Love and Affection Returned to Sender: The Timid Scammer

Before, we created an exhaustive — but hopefully not exhausting — overview of the most common types of scammers. Today, let us start our deeper immersion into the world of dishonest gift recipients by nearing our magnifying glass to the most innocent of their types. Make yourself comfortable as you are about to unearth the modus operandi of the typical timid scammer. Those that lie and hide their address.

 
Timid Scammers and How They Roll

In this scenario, ‘timid’ implies they aren’t scheming against you or conspiring to jeopardize your financial status. Picture someone ghosting you, with the twist being a third party, namely us, enlightening you that your object of affection has slipped into this mode rather than you stumbling upon it independently. It’s not the most common type of scammer, and you might think: “This doesn’t fall under a traditional definition of scammer; it’s more about the other party wanting to hide for some reason.” While your thinking is certainly not wrong, there are subtle indications why you should try viewing it from another angle.

To paint a fully-fleshed portrait of a timid scammer, allow us to tell you a tale of how a situation involving one can typically start, based on how we tend to observe those in our practice. It’s another delightful volley of messages with that someone who has caught your interest online during the evening. Suddenly, a spark of inspiration kindles within you — why not turn those infinite winky-kiss emojis into something tangible, like a heart-shaped box of chocolates? Each piece of sweet confectionery would offer them a moment of pure indulgence while thinking of you. Delighted at just the thought of this, you adjust your pillow, tuck in your blanket, and fall into blissful slumber.

 
Discovering You Don’t Know Their Address

Dawn breaks, and you rise in good spirits, resolute in selecting the gift to add a dash of joy to their day. You scroll through your chat history, looking for their likes and dislikes. “They are not fond of wine,” — you recall from a past conversation and swiftly dismiss any thoughts of sending them a wine-featuring basket. A quarter-hour later, you come across the message that they are a big fan of plush toys, which helps you decide. That’s it, your eureka moment: the gift that embodies your heartfelt sentiments would be a teddy bear with a bouquet of roses.

You are all set to place the order but then realize you are missing a critical detail — their address. Rest assured, it’s not a problem for us: you can place an order and select the option “I don’t have the recipient’s address.” We will take it from there, contacting them on your behalf. And if you know their email address, that’s even better: it’s another channel for us to contact them. You see, we are committed to going the extra mile to ensure the surprise remains intact, keeping your identity under wraps, which, in your case, doesn’t ruin the purpose of gift-giving. The crucial piece of this puzzle will be their response; this is where the tide may begin to swing away from your favor.

After placing an order, it’s processed in our system and forwarded to the local representative. Even if they have the delivery address provided from the start, they are bound to call the recipient to confirm their availability at the mentioned address. This step allows the recipient to alter the delivery address to their preference. However, we are here to shed light on how this seemingly innocent step can hint at their gradual distancing from you.

 
How People Hide Their Address Without Explicitly Hiding It

In the world of scammer gift recipients, one common pattern is the desire to avoid sharing personal information. These individuals often reroute the gift delivery to a neutral territory, such as a shopping mall or a public park, thus skillfully evading the disclosure of their residential or work address. It adds an additional layer of anonymity and reduces the risk for the scammer. You might dismiss this as harmless caution: after all, the person merely prefers to receive the gift at a location of their choosing; however, such behavior can still raise questions when persistent and without a good reason.

Another example is a recipient who doesn’t want to receive a gift, yet engages with our local representative or customer service team. This involves them having to lie, remaining in contact with our representative while reassuring you, our esteemed customer, that no contact has been made. They are playing a game, and in the beginning, it brings them perks. As a customer still trying out our service, you will rather believe your intended gift recipient with whom you have built trust over the weeks and months of communication. This recipient might even try to convince you to cancel your order. As discussed in our first article within this series, they may feel undeserving when gifts are involved or feel that gift-giving has crossed their boundaries for an online relationship and decide to cease communication.
 

Proof and Next Steps

However, the immediate concern remains on how to proceed with the current order. While we’ve dubbed this breed of scammer ‘timid,’ their timidity only extends to you, given that they don’t seek direct financial advantage. In contrast, from our perspective, they are the most challenging to deal with: as previously said, they shake your faith in us, leading you to jump to quick conclusions about us — questioning our efficiency, integrity, and your trust in our ability to fulfill your order. We are left out in the cold, forced to collect evidence that we have indeed reached out to your recipient. We then provide you with screenshots of sent emails or logs of outgoing calls from our agent until we convince you of the discrepancies in your gift recipient’s narrative.

 
Murky Waters Run Deep

Let’s now navigate our way to the next variety of discreet scammer gift recipients — one who responds to our email requesting their delivery address. Their reply enables us to assemble the order in an ideal scenario. But we are here to discuss less ideal ones. In such instances, although your cherished one, let’s call her Anastasia, responds to our query, we often find their email address linked to a different sender’s name set up for the account. It’s not very serious if it’s female, but if the email credentials feature a male name, good night and good luck! A reply originating from such an email address can signal two things: either your lady love isn’t quite the madam she claims to be, or you’ve been handed the email address of a male family member, indicating a lack of trust from your gift recipient.

Upon detecting this discrepancy, we alert our unsuspecting customers and await their instructions on how to proceed with the order: whether to reroute it to another, more deserving recipient or cancel it, albeit without a full refund, as our representative has already set the components for your selected gifts aside. Again, although it’s not a direct scam where you are fated to part with your money, you still lose a fraction of it, highlighting the need for vigilance and thorough checks before placing an order.

Lastly, in this segment, there may be times when the recipient replies to our query, requesting disclosure of your identity. In rare circumstances, we might comply, only for them to claim ignorance of you and abruptly sever all communication. Then we get back to you as wise as before, and with your cooperation, we decide what to do; a store credit voucher for the whole sum is also on the table.
 

Delays, Deceit, and Dedicated Allies

Mum-playing gift recipients are next on our list. When you place and order with us, we contact the intended person for additional details. Occasionally, days and even weeks go by before we receive a reply. Here, we must tip our hats to some of our dear customers, who remain steadfast and optimistic, urging us to persist in contacting the recipient. Receiving that long-awaited reply, however, doesn’t alter the lens. More often than wished, we find ourselves facing requests from gift recipients to inform our clients that the gift has been received, despite never having dispatched it. We feel compelled to bring this situation to your attention. Our team always stays professional and attentive to this kind of acting out from the recipient’s side. We refuse to let anyone pull the wool over our clients’ eyes, even if it’s someone you’ve been communicating with for the past six months.

 
No Way to Reach the Unreachable

Then, the last kind of timid scammer gift recipient is the one who remains unreachable via all channels of communication. They still may be replying to your messages but not to ours, aiming to create a sense of mistrust between the awaiting you and us, the ever-trying by tooth and nail, phone and email, gift-delivery company. Or they might as well stop talking to you, with your gift-giving intention being their last straw.

Distressed, we collect proof that we have been trying to reach them, and usually, a team member reaches out to you by phone to tell the whole story and comfort you after sharing findings with you. Some of you are crestfallen by the revelation, and some keep a stiff upper lip. Some clients get angry and curse us on all that is holy, forgetting that we were merely performing our duties and striving to assist you, but the tide of emotions takes precedence. The call ends abruptly, and later, once the emotions have settled, some of you even reach out to us with apologetic messages — for which we are profoundly grateful. But we are not in pursuit of apologies. Our objective has always been, and will always remain, to assist you in any way we can. We never take it hard; it’s all part and parcel of our vocation.
 

Mind Games to Mind

In addition to all discussed above, during all years of our experience, we have faced other issues worth noting:

Sometimes, when contacted, the recipient says they cannot accept calls from abroad, unaware they would have been called from a local number. This is another clever move by scammers to prevent direct contact and avoid identification. By stating they can’t accept international calls, they create a barrier to communication. However, since, with us, the calls are at all times made from a local number, this excuse doesn’t hold up and can be seen as a red flag.

Scammer gift recipients can ask our local representative to leave the gift with neighbors or a friend. This tactic hides their true identity or location. By asking to leave the gift with someone else, it is harder for us, the gift-delivery company, to verify that the gift has reached the intended recipient. On rare occasions, the so-called ‘neighbors’ or ‘friends’ could be accomplices in the scam, further complicating matters.

Once the courier arrives, they find no one at home and learn that no one at this address has heard of such a person. It means the scammer provided you with a false address to rule out any possibility of being traced or identified. Upon arrival, a courier will usually even knock at the next door to verify the recipient is known in that building, only to find out that neighbors are unaware of the person. This indicates that the person either does not exist (at least in the way you know them) or has provided false details to mislead you and us.
 

Anything to Hide Their Address

When the recipient says they had to go to another city urgently, they do not suspect we can find them there too. In other words, it’s a no from them to our question if they would like to accept the gift at all. When offered the option of redirecting the gift to another city, they fail to provide an address: they haven’t thought this far, and their refusal of further cooperation raises a red flag about their credibility and motives.

Last but not least, your gift recipient says over email that their cell phone is broken, and, accordingly, they won’t be able to communicate and receive the gift. This is yet another tactic used by scammers to avoid communication. By stating their phone is broken, they make it impossible for the delivery service to get in touch with them, thus ensuring their anonymity and making the delivery process more complicated.

That brings us to the end of today’s article, and we hope you found it enlightening. Please stay tuned for the next part of our comprehensive guide as we continue sharing invaluable insights on identifying scammers and raising awareness about the sly tactics they employ.
 

Now you know more about timid scammers — what will they think of next?

• These relatively innocent-looking scam folk are but one type: we have conducted full-fledged research into the topic of love liars and made a comprehensive overview.
• Show a shining example of courage to your timid vis-a-vis by dazzling them — literally — with some encouraging jewelry or at least a spa basket to clear both the air and the water.
• Use the buttons below to share this piece of wisdom with your friends on social media.