A scam warning

 A little but of a different post - I thought I'd share a bit of information about scams that do the rounds and target us.

The first one is relatively uncommon but I've had someone try to pull it three times on me.

On the apps, like Grindr, someone messages you (or you them).

They are usually very responsive and give you the impression that they're well up for meeting. Often, they talk about how they host gangbangs and parties and how they're looking for another (bottom/vers/top) guy to join and how they like the look of you and your profile.

The chat will continue for a few days before they finally move to the scam. They will tell you something like they run their parties through a website and/or they use a website to confirm that you are over the age of 18 and/or who you say you are.

They ask you to sign up to said site then provide them your login details so they can "confirm" everything.

The first red flag: almost always they are professional-grade photos that they share.

Second: They often answer at odd times (3am in the morning, for example) despite their "location" being only a few miles away from you (of course, they aren't - they spoof it).

Third: Their English may be off. The better ones are not terrible but it's often noticeable.

Fourth (and this is the big one): Ask yourself why would anyone need to know your login to a site? Have you ever even heard of this site? How long has it been around? Chances are even if they don't ask for your login, it's just a site someone set up to harvest your credit card details in plain text.

Do NOT be fooled by it looking like a professionally designed website. These people are clever.

Another common one is to get an email saying that someone has recorded you wanking off to porn and if you don't send them some money (usually in cryptocurrency) they will send it on to your contacts.

What makes this one more believable is that they usually include a password. Here's the thing - they got your email and password from a data breach. They don't have ANY access. And it may not even be your email or computer password (hopefully, you use different passwords and it won't be, but...).

It's a psychological trick to try and make you panic because you think that they have your passwords and accesses.

And the final one today is one I am less aware of with gay men but not uncommon with straight/bisexuals.

You are contacted by a woman. Eventually she will ask you to video chat and that chat will become very sexual and you'll be asked to wank off for them.

You aren't actually talking to a human in the vast number of cases. It's a very cleverly timed, pre-recorded video stream with pauses in all the right places for you to respond and fill in the gaps. Honestly until you see it in action you wouldn't believe just how well timed this all is.

But it's another one that's easy to spot and subvert with a bit of thought. Just wait. Pause. Slow down responses or throw in something that isn't relevant to the conversation. A real human will react. A recording will move on to their next piece seamlessly...

Of course, that doesn't preclude it being a person who *is* a honeytrap but that costs money and time and they cannot target mutiple people simultaneously that way, so it's rare.

That's it for now. Stay safe online.