God I think I just witnessed probably one of the most unique Instagram scammers in quite a while
So now it is time to tell a story:
Ｔｈｅ Ｔａｌｅ ｏｆ Ｍａｒｉａ Ｇａｒｃｉａ
The most unique instagram grifter I've come across in a while
It starts in the humble IG DM Requests, and I see this woman who happens to follow some pages of the college I attend. Thinking it might have been an alumni since I've been contacted by some before, I accept
The message that she sent. A simple "Hi Ayush" (might as well share my first name, too lazy to block it out in future screenshots). I respond back with a simple "Hi." After some simple small talk, the show begins to take off
She asks me if I ever had a sugar mom before, which it becomes very obvious this is a grift, thinking that it would end in 10 mins of the grifter giving up, I decide to engage.
It didn't last 15 minutes. It lasted 2 days
Unfortunately I have lost the messages of the first day, but basically it went along the lines "I don't want sex from you I just want you to talk to me and be there for me." while I just keep engaging with simple sweet nothings
Her sweet nothings in return didn't stop, I think we legitimately talked for a full hour until she said she wanted to move from the DMs to phone number. I give her some fake Google Voice number and lo and behold she texts me, and sends a couple pictures of herself
At this point I'm already stunned since the pictures was clearly the person in the profile picture, and tbh you are gonna have to trust me on this since I have lost these text messages because I can't archive at all
My next surprise? She calls me, and I just decide to say fuck it and pick up. We continue talking about she's glad I'm her "sugar baby" and I ask her why she chose me, citing something about fate and god leading us to meet together. Easily the craziest part of the grift
We hang up. The next day she sends a message at 6 AM (Her time) about what I was doing, and the sweet nothings continue. She for some reason keeps asking if I trust her, I guess this is a part of the social engineering idk, also from here on out, we got receipts
I ask her again about why she chose me, and again gives me some God and Fate BS, which seems in character given her Romans 13:10 in her bio
And pretty much this entire day, the sweet nothings dont stop, at all
Now finally, we get into the grift. She replies that too show she actually loves me, she wants to send me money, in the most fucking complicated manner possible. What a daughter guidance is? You tell me.
I get the checks from her eventually, and they are in the most comical manner I have ever seen
Had to go eat dinner, but lets pick this off. Now, I'm not turning in fake checks that are this poorly made, I tried to find the template but could not. 4/10 for font selection. Now, the desperation ensues. I tried being honest to see what lies they could come up with
The lies, well, they just kept getting better. This has to be the personal favorite. Given this, then who th did I talk to the night before???
(Note: I never got a clear answer, like, at all, they never called again despite me asking to hear and call them again, might explain why this happened). After I keep refusing to deposit the check and give them 1700, i get this banger of a lie
This just in, gift cards are now common payment to pay technicians. How this went from me getting $2000 to me giving $200 i do not know
And that's been it so far, they said they would get back, but I don't know if that will happen. This has been the strangest grit for a couple of reasons:
At the end of the tirade, I decide to fuck around and ask for.... other... sources of verification
Problem 1. Based off the people this account followed, it was mainly college student accounts, aka horny teens. Why would you be hella religious and conservative but try do grift horny teens?
Problem 2. I repeatedly asked during this for the person to accept my FR, they kept saying no, which is weird if this account was hacked and if they did accept that would have built repetoire, so why the no?
Problem 3. They called last night, which is impressive for a scammer and I can honestly respect the social engineering they did, building up the image of a "sugar mom." So what happened today as soon as they tried executing the grift? So strange
Problem 4. Why did they spend 2 days trying to engineer me? Most scammers pull it off in an hour or two, but this person spend time trying to engineer me, fully aware I was a teen since I know the account they found me from, what's up with that?
Problem 5. Why would the scammer trust me with depositing a $2000 check, hoping that I would send $1700 to them. Who's to say I just dip off with the $2000 and block them? What kind of planning is that??
Overall, this grift was fun, unique, and I think the people are not done yet (multiple since I had to send screenshots of checks to various email accounts). I might update this thread intermittently if it does continue
Omg the sent a message that they want to mail the check. Honestly I’m gonna put in less effort but I wanna see what they come up with
Update: The accepted my follow request and the pictures on their account are different from the ones they sent. It’s also now my mission to get to send me a hardcover of Godel Escher Bach now
I ask to video chat to see if I can actually escalate things, and lo and behold technicians don't exist in Albany, NY, whoever this person is made this experience so much worse