#romance scam

Randomly I got message in my dms. It was from someone who had never interacted with my art/posts before. They have only been on tumblr for 4-5 days, reblogging some fandom art. (But no extra comments on said reblogs like most bots. Ive seen do.) They just said "hi". And that they wanted to be friends.

I am so used to bots messaging me so I gave it a shot. We chatted for a bit, I said I'm 18, they said they are 20. But very quickly they jumped to asking where I live. I didn't want to give away my specific state since, I was scared. So I just US. They said a specific state so i felt bad. When I told them I only have a permit and need to get a license they told me to talk more about it. (More personal stuff like that)

They keep redirecting the convo into meeting up irl. Thats all they seem to want? It's odd. No art scam or porn bot. But its scary because it seems so human. They seem to have bad English for someone living in the us but that feels very rude to say :( I have no clue if it is human. They reblogged one of my random posts after chatting with me for a bit.

Sorry this is rather dumb but I have very bad social anxiety and paranoia. While I don't mind friends and I am lonely, I don't feel like most people jump to meeting up irl right away. I'm very scarred. Is it a bot who is just taking forever to get the point or smth else? Sorry to trouble you, some things aren't perfectly described because i am nervous and I struggle to explain things. Or bad grammar. - 🐇 anon

Hello there 🐇 anon!

You dont need to apologize to me at all. :)

The only thing I ask people not to ask me about is fundraiser scams, everything else is fine!

I had actually just shared a post i tagged "funday Monday" with what I think is the same interaction you encountered!

So, given multiple people are having the same interaction with random people that starts out by aomeone asking their name and location, and you said thus blog was very new, I'm going to guess that this is 100% a new type of scam that's going around.

If this person is wanting to get to know you and then instantly talks about meeting you, that instantly ticks off the red flags for it likely evolving into some type of a romance scam.

You did the right thing by trusting your gut instinct and not trusting a stranger who immediately wants to know personal information about you.

I'm not trying to scare you or anyone else, but not only can you find your information online, but strangers can too by just having your full name, age, and general location/state. They can also find information on you from just your email address and phone number.

That's why some of us "oldies" back on the baby days of the internet abd were taught about "internet safety 101" (still a real website today btw, and it was a course in school back then!) can't stress enough to people that they should never give out any kind of personal information online to strangers.

I cant say i know how this scam will turn out in the end unless someone wants to bait it out safely and let me know, but always be careful with new blogs dming you for anything. ♡

I hope this helped and have a wonderful rest of your day 🐇 anon.

You're always welcome here to ask questions. :)

Sent Neil Gaiman a Tumblr ask for a school project (he's responded to me before, so like, c'mon bestie)

Knocked on the door of a potentially haunted house (it was boarded up)

Natasha Nice Another Stolen Identity Used To Scam Men

Anon said: Watched the Harry and Meghan Documentary

I’ve just watched the documentary. I’ve never taken to her. I like her even less now. It’s like she’s pre-warned him not to speak or answer questions, then when he does talk, she cringes and waits to just butt in and talk over him.

  She’s the main reason that Harry is suffering mentally because she’s manipulated him. She expected to be accepted and loved like the other Royals. She’s realized…