Yesterday, a Twitter user going by the name "marsothy" (@splatatouille) posted a thread of tweets about getting caught up in a Discord scam. You can find that thread [linked here](https://twitter.com/splatatouille/status/1776311022506459564) (link broken) but I'll summarize it here:

• a friend's account was compromised
• scammer poses as friend claiming that Marsothy needs to get in contact with Discord support via a specified Discord account
• having Marsothy change their Discord account's email address
• asking for banking information
• asking for a money transfer via Venmo + Bitcoin
• Marsothy is locked out of their account

I've had one person DM this to me, and another group I'm part of post about it. The general consensus was "this person was very dumb". And yeah, to an extent, he was. Having to share your bank account information or sent money via crypto is really clear of a scam and I'd like to believe that I wouldn't fall for something like that. But some of it tilted the scales in the scammer's favor.

It's important to note that:

• Marsothy had just woken up (so probably not thinking straight)
• Marsothy had never heard of this kind of scam.

Scammers prey on you not thinking rationally. If you got a text from your [mother/close fiend/amicable ex-lover] using a semi-verified way of knowing it was them (like phone contacts) shortly after waking up, you'd probably not think as much about "who is this" versus "how can I help". I used to construct social engineering campaigns professionally (and under legal contracts that gave me permission to do so).

They also prey on people now knowing about scams. Yeah, this one might have been less believeable once it got the the bank account stage. But it's a good thing to share knowledge of scams even if it's embarrassing. We need to stop dunking on people who share that they fell for a scam. I applaud Marsothy for sharing this with the world.

I leave you with two of his tweets from after the thread had been up for a while:

muting this, but that you to everyone who has been understanding of my situation despite the...questionable lack of judgement i had in the moment. [...] hopefully sharing will prevent more people from falling victim to this terrible scam everybody calling me or anyone stupid for falling victim to this kind of situation, you're really not helping anybody