What is the point of the Nicole spam?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨moonlight@fedia.io⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Like, it can't be a real person, right? Has anyone tried following the links? I'm curious how they're scamming people. It just seems like anyone getting the same message 5 times won't fall for being catfished, so I don't understand what their strategy is.

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Oka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The strategy is to get you onto a different platform to make instant messaging easier. They are just “advertising” on Lemmy.

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- Sparkega@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  There is an effort to reterm away from the dehumanizing and victim blaming “Pig Butchering” to “Romance Baiting”.
  
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  - Oka@sopuli.xyz ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’ve updated the post to reflect this.
    
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- T156@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Easier and/or less moderated. They would be much more difficult for a moderator to track down if you’re talking with them on another platform.
  
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- HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  A good guess but so far as i can tell they dont actually message people directly outside of the initial contact. The chat rooms are barely active but ive been idling on the matrix for days and nothing.
  
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CTDummy@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The same reason a lot scam emails are riddled with typos, follow recognisable formats (eg nigerian prince) and can be easily determined as scams. If you can spot it you aren’t the mark. It’s a form of selection bias. If your recognise Nicole you probably aren’t new to Lemmy or the Fediverse and are a bad mark. I’d guess, I never followed the links, don’t generally follow links dm’d from random, days old accounts in general. Maybe Nicole truly is just thirsty for Lemmy friends and keeps getting banned lmao.

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- lordnikon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Honestly people that do recognize it for what it is should respond. Keep them talking to waste their time so they can’t hurt someone else.
  
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  - Azzu@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    But then you’re also wasting your own time.
    
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  - Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Their time is worthless, they use slave labor.
    
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  - CTDummy@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    That easier done with more involved scams like phone calls you see YouTubers do. Especially since they likely paid for that info. Places like here there no buy in so it’s a volume game i imagine. If I can’t get you to another platform to buy me stuff I’d move on to the next one quickly as possible.
    
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  - Tower@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    And if you can get them to do stupid things, you can post about it here!
    
    aff.419eater.com
    
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- null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  If you can spot it, you aren’t the mark.
  
  This doesn’t make any sense to me.
  
  Why would you deliberately make your bait less appealing to filter out the fish that might wriggle off the hook before you land them?
  
  The typo’s are in order to evade bayesian spam filters which get suspicious about certain words.
  
  The common formats are used because those are the ones that work.
  
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  - cynar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    The initial fishing is a low effort, wide net. What follows actually takes the investment of man hours and/or other resources. They would rather get 1 catch they can take all the way, than 500 where 495 will figure it out later and bail.
    
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  - CTDummy@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Because you’re selecting with people who lack experience with scam/critical thinking to figure out they’re scams.
    
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Corno@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’ve received 3 Nicole messages since I’ve been on here, each one with a different photo. I ran the photos through TinEye and Google Reverse Image Search but I found no exact matches. The photos are blurry somewhat, which implies that they are shots taken from a video, which is a method catfishers have used to evade detection.

I’ve also read that someone looked into one of the Nicole accounts, and on that account there was a photo of something shiny, and there was clearly a reflection of an old white man reflecting off the object. Once that was pointed out, the owner of the account deleted their account. So whatever the intentions are, I’m sure it’s nothing good.

I’m guessing it’s a pig butchering scam of some kind. The messages advertise other platforms, along with a Discord server that is named “hell”. The aim is to lull a person into a false sense of security via catfishing and pretending to be the victim’s friend or lover, and then pull a scam on them.

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- Pandantic@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  Someone looked into one of the Nicole accounts, and on that account there was a photo of something shiny, I believe it was a buttplug, and there was clearly a reflection of an old white man reflecting off the object.
  
  I want to know more about this!
  
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  - Decoy321@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Well, a butt plug is essentially a plug, but for your butt.
    
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- T156@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  I’ve received 3 Nicole messages since I’ve been on here, each one with a different photo. It’s weird, really weird. I ran the photos through TinEye and Google Reverse Image Search but I found no exact matches. The photos are blurry somewhat, which implies that they are shots taken from a video, which is a method catfish have used to evade detection. It’s also possible that the original photos have long been deleted (as far as I’m aware, this would contribute to evading detection) and the catfish is using this to their advantage.
  
  They could also be photos catfished from other people.
  
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PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The point is to introduce me to my future wife so stop messaging her!!

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- JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Did you call dibs?
  
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IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I think Lemmy ran out of Beans, so someone decided to make that as a joke.

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ViscloReader@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Would have been an awesome ARG if it wasn’t nothing.

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jewbacca117@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The point is I can’t even get a known scammer to talk to me :(

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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Be pretty gnarly if it turned out to be linked to a human trafficking ring or something ridiculously heinous like that.

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cabron_offsets@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
What’s the point of any scam? To make money.

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some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Nicoled@feddit.org

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