I've been amusing myself this week by stringing along some crooks who hijacked a friend's Facebook account.
It was a textbook case of online grooming, with the fraudsters trying to convince me that they were my friend in the hope I'd hand over thousands of pounds.
This type of scam is called authorised payment fraud, because victims agree to transfer money, unaware they're being fleeced.
The annual fraud figures from the banking industry body UK Finance puts losses to this scam at £485million.
Of the 207,372 reported incidents of authorised payment fraud last year, 78% started online.
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The attempt to scam me began with a Facebook friend request from someone I've known for years called Michael.
After I accepted the request he messaged me: "I'm doing wonderfully great, enjoying the good life God as been awesome for me and my families. It real nice to hear from you, what have you been up too?"
This sounded nothing like the Michael I knew, a former journalist who knows how to write good English and has never mentioned believing in God.
He next messaged: "Glad to hear from you, I saw your name on the Global grant fund list have you heard from them?"
I said I knew nothing about it.
"It's all about the Global grant funds Association program they give out fund to people to maintain good standard of living olds disabled, retired, workers and students have you heard from them, did you get any cash from the program?" he asked me.
Like all the messages here, I'm cutting and pasting them, so the spelling and grammar is the original.
"Michael" gave me a link to a different Facebook account to contact, urging: "We'll i just think you should contact them now cause i was told it would be closing soon and the rest of the money will be returned to the government account,just send him a message that you are ready to claim your money."
The second account had the name Agent Alex Kelley. It claimed to be a Government organisation and showed pictures of large piles of money being loaded into Fedex vans.
Agent Kelley's English proved to be just as bad. I've changed his text from block capitals, because it's too annoying to read, into lower case, but otherwise what follows is also as originally written.
After contacting him he asked: "What is your full name to check our database weither your name is still available."
I gave him a partially correct version of my name and he replied: "Okay, please hold on while I run a verification to check on our winner's list!!"
I was kept in suspense for couple of hours before he came back.
"Congratulation I'm glad to confirm that your name was among the randomly picked of selected profile of Facebook let us know if you are ready to claim your winning money now?"
I told him that I was always ready to receive free money.
He asked for more details, including my address and phone number, and then moved in for the kill.
"Okay dear winning, we dont charge you for application or charge you a percentage of your money. But there is a little fee attached to the Fedex money by the delivery department."
There was a sliding scale. If I chose to accept £10,000 I would have to pay £500, if I chose the maximum £1million the fee was £40,000. I went for a middling £550,000 with a £15,000 fee.
Agent Kelley then asked if I lived near a Tesco or Asda. The reason for the odd question quickly became apparent: he wanted payment in Amazon vouchers, something no legitimate government department ever requests.
He got most insistent: "You have to be on your way to the Asda store now and go get an Apple gift cards of £500 x 7 so we can use them to activate your winning money did you understand??"
I said I didn't understand, that came to £3,500, not the £15,000 previously stated.
"No Mr Andrew go and get that first so we can activate your winning money so you will make another £11,500 for the fee processing did you understand??"
Fun as it was seeing him lose patience, it was time for some awkward questions. What was the name of this government department? What was its website?
Agent Kelley couldn't say, instead blustering: "I give you my words you have nothing to worry about Mr Andrew once the payment have been confirmed your winning money will be delivered to you in 4 hours trust me."
The more questions I asked, the rattier he got, telling me: "I don't like the word scam let alone getting myself involved in it."
Meanwhile "Michael" was continually messaging, urging me to make the payment. Since he was purporting to be my old mate Michael, he ought to know the friends we have in common, so I decided to invent some, and asked him if he was going to the funeral of our old chum Rodney Trotter.
"No, why are you asking?" he bluntly replied, instantly returning to the only subject that interested him. "When are you getting your winning money delivered to you?"
Skating over the inconsistency in his reference to my winning money when it had earlier been called a grant, I asked if he was going to the wedding of another mutual friend I invented, Albert Arkwright.
"Well yeah but why don't you answer my question?"
Unable to cope with people who were supposed to be our joint friends he ignored my questions and just urged me to pay the requested fee.
Something else I knew he would not be able to cope with was an audio call, so I called him via Facebook.
Of course he didn't pick up but messaged me: "Andrew I wish i could go on a call with you but just surviving from throat surgery,I had a sore throat cancer."
Once I'd stopped laughing I contacted the real Michael to warn him that his account had been hacked by some thankfully unconvincing scammers.
investigate@mirror.co.uk
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