#there's likely a fairly simple way to scam the scammers

[beardedmrbean]

A blackmail scam is using instant loan apps to entrap and humiliate people across India and other countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At least 60 Indians have killed themselves after being abused and threatened. A​ BBC undercover investigation has exposed those profiting from this deadly scam in India and China.

Astha Sinhaa woke up to her aunt's panicked voice on the phone. "Don't let your mother leave the house."

Half-asleep, the 17-year-old was terrified to find her mum Bhoomi Sinhaa in the next room, sobbing and frantic.

Here was her funny and fearless mother, a respected Mumbai-based property lawyer, a widow raising her daughter alone, reduced to a frenzied mess.

"She was breaking apart," Astha says. A panicked Bhoomi started telling her where all the important documents and contacts were, and seemed desperate to get out of the door.

Astha knew she had to stop her. "Don't let her out of your sight," her aunt had told her. "Because she will end her life."

Astha knew her mother had been getting some weird calls and that she owed somebody money, but she had no idea that Bhoomi was reeling from months of harassment and psychological torture.

She had fallen victim to a global scam with tentacles in at least 14 countries that uses shame and blackmail to make a profit - destroying lives in the process.

The business model is brutal but simple. There are many apps that promise hassle-free loans in minutes. Not all of them are predatory. But many - once downloaded - harvest your contacts, photos and ID cards, and use that information later to extort you. When customers don't repay on time - and sometimes even when they do - they share this information with a call centre where young agents of the gig economy, armed with laptops and phones are trained to harass and humiliate people into repayment.

At the end of 2021, Bhoomi had borrowed about 47,000 rupees ($565; £463) from several loan apps while she waited for some work expenses to come through. The money arrived almost immediately but with a big chunk deducted in charges. Seven days later she was due to repay but her expenses still hadn't been paid, so she borrowed from another app and then another. The debt and interest spiralled until she owed about two million rupees ($24,000; £19,655).

Soon the recovery agents started calling. They quickly turned nasty, slamming Bhoomi with insults and abuse. Even when she had paid, they claimed she was lying. They called up to 200 times a day. They knew where she lived, they said, and sent her pictures of a dead body as a warning.

As the abuse escalated they threatened to message all of the 486 contacts in her phone telling them she was a thief and a whore. When they threatened to tarnish her daughter's reputation too, Bhoomi could no longer sleep.

She borrowed from friends, family and more and more apps - 69 in total. At night, she prayed the morning would never come. But without fail at 07:00, her phone would start pinging and buzzing incessantly.

Eventually, Bhoomi had managed to pay back all of the money, but one app in particular - Asan Loan - wouldn't stop calling. Exhausted, she couldn't concentrate at work and started having panic attacks.

One day a colleague called her over to his desk and showed her something on his phone - a naked, pornographic picture of her.

The photo had been crudely photoshopped, Bhoomi's head stuck on someone else's body, but it filled her with disgust and shame. She collapsed by her colleague's desk. It had been sent by Asan Loan to every contact in her phone book. That was when Bhoomi thought of killing herself.

We've seen evidence of scams like this run by various companies all over the world. But in India alone, the BBC has found at least 60 people have killed themselves after being harassed by loan apps.

Most were in their 20s and 30s - a fireman, an award-winning musician, a young mum and dad leaving behind their three- and five-year-old daughters, a grandfather and grandson who got involved in loan apps together. Four were just teenagers.

Most victims are too ashamed to speak about the scam, and the perpetrators have remained, for the most part, anonymous and invisible. After looking for an insider for months, the BBC managed to track down a young man who had worked as a debt recovery agent for call centres working for multiple loan apps.

Rohan - not his real name - told us he had been troubled by the abuse he had witnessed. Many customers cried, some threatened to kill themselves, he said. "It would haunt me all night." He agreed to help the BBC expose the scam.

He applied for a job in two different call centres - Majesty Legal Services and Callflex Corporation - and spent weeks filming undercover.

His videos captured young agents harassing clients. "Behave or I will smash you," one woman says, swearing. She accuses the customer of incest and, when he hangs up, she starts laughing. Another suggests the client should prostitute his mother to repay the loan.

Rohan recorded over 100 incidents of harassment and abuse, capturing this systematic extortion on camera for the first time.

The worst abuse he witnessed took place at Callflex Corporation, just outside Delhi. Here, agents routinely used obscene language to humiliate and threaten customers. These were not rogue agents going off-script - they were supervised and directed by managers at the call centre, including one called Vishal Chaurasia.

Rohan gained Chaurasia's trust, and together with a journalist posing as an investor, arranged a meeting at which they asked him to explain exactly how the scam works.

When a customer takes out a loan, he explained, they give the app access to the contacts on their phone. Callflex Corporation is hired to recover the money - and if the customer misses a payment the company starts hassling them, and then their contacts. His staff can say anything, Chaurasia told them, as long as they get a repayment.

"The customer then pays because of the shame," he said. "You'll find at least one person in his contact list who can destroy his life."

We approached Chaurasia directly but he did not want to comment. Callflex Corporation did not respond to our efforts to contact them.

One of the many lives destroyed was Kirni Mounika's.

The 24-year-old civil servant was the brains of her family, the only student at her school to get a government job, a doting sister to her three brothers. Her father, a successful farmer, was ready to support her to do a masters in Australia.

The Monday she took her own life, three years ago, she had hopped on her scooter to go to work as usual.

"She was all smiles," her father, Kirni Bhoopani, says.

It was only when police reviewed Mounika's phone and bank statements that they found out she had borrowed from 55 different loan apps. It started with a loan of 10,000 rupees ($120; £100) and spiralled to more than 30 times that. By the time she decided to kill herself, she had paid back more than 300,000 rupees ($3,600; £2,960).

Police say the apps harassed her with calls and vulgar messages - and had started messaging her contacts.

Mounika's room is now a makeshift shrine. Her government ID card hangs by the door, the bag her mum packed for a wedding still lying there.

The thing that upsets her father the most is that she hadn't told him what was going on. "We could have easily arranged the money," he says, wiping tears from his eyes.

He's furious at the people who did this.

As he was taking his daughter's body home from the hospital her phone rang and he answered to an obscenity-laden rant. "They told us she has to pay," he says. "We told them she was dead."

He wondered who these monsters could be.

Hari - not his real name - worked at a call centre doing recovery for one of the apps Mounika had borrowed from. The pay was good but by the time Mounika died he was already feeling uneasy about what he was part of.

Although he claims not to have made abusive calls himself - he says he was in the team that made initial polite calls - he told us managers instructed staff to abuse and threaten people.

The agents would send messages to a victim's contacts, painting the victim as a fraud and a thief.

"Everyone has a reputation to maintain in front of their family. No-one is going to spoil that reputation for the measly sum of 5,000 rupees," he says.

Once a payment had been made the system would ping "Success!" and they would move on to the next client.

When clients started threatening to take their own lives nobody took it seriously - then the suicides started happening. The staff called their boss, Parshuram Takve, to ask if they should stop.

The following day Takve appeared in the office. He was angry. "He said, 'Do what you're told and make recoveries,'" Hari says. So they did.

A few months later, Mounika was dead.

Takve was ruthless. But he wasn't running this operation alone. Sometimes, Hari says, the software interface would switch to Chinese without warning.

Takve was married to a Chinese woman called Liang Tian Tian. Together, they had set up the loan recovery business, Jiyaliang, in Pune, where Hari worked.

In December 2020, Takve and Liang were arrested by police investigating a case of harassment and released on bail a few months later.

In April 2022 they were charged with extortion, intimidation and abetment of suicide. By the end of the year they were on the run.

We couldn't track down Takve. But when we investigated the apps Jiyaliang worked for, it led us to a Chinese businessman called Li Xiang.

He has no online presence, but we found a phone number linked to one of his employees and, posing as investors, set up a meeting with Li.

With his face shoved uncomfortably close to the camera, he bragged about his businesses in India.

"We are still operating now, just not letting Indians know we are a Chinese company," he said.

Back in 2021, two of Li's companies had been raided by Indian police investigating harassment by loan apps. Their bank accounts had been frozen.

"You need to understand that because we aim to recover our investment quickly, we certainly don't pay local taxes, and the interest rates we offer violate local laws," he says.

Li told us his company has its own loan apps in India, Mexico and Colombia. He claimed to be an industry leader in risk control and debt collection services in South East Asia, and is now expanding across Latin America and Africa - with more than 3,000 staff in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India ready to provide "post-loan services".

Then he explained what his company does to recover loans.

"If you don't repay, we may add you on WhatsApp, and on the third day, we will call and message you on WhatsApp at the same time, and call your contacts. Then, on the fourth day, if your contacts don't pay, we have specific detailed procedures.

"We access his call records and capture a lot of his information. Basically, it's like he's naked in front of us."

Bhoomi Sinha could handle the harassment, the threats, the abuse and the exhaustion - but not the shame of being linked to that pornographic image.

"That message actually stripped me naked in front of the entire world," she says. "I lost my self-respect, my morality, my dignity, everything in a second."

It was shared with lawyers, architects, government officials, elderly relatives and friends of her parents - people who would never look at her in the same way again.

"It has tarnished the core of me, like if you join a broken glass, there will still be cracks on it," she says.

She has been ostracised by neighbours in the community she has lived in for 40 years.

"As of today, I have no friends. It's just me I guess," she says with a sad chuckle.

Some of her family still don't speak to her. And she constantly wonders whether the men she works with are picturing her naked.

The morning that her daughter Astha found her she was at her lowest ebb. But it was also the moment she decided to fight back. "I don't want to die like this," she decided.

She filed a police report but has heard nothing since. All she could do was change her number and get rid of her sim card - and when Astha started receiving calls her daughter destroyed hers too. She told friends, family and colleagues to ignore the calls and messages and, eventually, they all but stopped.

Bhoomi found support in her sisters, her boss and an online community of others abused by loan apps. But mostly, she found strength in her daughter.

"I must have done something good to be given a daughter like this," she says. "If she hadn't stood by me then I would have been one of the many people who've killed themselves because of loan apps."

We put the allegations in this report to Asan Loan - and also, through contacts, to Liang Tian Tian and Parshuram Takve, who are in hiding. Neither the company nor the couple responded.

When asked for comment, Li Xiang told the BBC that he and his companies comply with all local laws and regulations, have never run predatory loan apps, have ceased collaboration with Jiyaliang, the loan recovery company run by Liang Tian Tian and Parshuram Takve, and do not collect or use customers' contact information.

He said his loan recovery call centres adhere to strict standards and he denied profiting from the suffering of ordinary Indians.

Majesty Legal Services deny using customers' contacts to recover loans. They told us their agents are instructed to avoid abusive or threatening calls, and any violation of the company's policies results in dismissal.

[littlealienproducts]

AI and PDF Crochet Patterns

AI generated images can be great for inspiring projects, but most of the time it's used online to generate revenue for scammers and the like.

Just scrolling through Etsy rn looking for crochet patterns, I've come across several listings (some with false 5 star reviews to boost engagement/trust) where the patterns and images are clearly AI generated and people, unfortunately, have fallen for the listings.

Some of the images might look totally obvious to you, but to the untrained eye they can be convincing.

SOOO, how do you spot AI crochet patterns?

Look at the stitches. Are there pieces that don't seem to stitch into one another? Are the lengths and sizes inconsistent? Some are more obvious than others, but AI fails to replicate consistent textures.

Lighting and saturation. AI images often are vibrant and cartoon-ish. Especially the eyes of projects - usually this is a pretty good giveaway. Additionally, is the image smooth? What's in the background? Does it make sense?

Limited photos on listing. Most legitimate shops are going to have multiple photos of the finished project on the listing - AI is fairly advanced, but not the best at recreating exact images. Does the listing only have one photo? Does it have multiple but with variants between projects (that are meant to be the same)? Are there any videos?

Is it even possible? This can be tricky if you are new to crochet, but as above, take a moment to look at the stitches and the overall shape of the project. Does it look plausable? Especially if they projects say 'no sew'. Additionally, if you have already purchased the pattern - does it tell you how much material you need, and does it make sense? Does it tell you crochet hook size?

Legit photo but AI generated pattern. Sometimes the images are real - but they've been stolen from another creators account and the scam shop has simply asked AI (such as ChatGPT) to write up a crochet pattern. These are less obvious at a glance, but most reputable shops will have social media, consistent themes of crochet projects and reviews with pictures of finished products uploaded by customers.

6. Ok, but what if they use AI but the reviews seem legit? Crochet Baby Duck - this is an AI generated picture and pattern, and while the shop has posted several pictures of the finished project it is clear that it does not match up with the AI generated duck pictured in the listing. The hat, feet, and bill are all different sizes and this is even noted in some of the customer reviews. While this isn't as scammy as straight up using AI generated images/patterns without showing how the finished project looks - it is still taking away from legitimate pattern makers. Being able to design and execute good patterns is a skill, and the prices of legitimate patterns often reflect this. Why does the shop even use AI pictures if they post the real life projects anyway? Cus it drives traffic, and lets be real - the real life plush dolls look no where near as good as the AI images.

This is the same as the walrus - AI generated image and pattern, this is even endoresed by Etsy so you cannot rely on 'Etsy picks' being legitimate as they choose profits over morals.

These patterns are not just limited to Etsy, they are often on Pinterest or websites for 'free' to generate traffic and collect data (asking for your e-mail for the free pattern). Such as this Peacock Crochet IRL figure by u/Echo-o_0 on Reddit.

This is not just limited to crochet, I've seen it in sewing, knitting, and any other PDF downloads that you can purchase or get for free. Unfortunately, it is a simple way for people to make a quick but and face little to no consequences as their store *might* get deleted and even then, they can just start a new one up.

[numinati]

20 PATRON CELEBRATION DUMP

Hey y'all!!

Thank you guys so much for 20 members!! I know that might not sound like a lot, but I seriously never thought I'd get this far. Especially with the wigga. 😅

Seriously though, thank y'all so, so much for all the support you've given me. Here's to better things all 2024 and beyond!

To celebrate getting 20 members, here's a simple, miscellaneous dump. You get three cosmetics, a string mod, a career, a sim, and a build buy item. Enjoy!!

VICTORIA BROWS

PRETTY GIRL MOLES

FOUR HORSEMEN TATTOOS

- Hand traced from the OG pics

- Three swatches for each design

DIASPORA FLAGS

- 79 swatches, 6 dividers

- EA Mesh

PRETTY GOOD DISH OVERRIDE

Small string mod to replace the "fairly tasty dish" text in the moodlet.

VENEER TECH CAREER

Were you the child who gave their parents makeovers they didn't have the heart to tell you were bad? Do you want to feel as important as a doctor but don't want to waste your time on boring topics like gum disease? Are you a sadist?

If you fall into any - or all - of these categories, you'll love being a veneer tech.

Just because you ain't on some board doesn't mean you can't make board money! All you really need is some glue, gloves, and Invisalign, anyway!

Hell, if people cared about taking advantage of people, half the businesses out now would be closed. Shops shut all the way up. You deserve to get your bag too, right?

...maybe your first investment should be a lawyer.

This is a base game-esque career with four levels and two branches. Y'all know I am very new, and I couldn't find a tutorial on how to make active careers, so I apologize in advance for it being so bare. :(

I do hope y'all enjoy though!

Levels:

You just got your online certificate from the 6 hour seminar your favorite TikToker hosted and are now ready to service the streets with your dental expertise. The only problem is you don't have no expertise and are not a dentist.

But if that didn't stop your "mentor", why should it stop you? Try and make something shake for a little while. Worst comes to worst, you gotta flee the state... or the country...

...you really should look into that lawyer, friend.

Shade Room Famous

Due to the rampant amount of horror stories you have, your face is now plastered all over The Shade Room, the largest urban gossip blog in all of the US.

But to your surprise and mine tool - it seems like the saying about all attention is true, because people are now lined up your block waiting for the Smilez special.

Guess all you can do now is make sure your career lasts longer than your teeth.

Viral on TikTok

Fame looka nice on you, doesn't it? At least online fame does. After getting some shine on Shade Room, Hollywood Unlocked, The Neighborhood Talk, and even more, you've managed to rack up one million followers on TikTok. You're almost ready to release your own seminar!

Be careful, though, newfound fame brings newfound opposition. And with your multiple medical and ethical violations it won't take much to get unplugged.

The Plug

After all of the hours of hard scamming you put in, you've done it. You've got the fame, the fortune, the mid-tier rapper/influencer connections, and about 21 different YouTube videos about your crimes.

The only thing to do now is sit back, count up, and not get indicted.

And hey, if that doesn't work? At least you're making enough for a one way to Jamaica.

Branches:

Celebrity Scammer

Now, about that mid-tier clientele you had...

They are all big time now. And so are you! You've 'hustled' and 'grinded' your way to the big leagues.

No more barbershops. You're doing Future's teeth in the back of your mansion. Their teeth may decay, but your star certainly isn't!

It doesn't even matter how many people say you scamming. Or how many horror stories have turned into full on nightmares.

You're the Dr. Miami of teeth now. Can't nobody say anything about that!

Seminar Leader

Now, about that seminar you said you were gon start...

You did. In fact, the only two options on your website are to book and to, well, book.

In doing so, not only have you managed to stack up even more, but now you look wise and charitible to 5% of Instagram users. Win win!

It doesn't matter if most people think you still scamming. Or the fact you don't send out all the invites to people who signed up.

You're a business person now. Can't nobody say nothing about that!

HALANI HAYNES

(romantic- self assured - hot headed)

Only one outfit is done, the rest are an underwear set!

you can download all of this on my Patreon:

[vishal6x]

The Dark Side of Social Media: Recognizing and Addressing the Hidden Dangers

If you really look around, you can notice how the internet has pushed connectivity to the next level. Whether you’ve to reach out to your family, or to search for a piece of information, the internet is bestowing it all. But with the numerous benefits the technology has to offer, it has a plethora of risks involved which comes along with this privilege. It has become quite arduous for people to avoid risks associated with digital connectivity. What exactly are these risks we are talking about? Well, everytime you’re logged on to the internet, you’re allowing other people to reach out to you. Now, there is a high chance of you being attacked by scammers who might steal your personal information. If you’re not internet savvy like most of the people out there, it serves as an opportunity for scammers to target and feed off of you. Their target group mainly involves young minds and older people who are not that familiar with the technology for various reasons. This creates a nurturing ground for the attackers to breed on.

What if We Tell You That There is a Way to Completely Fight off the Risks Away:

Everything which has a potential to add value to your lives, also has the ability to affect you negatively. Fortunately for us, there are people in the world who care for others, and are doing their best to protect them from malicious attacks. The rate of online scam has reached its summit over the past few years. Therefore, various companies have arrived in the market claiming to have a solution for your worries. They’re offering their customers a Mobile spy app to protect their loved ones from such online predators.  With the rise of these products in the market, a significant debacle has been noticed in the rate of online scams. Let us take a look now to establish a basic understanding about the functioning of these apps. 

Here’s How A Spy Phone App Can Ensure the Safety of Your Loved Ones:

Most people nowadays have started to consider a spy app to keep their children and parents away from the dangers of the internet. Such an app enables the users to keep a track of the online activities of the people who stand at a higher risk of online attacks. The process of setting up a spy app on a phone is fairly simple. What all you need is the access to the smartphone you are intending to spy on to install the app, and you are all done. Now, to view the detailed summary of the online activities of your loved ones, all you need to do is login with your credentials to reach onto the dashboard. There you can find a comprehensive analysis of the target phone’s activities. This way you can make sure that the people you care for, be it your kids or parents, are surfing the internet safely while dodging away all the potential risks involved. 

Some of the Most Salient Features Provided by a Spy App:

The Browsing History: To maintain the safety of your children especially over the internet, you need to have access to their browsing history. Young minds are quite impressionable. This is the very age when the development of an individual occurs. It becomes the duty of the parents to keep a track of what their kids are watching over the internet. 

Protection Over the Calls: Most of the scammers out there use calling as their first tactic to target people. They hold such an expertise in conning others that before you know it, you would have shared your quite personal details to them. However, with the feature of a hidden call recorder, you can spy over the call data to ensure that your family isn’t being scammed by an attacker. 

Take Full Control Over WhatsApp: WhatsApp has surely made it significantly easier for people to connect. However, this has rendered this app to be a primary mode to con others. With the WhatsApp Spy feature, the chances of such attacks can be hugely minimized. You can access the chat messages of the target phone. Not only this, you can also get to listen to the calls made on WhatsApp.

Conclusion:In today’s time, it’s nearly impossible for a decent user to stay protected over the internet. However, with a spy app for android, the same can be managed. As now you’re aware of the dangers the digitalisation holds, it becomes your responsibility to take steps to ensure the safety of your loved ones before it gets too late.

[seeklovenet]

Ourtime Senior Courting Review

Ourtime Senior Courting Review

Some reviewers complain about possible scammers, but that occurs with virtually each courting website. OurTime relationship companies are ideal if you’re on the lookout for a no-nonsense approach to mature online relationship. The app lets customers be a part of at no cost, but many of the most desirable options are solely available with paid subscriptions, which can get pricey. To study more, learn OurTime courting site critiques beneath. OurTime is a senior courting site geared towards single women and men ages 50 and older. It contains a streamlined web site that makes it easy to join an account and decide a membership choice.

The second was not honest of her political and non secular values. The third was not happy along with her choice to move to my space of Florida from one other state. I am thought-about one of many nicest males by my friends and social contacts. I am additionally fit and relatively attractive for my age .

Your profile may be completed as you enroll, or after you’ve completed your membership purchase. SeniorPeopleMeet.com - Online senior dating site for singles 50+ only, designed to assist seniors discover meaningful relationships with different older singles. She placed on about 30 pounds and he or she did not smile in any profile pics. Absence of any dental hygiene was why she did not smile .

Price | How Much Does Ourtime Cost?

Unfortunately, older singles are sometimes targets of scams and predators. We suppose that any web site particularly catering to 50+ courting should have some extra sturdy account verification options in place, and OurTime missed the mark there. When it involves the quality of singles we noticed during the last OurTime evaluate, it was fairly good. There were quite a couple of accounts with photos and filled out information.

The web site was based on May 10, 2011 by IAC, the homeowners of Match Group, which incorporates other huge brands like Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, and Hinge). OurTime is a relationship site designed for adults ages 50 and older. The site makes matches primarily based on character traits and other listed pursuits or established parameters. Once you add info in your profile, corresponding to your hobbies, location and age, the site matches you with people of comparable interests and qualities.

Desk Of Contents

Access to ConnectMe, a function that generates a novel cellphone number for you and your match so you'll have the ability to speak and text whereas you’re offline with out having to change contact information. • Receive messages from other how much is ourtime dating site members earlier than you meet up. So be part of now and discover that connection you’ve been looking for! Go from wondering who’s on the market to discovering somebody great through our courting app for over 50s.

Our moderators read all critiques to verify quality and helpfulness. This profile has not been claimed by the company. See reviews below to study extra or submit your personal review. Overall, our OurTime app reviewers want this was a simpler system, especially for people over 50 who might not be essentially the most tech savvy.

OurTime is an easy-to-use app for people looking for new relationships. Users can scroll through matches and join with singles. It’s free to join, however all the best options are solely out there by way of a paid subscription.

Ourtimecom Company Data

Its location on this web page could change subsequent time you visit. Everyone was nice and well mannered for essentially the most part… I did not meet my true love on a relationship website but I was solely on it for six months. They have correct security in place, and as customers we should be mindful of our information we provide on profile as well as reporting any suspicious behavior to ... His work has been featured in the likes of The USA Today, MSN, NBC, FOX, The Motley Fool, Net Health, and The Simple Dollar. As a business owner, relationship strategist, courting coach, and US Army Veteran, Jason enjoys sharing his distinctive information base with the rest of the world. Tokens – These are purchase a la carte in bundles and can be used for add-on options including NotifyMe, MatchMe, PromoteMe, and Virtual Gifts.

To get full entry to messaging, you'll need to improve to a paid membership. Our website companies, content and merchandise are for informational purposes only. While our team of skilled journalists and medical specialists provides timely wellness insights, news and critiques, we do not present medical recommendation, diagnoses or therapy. Some of the options, corresponding to Boost and Reply For Free, are available for an additional price. Boosts may be bought primarily based on the quantity of boosts you want to use.

Users also have the ability to dam members from seeing their profiles. • Know when your sent message has been learn in our over 50 s relationship app. • Discover profiles of grownup males or women over fifty, and customise your seek for more customized matches. The identical company owns a number of different relationship web sites, together with Match.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com and SingleParentMeet.com. To use OurTime, you have to obtain the app and arrange an account. You have the chance to customise a courting profile and match standards.

As talked about, OurTime does do a pretty good job of keeping things easy and avoiding unnecessary overhauls just for the sake of change. What comes with simplicity, although, is fewer features than you might see at other relationship websites. Again, this may or will not be a foul thing depending on your preferences. OurTime is a web-based dating website and app created particularly and completely for single men and women 50 years of age or older.

Unique OurTime Facts and Figures45% of users are males and 55% are girls. Message Ideas are four web-generated questions you probably can ship to a match. ConnectMe generates a unique cellphone number for you and your match, enabling you to speak or textual content while you’re offline, with out having to give out your cellphone quantity. Commissions we earn from partner hyperlinks on this web page don't have an effect on our opinions or evaluations. Our editorial content material is based on thorough research and steerage from the Forbes Health Advisory Board.

Featured

Why is this easy enroll course of each a professional and a con? The pros of the method are that it’s not going to confuse you, it doesn’t take very long, and it’s a breeze even if technology isn’t your factor. The con, though, is there are no verification processes outdoors of a quick telephone verification. This sadly does make it simpler for unsavory people to get onto the location.

[rockstarlong]

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usr/libexec/remotectl dumpstate gets all available properties for the bridge device.”

Pepijn Bruienne: “Okay, /usr/libexec/remotectl get-property localbridge UniqueChipID could be useful.

Victor (groob): “Using and to track DEP installs and MDM User approved status”.

Bill Lloyd: “Scammers gonna scam.… ” (Why we can’t have nice things…).

iOS 12: Geeky features iOS needs – Jason Snell, Macworld.

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Today Mac OS X is as old as the Classic Mac OS – Jason Snell.

CMD-D Scripting Boot Camp, October 15–17, Atlanta.

Razer announces entry-level eGPU enclosure with support for macOS – Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac.

Yubico launches an SDK that lets iOS devs add support for its NFC keys – Frederic Lardinois, TechCrunch.

If you would rather get the weekly newsletter by email, you can subscribe to the Scripting OS X Weekly Newsletter here!! (Same content, delivered to your Inbox once a week.) #! On Scripting OS X When you purchase the book you will get the updates pushed from the iBooks Store for free.

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Like my other books, I plan to regularly update this book at least until the macOS 10.14 (or what ever it ill be called) release. However, I also believe it is already very useful in its current form, especially as ‘deployment season’ is approaching for education administrators, more secure boot Macs are likely to be announced at WWDC and the next macOS (10.14 or whatever) is looming on the horizon. There are many sections where I’d like to add more detail and depth. I don’t think this new book completely does the topic justice yet. This topic has proven to be very volatile with Apple changing important parts of the workflows in nearly every update to 10.13. I posted an excerpt on my blog last week: macOS Installation: Strange New World In other news: I finished the first draft my next book “macOS Installation for Apple Administrators” and have sent it out the test-readers (thank you!). Otherwise, you can tell that WWDC is approaching as the macOS/iOS wish lists are appearing.

LOGO FOR PLISTEDIT PRO PLISTEDIT PRO PRO

At the same time, PlistEdit Pro also enables you to open and edit any JSON or PLIST file.Some interesting releases this week. PlistEdit Pro proposes simple but efficient tools that will help you create your own property list files without too much effort. Versatile solution for creating and editing property list files in no time Last but not least, you can specify the types of files that will be added when sending data to a browser. This way you can easily create new file extensions in no time. Via the PlistEdit Pro Preferences window you have the option to change the default font style and color, the sorting options, the color for the XML tags, the JSON text formatting, the default class for new objects, the default property list format, and so on.įurthermore, you have the option to see the list of built in file extensions and quickly modify the default definition. Define your own file extensions and customize the interface appearance In addition, you can easily change the item’s class: array, boolean, data, date, dictionary, number, or string. PlistEdit Pro enables you to create new child and sibling entries in no time, to copy and paste content, and to rearrange items using drag and drop actions. Working with PlistEdit Pro will prove to be fairly intuitive: the app will open a new window for each document, and you can access most functions via simple buttons or drop down menus. Uncomplicated property list file editor featuring a well organized user interface The utility will prove to be extremely useful to developers that need to create JSON and property list files for their new applications. Developed to help you edit property lists, PlistEdit Pro comes with a simple and well organized user interface that enables you to see the file structure while editing its content.

[trainsinanime]

I’m bored, so I’m gonna write about NFTs again. As you may or may not know, the NFT space is overrun with art theft, meaning people try to sell NFTs for images they didn’t make. This targets both actual artists and other NFT projects. One thing you hear a lot in reply to this is people saying,

“Just mint your own NFT, then the image can’t be stolen”

You may be wondering: How does that work? What about an NFT existing makes it impossible for someone else to create an NFT of the same image? Well, the answer is really simple, and the same as it is for every other question about NFTs:

It doesn’t actually work.

If you create an NFT of your art, then someone else can still create an NFT of the same art. There’s nothing stopping them. The one and only benefit you get from minting it yourself (if you're not planning to get into the whole NFT business) is that you have proof that you uploaded this image first.

The two problems with having this proof are a) who cares? and b) doesn’t uploading to DeviantArt or Twitter or wherever do the same thing just as well? The second answer is fairly simple: Yeah, it’s unlikely you’ll ever find yourself in a situation where proof on the blockchain counts but proof on DA doesn’t. Sure, DA may disappear one day, or might manipulate its time stamps in order to annoy people. And if you’re genuinely worried about not having proof of your prior art in that case, minting an NFT, or better yet, officially registering your copyright if possible, might assuage hese worries (note that you have copyright whether you register it or not; that’s a whole other subject). An NFT is the most inefficient way of creating this proof, though.

As for “who cares that you have proof”, there is no clear answer. There is no system that automatically cares. The proof only matters if you convince humans to care, and these humans ask for proof. For example, if you file a takedown request with the selling platform, and the faker says “no that’s mine”, then that proof might be useful. This situation is rather rare, though; most art thieves just disappear when caught. Or you could tell all potential buyers of your art, perhaps via Twitter, that the thing being sold is fake and you have proof if anybody cares.

Note that all of this is completely antithetical to ideas like “code is law” and “decentralization” and other crypto buzzwords. Minting your own NFT can, at best and theoretically, help you file a classic DMCA takedown request following classic government laws, or win a classic government lawsuit. And it’s the most expensive way to do this.

Minting an NFT does not protect you at all. There’s really only one benefit to it, and it’s not a benefit for you: Due to transaction fees, it brings money into the cryptocurrency economy. All the people who have Bitcoin or Ethereum or Sol or… worth millions only actually have these millions if they can find someone willing to give them real dollars or euros for their crypto stuff. One way to convince you to do so is by claiming, incorrectly, that it helps protect you from art theft. Don’t fall for that. Everything about this is a scam, and everyone who says you can protect yourself by minting NFTs is either a scammer or someone who was fooled.

[coffeeismyblo0d]

By The Society's Needs

TW // Minor Misgendering

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The sound rang through Aspen's already tired ears, reminding them of what was to be expected, and what was not to be expected. They turned,  looking at their annoyingly loud phone which displayed the time: 7:05.

Aspen slammed their hand down on the phone, sighing softly as it shut off the alarm,  which felt glorious to them this early the morning. They heard the loud yelling of their neighbors,  who were just on the other side of the thin walls.  They also heard a rather loud thumping noise, of which they desperately hoped was a exercise  machine upstairs, despite knowing the truth behind it.

Aspen launched themselves up, stretching their arms and back out. This had been part of their routine for a while, the only exceptions coming during sick days, which were few in numbers, fortunately. Aspen looked around their room for a moment,  trying to find what they were looking for amongst the littered sketches of outfits to be.

"Ah yes,  there you are." They held their rediscovered binder up in triumph,  despite being alone at the moment. Their binder was special to them of course.  After all, it sealed a lot of insecurities about their body away with what little changes it made.

Aspen hopped on one foot as they tried pull both the binder and a sock on at the same time. Of course, this was a major struggle for them, as the binder was a binder, and a sock is on your foot. Both were on opposite points of the body.

Aspen turned toward the full length mirror in their room, despite one sock halfway off of their foot. They hummed, tilting their head at themselves.

"What should we go for today bud..?" They looked at their succulent.  "Of course,  you're throwing a fit.  I'm sorry but too much water might kill you." They giggled softly, clipping the binder back enough so it fully reduced everything.  "There. I think that will look great."

"And we'll go...." Aspen looked at the closet full of outfits,  outfits that fit many different moods and aesthetics. They grabbed an outfit that included items sewn by them themselves, such as overalls, an 'ugly' sweater, and others that went along with them. Aspen chose a pair of short boots as an addition to the outfit, smiling. "I think I'm going to look great today. "

They turned towards the clock on their bedside table,  which had been handpainted by a local artist. The clock read 7:15. Aspen smiled.  "Right on track, I am."

Once done getting dressed, Aspen grabbed their bag and walked out the door,  rubbing their eyes.  How they were still tired, was a question that would likely be left unanswered.

"Let's hope you start..." Aspen muttered, turning their key in the car. They let out a sigh of relief as it turned on without stalling as they attempted to turn music on.  "Thank you..."

They started their drive to work,  groaning as their music refused to load. "At least the car started, that's all I could ask for.." They muttered, eyeing their bag of fabric and other assorted sewing items. A bag that hadn't been touched in a long time.

"Someday buddy, someday." Aspen patted the bag, waiting in traffic. Their eyes drifted over for just a moment,  seeing the scammer like looking teen on the sidewalk. Every place had scams,  even if you lived somewhere remote. And the bustling city was no exception to this rule, especially downtown.

As soon as they were able, Aspen continued driving. They loved yet hated the activity.  They loved it because it gave them inspiration,and they hated it because it was terrifying.

Another reason to hate driving was where it took Aspen. The job yet to enlighten them was kept only because of Aspen's license. A license that Aspen wishes would have been nonexistent,  and would allow them to live a life. A life where their own business was possible.

The job may have felt constricting,  but Aspen didn't want to get into a deeper hole than the one they were already in financially. The job supported them. There was no way-if they were sane- that they would quit.

"Astroplanes." Aspen muttered as they pulled up to the big building. "The bane of my existence."

The building itself wasn't decked out in anything too special.  The logo was in neon lights, but that was otherwise it for the dread filled building.  Remove the logo, and it would likely be unrecognizable next to it's store counterpart.

The inside of each building was different in it's own way, aside from the store being the store,  and the building being where everything was designed.  The employees at the store seemed much more interactive and alive, even if on their last strain of life. Where as in here, they seemed dead, with few of the employees cheerful.

"Morning." Aspen's coworker waved,  sipping her coffee as she walked past them. "The big lady is here today." She sighed. "Just warnin' ya kid."

"Well that's great. " Aspen smiled,  sounding cheerful to their fellow worker. Inside,  they were screaming in rage,  because corporate officials were always unpleasant.

Aspen sat down at their workspace, pulling out the sketchbook they saved for work. It was filled with ideas they wanted to fulfill,  but couldn't,  and ones they didn't quite enjoy, but knew were required to produce into a true product.

In Aspen's eyes, fashion was fluid,  and had no limits.  There was no feminine or masculine in what they saw, because they wanted their demographic to wear what they saw as validating. There was no limit to how 'crazy' a look could be in Aspen's head. Everyone should have their size that fits and look great,  was something along the lines of Aspen's thinking.

Astroplanes differed very much from one of their many overworked employees,  as one expensive company does. They marketed everything towards women, and made everything feminine.  There was nothing super crazy,and looks lacked simple,  yet amplifying touches,  such as a single patch.  The sizes for what was sold the most didn't expand far, and many things marketed as plus size were not considered as fashion as the mainstream products.

Aspen had nothing against the clothes themselves,  because an outfit looks great to someone no matter what the outfit is made of.  It was the way that Astroplanes went about their products,  and how employees and customers alike were treated that didn't sit right with Aspen.

They couldn't help but wonder what went through someone's head to not acknowledge the truth about companies like Astroplanes. Then again,  they knew it'd be pointless to point out flaws, as they'd just get squished like the tiniest ant outside of it's hill.

Aspen sighed as they stared at the blank page, tapping the eraser of their pencil on the woodtop desk. They started sketching,  looking at the figure they had drawn.  They continued to sketch, drawing whatever they pleased, ignoring the tall slim woman in the background.

The result was spectacular,  in short. It displayed a colorful suit,  of which did not particularly define the model's identity.

"What is this?"

"I-" Aspen turned,  met with the bright red face of the company's owner, who was clearly angry. "It's my own design ma'am. "

"We can not have this." The woman scoffed. "This is far beyond the goals of my company!"

"I apologi-"

"You absolute digust of a woman!" She spat, her eyes narrowed.  "I never want something like that ever again,  especially from you."

Aspen resisted the urge to reach up and punch the company's owner. They were beyond angry at getting yelled at for a design, and offended by the incorrect use of pronouns,  when they had a very visible pin on their jacket reading 'THEY/THEM'.

"Yes ma'am. " Aspen responded,  trying to sound as kind as possible after the last moment.

They watched the woman walk away. They let out a sigh of relief and rolled their eyes.  They flipped to a different page in their sketchbook, starting on a completely different design from the supposedly troublesome one.

The rest of the day would go along fairly smooth for Aspen,  with nothing other than the usual annoyances bothering them, sucha as a lazy coworker complaining that no one would get fabric for them.

Aspen sat alone while on their lunch break, listening to music as usually did. Nothing else had changed from doing it's normal way of doing things. Unless you counted Aspen constantly thinking about the event that had happened earlier, at the beginning of the day, then that counts.

"Still sucks here." Aspen muttered, looking at the building as they left, long after their last free breath of air while on lunch. "Things never change,  do they?"

They turned on a random Spotify playlist once they got in their car,  tossing their work bag into the passenger seat of the car. They sighed, turning the key to their car a few times to get it to start.

"At least I have my car, right?" Aspen muttered to themselves,  backing out of the parking spot before having to halt to a stop, with their coworker Tammy trying to get out of the parking lot.  They heard indistinct yelling,  a car horn,  and then screeching tires.

'They never fail to amaze me.' Aspen thought,  their green eyes staring at the road. 'I wonder what goes on in the small mind they possess. '

They left the parking lot,  just letting their thoughts whizz by as they pleased,  in fear they would focus on the bad of the day. The music helped,  serving as a good distraction that didn't distract Aspen from driving.

Thankfully,  the drive home was not too bad for Aspen after all. They didn't die.

They fixed themselves a quick dinner once they had changed into more comfortable clothes after getting home. The dinner in question  as really just a hot pocket,  but Aspen could care less.

They checked their plants and made sure they were alright, watering the ones whose soil was dry.  They stretched their torso out, sighing as their shoulders became less tense and relaxed.

They then watched a bit of whatever they felt like watching. Aspen knew they didn't have particularly good taste, but could care less at that moment.

Aspen went to bed once they had finished watching their show, curling up in a ball on their side underneath the warm blanket. They managed to fall asleep after twenty minutes of empty thought,  knowing the next day would be the same.

[jasonnylaura]

How can I get my money back from a binary options scam?

A binary option is similar to a normal (“vanilla”) option, where you pay a premium for the option to buy or sell an instrument at a fixed price (the exercise price – see box below for a detailed explanation). Profits or losses on vanilla options can be small or large, depending on the difference between the “exercise” price and the price of the underlying asset.

Unlike normal options, however, binary options do not fluctuate in value. Either the option is “in the money” on expiry – in which case it pays out – or it isn’t, in which case it expires worthless. Because of this binary nature, many shysters see an opportunity in selling binary options that are highly unlikely to end up in the money. They get to collect the hefty premiums, but never have to pay out.

Don’t be suckered by wild success stories

The media is part of the problem. Journalists, particularly those working at online content mills, are so desperate for content that might “go viral” and garner lots of hits that they’re quite willing to run a story with a click-bait headline without doing much (if any) background research. Take the recent tale of a 16-year-old “self-taught currency trader”, who apparently turned £150 into £60,000 in less than a year. This dubious success story was widely shared on social media without many questions being asked. Yet if we take those returns and calculate them on an annual basis, this 16-year-old’s return for the year would be 39,900%. That would literally make him the best trader of all time. So how did a 16-year-old school kid learn how to outsmart the best minds and machines on the planet, just by watching YouTube videos? As nobody asked him, sadly we’ll never know.

There was also the very recent example of Giovani , a 20-year-old medical student in Plymouth who claimed to be making six figures a month from foreign exchange trading. One major newspaper reported this month that more than 1,000 investors were sucked in by Singh’s Instagram account, which showed him posing in designer clothes with expensive cars at plush holiday resorts. Those who signed up for his services found that their trading accounts were emptied on Christmas Eve and the FCA has added him to its warning list of unauthorised traders (after the fact, unfortunately). But what the paper doesn’t mention in this particular piece is that Singh’s “success” was first reported on its own website in breathless, no-questions-asked fashion, in November, just a month before it all went horribly wrong.

This aggravates me because, as a genuine trader, I work hard to make profits and I know what it takes. I also don’t like to see people being conned. So I want to unpack this story for you, so that you don’t end up falling for one of these scams or something similar.

How does the binary-options scam work?

There is a reason why so many gentlemen (it’s usually men) in their early 20s now apparently own private jets, luxury cars and slick watches. It just may not be because they’ve cracked the financial markets as they claim. As Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s business partner, puts it: “Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome”. There are many reputable financial-trading firms and brokerages out there. However, many – ones that I would describe as “bucket shops” – are not so reputable. Spread-betting firms typically make their money on the spread (the gap between the buying price and the selling price) and the commission paid by their clients. So their business model does not benefit from losing traders.

However, many brokers know that a losing trader can be very profitable – for them. If you know that 90% of traders will lose all of their money within six months, what do you do? Simply take the other side of the trade. When Johnny Punter buys, the broker sells. And when Johnny Punter wishes to cover his losses, the broker buys and collects the profit.

Unprofitable traders are so profitable for many a bucket shop that they will pay handsome introduction fees for new traders. Therein lies the incentive. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually making any money from your trading – if you can get even a £20 incentive for every trader who signs up with the minimum deposit of a few hundred pounds, then you only need to sign up 1,000 people a month to make £20,000. And the reality is that these brokers aren’t offering just £20 for new clients – they’re offering hundreds. I know they do, because I’ve been offered it.

The Pied Pipers of foreign exchange

If you’re not a successful trader, the next best thing is to fake it. A quick Google search reveals that you can rent a Lamborghini Huracan for four days at a price of £2,500. This is fairly steep – but you can rent a Lamborghini Gallardo for two days for £1,590. Two days is more than enough for a wannabe forex guru to take hundreds of snaps in different outfits, parking in fancy residential estates that they don’t live in and overall giving the impression over several months that they really do own a six-figure supercar. And of course, there are plenty of places to hunt down a cheap, out-of-season stay at a luxurious five-star hotel, where they can do exactly the same. Then they just pop it all on social media and wait for eager punters to line up to sign up with their “exclusive broker”.

Many brokers offer demo accounts, in which case the “guru” can just repeatedly put on ten trades in a row, come out with winners, then screenshot it and post it on Instagram. If even that is too difficult a task, then it’s a simple matter to fake the picture instead using image manipulation software and post that. With “evidence” of their success sorted out, the trader then promotes their wares with promises of “signals” that have 90% success rates, alongside key phrases such as “no risk” and “guaranteed profit”. Most informed investors realize that if a magic money-making machine did exist it would be owned by a private hedge fund, never to see the light of day. So anyone who actually believes that a 20-year-old student could pull this off is ideal bait – inexperienced, naive and potentially desperate.

The scam also succeeds because of how victims feel when they finally realize they’ve been suckered. Most don’t tell anyone because they feel foolish and want to save face. But also, they know (or rapidly learn) that there is very little the police can do. The banning of the sale of binary options was a step in the right direction. But now the traders of Instagram simply give away their “signals” to trade these options for free. And many bucket-shop brokers are overseas – often they’re not even doing anything illegal in the country in which they operate (although equally often the traders in question will imply that the bucket shop is a reputable UK-based and regulated institution, or lie flat out).

There are even operators who will manipulate the punter’s account in order to make them believe they are winning and then call on them to deposit more money. Then, when the client finally wishes to withdraw, the company goes cold and refers them to the small print, in which it says that the client must trade through an impossible amount of money just to be allowed to withdraw. Other brokers allow the affiliate to widen the spread to maximize their own commission and increase losses for their clients. We look at ways to avoid being scammed in the box below, but in short, as always – if it looks too good to be true, it is.

Can I trust Binary option scam reviews?

Is there a scam behind "Forex Binary Options" trading?

How do I go about recovering money from a Forex scam?

What is the best way to get my money back from an internet scam?

How can I recover my funds on binary options?

How can I get back my lost money from a scammer?

Alienmanhackers.xyz assists individuals and corporates around the world. They are able to use tools which are available in both UK and foreign jurisdictions to secure the best outcome for clients. With the help of a friend was able to recover the sum of 42,000GBP which was stolen under the pretense of investment.

[th3okamid3mon]

Gisaengchung (Parasites) [SPOILERS]

A lovely tale on why you shouldn´t trust people!

Sinopsis: 

A family barely subsists in a basement they call home. Unemployed and at the border of misery, a job opportunity is presented to the older son Gi Woo, which consists on giving english classes to the daughter of a high class family. Step by step he gains the trust of the owner and begins to introduce his own family as workers in hopes of getting more money from them. 

Writing and characters (+some acting):

I am not very familiar of Korean movies, I´ve heard about some good movies but never actually watch any from the country. Now, I´ve heard about Bong Joon-Ho since I watch one of his previews works called Snowpiercer and even though that kind of movie is not exactly my favorite I have to admit it was really well written and the visuals were really creepy but pretty in some twisted way. 

Gisaenchung´s story is really well thought, all the details fit together like a puzzle of 500 pieces or more. It had to be meticulously written so to make some sort of sense and even then some things dont make so much sense, but Joon-Ho has a cover: this movies is a drama, suspense and dark humor movie. When you have a super dramatic rich family with their over the top reactions and mannerisms in an only drama movie it would be seen as a joke if they were trying to look serious or be taken seriously, in this case works perfectly since they are used as comic relief, specifically the rich mom being the most gullible and most dramatic of all. Their purpose is accomplish perfectly and the sheer dumb and naive nature of the mother works in favor of our bunch of vermin. 

It is a very understandable and digestible plot: you have a poor family of scammers, they get an opportunity to scam a family, they proceed to scam the rich family by pretending to be strangers to each other and working as a house keeper, a driver and 2 teachers, and then they get discovered. At the simplicity it doesnt sound that entertaining I suppose, everything in between is simple yet complex and then it goes into fucked up territory almost from 10 to 110 really quick. 

This family are assholes! Like... Complete assholes, the name of the movie is after them! They take advantage of a character that is super anxious about her children and is super naive and is really lonely because of his husband leaving for work a lot and completely destroy 2 lives in the process too! They get the husband´s driver fired by framing him as a sex addict with a kink and the housekeeper is fired by making her look like a tuberculosis patient. This people are awful! They are manipulative, dangerous, assholes! And yet... you kind of root for them? That´s how good the writing is. You know they are awful, you know they are manipulative. Hell, at the beginning they use manipulation to probably get someone fire and get money from a small pizza company they work for as box benders. AND THEY FUCKED UP AT LEAST A QUARTER OF THOSE BOXES! They are not good! 

...But who can blame them for being like that? They are living in a really bad situation, they are stealing wifi from a neighbor so they can check a WhatsApp to see if the pizza place send them a message. They were talented at sports, the daughter knows how to work with programs like photoshop and probably other types, the son is really smart reason why he was given the job as an english teacher and to be honest he is kind of good at it. They are not lazy people. The situation is not good for them and they can´t exactly get a good job due to not having a degree. It´s actually kind of sad to see their potential being wasted due to their economic situation. Of course anyone would survive in however manner they can, even if that makes them a bad person in the process. 

You have a rich family that supports and loves their children, shown as getting both of them private ¨teachers¨ (not enough love I guess, due to not fucking checking this people up in the first place and only trusting the recommendations of a college student). They aren´t bad people, they treat their workers fairly and they respect them and when there´s reason to fire someone they try to do so respectfully as not to damage their reputation or shame them (so much). You should feel sorry for them because they are so nice and are being scammed but you can´t shake the feeling that they kind of deserve it for being so naive. Well, at least not the children, those kids have 0 control over who their parents choose. THE PARENTS ARE SO DAMN DUMB! The mother specially! So anxious about your children learning and exploiting their talents but not so anxious to get the first whoever that crosses your ears? You feel bad, for them and maybe you dont get angry, they antics are not anger inducing, they are hilarious because, as i explain before, they over react A LOT. I don´t know if that was a directors decision or if the actors did what they pleased, they fit too well in the scene to not be planned.

One thing that stood out to me were the dialogues, they made sense but they became a bit descriptive in certain points.There were really good silent scenes, there was a good balance between dialogues and silence, though I don´t know why I felt certain dialogues were too much? Maybe it was with their reactions as well, Korean and older Mexican movies have a thing in common and that´s a level of exaggeration. Sometimes it´s good, sometimes it gets the spotlight and not in a good sense. With the rich family there was no problem, it was with certain characters like the daughter of the scam family that overreact in one scene. Since they were drunk it kind of made sense but it there wasn´t exactly a follow up of his outburst. it passed relatively quick so it wasn´t much of a problem. 

Sound and music: 

The dialogues were well said, there was no difference in volumes and it had no noise. The silent parts had a good sound, whether it was background noises or music, it never felt out of place. The sounds were actually relaxing at some point, specially with the rain or water flowing. It had a good crispiness on them, they sounded natural and not manufacture with materials. The music wasn´t over used or overbearing, it was mostly in the background. It wasn´t almost present in certain scenes, you could hear it but it was very low. It didn´t had weird spikes and it was kind of nice. Not exactly the most memorable. 

Photography and art: 

First... Some examples:

I mean... WOW. The different lights, the shadows, the colors, the difference in lighting from each set. EVERYTHING IS GORGEOUS. Easily identifiable, with that I mean if you see this screenshots you would probably recognize them immediately. I don´t know how original the setting is from other movies but MAN is it gorgeous. The shots are most of the time open, details are hidden in the background (even when they can be a bit blurry, sometimes there something behind), the lighting is the first thing you´ll notice. There´s so much contrast between the highlights and shadows, even though most of them are not really strong. 

The colors schemes for each place are not entirely different, I think the reason is they wanted to portray that both families have certain similarities, mostly the only difference being the living situation. It´s really interesting how you can find warm colors in both families, they all love each other, both families support each other and their interests. The parents praise their children (even though the scam family probably shouldn´t praise illegality but, meh...at that point it can be consider too late)  

The art department went OFF with this one. You can feel the filthiness and close space they live in, their living situation is bad but they manage. The other family is clean and clear and it has to be perfect that way. I think there were 2 parts where they work even harder. 

(This is a kind of Spoiler for the end) When they use blood, it tends to look fake in some movies, in here it looks really, really red and dark. The makeup for the strangled neck also was a nice touch and look really good. 

The other part I think was really well accomplish and that also might have taken FOR EVER TO MAKE IT WORK, was the flood, because it not only involved flooding and ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD, it involved a toilet spewing black water out as if it was puking. How did they manage to do all that? HOW MUCH WAS THE BUDGET? Geez, How many TAKES TOOK TO ACCOMPLISH THAT?! It look hella gross and the way it was spewing water was very realistic. 

There´s an entire sequence where three members of the family gets out of the rich house and walks towards their home and each step they take they descend even more, but that´s not all, it is raining and water is flowing and pouring, it looks fantastic and the neighborhood gets flooded and there´s stuff out getting fucked over. The makeup and the art design were crazy here, I wish and hope and pray they got paid well because MY GOD this was hard work at its finest. 

Conclusion: 

I need to watch more of this foreign movies and so do you! If you haven´t seen any movie out of Hollywood, you should do so. Maybe this one is a bit too much though. It goes well but there are certain parts that are a bit slow and then it goes fast and then slow again, it can be a rollercoaster and I´d be lying if i wasn´t expecting the movie to finally end. It is entertaining and it isn´t that long (2:12 hours), it doesn´t have any popular references. This movie was thought to be seen by an international audience. If you as an USA Citizen (´cause I´m not calling you Americans, America isn´t a country and USA is not the center of it) feel uncomfortable to be shown or for your culture be mock, well TOO BAD GET USED TO IT! Nah, I´m kidding. The kid in the movie has an obsession with indians and the family acts like USA is like high standard but in a mocking kind of way? My brother actually thought it was a Get Out situation so... 

This movie has a perfect blend of suspense and humor, the drama is palpable, it is there, the suspense and dark humor are the spotlight though. The actors are really good and the dialogues are not complicated to follow. It is pretty funny, heartwhrenching at points (specially the end) and entertaining movie, if you want to start watching foreign films you could start with this one. 

The worst part of the story is that both sides are right to react the way they did, and it´s kind of sad. 

This is what I took from it:  Poor or rich, it doesn´t matter. People are humans and they all have needs. And those needs will be satisfied one way or another. When you have a family, You will do whatever it takes to make them happy and sometimes drastic measures will be used. 

Go watch it, you won´t regret it. 

-Sincerely creeped out, T.O.D 

[rueco1]

Future Fairytales for an Internet Age

One day, I received a DM on the Insta. Knowing that most DMs, unsolicited are scammers trying to get your money in some way, I decided to play. They asked to take if off Insta, but they had come through on a person of notes blue check marked Insta profile as a message, which piqued my curiosity, not going to lie, as I had never sent a message or commented on any of their posts. They obviously were watching me, because they said that I had liked a lot of their posts, which was true.

Backstory: I used to be an administrator for several webpages over the years, where I would have to hand out justice to trolls, this is basically the same, so I came to play.

As I went into this conversation with this person, who was fronting to be someone famous, I have dealt with folks in various industries, in various facets. I also have worked for an internet hosting provider and have built and administered websites. I understand the basics of the internet, how domains work, what drives an email, et cetera, this is ALL crucial to this tale and hopefully is educational to some folks who are unaware of such things.

Back to the story.

They started innocently enough, with general questions about their work and my thoughts on that and that they had work dropping and if I had purchased that and sent me to what appeared to be a legitimate site. Once we slid over to chat, on a different platform, They tried to charm me, and also love bomb me, which really gets my hackles up, seriously, if you don’t have enough gravitas, why are you trying to sweep me off my feet? Do I strike you as some simple flower waiting to be plucked? Well then, the joke is on you.

As I said, it was all, love, light and flowers, so many flowers, so many I love yous. FYI RED FLAGs to those who don’t know better. In response, I was always, I can only be your friend, because proper expectations should always be set, when dealing with folks, even scammers, because you have to work from a point of believability in order to gain their trust.  I learned this skill from my monster to other folks, mother, mine was a psychopath, so monster.

I learned from a fairly adept mistress of the art of deception and denial. She always painted a pretty picture and illusion, for some hapless man to fall for, hook, line and sinker.  I was always stunned at how gullible they were, if I can see right through her, why couldn’t you? Because the lie is easier to swallow than the simple truth and to live in denial, was the fairytale.

Do I believe these are valuable talents? Do I believe we should operate from this construct? No, but if you got the skills and someone is trying to take you for something, then by all means, scam the scammer, whack the troll and show them the mirror, which is what I intended to do.

I let the line run, let the fish play themselves out, waiting for the reveal and hook to set.  I might hate fishing, because I have no patience for it, but in this instance, spinning a tale from threads of truth was actually quite entertaining.  I also learned a heaping helping about myself in the process and some of the spots, I had yet to heal from aforementioned childhood and relationships.

Love bomb, love bomb, oh wait, she is not responding, they pivot to asking about essentials, did you sleep? Have you eaten? If so, what? How much? I had requested they stop that non-sense, as I could not ever reciprocate, from a purely online relationship, it would only ever be friendship.

They asked for an address, I would fly off the handle and rip them to shreds (because I have well known trust issues and I may have leaned into that narrative). They assured me they could do nothing with my address, it wasn’t like they were asking for my bank info. I still laugh at that.

We discussed things, things that folks may or may not know, whether true or not. My life is on my blog, I have not hidden any of my demons, I am quite upfront with all who know me, what they are and some of them I am quite proud of, even if others disapprove, these were the things that kept me alive, truly.

They thought they knew me, they thought they could play me against myself, but oh children, it was that hook setting, they just did not see it. I never once, let myself slip into the narrative they spun, but I did have to operate from a level of belief in the web I spun, my own narrative, to achieve the authenticity to make them not see what I was doing.

They said they were sending me a gift, I had it sent to work, because trust issues. I wanted witnesses and proof of receipt.

Said package came, in discussing with one of my friends, in on this, they said to me, THAT is not inexpensive!  Apparently, the box with the worlds tiniest cake inside with flowers and butterflies costs some money. Why anyone would think to not warn me the gift would attack, would be in their best interests is beyond me, but there we were. I lifted the lid, expecting it to do something, but not outright attack me with a dozen butterflies, was at least 20 WTAFs being uttered and what fresh hell is this? (Yes, what I actually uttered).  I was completely at a loss, what game is this?

Did I eat the cake, no, I am not huge into sweets, and I am terrifically picky and snooty about it, as I bake and have standards. How could something so small be anything worth eating? I packed up the butterflies and stored the box away. I kept the shipping label, as proof. I may have yelled about the gift and how I felt attacked by the butterflies, as I was not expecting it.  They said they wanted to brighten my day and bring a smile to my face. I told them it did that, in spite of the attack.

Mainly I told stories, they told some stories, and I shared my work, because I am a writer and storyteller. They asked if I had told anyone about them, I said yes, they seemed surprised I had not told more, but honestly, I did not look for this, so I told my trusted few, who were in on it.

They wanted to meet me, they wanted to come here and buy property. They wanted me to act as their agent, I said I could not, because I am not a realtor, nor would I want to be in this market. They asked me for locations to look at, I named a few, that would meet the needs they outlined for me and an agent I knew of locally.

This went on for several weeks, each week, they proclaimed that they knew me and knew we were destined to be together (who comes up with this line?) and that we were fated to know each other and be in each other’s lives. I would eye roll and say, all I can be is your friend. They professed a love for me, unmet and I just said, I need to hear your voice, or can we video chat and I would continually get the same lame excuse, every time I asked. It was my line in the sand, proof of who they were.

The excuse, they had no phone, because the number kept getting spread around and it was a big hassle. I asked how they arranged meetings and talked with collaborators? How do you function without one? They kept swatting it away, and I kept demanding it.

They sent no photos of themselves. They only sent photos of bouquets of flowers, as if this was supposed to entice me and keep me satisfied. Sad for them, I know my worth and what my needs are, and they were not meeting them by a good country mile.

One of the last times we exchanged conversations, on the real person’s account, the account went live with a birthday party, they were sharing with their fans. This person talked to me during the whole thing like they were them, but yet, I had proof that this was in fact a lie.  This was not the first time this occurred, but this was humorous to me, nevertheless.

The day before, they casually dropped that they had purchased me a gift and were sending a copy of their latest work, which they wanted my thoughts of. They had insured it and included 500 dollars to pay me back should I need to cover anything. I told them I would not be able to pay for it, they said, it should be no more than 10 or 15, and I came back with, that is not what you just said. I told them I did not ask for this gift and I would not accept it. They got very angry at this point with me, for my refusal.

At this point I upped the ante and said, I need to meet you, they had told me that they had dreamed of me holding them and I asked that they come and visit, or that this would never happen, as I could never fall for someone I had not met. Then they said it would happen the next weekend. They would come and visit me from Europe, they would fit me into their schedule, and we would spend the day together.

They asked what that would look like, I pulled out some places I know of and take my people too, when they come to visit, to get a taste of the cities. I laid it out, sent links of local places. They said claimed to be excited about the visit and meeting me, their heart and soul mate finally!

I told them I had plans, but would work them in, they sounded a bit offended that I would “work them in” as I had plans, it was okay for them, but not me. They asked to meet my family, I said I would check.

Then decided to take a break, as if I am upset and needed time to myself, when in reality, I had a busy weekend and just did not want to deal with any of this, so I could enjoy my weekend, without putting up the charade of playing along.  (I needed a weekend off from this, as it was work at this point to continue to spin the plates in a convincing matter). The bogus tracking number and web address gave me the perfect foil for this argument.

At this point, I was weary of the daily love bombing, the flowers, the messages that I was meant to be with them, it was destined, they knew me, they knew we were designed for each other. If you have never had this happen, it is exhausting, when it is insincerely meant, because you can feel it, but you may not realize what it is you’re feeling and if you have not had this before, it could feel like love, which it is not, it is manipulation, designed to control you. I grew up with this, so I recognized this manipulation, it felt familiar in a way that instantly makes me uncomfortable, as it reminds me of my childhood and how my monster (mother) would try and get me to do things.

I then popped back on earlier than I said I would (my manipulation). They had sent messages to let me know they were trying to not offend or intrude, but they sent the messages to reconnect.  I sent a message that I was back, and I wondered if they followed up with their PA, who supposedly sent this mystery package, as to why they gave them the bogus information, which had a suspicious donation button, I did not click. In looking at the web address ending in a .ml domain name, this told me it was a MALI country code and the shipping company they claimed was shipping the non-existent package, was not based out of that country and also did not have that domain name either. And as I said before, there is no seven-digit tracking number anymore, we are way beyond that at this point, they are at minimum 12-16 digits, and I have not seen a purely numerical one either.

All these things were big red freak flags flying and I thought to myself, how many folks have no idea? How many would just take this scammer at face value? Them having spent money on a thing for them and then think nothing about this bogus package being sent to me from Italy in a 4-day window. How many folks would fall for this, because their self-esteem was so poor, they would lap up this love bombing? Have they not watched a single scam of the week offering from Netflix? How sheltered are you to not be aware that there are folks out there with nothing better to do than sit around and play a long game to get access to their account information?

For me, my training at the knee of a psychopath who pulled this sort of thing, long game, on men, for all of my childhood, and having a front row seat of a masterclass, I saw it coming, I knew what it would feel like, and it felt familiar. Eerily familiar.

I discussed this with one of my sisters, she had someone make a scam run on her, online and they eventually dropped the boom and asked for money, but their ploy was they had something happen and needed money for this “emergency”, she dropped them like a hot potato and called them on it, on the way out the door. She warned me, when I first told her about this “friendship” and I told her, I was well aware that this was more than likely a scam, but who was to say I could not enjoy it?

Back to the reconnect after time away. They said that their PA was out, and they would follow up with them in the AM, as it was very late in the evening there. They asked how I knew something went sideways, what indicated what was wrong with the tracking. I then launched into an explicit impromptu education on the workings of the internet, a domain name and how it interacts with all the pieces and what was required to operate a bogus site. 

For those that don’t know, your domain, is the address of your website. Think of it like, the White House, is actually 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, USA, but colloquially it is known as The White House and we all know where it is. Your domain name is exactly the same, the colloquial address of your website. An email address is based on a domain name, it is powered by it, if you will, so @email.com, is never really a real address, in most cases.  The rest is more nuanced and would probably blow a few fuses in the description than worth speaking to. This concludes our tiny lesson on domains and emails and internet addresses.

In having relayed this, I am then offered a job to build their website, which instantly makes me refuse, because I know they want my money, and I am certain that I would never get paid. I say no and goodnight, as I am exhausted by this. I can sense my time of commitment to this is winding down and so I just play the trust issue card hard and daily.

I ask for them to call me, to hop on a zoom chat/call, if they can’t commit to an actual phone. They said that when they get home, they’d unpack that phone and call me. I think they knew they needed to assuage my doubts and get me back on board.

They asked if the package had shown itself, I told them it had not, because I knew and they knew, but I said, there is no package, they said, no that can’t be, they acted all panicked that there was no package delivered. I told them, if it ever showed, I would let them know right away. They calmed down.

On the heels of that I asked about them coming that weekend, they assured me yes, yes, they would be there, nothing would stop them. I wished them a good night and went to bed.

Woke the next morning to more flowers and messages dripping with love and how this is meant to be. I swear they must be reading those Harlequin Romances, because this is just so saccharine sweet, it makes me ill. The day goes on and I get a message from them.  They need me to email their management and arrange a meeting. I am like what? I need to what now?

I need to email their management for a meet and greet, to arrange the trip.  I ask why? They say because of things, that they are supposed to be somewhere, and if they are popping off somewhere else, he had to let them know, and it was on me to do that. I looked up the rates for a meet and great and I flung back at them, I’m sorry, I won’t be doing that.

They came back hurt, why would you not? Do you not want to meet me? I retorted with; I am not in the habit of buying my friends. They then reminded me how much they loved me, how we were destined to be and that this was hurting them. I asked why? Why would I write to a bogus email address to inquire to a non-existent management company, that I would pay that kind of money, which I do not have, mind you, to see you?

They were pleading with me to write their management, otherwise they would not come. I then dropped the hammer.

I am angry, it was the day after the shooting in Texas, after the weekend shooting in Buffalo and the wholesale carnage and slaughter and if you followed me on Insta and kept up, you’d know I was seething at this point with rage, because I know what assault weapons do to the human body and I know what folks had to id, as a veteran, as a human, as a mother, daughter, I was righteously angry and I let all that anger out on this idiot on the other side of the chat, who thought they would play me for a payday.

It did not help that it was also the two-year anniversary of the George Floyd Murder in front of witnesses and replayed by news agencies ad nauseum, as I was certain this current set of slaughters would be.

And if I have the opportunity to turn my rage and anger into something positive, I was more than willing to channel it thusly.

I flat out told them, I would not pay to see them, I would not reach out to their agency for this, that if they were truly my friend and believed as they so stated, they would be a bloody man and do it themselves, not hide behind the skirts of a woman to do the job. That if that package ever showed up, I would send it straight back and have nothing more to do with them.

Gloves came off and I had the hook set and I reeled them in and then tossed them on the shore, not in a bucket, to die in the sun a slow and painful death.

I logged off.

I had a conversation with my sister and she said, did they write back? I said I did not know. Well now, she’d done it, because honestly, I stayed off, and now I’d have to go and check.

They had, they asked if I was alright?

I said, no, I was still angry, and it would never leave me.

They then tried again, with the I love you; I have been worried about you.

I said, it is what it is.

They told me they had indeed continued on their journey.

They then said, so you have certainly gotten the package by now?  

I said, ask your PA.

They said their PA had given them what they gave me.

I said, no and we both knew it was never coming. I then restated the bogus tracking number and email address and how this all adds up to no package.

They said, what do you mean by that?

I then encouraged them to look in the mirror and look at those they work with and think about it long and hard, because we all know it does not exist and they should be ashamed.

I then stopped chatting and turned them in, the whole conversation, to show what they were up to and make sure they got dealt with.

I also alerted the account of the person they were impersonating as well.

Now I am alerting you.

Anyone who reaches out and slides into your dms, saying all sorts of sweet things, is not sincere, without a prior relationship. Do I need to say this again?

You were not destined to meet, you are not soul mates, they are not so in love with you and have been watching you, well the watching you part might be real, but that is to size you up.

Take your photo of yourself off and replace it with an object, place or pet. This keeps the creeper accounts away.

Do NOT send money to anyone you do not actually know, and even then, don’t send money to anyone who says they know you.

Do not open unsolicited emails, especially with links or that lead to pages asking for money without the PADLOCK showing in the address bar and turned green (it is the indicator that they site has been vetted and approved for online money/information exchange.)

If it seems too good to be true, it is.

While you are special, you are not THAT special, sorry, but true.

Things I learned, I am always open to a conversation, I will engage and poke and prod and figure out what is going on, because that is who I am, the person who takes things apart to understand how they work and put them back together or toss them, if they prove defective. Machines, toys, people, the whole of my life has been this level of engagement.

Being the spectator and unwilling participant in my childhood horror show, I understand motivations and expectations. I understand how to read a room and operate accordingly. I also recognize what I am and am not willing to tolerate, period.

I work with vulnerable populations in my moonlighting gig. I know games and see them all day long. I know when I am being manipulated and I am certain some of these folks think some kind of way about me that I will let them think, until it comes time for the cold hard truth.

These are the things I learned to survive, now I turn these tools into helping me thrive in my adult life and avoid some very painful “relationships”, or players, looking to run a game. I can look back at my painful and harrowing childhood and see it for what it was and what it taught me.

I don’t look at these lessons as things that happened to me, but things that happened for me, to understand and grow from. I found a lot about myself and some landmines I still have laying about, that in solitude you cannot heal, so oddly enough, I enjoyed the exercise, but am in no big hurry to replicate it.

Again, it taught me what I was and was not comfortable with and willing to tolerate for the sake of a “friendship”.

-Namaste and surf safely folks.

[jacobcole008]

Crypto Advertisement on Facebook and Instagram

A reasonable amount of attention has been gained by cryptocurrencies, people are now investing in it and are actively searching for sites from which they can sell and buy cryptocurrencies. While a common investment tool, several social media sites have placed in place strict policies related to online cryptocurrency investment ads. The explanation is fairly straightforward: social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram have made it compulsory for businesses to obtain permission to advertise news about cryptocurrencies or other financial investments. Despite its rising success, the reason is clear that cryptocurrencies have not yet been able to be part of the mainstream. There is a great deal of fear regarding its durability and reputation.

We always presume it's all about Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, or Litecoin when we talk about cryptocurrencies. But, here, we'd like to mention that there are thousands of other useless cryptocurrencies. 

A lot of these coins are parodies or fakes. Instead of spending on their cryptocurrencies, the ROI that the businesses endorse. These businesses advertise their coins as guest posts and blogs on various websites. One of the easiest ways to invest in cryptocurrencies is to sell ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings. This makes it possible for small investors to invest and gain money in cryptocurrencies. A lot of individuals, however, fall victim to it, and many individuals have fallen prey to ICO scams. 

The main aim of coin scammers is to grow their user base, make more and more individuals use their coins, and make money out of them in exchange. Many social media outlets and other websites therefore focus on eliminating advertising for cryptocurrencies. Lately, Facebook has joined the league.

Facebook's and Instagram 's take on cryptocurrency ads:

As we have discussed above, these scams and thus social media sites that have millions of users fall victim to many people. It is very simple for cryptocurrency companies to quickly reach out to millions of people, generating a higher number of people who fall victim to scams. Therefore, some stringent steps were taken by Facebook. 

When Facebook announced the banning of advertising, the news came out in June 2018, it clarified that ads could not endorse any financial products and services associated with misleading promotional practices such as initial coin deals or cryptocurrency and binary options. 

The only goal is to guarantee that Facebook users or any other social media site are not misled or scammed.

Facebook speaks about the following as well:

Companies intending to run ads to promote cryptocurrency or cryptocurrency mining tools, or hardware or cryptocurrency investment advice, must first be eligible for it, as per the cryptocurrency goods and services advertising policy. They need Facebook approval, and once they get this approval, they will need to ensure that the commercial does not be misleading. 

But cryptocurrency news, events or payment methods or digital payment tools or even merchandise do not need authorization when it comes to an advertising promoting Blockchain. 

The crux is that businesses and marketers adhering to the company's policies will promote it on social media sites. 

Connect with the Blockchain Council today to get all of this fascinating information and updates.

[allenmendezsr]

Anti-scam Manual For Online Dating.

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/anti-scam-manual-for-online-dating/

Anti-scam Manual For Online Dating.

 Buy Now

    You have met a Russian woman on the Internet…

You are using a Russian marriage agency…

You want to ensure she is not marrying you just for Passport…

If one of those describes your situation, reading this Guide is A MUST – to not be sorry later. (This Guide will work for women from ALL Eastern European countries – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan etc.)

Every week I receive letters from men who say they would not make such expensive mistakes if they had read the Guide beforehand. 

Be forewarned: it is a jungle out there! Don’t let yourself become another victim of Internet con-artists!

Make sure the person you are talking to is FOR REAL.

But how do you go about it?

You don’t know Russia and the former Soviet Union,

You don’t speak Russian,

You know very little about the immigration rules, different types of visas, how the finances work in Russia, etc.

Fortunately, there is THE Solution:

Let’s face it: Internet is faceless.

How do you know who you are talking to?  A beautiful sincere Russian girl or hairy Boris writing beautiful letters?

There are sure ways to find it out… When you need it the most, which means – NOW.

Don’t wait until “You need it, if something seems fishy”. 

It will already be too late! You will spend lots of time and emotions (and money!) by then, and may end up heartbroken. What is worse, chances are you will make the same mistakes as other guys and destroy what was a really good and honest relationship – just because of being paranoid about scammers. 

(I am not kidding, it happens all the time – guys think they MIGHT be scammed and they start doing some – seemingly meaningful – things that would not bother a real scammer but which turn off real girls once and forever with no relationship recovery possible.)

Knowledge is power. And this Guide will empower you to make an informed decision that you would otherwise struggle to make.

Can you afford not to read it? 

If you can afford to spend a few months trying to solve the enigma of sincerity in your relationship, if you can afford to go to Russia to just find out that the person you were corresponding with is not who she said she is, if you enjoy high risk ventures and mountain climbing without a harness – well, then you probably can do without this Guide…

OK, I am serious now. Honestly, I would not recommend that ANYBODY even THINK of communicating with a woman from the former Soviet Union without reading this information. There are so many things dating agencies will never tell you about. Dating agencies don’t want you to know about scammers at all! 

But you know that they exist, this is how you happen to get across this page. Read the Guide – and you can stop worrying about them again.

I receive letters like this all the time!

I got scammed. I’m a fool. Now I have to pay back the money she stole.  thanks for your efforts, I wish I had listened.

Johnny

Don’t be like Johnny… listen up – before it’s too late!

This Guide is written in regards to Russia but it’s just as operational for any country of the former Soviet Union (Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan etc).

Find out NOW what is real and what is not.

The little money spent for this Guide can save you MONTHS and THOUSANDS – as they already did for many men who read it, and were feeling lucky they did.

Do you have an anti-virus program on your computer?

Remember the first virus you had picked up?

Remember how much time, money and effort it took to recover?

It is MUCH easier to have an anti-virus protection than reinstall the whole system. And it might be impossible to recover completely.

This Guide is your anti-virus program in your communication with your Russian bride. It is much easier to get this information now to prevent possible problems, than to recover after being burnt.

To ensure you further, I give an unconditional 60-day money-back guarantee, NO QUESTIONS ASKED – and of course you can still use your new knowledge.

I update the Guide constantly, sometimes a few times a week, according to the new information that I receive on scams. The Guide is E-book so you always have access to the latest anti-scam techniques. It is always current and up to date.

So if you decide the Guide was nothing new to you, and you will not gain from using it – write to me with your receipt number, and I will refund you the full retail price, up to the last penny. As I said, no questions asked.

Read the Guide, accumulate its power, and if for any reason whatsoever you feel that it did not do what I promised, you will get your money back.

So Order TODAY risk-free, and receive in addition to the Guide unlimited after-sale support and consultations. Ask me any question, and you will receive an answer in priority order, free of charge.

Ready to order? Click here Need more information? Read on

Who needs ANTI-SCAM GUIDE?

Men who consider the possibility of finding a Russian wife

Men who are in correspondence with a Russian woman

Men who are using services of a Russian dating agency

Men who have been scammed, and want to find out what REALLY happened to them

Men who want to be 100% confident their correspondents and relationships are genuine.

What ANTI-SCAM GUIDE can do for you?

Explain the inside mechanics of scams

List the most and less typical scam situations

Show you how to ensure you choose only honest sincere women

Show you the way to help your lady contact you with zero expense without sending money to her or her dating agency

Give advice on almost any problem situation in a relationship with a Russian woman.

Ready to order? Click here Need more information? Read on

Why ANTI-SCAM GUIDE?

Apparently, you have found yourself in a situation where you are going to be, or already are, in contact with a woman from the countries of the former Soviet Union. Right? (Otherwise, what you are doing here??)

Then ANTI-SCAM GUIDE is the right reading at the right moment.

Or else you may let yourself become attached to the wrong woman and end up with a broken heart.

And I should know – I am working in the Russian dating industry since 1999 and I have seen how the scams appeared on the scene and how they evolved during the past years. (It gets worse!) I know all the tricks in scammers books and I can see through all of them. 

The question is: can you? I fear not. This very moment YOU may be being SCAMMED.

Don’t think I am just trying to scare the hell out of you. I talk from the experience. Too many men contacted me with their stories about being scammed by a “Russian woman”. 

According my estimations, about 40% of men entering the scene of Russian-Western dating get in contact with a scammer at some stage of their search. You may be lucky and avoid being scammed, but anybody can make a mistake. Often men discover that they have been corresponding with a scammer when they have already developed strong feelings towards the “woman”. It is a heartbreaking experience.

Read what one of the men said:

I can’t begin to tell you how lucky I was to find your web site at this time. I am fairly certain that I am being scammed. I must say however that I wasn’t sure until I read your web page and its information and it sounded exactly like my situation. 

I had my doubts but until I saw your web page on the subject I had no idea it could happen to me. Thanks to your fine info source I may have discovered my error before getting burned. 

All I can say is yes, maybe I prevented myself from a large financial loss but emotionally I am suffering right now as I became quite attached to her.

The worst part about this is not only having my feelings manipulated but the fact that I nearly let go of another wonderful and sincere lady who fits your profile of an honest and traditional girl…

Robert (USA)

If such a thing should happen to you, besides losing a considerable amount of money, time and emotional investment, it can make you lose trust in women in general; and you might decide that international dating is a process where it is too difficult to succeed.

But it is very simple to get it right, believe me! There are thousands honest sincere women who will be genuinely interested in YOU!

This information will let you choose the right women and right ways of contacting them from THE VERY BEGINNING.

Russia (when I say “Russia” I actually mean all former Soviet Union, and most of known scams are originated from Belarus, Ukraine and Republic Mari-El) is famous in developing unique scam schemes, and various scams are going wild there. Once a scheme is developed, there are literally hundreds of people that implement it with their own variations.

I used to work in a promotional company that was often running free samples giveaways. While some individuals were using smartest tricks to receive as many free samples as possible (and sell them later!), many people refused to take even one – not because they did not want it but because of the fear of being scammed. In Russia if something is free, it usually means they tempt you, and you will have to pay double price in the end. People are very cautious, and if something seems to good to be true, they seldom enter such a venture. But I don’t think it’s nice to be cautious and suspicious all the time!

It’s why the ANTI-SCAM GUIDE is a must read for anyone considering the possibility of international marriage.

It gives you background, symptoms and easy-to-use solution protecting you against spending your time – and money – to eventually end in vain.

The problem is that you try to use your western experience in your relationship with females of the former Soviet Union, that is not applicable to international dating. It is like driving on the right side of the road in England: you are used to driving this way, and it was always right. At the same time you are driving on the wrong side of the road! There is virtually NO CHANCE of a safe arrival if you continue driving on the wrong side!

What you need is to know the traffic rules.

You may search for any available information on the subject of Internet dating, and read pieces of advice here and there. This is what most of the men do AFTER they have been crooked. But even after that they wonder if their new correspondents are genuine and relationship real. They have no idea how to detect a scam from the very beginning. They write me letters asking questions if I think their new acquaintance is sincere.

If men who went through a scam themselves cannot be sure if they are entering one again, imagine how difficult it will be for you to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong.

What is missing is a complete guide, how to develop your relationship with a Russian lady scam-free from the very beginning. I have put together all the little pieces of information that you need in order to ensure your new relationship is genuine and you are not wasting your time, emotions and money.

How much is this information worth for you? Some men spent as much as $3000 on scammers, and still have no clue how to choose the right woman.

But there are things that are more important than money: your time, emotional energy and peace of mind. How can you put a price on a broken heart?

After reading this information you will never worry if your new correspondent is a scammer. You will be able to make sure you start meaningful relationships  with only sincere honest girls, who are genuinely interested in you. You will never let yourself become attached to the wrong person, and end up with a broken heart.

This information explains the inside mechanics of scams to you and lists the typical scam situations. It shows you how you may get scammed without your even being aware of it!

But this is NOT the main purpose of my work.

The main purpose of this information is to free you from everyday doubts in the sincerity of your correspondents. After reading the ANTI-SCAM GUIDE you will be able to fully trust the women who are writing to you, because it will only be sincere ladies; all the scammers will leave you alone!

With my information you will have the means to help your lady to contact you with zero expense without transferring any money to her or her agency.

My information is based on experience of hundreds men who were scammed by Russian scam-artists paying the high price for a lesson in the realities of Internet dating, and enhanced by my knowledge of Russian circumstances and the industry in general. I spent considerable amount of time thinking of the way a to scam-free relationship, and have developed the complete solution.

But there is more. The information includes insider tips on succeeding with Russian women based on psychological specifics of their character. With this advice you will not only secure yourself against scammers, but will be able to get a distinctive advantage over your competitors even if they are younger, better looking and more well established in life.

Ready to order? Click here Need more information? Read on

The complete no-nonsense ANTI-SCAM GUIDE with advanced strategy for developing a scam-free relationship with a Russian Lady  will show you:

How to detect a scam;

How to ensure that you contact only honest sincere women who are genuinely interested in you;

How to make scammers leave you alone;

How to let your lady contact you with zero expense without sending her any money.

PLUS…

List of reliable local agencies and services in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus – now you have people you can trust!

I was asked all the time about services in local cities that I could recommend. The list gives you access to addresses of reliable trustworthy services that you can use in local cities for address verification, gifts and flowers delivery etc (Moscow and region, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Yoshkar-Ola, Kiev, Odessa, Lugansk, Donetsk, Minsk…+ access to addresses of my partners in 70+ other cities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus)

This list alone is worth hundreds dollars! Those are my contacts that I accumulated for 5 years! Get it as a FREE bonus.

Put your mind and heart at peace. Let yourself to be empowered by the knowledge of the experts. You do NOT need to learn from your own mistakes. Be smart and safe, and do it right from the first time.

It is NOT true that only stupid people get scammed. Some really, really clever guys can also get into a trap. Not because they are not clever enough but because of the lack of knowledge. 

For example, you know there is a huge hole in the floor covered by a carpet. Would you step on it? No. Because you know. Another guy, who does not know about the hole, would step on the carpet and fall into the trap – NOT because of his stupidity, as normally there is no danger in stepping on the carpets, this is what they are made for – but because of the lack of the knowledge.

This is what the Guide is giving to you – The Knowledge.

Ready to order? Click here Need more information? Read on

This is what readers of ANTI-SCAM GUIDE said:

I would like to personally thank you Elena for bringing the truth to people who are seeking a Russian bride, I have learned volumes of information from reading… Because of this information I now feel I have the advantage to make educated decisions, and now I know what to do and what not to do when looking for a Russian bride. The information you provide is priceless.

Michael (USA)

At this time I would like thank you for your very informative Web pages and specially to your ANTI SCAM GUIDE which helped to uncover that I was too being scammed for hundreds of dollars.

Thanking you kindly, Paul C.

After purchasing and thoroughly reading your ANTI-SCAM GUIDE, I used two methods suggested in it, and to my chagrin I discovered that my “special lady” was attempting to scam me. I had sent her $50 for emailing, but the expenses would have grown to hundreds if not thousands. I am somewhat heartbroken, but how much more heartbroken would I have been later?

Again, thank you! Sincerely yours, Todd

Dear Elena,

Your anti-scam guide is fantastic and very funny, the best reading I ever had. 

I realized after reading your scam guide, that I have been scammed, many times, I just didn’t want to believe it.

It’s something you will not admit to yourself, like for example if you were having a close relative killed in a car crash. It cannot be true, I can’t believe it, why does this happen to me?

And also being scammed is very embarrassing, you think, I am so smart, I can’t be fooled, no one could ever do such a thing to me, it only happens to others.

I searched the internet for five years, and I have been doing the same mistakes over and over again.

I have been scammed many times, let’s say 5 times, in most of the situations you are describing in your guide, I can tell you, I have been exposed to almost all the situations you describe and I have received letters that I can now say were definitely a scam.

Per Swensson (Sweden) P.S. I never give up.

I have recently purchased the anti scam guide which I think is totally righteous and down to earth. I will be reading this several times before I begin my adventure with a foreign bride. I believe that knowledge is power and fore warned is fore gained.

Owen

I just read through the Anti-Scam guide. My suggestion is that you place more emphasis on the value of the guide as a resource for smooth and easy communication. It provides not only information concerning the mechanics of setting up a good system but it also provides valuable insight into the women’s perceptions and communication needs.

I’ve just entered the waters of international dating. I’ve written a few letters and been pleased with the responses. I’ve met and fended off a scammer. In short I have been very lucky. I wish I’d found your site first.

Glenn (USA)

Dear Elena,

Congratulations on your wonderful guide! I will recommend it to to all I know who are treading this hazardous path. I thought you might be interested in a scam which I am now certain of which I am still playing along with but the scammer doesn’t yet know I am onto him/her! I initially thought it was genuine, but after one or two letters decided to do some research and came across your website. It is all so incredibly stereotypical of one of the main techniques you mention in your manual!

Thanks so much again for your book.

Kind Regards, Ray

I just have to thank you for the Anti-Scam Guide. I was suspicious at first, then after reading your guide I checked the black list and sure enough, the girl writing me was there. I was shocked at the almost identical letters. I figure this guide probably saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, even if it hurt to find out the truth.

Thanks again Mike

I LOVE your book, apart from all the really valuable information which undoubtedly saved my wallet from extinction, I found it also to be hilariously funny!

You told me things which I kind of felt but didn’t want to hear! Thank you very much! Being a professional classical musician I have strong gut feelings about things but even with feeling as though I was ‘tuned in’ to it, I feel I could still have been sucked in and sucked dry, if it wasn’t for your help.

Once again, I really appreciate your help to me and those like me who could become so skeptical we would just give up. Which would be a pity as Russian/Ukrainian women generally seem so beautiful sensual and romantic. And I am a sucker for those qualities (like most men on the planet).

Kind regards, Ray

I would like to thank you for the scam book. You have no idea how much the book helped me. Everything to the tee was followed in the scam against me. Would have scored a 100 points if it was considered a test. I am one of the lucky ones that bought the book before being taken. Later I will be updating the black list.

Thanks a million. Jeff

Anti-Scam Guide is very informative and interesting. I intend to seek a bride abroad as soon as I clear some other matters. I would recommend your guide as a first stop for anyone seeking a foreign bride though, because it as they say in USA ‘Cuts to the Quick’.

Timothy L’Innomme

Ran across you Anti-scam Guide awhile back and decided it to be an excellent investment, and it has been. Thank you so very much.

Kurt, USA

I just want to thank you for writing the ANTI-SCAM GUIDE. I am an American man 30 years old and I have been searching for a life partner for quite some time now. Just within the last few months I started reading about Russian women. I know a few American men with Russian wives and after some early difficulties (mostly culture shock) they are all very happily married and in one of the marriages the man is 58 and his wife is only 37!!!! That seems a little “extreme” to me, but they are very happy together.

I am very embarrassed to write that I was scammed by the first Russian woman that I wrote to. Your “situation #1” fits me exactly. The really bad thing is that I saw your guide a few months ago and figured “Oh I don’t need that, only a loser gets scammed.” Boy was I wrong!!! Your guide would have saved me 2 months of heartache and $600. $600. The woman wrote me beautiful letters and I almost instantly fell in love. I have to say that I don’t worry about being scammed out of the money, even though I am NOT rich she made me feel so special and I haven’t felt that good in years. Sometimes I still cry over her but after reading your guide I wonder if she was ever “for real” or not.

Please feel free to pass this along or use it as needed. I would be willing to help out any guys looking for a Russian woman from going through the heart ache that I did.

I want you to know that I have met another Russian woman on the internet. I am using alot of your advice in your anti-scam guide and am hoping that I do not have that happen to me again!!!

Douglas A. (USA)

Sounds great? Good, how can you get this information and what do you have to pay for it? You can receive instant access to this valuable information for only $24.95.

I guarantee that you will not find this complete information anywhere else. It is updated constantly, and the information is always up to date.

Remember the unconditional 60-day money back guarantee.  You cannot lose anything if you buy the Guide – but you will gain a lot.

Yes, the information in this book is worth 10 times more than the price of the e-book, and will save you hundreds $$$.

Yes, I give UNCONDITIONAL money-back guarantee: if you think the Guide did not deliver what we promised, I will pay your money back with a smile.

What you are waiting for?

This book is NOT available in bookstores.

There are thousands of sincere honest Russian ladies out there who dream to love and be loved. Do not spend your time and emotions on scammers!

  Guarantee If you have any scam-related question AFTER you have read this information, I will answer it in priority order. If your situation is special, I will help you with personal advice. But if you are then still not completely satisfied, you will get your money back.

Yours Elena Petrova

[bangkokjacknews]

Ten things the Thais need to do - IMMEDIATELY

The Thaiger Opinion Column.

#Thailand is a proud country with a rich cultural tradition. And great food. Expats and visitors have been flocking to the #LandofSmiles for a century, especially the last 20 years when tourism has surged to become a major contributor to the country’s GDP.

But the veneer of a never-ending rise in tourism numbers has lost its gloss with tourism officials, perennially optimistic and talking-up the numbers, are admitting that tourism is down some 30% this year. That’s a big drop. If you were running a business, and it lost 30% of the people walking through the door, you’d be be taking immediate and urgent action. But the rot has been setting in for a number of years and now needs urgent and radical attention if the good-ship ‘Thai Tourism’ can be turned around. It’s not just tourists either, living as an expat has become increasingly complex and expensive for many. There is a perception of “we’re not wanted here anymore” which is an uncomfortable feeling to have when you just want to enjoy living in the country you love and contribute to its economy by participating. Here are ten suggestions, published in good faith, we believe should be implemented to address key problems. Make it easier to do business Between the mountains of paperwork, public service attitude, language barriers and fierce protectionism, doing business in Thailand as a foreigner is not easy. The need to have a small army of accountants and ‘Thai Nominees’ is just a part of the problem. The endless red tape and hurdles put up by the Thai Government, and the patchy application of some of these requirements, make running a business professionally an ongoing challenge. Make it easier to apply for, and maintain, visas There are quite a few visas available for tourists and expats to come to Thailand . But the goal posts keep being shifted and the requirements continually change. Thinly-veiled corruption and variations of how the various visas are applied have made getting and maintaining a proper visa in Thailand challenging. Tourist visas would also benefit from increasing possible length of stays and reducing paperwork before and upon arrival. There is currently a waiver of visa fees for some countries. https://bangkokjack.com/2019/11/11/things-thailand-wrong-about/ A long-term resident visa would also be welcome. Given the difficulty of getting a long-term resident visa in Thailand does little attract real long-term retirees. Immigration officials, around the country, control their own local fiefdoms where the ‘guidelines’ are just guidelines and are interpreted differently on different days by different officials. Apart from confusing the expats and tourists, these systems provide lucrative opportunities for blackmail and corruption. A smile could help sometimes too. Scrap the Tourism Authority of Thailand Whilst the reasons for Thailand’s droop in tourist numbers are many and varied, the body who has been marketing Brand Thailand is the Tourism Authority of Thailand. They have made countless mis-steps and strategic errors in the past decade and must shoulder part of the responsibility for the current malaise. A proper, independent, tourist organisation with a professional, modern marketing team with international experience, not just Thais, is a must. Thailand’s ‘charm’ is no longer enough in a highly competitive world of international tourism. https://bangkokjack.com/2018/11/05/thai-tourism-industry/ Around SE Asia there are now emerging destinations that are simply doing a better job than the team at the TAT who are, like the national airline, beset with nepotism and long-termers who should have been fired a decade ago. Just about every aspect of tourism in Thailand needs to be updated, cleaned-up and improved and the TAT are just the wrong people to do it. They’ve strategically been chasing an unsustainable tourist mix and placed all their marketing eggs in few baskets, and the strategy has failed. In a world of immediate online opinion and sites like TripAdvisor, the new tourism tzars in Thailand need to have a thorough understanding of modern social media and how to effectively use it. Working under the auspices of the Department of Sports and Tourism hasn’t worked well for the TAT. The Government now needs a dedicated Department of Tourism is they are to maintain the percentage of GDP garnered from tourists. Urgently and aggressively address tourist safety The fall-out from the Phuket Boat Tragedy is still being felt and has left a poor impression of safety for tourists. A year later and what has changed? Speaking of Phuket, the shameful handling of the local lifeguard contracts has been a direct reason for drownings along the island’s west coast in recent years. The dithering of contractual arrangements and personality clashes took precedence over hiring, up-skilling and deploying a professional lifeguard service to protect beachgoers. Around the country the reports of safety lapses causing death and injury to tourists are alarming in their frequency. Tour bus crashes, boats capsizing, renting out motorbikes to unlicensed drivers and tourist attraction safety standards. Problems associated with all of these are mostly preventable. Change the company law Part of the problem of doing business in Thailand is that, no matter how good you are, you never really own the legal framework that defines your business. A foreigner can only own 49% of the shares in a Thai company. This protectionist business law is a major barrier for foreigners to invest in Thailand making it difficult, or impossible to attract additional investment or plant to sell your business down the track. There are provisions for larger enterprises to register a 100% foreign owned Board of Investment (BOI) business but these are quite complicated and expensive to set up and only available for limited industries. Agriculture and Agricultural Products Mining Ceramics and Basic Metals Light Industry Metal Products, Machinery and Transport Equipment Electronic Industry and Electric Appliances Chemicals, Paper and Plastics Services and Public Utlities Technology and Innovation Development Providing a more flexible and easier company law, with options for small to medium companies, would allow Thailand to attract a much larger number of international business people. Smile It’s meant to be the Land of Smiles. But arrive at any checkpoint or airport as you land in or depart Thailand and your first and last impressions are of unhappy, scowling immigration officials. And if you arrive at the wrong time at an airport the queues can be horrendous. The situation may be similar at any international airports around the world, but when you pin your whole brand around being a Land of Smiles, you could at least try. Now they’ve added an additional layer of checking you in and out of the country with a fingerprint and iris scan. Taking a copy of all your finger and thumb prints just adds another 30 seconds or so as you arrive and depart… multiplied by x number of tourists waiting in line. The same applies for some, probably more than in the past, of retailers who seem to spend a lot more time scrolling on their phone rather than attending to their customers these days. Some just don’t like being interrupted and, if you’re not buying, give you attitude rather than a simple acknowledgement. Address the currency To be fair there is only a limited number of levers to pull for Thai treasury officials that could ‘force’ the Thai baht to a lower value. Short of printing new currency (which would also push up inflation), there are limits to what a modern government can do in an open international currency trading world. Still, local businesses in tourist regions could take some control and reduce the ‘tourist’ prices and stop the blatant rip-offs aimed at solely extracting money from tourists’ pockets. Buy a Big Mac in the middle of Patong or Pattaya, then drive 3 kilometres away to another McDonalds and note the difference in price. Just maintaining your high prices and hoping for the best isn’t going to win new business. The two-tier pricing is also a slap in the face for tourists (and most expats) which smacks of xenophobia or greed. Even the word ‘farang’ denotes an attitude to caucasian foreigners, either of derision or as walking ATMs. Name and shame scammers Scams have been part of the tourist game forever in Thailand. Some are just a silly punt at extracting a few extra baht from unsuspecting tourists, others are down-right dangerous. When these scammers get outed and charged (rarely) the fines and punishment are often perfunctory and are not a deterrent to other would-be scammers. https://bangkokjack.com/2019/08/28/top-scams-in-thailand/ There should be a register of these annoying tourist rip-offs and schemes which is posted on some website where the ‘shame’ can act as a better deterrent using the Asian concept of ‘losing face’ as a weapon to combat scammers and prevent more from flourishing. Or simply track down punish the current scammers and fine them more often. Make it easier to buy property You see a property. You like it. You negotiate a price and want to buy it. That’s usually where it starts to get difficult. Foreigners cannot buy land or the land that their villa is sitting on. Many have got around these laws by leasing the land or forming a Thai company to do the transaction. In both cases the ‘buyer’ is never really the ‘owner’ and, whilst working reasonably well for 30 years, is still a long way around a fairly simple situation. The only winners are lawyers as they help foreign buyers navigate the labyrinth of Thai property and company law. With the law allowing foreigners to own condominiums 100% (as long as 51% of the available units in the development is owned by Thais), developers have raced to build condos to feed the foreign buyer interest in Thai property. 24 reporting of address (TM30) needs to be simplified or scrapped The requirement for foreigners to report their residential location within 24 hours of a change of address smacks of a ham-fisted Big Brother. The law applies to expats as well, forcing them to report to Immigration when they return from a weekend away or a business trip. The actual guidelines lead to more questions, rather than providing answers, and the enforcement is applied ad-hoc. If the report could be done ‘easily’ online on an effective, easy-to-use, reliable webpage or App, that would certainly help. But that’s not the case as the site is often down and not in multiple languages. Simplifying and streamlining the process of reporting where you are as a foreigner, is way overdue. We understand the security requirements for reporting non-Thais’ whereabouts but requirement to report EVERY time you sleep at another address, other than your home, is limiting and a complete over-reaction to a small problem. - The Thaiger – You can follow BangkokJack on Twitter, Instagram, & Reddit. Or join the free mailing list (top right) Please help us continue to bring the REAL NEWS - PayPal Read the full article

[xai-irie]

AFROPUNK - CHOPPA RISING: A HISTORY OF JAMAICAN TRAP DANCEHALL (*side note: I was of the impression that Rap is being derived from Reggae. Article says the opposite).

The era of the Bro god is upon us and the harbingers of its grimy culture come from an unexpected place on Jamaica’s musical map: Montego Bay. The fraternal order of Jamaican musical genres, forever dictated from Kingston, has had to purposely turn a blind eye to allow the young firebrands to self govern. The new generation has come armed with trap music, their own ideals and their own lifestyle to now create a sound that honestly represents a true island culture, with an intimacy not seen in Jamaica in recent years. Where reggae in Jamaica continues to have the edge in performance, branding and experience, the young trap dancehall patriots come with a personal truth, community representation, and a message that does not portray Jamaica in the best light. This is not the music of “darling, I will swim the deepest sea and climb the highest mountain,” but depictions of the scamming underbelly of rural townships, and of the tenets and effects of Choppa culture. Operating on the fringes of tradition, both musically and geographically, trap dancehall is the sound of now, carving its own place in history.

Though, of course, there are musical, historical and cultural antecedents of how the Jamaican trap dancehall sound and this chop lifestyle came about. It’s in the cyclical way that the island’s great music industry and criminal elements deal with American culture — taking what they need and remaking for self — and in the alternative economies, literal and cultural, that have always flourished in JA. Though maybe not where they are flourishing now.

Back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s, the illegal trade of choice in the Jamaican underworld was drug smuggling. It was a very lucrative business, with marijuana and cocaine the choice products, and multiple jobs needing to be filled, allowing those with access to, as Jamaicans put it, “eat a food.” Financiers of the operations made the most money, but rural farmers and packers of the product, warehousers, drivers, shippers, ‘mules’, and a whole host of bribed officials in organisation’s supply chain also profited. In its heyday, Jamaican reggae music engaged with the smuggling culture, highlighting this ‘hustling’ in both the lyrics of songs and sometimes even the demeanour of the artists. Marijuana, already synonymous with Jamaica since the earliest days of Rastafarians in music, was represented more broadly, eclipsing the prominence of cocaine smuggling, whose use was — and still is — publicly frowned upon in Jamaica. Reggae music legends such as Eek-A-Mouse, John Holt and Sugar Minott all had ganja smuggling anthems. Notably, the narrative of these songs seldom, if ever, represented the position of the financier, almost always focusing on a protagonist in abject poverty forced to traffic marijuana. The hustler represented a ‘noble profession,’ the lyrics often depicting his transporting and delivering the ganja to lawyers, doctors and police officers, playing the role of a hero of sorts. It would be extremely naive to say none of the musicians at the time were not personally involved in this business in some capacity or that the lyrics were just the work of clever imagination.

Prior to such current-event narratives and outlets for the microcosms of Jamaican culture, the island’s music had an intimate relationship with American soul and rhythm and blues. In the mid-1960’s, American music began to gain traction in Jamaica, eclipsing music from England, which Jamaica had recently gained independence from. In 1965, Britain restricted immigration from its former Black colonies, while America opened its doors. A close geographic and new immigration relationship allowed for a faster, easier exchange of music than with the U.K. Jamaicans were also present at the source of this music in Philadelphia, represented by Thom Bell, an instrumental figure in the Philadelphia Soul powerhouse of Gamble and Huff, who was born in Kingston. Inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Bell produced music for The Delfonics, The Spinners, Elton John, and a plethora of other artists and bands who were familiar voices on Jamaican sound systems and radio waves.

With soul and R&B invading the keen ears of talented Jamaican musicians, R&B engaged reggae at the forefront of the island’s pop music. Beres Hammond’s 1976 album “Soul, Reggae and More”, helped to showcase soul, R&B and reggae in Jamaica at the time in an audible mirror of styles. However, the amalgamation of the three genres became its own subculture. Jamaican producers and record collectors adopted the fetish of making and collecting rare reggae covers of popular RnB songs. This was serious business in the sound system arena and those who are serious collectors will still pay top dollar if they heard a cover of The Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New” was done by The Heptones and limited to 10 vinyl copies. This new culture ran concurrently and even mixed with the reggae of culture/protest/current events.

In contemporary Kingston, metropolitan adults are encouraged to own stocks in the Jamaican and world markets, are pounced upon by banks to adopt credit cards, and drive Porsches and Ferraris, albeit at short distances on the few good strips of roads. Jagged shards of the first world haphazardly pierce the surface, while the criminal underworld has also updated itself. In an era where self-styled entrepreneurs become one-minute public speakers via instagram, it has turned to so-called lottery scamming, as it’s “grab ‘n’ go” parallel. The practice has hit its peak and is flourishing, with mostly U.S. senior citizens bank accounts and young Jamaican lives, on the losing end. Lottery scamming — scamming for short — is quite simple in theory: call a contact, dupe them into thinking they’ve won large sums of money or valuable prizes through a lottery they think they’ve entered years ago, and have them pay clearance fees to receive the cash/gift.

First made popular locally in Montego Bay and surrounding western Jamaica parishes often spoken of only as farming locations, scamming has forced itself into the criminal spotlight. It gained national notoriety around 2011-12, by which time an Anti Lottery Scam Task Force had already been formed by the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and the U.S. government opened an F.B.I. office in Jamaica to help tackle a scourge that was causing American citizens to lose their retirement funds. Scamming does not require producing/acquiring a physical product beforehand and the gatekeeping and hierarchy can be levelled by cash, so to the uninitiated the barrier to entry is almost an open gate. It can be done fairly independently, essentially with just a mobile phone, lead-sheets (contact/client background information) and phone credit.

The open arms of Jamaican music initially received a taste of scammer culture around 2012, via an honourable mention on “Reparation,” by then-recently incarcerated dancehall MVP, Vybz Kartel with Gaza Slim on hook duties. Thus, what was once considered a rural, illicit lifestyle, got its first national co-sign with a basic explanation of stakeholders, rationale, and caveats that give it a semblance of a moral code. Noticed and acclaimed by a minority, this milestone was silently placed on the back burner, because, at the time, Jamaicans en masse were consuming top of the pop artists like Drake and Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Major Lazer. Almost every new Jamiacan hip-hop mix circa 2012 contained a pop song like Psy’s “Gangnam Style” followed by a Jamaican interpretation (Elephant Man’s “Badman Style”). Every quick-thinking producer in Jamaica was copying this style of EDM, while young adults and teenagers throughout the island were into anything touched by Lex Luger, Mike Will, Zaytoven, Clams Casino; Young Thug, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Juicy J, A$AP Mob and Joey Badass.

Jamaica has always consumed hip-hop/rap culture, a borderline-uncomfortable influence as evidenced by early-2000s artists in a tropical climate donning white tees and basketball jerseys. Around 2015 those consumers started to become notable creators, at the same time that Major Lazer & DJ Snake’s “Lean On” put the pop spotlight on the music of the Global South, a favorable opportunity for Jamaica that local producers jumped on. Repeating the 1970’s, Jamaicans were again present at the studio controls, represented this time by Supa Dups and Stephen McGregor who produced and co-wrote Drake’s “Controlla” and Drake/Rihanna’s “Too Good,” songs that charted in the U.S. Top 20 in 2016. There was also no shortage of Jamaican vocal remixes of dancehall-infused smashes like Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” or Rihanna’s “Work.” Young Jamaican producers who’d been ardently listening to trap music for the past four years were put back on the path to create an amalgamation of styles native to the island with EDM characteristics for hip-hop audiences.

The music scene in Kingston had become increasingly divided for younger producers, with separate spaces for traditional reggae, neo-reggae, dancehall and soca, and an emphasis on neo-reggae/dub events. Innovation happened when younger producers put the trap elements and aesthetic into a blender with dancehall and reggae and shared their creations within their own circles — or on Soundcloud. Two of the earliest proponents of this trap dancehall in Kingston were promoters Stamma and Laty Kim. In mid-2015, they began an event called ”The Listening Party,” geared towards new projects by young producers and artists where each would present their riddims, edits, remixes and songs. This offered community for producers who needed support for their untested creative output. Recommendations for producers started coming at Stamma and Laty from attendees impressed with the first staging.

I attended the second “Listening Party” in September 2015, with Gavsborg and Shanique Marie who were asked to play a part in the show. My main takeaway was that all the young producers were making trap music, but with local flavors. They made edits with Beenie Man and Bob Marley cushioned by instruments familiar to jazz, with soft sounds, teasing playful synths on top of hard snares, punchy drums and 808s that they understood to be the sound of trap in recent years. Producers who stood out — Tessellated, JLL and KRS — have all now made their own mark, using those elements and aesthetics to develop the “ChillTrap-JazzHall” sound favoured by Kranium (produced by JLL) and by Apple for their AirPod ads (in the case of Tessellated). Others like KINGBNJMN shared in this aesthetic, sometimes including more trap elements like triplet hi-hats, which eventually landed him production credits on Future’s HNDRXX. And while all of these producers were eventually endorsed by Soulection in some way, almost none of this music made a drastic tear in the fabric of what’s known to Jamaicans as dancehall.

Around the same time, scamming, also called dialing, was in a hyperactive phase in Montego Bay and rural western communities, attracting all the collateral damage that comes with criminal territory. Murders of alleged major players, popular Jamaican DJs and producers being implicated and American Feds trying to extradite suspects by the tens. The soundtrack to this chaos was provided by Young Thug, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Juicy J, etc; but also by local artists, such as Ryme Minista, Shane E and TeeJay. Alongside StarzPlus Music, they did a lot of the musical groundwork to put Montego Bay in the spotlight, administering a litmus test for independent music in parishes outside Kingston. Support was abundant in Montego Bay, as rural areas in Jamaica provide more tight-knit, intimate communities, which also draw on the encouragement of surrounding parishes. What Montego Bay lacked was outlets for exposure to enable artists to grow and sustain careers: national radio stations, well-known events and dances, or access to other popular artists and producers, who are almost exclusively concentrated in Kingston, the hub of the nation’s music industry.

But with the rise of the scammer, a creative career could be helped within a single parish by 17- and 18-year old kids with millions of dollars in disposable income. In keeping up with their favorite music, one song in particular appeared to connect with the entire region, Lil Wayne and Drake’s “Grindin.” This was the riddim on which in 2015 TeeJay recorded the grim “Buss Head,” which shot him to notoriety beyond Montego Bay and western Jamaica. (“Buss Head” was the term then that you would address someone by when you saw them on the street.) Shortly after TeeJay’s release, another popped up out of the woodwork, with even more cultural impact. “Big Money Poppin’,” by Xklusive from St. Ann, another rural parish, had the telling chorus ‘Scamma dem deh yah!’ The controversial song instigated so much discourse, Xklusive was given a profile and interview on Entertainment Report, one of the prime shows on the national Television Jamaica network. In all interviews Xklusive cleverly and vehemently denied the song was in support of lottery scammers. Despite his denial, “Big Money Poppin’” was the first true scammer anthem.

I grew up in Savanna-La-Mar, Westmoreland, one of the rural western parishes. Around 2008 I started to witness firsthand the embodiment of a phrase popular among some of the less progressive, under-exposed Jamaicans. “Ghetto yute fi have tings,” literally means, “youths from the ghetto should have things.” In the towns of these rural parishes, you could find young men, clad in colourful Polo Ralph Lauren gear (not dissimilar to the Lo Lifes) popping in and out of a Western Union or MoneyGram offices. They drove squeaky clean, modified Toyota 110’s, most times with custom car sound systems, BMWs, and other high-end vehicles. They always showed overabundant patronage to locals, purchase multiple tickets to events, buying up all the top-shelf liquor at bars, or beers by the crate, and turning grandiose money pull-ups into an attraction. It’s not unlikely that you could turn up to an event an hour after it had begun, and the bar would have been a victim of their braff. This fast, boastful lifestyle has historically been marred by setbacks of the same scale. In a once-quiet region of Jamaica, guns were now in the hands of the young and the reckless, and murder was commonplace. The inner machinations, faculties and vernacular of this new Jamaican underworld could be best explained by a scammer — the methods of the practice mutating as quickly as investigators can keep up.

Over the years, it has become its own culture, with its own vocabulary, dresscode, vehicle choices and lifestyle. While the Grammy eyeing music industry in Jamaica was busy trying to create the next “Lean On” or “Work,” the highly impressionable youth of western Jamaica were listening to absolutely anything from Vybz Kartel or Alkaline, and hip-hop that reflected and reinforced the lifestyles around them, artists like O.T. Genasis, Bobby Shmurda and Young Thug delivering illusions of grandeur and danger, on a trap platter. This wasn’t a new phenomenon, but now those influenced by it had the means to easily act on the inspiration. While other Jamaican artists were steadily releasing songs on trap riddims with no intent to embody trap, youngsters in the western parishes were about to make it the hallmark of their sound. Tanto Blacks, and later Aidonia was evidence that, like with the jerseys in the early 2000s, this trap culture was being adopted.

With Xklusive having created a viral hit on the topic of scamming, TeeJay now a name hot on the Kingston circuit, and Vybz Kartel’s never-forgotten co-sign, artists in Montego Bay and western Jamaica were energised. Backed by unwavering support and the ability to operate locally, they gave themselves creative license to represent a culture almost exclusive to them. Since it was unfeasible to keep using instrumentals from hip-hop/trap favorites, producers staffing the Mo-Bay machine tried to reflect the American trap, and eventually even the same artwork style was adopted. Montego Bay continued to do its own thing and less than two years after Xklusive’s song went viral, Rygin King and Squash rose to prominence to defy parish boundaries. Their music was a window into their lives and the lives of members of their communities, dialers, representing their aspirations, the lavishness of their carefree lifestyle, and its bloody collateral damage. The trap-packaged songs were gaining traction in western Jamaica and one song, Rygin King’s “Learn” became familiar island-wide. It’s a tale of struggle, canonical to the Jamaican ghetto experience, broken into an ode of betrayal by friends and a dismissal of anyone standing in King’s way. Squash’s “Life Story” used the same riddim, serving as an autobiography, chronicling how the youth in volatile communities, void of opportunity, adopt scamming and the deadly consequences. By the time these singles were hitting eager listeners, Squash had already released multiple singles that were apparently loved in Trinidad.

Things started to make sense in 2017 when the fast-rising Montego Bay proponents of trap organized, defined their allegiances, and titled their movements and crews. They now represented more than themselves. In January 2017, Justin Blake Productions and A Wah Suhh TV premiered an independent ‘documentary’/profile on Squash made in his community of Salt Spring, Montego Bay, otherwise known as G City. In standard Jamaican fashion, Squash gave next-to no concrete information to the interviewer, but where his transparency failed, the documentary revealed his community, the crucial local support of family and friends, and established the identity of the now infamous 6ix. This was his proof of address and last three payslips.

Squash now represented The Six (6ix), while Rygin King claimed the Dunce Thugs, leading two different mind-states united by music and community, later revealing their personalities and lifestyles in their songs. Squash’s single of later that year, “Shooting Mood,” reflected his more dangerous persona, and was again a big deal on Trinidad’s dancehall scene; but in Jamaica the song making waves was “Lavish.” It was again recognised by the dialers, who had now upgraded from the humble Toyota 110s, with Squash opening the song by acknowledging the line of new Toyotas (Axio, Voxy, Crown, and Mark X), the literal fleet of cars now branded as work-horses of the dialers. Maturity is evident in the heavily trap-influenced riddim, a homemade hybrid of previous heaters. Shane E, now also a major Jamaican artist in Trinidad, went on to reinforce the push to use this trap packaging with “R.A.G.E,” refining the trap riddim production.

At this time, Rygin King was putting out a steady stream of singles, when he pulled a fast one, returning to his conscious roots as Magnum Kings and Queens contestant Jah B (circa 2013), releasing “How Me Grow.” By shedding the trap packaging, Rygin King grabbed the attention of the nation, verbalising his harsh upbringing. His hybrid of being both on- and off-key, as well as his earnest crooning and audible passion, were important elements in conveying this modern trope of Jamaican struggle. “How Me Grow” was Rygin King’s stage on which he presented himself and where the unforgiving gaze of Jamaica now focused. Yet he simultaneously postulated a more violent version of his upbringing with the release of ‘Paranoid’ which took listeners down his personal rabbit-hole, in trap style. It’s worth mentioning that the timing of releases by truly independent Jamaican artistes at the early stages are mostly haphazard and producer driven majority of the times.

By 2018, trap dancehall was energized and invested. Its ambassadorial roles were filled by the “One King” and the “6ix Boss” — the former as his own storyteller and chronicler of modern-day experiences in western Jamaica’s volatile communities, the latter and his movement echoing the inner machinations and exploits of the Montego Bay underworld at-large. In a move that verified The 6ix as trend-informed, Squash released “Ohh La La,” on Stefflon Don and French Montana’s “Hurting Me” riddim, and aligning his movement with music popular in the Jamaican diaspora. A few months later, Rygin King adopted the year’s lifestyle and party themes, releasing the critically acclaimed “Tuff,” the biggest song to date from the entire scene.

While the music was beginning to enjoy real success, the environment was becoming increasingly volatile — a State of Emergency was imposed in Montego Bay as a crime-reducing measure, and Squash was arrested. At the start of his incarceration ”Money Fever” was released to full “Free Six Boss” levels of support, with the 6ix movement and trap dancehall now maturing with its own professional image. Shab Don, One Time Music, Attomatic Music and Hemton Music now came to the forefront as producers championing this sound. They would command this new space in the dancehall universe independent of Kingston’s structure/policies. With no identifiable gatekeepers, the inspired rushed from other parishes as well. The young guns of Montego Bay had broken away from all safe narratives, representing Jamaica on the community-level, less generalized and macro than their neo-reggae and chill trap counterparts. Their songs blazed a trail around the island as YouTube premiers and Whats-App group-shares, distribution methods which now seemed equal to any other standard the Jamaican music business had systemised.

Other artists entered trap dancehall’s breach. Newly commissioned to The 6ix after Squash’s incarceration, Chronic Law hailed from the rural parish of St. Thomas with a lyrical profile that embodied a balance between Rygin King and Squash’s messages. Chronic Law was already familiar to the dancehall scene, and his alignment with the 6ix and subsequent release of ”Hilltop Badness” heralded his entry into the space. Yet with a mixtape and notable single under his belt, the Law Boss followed in the footsteps of Rygin King and Tessellated, abandoning the trap aesthetic and gun-toting narratives to make “Hillside,” a reflection on the need for solace. Interestingly, with this switch, artists creating “conscious music” and promoting positive ideals and idyllic peace, also instantly revert to gunman lyrics. Their duality is a Jungian thing. Chronic Law represented a life as he could afford to, which helped him gain grassroots support. He tells tales of Braffing with his Honda and Toyotas in a way even a taxi driver could identify with. Daddy1 also used this riddim to join the ranks of The 6ix, with the hit “Out Here” giving an energetic chemistry lesson on bleaching products and hyping his eclectic street fashion and lavish lifestyle. Jahvillani was also steadily on the rise, parallel to The 6ix and though having collaborated with Squash and known 6ix artists in the past, he represented his own “Wileside” crew. Jahvillani gained national notoriety with his now-infamous street anthem “Wileside Government,” but preceding that was his trap informed “Nuh Reason,” which still evokes frenzied reactions from listeners.

There were now also artists who fully represented Jamaican scammer culture. Keeping in line with the constantly morphing, confutative and simultaneously revealing scamming culture, by the end of 2018, the term “Buss Head” had been long relegated, “Bro god” became the addressing name, scamming was now affectionately known as Chopping, and the Polo and Clark’s image had additionally revealed the phenomenon of wearing rings — commonly fraudulent, Free-Masonic merchandise — given to them by obeah men and said to guard the lives of scammers. Artists like Takeova would make thematic trap dancehall representing the ‘chopper’ attire complete with the proclaimed guard rings. Ace Gawd found a viral hit by detailing his sexual exploits in the Mark X and Axios. With no validation forthcoming from Kingston, young rural Jamaican artists are successfully operating on the fringes of contemporary dancehall, representing their experiences via trap music, with Instagram and WhatsApp as proven mediums of choice. By October 2019, Montego Bay, and the rural parishes of Westmoreland, Hanover, Trelawny, St. Ann and St. Elizabeth are the United States of Chop.

Everything has come full circle. Current “mainstream” dancehall and the trap sound of the youngsters, have now combined. This sonic signatures of this hybrid can be easily broken down: Spiccato synths (strings or percussive), saw pads, scattered vocal samples, snares that have been in every “Lex Luger Sample Kit’ since 2009, and 808s with the obvious triplet hi-hat patterns. This has birthed well-received songs like Jahvillani’s ”Clarks Pon Foot” (supported by Clarks) and Vybz Kartel’s ”Any Weather”. There are currently multiple streams of dancehall in Jamaica all borrowing from each other, with trap elements being almost omni-present. The Kingston trap scene is still going strong with Stamma and Laty Kim still hosting “The Listening Party,” which is the only place I’ve been in Jamaica in 2019 and experienced producers performing with drum machines, and artistes like Iotosh making music live on stage. Tessellated juiced up another fruity blend, sticking to his rendition of Island Pop with Jada Kingdom taking vocal lead. Squash was released from lock-up earlier this year and in a powerful move, released two collaborations with Vybz Kartel. The rest is history in the making.

There is an uncomfortable truth about trap dancehall in Jamaica — besides its flirtation with the monoculture. With its originators and current viral acts acting as proponents of the lifestyles surrounding scamming, the music moves one step forward and one step back. This new genre is anchored by the shortcomings of the same forces that supported its rise and exposure. The “Cash Only” sign at each stage of production and distribution throws out the need to develop interpersonal relationships or even talent. Each new self-described “artist” procures virtually unlimited exposure but most do not continue to develop their craft or make a serious effort to record music that is more meaningful than the common topics of the scene. As Choppa lifestyle is termed “The Fast Life,” so is the career of anyone who tries to represent it, while daily chasing 15 minutes of fame. The artists champion a style of independence that does not require cooperation and where everyone is disposable. There is no physical scene, and no interdependence to bring artists, producers and audiences together. The performances by the fast rising artistes are nothing to phone home about which is where the lack of apprenticeship is seen in action. A movement like The 6ix is able to stay above the pendulum swing of the fast life by recruiting multiple dedicated artistes and producers engaging with each other

Meanwhile, the music, though often hardly impressive, represents what’s currently happening on the ground in Jamaica — in the same way that Vybz Kartel used to be its mirror image. Whatever the future holds for trap in dancehall — if there is indeed any future — it will be remembered as a music of its time, a quality which is always needed. There is only a few degrees of separation from how Jamaican artists used to incorporate Amerian soul and chronicle weed smuggling in the 70’s, complete with a representation of its own localized culture. It is a music that serves to keep Jamaicans in touch with the unnerving world outside of the safety of their homes and inside of the underbelly of how others stay alive on their own terms.

Words and photos (Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica) by Jordan “Time Cow” Chung.

Illustration by Gustavo Dao.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE https://afropunk.com/2019/10/choppa-rising-a-history-of-jamaican-trap-dancehall/

[plaintesjustifies]

Scam by email / Arnaque par mail

My mailbox is a real mess. Between the promotions for which I have no interest and the notifications of old accounts on which I don’t go anymore, a small intriguing message has gotten mixed up with this bazaars. I open the mail and I say to myself : "But what a bitch band!". And yes ! I just got an email from someone who wanted to rip me off. As for phone scams, I'll give you some clues to spot them. I don’t know how it happens in other countries so don’t hesitate to share by explaining how it’s happening in your country. Normally, mailboxes are secure enough that you don’t receive this kind of mail or it puts you in spam. Nevertheless, I have the impression that the scammers have strengthened in recent times. I will give you some tips to find them. 1 - The company I think this is the worst mistake this kind of scammer makes. For example, I received an email from Orange informing me of a payment problem ... except that I have never been a subscriber to Orange. Oops ! Well, we can suspect that it’s a message automatically sent to a set of address but if you aren’t related to the company that comes the mail then it’s likely that is a scam. 2 - The email address of the issuer Generally, the email address that you send a company is very square, even more when it comes to an automatic email. It’s therefore abnormal to see a sequence of numbers and letters without meaning or to see a name. If we take the example of Orange, it should logically use the company mailbox and it must end orange.fr or orange.com. The rest of the email address is therefore also a good indicator, even more so if it has nothing to do with the business. 3 - The name of the issuer Generally, the name of the issuer is simply that of the company. If there isn’t the name of the company, it's fishy. 4 - The title of the email A good corporate email has an explicit title that explains in a few words its content. For example, payment problem or updating of the privacy policy. If it's too vague, chances are it's a scam. 5 - The content of the email Misspellings? You really think that a serious company will send you mails full of fault. The answer is simple : no. Same for the layout. The layout must be clean and balanced to make the business appear as serious as possible. 6 - The links Don’t click on the links if you have a doubt! Personally, my anti-virus prevents me from accessing the site so one of the flagship measures that I propose is to install a good anti-virus. Otherwise, sometimes, simply by hovering over the link, it appears. Log on to a separate tab at the site where your account is and compare them by playing the game of 7 differences. The more different they are, the more you can be sure it's a scam. 7 - Verified by yourself If in doubt, go directly to your account. If the mail comes from there, you will surely see the information appear. Otherwise, it's a scam. If this isn’t possible and it’s nevertheless possible to contact them by phone, call them. This is surely the best way to be sure.

Advice : If you receive this kind of email, the best is to notify the relevant authorities. There are two choices. First, in France, you can report on https://www.signal-spam.fr/ but you must first register if it isn’t already. The second choice, which I find just as effective and sometimes even faster, is to warn the company whose scammer took the name to try to get you. They are quite receptive when it comes to scams and usually respond fairly quickly.

I don’t even wonder how they got my email. They exist data gatherings including mails and software which randomly creates mails and thus which can finally make mine by pure chance. Finally, my friends, one last message for you. Faced with incredible information, strange, sulphurous, do not forget to remain skeptical because there are things we can not doubt in our world. We can not doubt that people are lying to us. There is no doubt that people are trying to get attention to get noticed. We can not doubt that some people can create fake news just to hurt, to take revenge ...

Ma boîte mail est un vrai bordel. Entre les promotions pour lesquelles je n’ai aucun intérêt et les notifications de vieux comptes sur lesquels je ne vais plus, un petit message intriguant s’est mêlé à ce bazar. J’ouvre le mail et je me dis : « Mais quelle bande d’enfoirées ! ». Et oui ! Je viens de recevoir un mail de quelqu’un qui a voulu m’arnaquer. Comme pour les arnaques téléphoniques, je vais vous donner quelques indices pour les repérer. Je ne sais pas comment ça se passe dans les autres pays donc n’hésitez pas à partager en expliquant comment ça se passe dans votre pays. Normalement, les boîtes mail sont suffisamment sécurisé pour que vous ne receviez pas ce genre de mail ou alors il vous le mette dans les spam. Néanmoins, j’ai bien l’impression que les arnaqueurs se sont renforcée ses derniers temps. Je vais vous donner quelques astuces pour les repérer. 1 – L’entreprise Je pense que c’est la pire erreur que font ce genre d’arnaqueur. Par exemple, j’ai reçu un mail d’Orange m’informant d’un problème de paiement… sauf que je n’ai jamais été abonné à Orange. Oups ! Bon, on peut se douter que c’est un message envoyé automatiquement à un ensemble d’adresse mais si vous n’êtes pas lié à l’entreprise dont vient le mail alors il y a de grandes chances que se soit une arnaque. 2 – L’adresse mail de l’émetteur Généralement, l’adresse mail que vous envoie une entreprise est très carré, encore plus quand il s’agit d’un mail automatique. Il est donc anormal de voir une suite de chiffres et de lettres sans signification ou encore de voir un nom. Si on reprend l’exemple d’Orange, il devra logiquement se servir de la boîte mail de l’entreprise et il doit donc finir par orange.fr ou orange.com. La suite de l’adresse mail est donc aussi un bon indicateur, encore plus s'il n’a rien à voir avec l’entreprise. 3 – Le nom de l’émetteur Généralement, le nom de l’émetteur est simplement celui de l’entreprise. S'il n’y a pas le nom de l’entreprise, c’est louche. 4 – Le titre du mail Un bon mail d’entreprise possède un titre explicite qui explique en quelques mots son contenu. Par exemple, problème de paiement ou mise à jour de la politique de confidentialité. Si c’est trop vague, il y a des chances que ce soit une arnaque. 5 – Le contenu du mail Des fautes d’orthographes ? Vous pensez vraiment qu’une entreprise sérieuse vous enverrez des mails plein de faute. La réponse est simple : non. Pareil pour la mise en page. La mise en page doit être propre et équilibré pour que l’entreprise apparaisse comme la plus sérieuse possible. 6 – Les liens Ne cliquez surtout pas sur les liens si vous avez un doute ! Personnellement, mon anti-virus m’empêche d’accéder au site donc l’une des mesures phare que je vous propose est d’installer un bon anti-virus. Sinon, parfois, en passant simplement la souris sur le lien, ce dernier apparaît. Connectez-vous sur un onglet à part au site où se trouve votre compte et comparez-les en jouant au jeu des 7 différences. Plus ils sont différents, plus vous pouvez être sûr que c’est une arnaque. 7 – Vérifié par vous-même En cas de doute, allez directement sur votre compte. Si le mail vient de là, vous verrez sûrement l’information apparaître. Sinon, c’est une arnaque. Si ce n’est pas possible et qu’il est néanmoins possible de les contacter par téléphone, appelez-les. C’est sûrement le meilleur moyen d’être sûr. Conseil : Si vous recevez ce genre de mail, le mieux est d’avertir les autorités compétentes. Il y a deux choix possibles. Tout d’abord, en France, vous pouvez faire un signalement sur https://www.signal-spam.fr/ mais il faut d’abord vous inscrire si ce n’est pas déjà. Le deuxième choix, que je trouve tout aussi efficace et voir même parfois plus rapide, c’est de prévenir l’entreprise dont l’arnaqueur a pris le nom pour essayer de t’avoir. Ils sont assez réceptifs quand il s’agit d’arnaque et répondent généralement assez rapidement. Je ne me pose même pas la question de comment ils ont eu mon mail. Ils existent des rassemblements de données dont des mails et des logiciels qui créé aléatoirement des mails et donc qui peuvent finalement faire le mien par pur hasard.

Enfin, mes amis, un dernier message pour vous. Face à une information incroyable, étrange, sulfureuse, n’oubliez pas de rester sceptique car il y a des choses dont on ne peut pas douter dans notre monde. On ne peut pas douter sur le fait que des gens nous mentent. On ne peut pas douter sur le fait que des personnes essayent d’attirer l’attention pour se faire remarquer. On ne peut pas douter sur le fait que certaines personnes peuvent créer des fake news juste pour causer du tort, pour se venger…