I have published my first article on Medium. You can follow me there (and here. And on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram . . .).
I actually wrote this right after it happened, more than two years ago, but I never found a home for it. I'd pitched it, but no one bit. I either didn't work hard enough at the pitching, or they just weren't interested.
Scams are a real thing. We're kind of used to it now -- the robo calls, the spoofed phone numbers, the threats. Read this carefully, because I outline every flag that should tell you (and should have told me) how scammers work, and how much pressure they put on you.
That's why it works, and why, in 2020, 40,612 people had their information compromised. According to this article, this year alone, $10 million has already been lost to scam artists.