A WARM, loving message from a father is clearly a scam designed to trick his son out of money.
Steve Malley, 26, easily saw through an unprompted text message full of praise and sincerity, realising it was obviously just an attempt to con him out of thousands of pounds.
Malley said: “Whoever’s impersonating my dad almost got me by opening with a blunt ‘hi’, but when he started going on about how proud he’s always been of me I knew something was up.
“My dad only texts me to wish me a curt happy birthday or to ask if there’s anywhere to park near my flat, so to suddenly start gushing about how I’ve grown into a fine young man was deeply odd. The wildly out-of-character kiss at the end confirmed my suspicions.
“On the surface it might look like my dad’s developed some basic emotional intelligence, but I reckon someone’s stolen his phone and is trying to con his contacts or he’s been hacked by the Kremlin. That’s far more likely.
“Also, if my dad really wanted some money, he’d do the normal thing of guilt-tripping me into it by reminding me how expensive I was to raise.”
Fraud expert Nikki Hollis said: “If you get an even slightly sincere text from someone claiming to be your dad, it’s fake. Delete it immediately and block the number. But you probably know that already.”
