Almost Rocked: A Story About My Encounter with a Scammer

   Here's a story of something which has happened in the recent past which I thought I must share.  This whole experience was like a short but wild roller coaster ride with some valuable lessons learned in the end.

      I don’t go on Twitter much.  I don’t tweet much, nor do I have a lot of followers. I just follow a few people, including a couple of friends, some artists, comedians, actors, and music artists who I admire and look up to, like anyone else.  For the most part, I find twitter can be a big time waster, anyway but I still idly scroll through for my own mild entertainment while I'm killing time, or just out of habit.  Because I’m a rock fan, I’ve been following a few rock stars/guitar gods for inspiration as I play guitar, myself.  Recently, I began following the members from Heart, Anne Wilson and Nancy Wilson (or so I thought it was Nancy Wilson).

Nancy Wilson (left), Anne Wilson (right)
from Heart

     So here’s where it started.  Not long after I started following  “Nancy Wilson” and liked one of her posts about “Heart staying strong and keeping the music alive”, (a tweet copied from her real page) whoever was impersonating her page started following me having me think, “Oh my god, Nancy Wilson is following me!”  At the time, but not for long, I thought the fake page was totally legit except for a couple of details which I should have spotted before, like the joined date which was only this month, July 2018, the twitter handle which looked like some kind of bot code, and the number of followers which was only a hundred - some odd.  On Nancy Wilson’s real page, the joined date is from back in 2011, and she has over 50 thousand followers.  Duh!

the real Twitter page of Nancy Wilson

     Now going back to the story, while being overjoyed for the simple fact that “Nancy Wilson” was following me, she sent me a private message, which I found out later was also a repeated tweet on the fake page saying, “Thank you for all your support.  Never stop liking my music”.  To be honest, when I received that private message, I knew in the back of my mind that it was a slightly odd thing to say, (who even says that, anyway?) especially for a well known celebrity but I was too overwhelmed with joy at the fact she even private messaged me to care, so I heart-feltedly responded how I’ve always been a fan and how I only wish I could play guitar like her, etc.
     As the conversation took off, “Nancy” promised me that next time she was performing within my zone, she would give me a free ticket to the concert, and we could hang out, chat, and have a few drinks before the show.  At the time, totally falling for it, I was just beside myself in utter overwhelm and joy, not realizing that this was too good to be true. 

    

     Then while the conversation kept going, she was going on about how she loves her fans so much and this is just what she does for her dedicated fans.  So after building me up, she mentions something about how she’s busy with getting involved in some global charity, luring me in to see if I could donate to this “charity” on her behalf.   Still somewhat under the spell, I mentioned I would help if I could if it weren’t for my tight financial situation.  Then she mentioned how even fans who did’t have much money still donated iTunes cards.  Then after I said I could probably do that, she asked if I could do it right then, “can you get it tonight?” she asked. 

     Boom!  Then I clued in.  Who on earth, celebrity or not, (except for scammers, of course) would actually request a contribution right away like that?  Double duh!  So when I realized I was, in fact just chatting with a scammer,  I put my smart phone down and carried on with my real life duties, just shaking my head in disbelief on how some people could go on to such lengths, preying upon the emotions and vulnerabilities of honest people to get money, (or iTunes cards, whatever).  I did not respond since, so after a while when I picked up my phone again, she (or probably a he, could be anybody) messaged again, saying, “it’s nice chatting with you”. 

    So going back to finding Nancy Wilson’s real page (which I know is real for reasons stated earlier) as confirmation that I was actually chatting with a scammer, I reported this person and blocked them.  If I had actually had a bit more control over my emotions, and my senses about me to begin with, I probably would have noticed all of this from the very beginning, yet I know it’s no reason to be hard on myself.  Besides, who on earth, if they were a celebrity would even do that and ask for a contribution right away in a private message on top of it?  If any celebrity wanted to raise money for a cause, they’d obviously make it public, like Sarah McLachlan, for example and her “Let's Write a Song Together” campaign for her music school (which I think is an awesome idea).

  

Sarah McLachlan's Legit and Very Public Campaign

     Not only, is this type of scammer preying upon (as I’ve mentioned before) the emotions and vulnerabilities of fans, but also doing stuff that the real person wouldn’t even think of doing.  If I were a celebrity and someone pretended to be me to scam my dedicated fans, going against my moral values, I’d probably be pretty pissed.  Or, even if someone pretended to be me making my friends and family believe I’ve said and done things that aren’t in my own nature, I’d be pretty pissed.  I know this goes on a lot, having social media accounts being hacked into which is not much different in some ways.

   

   On the other hand, was I disappointed?  Sure, but not quite at the level of disbelief of how some people could actually go through these kinds of lengths to get what they want by taking advantage of others.  These people are sick and need serious help.

   What did I learn from all this? A lot.  I am also thankful that I didn’t entirely fall for it because who knows what would’ve happened next.  I just hope and pray that there are more people out there who have wised up to scammers like that.  Who knows how many good, honest people this person has scammed and how many other celebrities he or she has disguised themselves as to do that.  

   And, last but not least, when you choose to follow someone on twitter (unless you know them personally), just check out the details on their page & prevent yourself from disappointment, emotional manipulation, and of course the possibility of getting scammed.