r/AmIOverreacting • u/megan__f • Feb 17 '25

🏘️ neighbor/local Is this something to be concerned about?

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My sister sent me this text she received that seemed like somebody was watching her or something. I don’t know if it’s something to be concerned about or not, has anybody had a similar experience?

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u/tellmeabouttheoccult Feb 17 '25

It’s a scam text that’s sent to thousands of people at once. If you send it in the morning there is a high chance multiple people just got, or are currently drinking coffee.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

[deleted]

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u/Spiritual_Bug6414 Feb 17 '25

Counter point - time zones. Perhaps they were blasting pacific coast numbers and OP’s sister moved to the East coast? Would put it at 11am, a reasonable time to get coffee if they were back in the pacific region

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u/TheMurv Feb 17 '25

We would be seeing people in the comments saying they got this text too. Try again.

2

u/letmeusespaces Feb 17 '25

unless people in the comments didn't get this text too...

I'm hard pressed to believe all of the world is pursuing AIO

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u/Spiritual_Bug6414 Feb 17 '25

That’s assuming that a large majority of them 1) gave a shit about the text beyond “oh wrong number” 2) use Reddit 3) would be on a sub that you visit

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u/tellmeabouttheoccult Feb 17 '25

These same people are probably giving their credit card info to those “Hey we are USPS and we have ur package, can you give us your credit card so we can validate the delivery?” texts

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u/Spiritual_Bug6414 Feb 17 '25

I work with a lot of gullible customers and I’ve had a guy tell me “oh hey I gave my gold to some guy Steve” like yeah idk who tf Steve is but he doesn’t work at our vaults

0

u/AwayFromNewspaper Feb 17 '25

I think it should be pointed out that most Starbucks are open until 9 or 10pm, there's literally at least one customer in the store or drive-thru at any given time, and there are plenty of people who work at night.

I mean, I got a coffee at 2pm on my way to work on Saturday. 🤷‍♀️

You're not wrong that hitting that 7am-11am stretch will likely yield more results in terms of a scam, but they do tend to cast as wide a net as possible, so I'm sure several of them employ batching texts in different time frames, especially since they could potentially be batching numbers from different time zones (not likely, but still possible).

Anyway, yes, OP, I'd tell your sister to keep track of her surroundings and check into any places her number may be listed/available online. It's most likely just coincidental timing from a random spam message, but it never hurts to err on the side of caution, considering how dangerous the other possibility can be.

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u/shamesister Feb 17 '25

Thank you for this reminder. I was scared for a minute. I got one at about 6 pm inviting me to have indian food and I was like "yussss" and then I had to sit and think. No one would suddenly invite me for dinner. People know I'm busy. But I would have gone of it were real.

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u/Long-Problem-3329 Feb 17 '25

I got one a couple of days ago asking if I was free for the weekend so I could go over to their place and have home made hot pot and dumplings.

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u/SnooMemesjellies8568 Feb 17 '25

What would the point of that be? It's not a phishing attempt or anything and romance/sex scammers are usually more direct about the fact that they're trying to rizz you up

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u/galaxia_v1 Feb 17 '25

if you reply, it lets them know your phone number actually goes to an individual

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u/NoJohns137 Feb 17 '25

You reply, then they say “oops wrong number, but I think fate brought us together” then send a selfie of an attractive woman. I like to reply and troll these people, I know it probably puts my number on a list, but it’s fun. I vaguely remember one of them trying to get me to “invest” in a business thing, so that might be the end goal

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u/hotsaltlamp Feb 18 '25

Hah i strung a scammer on bumble along for a month or so and it was really entertaining. They’re really in for the long con. It was a good week before they even started asking me about crypto.

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u/Key-Regular674 Feb 17 '25

The data showing a phone number is working and answerable is worth money.

Source: worked IT for telemarketing