but I pray for him. I'll pray for him again when I get off this live Facebook live. Um, and I'm going to ask you to pray for pray for the scammer Jay and all the people like him. The people who have decided to scam because they feel like it's their best alternative because they don't want to go out on the streets and kill people and deal drugs and they feel like this is a nonviolent alternative even though it's bad. Uh, pray for all of those people. Pray that God would convict their hearts of the sinful nature of that profession. uh and pray that that when they commit to quit or even before they commit to quit that God would provide alternatives in their life so that they don't scam so they give it up so they walk away and so they can actually go live a full rich life um even a life connected to God through prayer and Bible reading and worship and an actual real relationship with God. pray that they would have that and not just giving up a little piece of their soul every time they scam somebody. But anyway, he he had all of my information. He had my home address. He had my, you know, he had everything, social security number and everything. So clearly the scammers have that. So if anybody calls you, it's almost certainly a scam. Even if it's law enforcement calling from an an actual real caller ID, legitimately confirmed phone number, it's still a scam. And especially anytime there's a Bitcoin ATM involved, it's a scam. And if anybody tells you on the phone that you're subject to a gag order and you can't call or text anyone, it's a scam. And if anybody emails you from a government email address that'sorg and not.gov, it's a scam. And if anybody texts you from a number or I should say in this case it was an iMessage, it was an email address, it's a scam. All of that stuff, it's just it's a scam. It's a scam. It's a scam. Everything's a scam. And in this case, again, it took about 45 minutes for me me the expert scam detector to determine definitively that this was a scam. And in case it wasn't, I didn't want to call it a scam prematurely, right? I didn't want local law enforcement to call me on caller ID and for me to say, "Ha, it's a scam." And hang off on them, right? What if it wasn't? [laughter] You know, that's the problem. So, um, in this case, it was a scam, but it took me about 45 minutes of driving around to figure out definitively that it was a scam. And, uh, and they just did a really good job with the very detailed script of making sure that, you know, I did not have enough time to think and process to definitively conclude. It's not like I didn't think there was a good chance it was a scam, but in order to get to the point where I was certain it was a [clears throat] scam, I needed to get the level of confidence. And again, I I knew the whole time I was like, at some point we're going to cross a threshold that makes it clear if this is a scam or not. For example, if I had gone through the process and I did not have to stop at a Bitcoin ATM, but instead I actually needed to walk through the front doors of a law enforcement office, I would have known it wasn't a scam. Because a a scammer never tells you to go to a law enforcement headquarters and walk in the building and meet with people if it's a scam. They only tell you to do that if they plan to get the money from you before that happens. So in this case, because because they introduced the concept of putting up the money before I walked into the building, which they claimed was because if I didn't put the money up as a bond in advance, then I would be subject to arrest when I walked in the building. And they're like, "Look, you can't walk onto government property if you have an outstanding warrant for your arrest." And they claimed there was two outstanding warrants for my arrest. So they're like, "You can't walk onto the property without standing warrants. So you have to clear the warrants by putting up a bond." And that's what their explanation of where this $9,000, you know, $4,500 time two for two different, you know, outstanding warrants. And again, they had sent me all the paperwork that looked very legitimate for an outstanding warrant. And the reason is they went and got the paperwork for somebody who actually did have an outstanding warrant and they carefully doctorred it in a way that I could not tell was not real. Again, the whole thing seemed scammy, but how do you know? Like, how do you know? The answer is never feed dollars into a Bitcoin ATM, never interact with a Bitcoin ATM, and never hand over US dollars to anything or anyone. Uh, and never hand Bitcoin over to anything or anyone because the government will never ask you to do that. So anyway, it was a scam. Please be on your watch out there. And please pray for Jay the Scammer. Maybe some good will come from this. I hope. And who knows, maybe Jay the Scammer becomes a Christian. Maybe he evangelizes the powerful message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all of his fellow scammers. And maybe a bunch of good comes from this. I don't know. Be on the lookout for scammers. They are very, very, very coming. and uh they you know they've gotten very good at their craft which is why so many people get scammed. Hope it helps. Have a great day everyone.