Advice on spotting a scammer

rostatins — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 21:34:23 +0800

So, I'm 99.99% sure this is a scam, but just checking because I challenged them and they agreed to meet in a few weeks.

A few days ago I got a match on CMB. Scanty profile, only one picture. I thought this was fishy enough, but decided to just see what happens.

Started talking and within a few sentences, that individual asks whether I speak mandarin. Hohoho, second round of alarm bells.
They then ask to move the chat to another app, I chose one that doesn't give out my number.

So the individual seems nice enough. Claims that they're from Hong Kong but has been living in Malaysia for the past 5 months. He's in the construction business, apparently. Claims he's divorced and has a child.

Within the next 15 minutes, claims that this was a good conversation and he wanted to get to know me better. Bear in mind that I was answering mostly in single phrases only. Then, he wanted me to delete the CMB app altogether because he 'didn't want me to meet anyone better'. Fuck, fishy as hell again. I refused. Immediately reported to CMB for investigation.

So we've been chatting a few sentences over the past few days. Then, suddenly he claimed he had an accident. I asked him which police station he went to report the incident. He got the name of the station right, but it's easy to google.

I proceed to challenge him and ask him to prove that he is real by agreeing to meet up. To my utter surprise though, he agreed. Yet to be known whether anyone will actually turn up. He's also not asked me for any money or tried to send me presents.

I still think it is a scam, but was very surprised by agreement to meet face to face. Don't know if there would be any danger to attempt to meet, just out of curiosity.
So my questions are, has anyone had similar experiences? And what other steps would you be taking for safety?

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Advice on spotting a scammer