PSA: Pig Butchering & Romance Scams ⚠️

Public Service Announcement: please don’t get caught up in this!

A friend of mine recently got caught in a combo “Pig Butchering Scam” + “Romance Scam”. This is super insidious, and easier to get caught in than you’d imagine (Wired article, YouTube video). A team of scammers develop a massive infrastructure to build trust—to build a relationship over months with really sophisticated emotional manipulation (the scammer sent a hand-drawn sketch of my friend), and get people to put in money to a fake crypto exchange, through a real one, and even get people to withdraw their initial deposits to “prove” their legitimacy. Sometimes the fake exchange has hundreds of fake reviews to make it seem more legit. And it’s only going to get more hairy out there with AI—you could have a live voice or even video chat with a bot, convinced it’s a person.

I missed my deadline sending you this email last night because I was helping my friend. Separate note: I endorse this until the end of time. There are obvious limits, but by and large let’s always miss deadlines to help friends in need.

When I first realized what was going on for this friend earlier this week, I literally felt sick to my stomach for a few hours. I identify with them. Like me, they often assume innocence in others, to a fault. Like me, they create impossibly good, evolutionary things (like The Relateful Company), so they’re susceptible to something like this. It’s hard to put our attention on this dark side of humanity. A lot of these scammers are desperate themselves, some are even trafficked and forced to do this work. I noticed there was a slight movement in me to ignore my friend just so I didn’t have to face the darkness in humanity. But my love for my friend demanded that I show up and face it so thoroughly that I could help them face it too.

I don’t know that I can explain it well, perhaps in a future email, but it’s clear to me that to love wholly, we must face the darkness outside just as we must face it in ourselves. They’re one thing. As above so below. Just like this love doesn’t mean “go ahead and scam me!”; loving the darkness in ourselves doesn’t mean we go ahead and express it.

With love, Jordan