A California woman wanted a relationship that would lead to marriage.
Chatting with people online is easier than ever. However, one downside is that with new acquaintances you can never be completely sure who the person really is.
Secretary General and ICT expert of the digital security management group of the Digital and Population Agency Kimmo Rousku, who is also known as IT-Kimmo on social media, played the Scrabble word game with a phone app as usual in June. The game has its own chat function, which Rousku describes as miserable.
Through this conversation, Rouskuun has occasionally taken in people who have traded, for example, cryptocurrencies. However, before Midsummer, a message was sent by blond-haired “Jennifer Scott”, who asked if Rousku could talk to her somewhere other than in the game’s chat. Jennifer said that she lives in California near Los Angeles.
– Jennifer suggested that we have a conversation on Google Talk, but I told her that I cannot install that application on my phone. Jennifer asked for my number and I dug out an “anti-fraud cell phone” suitable for this purpose, where a Whatsapp message soon arrived, Rousku says.
However, the sender had made a big mistake, because Jennifer’s message came from the area code +234, which means it came from Nigeria. When Rousku saved the phone number, the name Raphael was found in the contact information, who had been using the number since 2020.
This was the first Whatsapp contact. Kimmo Rousku
Rousku knew very well what it was about, but he also had a little trouble himself. He was supposed to continue the conversation, but because of the strong recognition, he couldn’t log in to the phone anymore.
Nigeria switched to the United States
In August, Rousku reinstalled the phone with user accounts and it was a big surprise when Jennifer had been actively gossiping about Rousku with Whatsapp messages and confessed on 15.7. even love. Rousku replied to this message with heart-eye emojis, which restarted the conversation.
However, this time the answer came from a new US number.
– Jennifer immediately sent her picture and wanted a picture from me as well. Of course, I didn’t send my own picture, but I used the This Person Does Not Exist service, which generates pictures of people who don’t really exist.
Jennifer praised Rousku as sweet and started to tell her story. She was a single parent who lives with her son with her mother. The man died five years ago. Jennifer is a hairdresser who is looking for true love in her life. He asked Rousku to tell about himself and they quickly found common ground because they both have a cat.
Jennifer immediately hit her cards on the table after that. He said he was looking for a real relationship that would lead to the altar. He asked if Rousku and he could have a serious relationship.
– As you know, it’s a difficult question, I replied to the message. This didn’t seem to please Jennifer, as she just stated that she would text again later.
Jennifer tried to call Rousku at night, but the phone conversation never took place.
– For some reason he didn’t want to talk, Rousku grins.
The “lovers” continued their conversation on Whatsapp, where Jennifer made a strange request. His phone’s camera was broken, so he couldn’t share pictures and videos of himself. The fix would be by buying her a $200 iTunes gift card.
Jennifer asked for an iTunes gift card with a rough image. Kimmo Rousku
Buying a gift card was not successful, so a Steam gift card would also work.
– I told Jennifer that I would deliver the gift card to her within an hour. At that time, I bought a cheap Steam gift card, of which I sent a version with the changed value of the gift card and the activation code, says Rousku.
Rousku didn’t get caught in his own scam, but the two wondered together why the activation code for the gift card didn’t work.
Jennifer got excited when Rousku promised to get her a gift card. Kimmo Rousku
Any gift card will do
Jennifer requested a Steam payment receipt via email, at which point Rousku suggested they contact Steam support. Jennifer meant that she needed Rousku’s e-mail credentials so that she could retrieve the gift card information herself.
Naturally, Rousku did not send this information to Jennifer. After this, Jennifer already asked for another gift card. This time from Walmart, which again didn’t work, because they don’t exist in Finland. So Rousku continued to tell stories about the Steam gift card.
– At this point, I told Jennifer that the relationship is not progressing as I had hoped. I told Jennifer that hackers had hijacked my phone and stolen my Steam gift card information. I told you that I received a call from Steam support, where they suspect that my phone has been hacked. I directly asked if Jennifer had hacked my phone, Rousku says.
Jennifer denied this, of course, and the twisting continued. Jennifer again said her camera would be fixed with a $100 gift card.
Rousku told Jennifer that she should take her phone in for service. He asked how the woman could convince him that he was not a hacker. There was no answer to this. After this, Rousku said that he got the phone working again and the cards were killed. “Someone had hacked my phone,” Rousku wrote, saying that he had also been in contact with the police.
Jennifer was sad to hear that Rousku’s phone “had been hacked”. Kimmo Rousku
Jennifer said she was happy that Rousku could trust her again. After a moment of silence, Jennifer fired off more Whatsapp messages declaring love and eternal happiness. Rousku told Jennifer that cyber experts had gone through her phone and installed an antivirus program. Now everything would work again!
Rousku asked Jennifer to send a photo of her ID card. Rousku stayed with Jennifer in this situation, but he expects the conversation to continue. Rousku has managed to take a lot of valuable time from the fraudsters so far, which is different from other cases of fraud.
Jennifer tried desperately to reach out. Kimmo Rousku
Don’t be blue-eyed
Rousku’s case shows how criminals are constantly inventing new ways to deceive people. The cheating method in question is called love fraud or romance fraud, where people’s emotions are taken advantage of.
In the case of Rousku, the scammer tried to target gift cards, but the goal can also be payment card information or, for example, passport information.
Rousku advises people to be careful with new people they haven’t met or haven’t gotten to know properly.
– In such situations, at least in the beginning, approach it with reason, not emotion. You should also talk about it with your friends. You should google information about the person, such as phone number, email address or social media profile. You should also search Google results with the person’s picture, Rousku advises.
Rousku says that he has received several contacts about the story he shared on Twitter in the beginning and praise for writing about some of the embarrassing or more sensitive and deceptive ones.
– If even one such fraud can be prevented with this example, I will be satisfied. According to the police, the average benefit received by a criminal in successful frauds is more than 10,000 euros, Rousku states.