If you’ve received a text from a “wrong number” and the person is interested in becoming friends, be careful! You’ve been contacted by a scammer and this scheme, known as “pig-butchering,” has claimed many victims.
We’ve documented our experience of dealing with a pig butchering scam. Let’s walk through how they work so you know how to protect yourself.
Pig Butchering Scams Explained
A “pig butchering” scheme is so-called because the scammer plays the long game, “fattening up” the potential victim to extract as much money as possible before the “slaughter.” This means that unlike many common scams, the goal is not to quickly extract money.
The term originated from a Chinese phrase with the same meaning, and this scam is mainly carried out by large crime groups in China. It’s a coordinated effort, with bosses distributing guides on how to best deceive people (see an example in the below Reddit post).
You’ll learn how the pig butchering scam plays out as we walk through my experience. For more background, see our full explanation of pig butchering scams.
While there are small variations within this scam, a common opening method is for the scammer to text you with a message like “Hi Jason, this is Christine. Do you remember me?” The potential victim will likely respond to say “This isn’t Jason,” after which the scammer will apologize, saying that it’s “fate” you’ve met and asking if you want to be friends.
To entice you, they’ll “introduce themselves” by sending a picture of an attractive Asian woman. These pictures are almost certainly stolen.
After small talk, the scammer suggests moving to WhatsApp or Telegram instead of SMS texting. There are several likely reasons for this:
- Since the scammer is talking to many people at once, having all chats in one app makes it easier for them to manage conversations.
- Messaging apps don’t come with potential (international) costs like SMS does.
- WhatsApp chats are end-to-end encrypted, making it harder for any anti-scam technology to stop what they’re doing.
- They can keep free up that SMS number for initial contact with other potential victims, while using the WhatsApp number to talk to those further down the funnel.
Once on WhatsApp, the scammer asked me my name and location again. It’s likely that once you move to WhatsApp, they have someone more experienced handle you. In the initial text messages, they stick to a script and will respond even if you give silly responses as I did (including the made-up “Bigtown USA”).
Establishing “Rapport” With the Scammer
At this stage, the scammer will start asking you about yourself to build up a “friendship.” You can see how they throw in bits about “hoping we become friends” and ask you about what you’re doing. The hope is that their target victim demographic of lonely people will continue responding because they think the scammer is friendly.
Sprinkled in among questions about your work and hobbies are early mentions of how the scammer has a family member or friend who knows a lot about finance. The screenshots below show a handful of examples from various points in our conversation.
In a similar vein, the scammer will talk about their phony background. They’ll tell you how they moved to the US from Singapore or another Asian country recently, and how well-off they are. They’ll send pictures of a store they run, lavish trips they’ve taken, and luxury goods like designer purses. This is all to make the victim think that the scammer has the experience to make big money with crypto.
I was off and on in my contact with the scammer. They were sometimes quick to respond, but other times they told me we would talk tomorrow. If I didn’t respond for a while, they would ask me generic questions like how my last meal was, or if I slept well (not questions you typically ask friends).
I was surprised they didn’t put in more effort to ask questions that would make you think they cared about you, but I also didn’t give them much to go off. Romance is a common theme of these scams not present here since I kept my responses generic. If given a chance, the scammer will share made-up personal details and ask the victim for similar intimate info. Later on, the scammer will leverage these details to bait the person into spending more money.
Leading Into the Crypto Scam
Skipping around our conversation, below are some highlights of poor English, repeated messages, and confused responses. Another example is earlier in the conversation, when the scammer claimed they had few friends before sending a photo with a table full of people eating together.
The last image shows the scammer launching into the core of the attack. After minor mentions of investing and my showing interest, they tried to quell any fears by acknowledging that we just met, but that if I was interested in investing later on, they would guide me.
They soon introduced the “investment” by asking if I used any crypto exchanges, like Coinbase or Binance (confusing a wallet and exchange). When I expressed hesitation at these sites asking for your Social Security number, the scammer told me this is a requirement.
I wanted to illustrate as much of the scam as possible, so I set up an account with Coinbase (I don’t use crypto). It proved difficult to create a fake account due to the info they ask for, so I used my real info but didn’t provide any of it to the scammer. I changed my display name to the fake one for safety.
When I didn’t act immediately, the scammer sent more phony screenshots promising high returns, including a laughably blurry photo of a laptop showing graphs with zero context. You can see the nonsensical “explanation” in the following sentence when I asked what this was illustrating.
A few times, the scammer tried to voice or video call me. This is likely to push you towards falling for the scam, though I was surprised they didn’t stick to messages for simplicity. Eventually, I told them I would buy coins. She wanted to walk me through this step-by-step (to make sure I bought their preferred form of crypto for harvesting).
I was advised on how much money I could earn with my investment, but I told the scammer I only wanted to invest $50. They told me that $50 “can’t invest” and that I needed to start with a few hundred instead. This is a focus of the scam: they want you to start investing so you “see profits,” convincing you to invest more.
At this point, I wasn’t able to go any further without wasting money (though I could have used the inspect element browser option to fake a purchased amount). The scammer got upset that I was ignoring them, and once I had taken screenshots of everything and was sure I couldn’t do any more, I told them off. The message was cathartic to send after over a month of playing along with this despicable crook.
The Rest of the Pig Butchering Scam
While I’m not able to illustrate it from this experience, we can discuss how the scam plays out from here.
After you buy crypto (legitimately) from an exchange like Coinbase, the scammer sends you a link to download an app for their “investment platform.” This is a fake copy of a legitimate trading service; by connecting your crypto wallet to it, you’re sending the currency to them.
They then manipulate the information on the site they control to make it appear like you’re “earning a profit,” encouraging you to “invest” more money to capitalize on the market. People have reported the scammer encouraging them to take out loans, borrow money from friends, and use other methods to “invest” more. Of course, you’re not earning any money—the figures on the site they control are all made up.
Any money you send them is going right into their pocket. While they might let you withdraw small amounts of money to make you think it’s legitimate, they won’t be happy when you mention wanting to withdraw all your “profits.” At that point, the scammer will tell you that you owe a bunch of money in taxes and other fees. They’ll make up a reason why you can’t pay the fees with the money already in your account, leading you to give them more.
Sometimes, this isn’t even the end. In a case reported by CNBC, a separate person contacted the victim and claimed they could help him get his money back. This was part of the same scam, and ended up fleecing the victim for even more money.
As you become increasingly desperate and ask them for help, the scammer will eventually ghost you (perhaps taunting you as a final message). This leaves the victim with the reality that they fell for a get-rich-quick scam.
Pig Butchering Scammers Are Vile
We’ve taken a walk through the pig butchering scam so you can see how it plays out. While my experience serves as an illustrative example, you can read hundreds of stories online of people who lost tens of thousands of dollars to these scams.
These vile scammers spend a lot of time, and practice emotional manipulation, to steal huge amounts of money from people. They are disgusting, and the best defense we have against them is to educate people. Share this info with your loved ones so they know what these “wrong number” texts really are.
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