"According to the FTC and FBI, an estimated $12.5 to $16.6 billion American dollars were lost to these scams in 2024, a more than 30% increase from the year before. It's a booming international criminal enterprise."
"It is, after all, a social media service focused on hyperlocal networks meant to be limited to just your own neighborhood or the surrounding areas, with profiles tied to legal names and concrete addresses."
"Recognizing immediately what was likely happening, I decided on the spot to go along with the deception, to see how far down the rabbit hole it would lead. What follows is my experience with what is referred to as a 'pig butchering' scam."
Pig butchering scams represent a major criminal enterprise costing Americans $12.5 to $16.6 billion in 2024, a 30% increase from the previous year. These scams operate through fake social media profiles targeting millions annually. The author, barely active on Nextdoor, received an unsolicited message from a profile named Sofia with minimal activity and stock imagery. Recognizing the deception immediately, the author chose to engage with the scammer to document the experience. Despite Nextdoor's design features—hyperlocal networks, legal name verification, and concrete addresses—the platform proved vulnerable to sophisticated social engineering tactics used by international criminal networks.
Read at Jezebel
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]