“Mr. Steven,” she wrote, “I am very sorry, after our communication and understanding over this period of time, I feel that we are not a good fit in some way.” That’s weird, I thought, it must be the wrong number. But who was this mysterious Mr. Steven? What was the nature of the dispute? What on earth did Mr. Steven do to offend this person? I was intrigued — but not enough to answer. Several weeks later, I received another message, this time from someone named “Amy” asking about “a coffee place.” A few days later, “Irene from Vietnam” asked to ask if I was still living in New York. And then “Sophia” texted, calling me “Laura” and asking me about a party we both attended over the weekend. And then “Sophia” texted, calling me “Laura” and asking me about a party we both attended over the weekend These “wrong number” texts are clearly the work of a scammer, but I honestly don’t mind. To me, they are more elevated than annoying, hinting at a possible lost connection or mistaken identity. The fact that I’m not being openly asked for money or just fishing helps take some of the sting out. They’re certainly more tolerable than the deluge of emails I’ve received from mischievous Democratic politicians begging for more money after Roe v. Wade. I’m 100 percent sure this text with wrong numbers is some kind of scam, but I appreciate that the criminals have finally moved on from selling car warranties to whatever that is pic.twitter.com/ltSoJmpwGz — Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) May 2, 2022 Max Read wrote about this “wrong number” spam phenomenon in his most recent Substack, calling it “a rich world, animated by detail and alive with mystery,” and I’m inclined to agree. Spam is more pervasive than ever—a recent study found that Americans receive an average of 3.7 scam calls and 1.5 scam messages per day—and virtually all of it is commonplace and forgotten. This new kind of spam is not. And that’s probably what makes it more devastating, but I don’t seem to care much about it. Read takes a deep dive—I encourage you to read his essay—into potential “romance scams,” also known in China as “pig butcher” scams. They play on the recipients’ loneliness, sympathy, or general paranoia to lure them into some kind of scam that usually results in them being swindled out of a pile of money. We all love a good scam story, but honestly, these types of scams are no good because they mostly prey on low-income people. The way they do it is very simple. It’s implied that the sender is rich – or at least outgoing, social and fun – which helps pull the mark in a whole world of fake characters and fake facts. There are charity galas, steak dinners and high-end business trips. There are charity galas, steak dinners and high-end business trips However, Read notes that the exact opposite is likely to be the case, as the scammers are most likely to be “an abused and captive worker who is handling multiple phones and trying to defraud multiple people from a syndicate operating out of shady gambling dens somewhere in Southeast Asia ». This is definitely a bummer, but if I had to choose, I’d get those weird literary text messages for every call to renew my extended car warranty. (And they’re definitely preferable to those spam messages from your own phone number, as The Verge’s Chris Welch reported.) If you’re not like me and prefer your phone to be free of spam, the Better Business Bureau recommends taking three steps to prevent it: ignore the messages; block numbers; and never give your personal information to strangers. The Verge also published a detailed guide on how to avoid these types of messages altogether. It all seems pretty obvious, but then again, this is America, where a TikTok video about “normalized scams” has gone so viral that people are begging it to stop. These botched text messages seem to indicate a growing desperation among the world’s fraudsters. They’re running out of gullible boomers to scam, so their tactics are becoming more sophisticated — or at least less annoying. I, for one, can’t really seem to muster too much ire about it. It seems like a small price to pay to carry all the knowledge in the world in your pocket.
