What I am going to tell you happened a few months back. But I took some time to find out who the scammer was. Though he or she, whatever it was, was never successful on me. However, everyone does not have the skills to identify scams. You either have to live through scams or you should have been a scammer yourself to identify scams.
Well, I have been both that is why it is usually easier for me to find if I am being scammed.
A lot of you might be not aware of the term “Scam”. So let me bring you some notable definitions and examples before I proceed with my recent case of the Maryam Amaria scam.
What is Scam?
Dictionary.com defines scam as, “A trick or scheme which is full of deception to cheat someone.” Further, it explains that a scam is a game of “Confidence” that is played to earn a quick profit. Additionally, it emphasizes that it is “especially done for money”.
Ahead of that, I prefer finding synonyms, and meaning in Merriam Webster. It defines a scam as deceiving or defrauding someone.
Well, these are simple and easier answers to what is scam. Still, you have doubts then this sentence might help:
Someone used the name of Maryam Amaria to scam millions of Pakistani Rupees from me on Instagram.
The Case of Maryam Amaria Scam:
Who is Maryam Amaria? Only a few guys, especially those interested in the services she offers know who she is. That makes it easier for the scammers to use her photos and pictures to scam someone. Like this:
This is a screenshot of an Instagram profile for Hira Amjad. For me, the woman in the photos was Hira Amjad as long as I did not investigate the account. But soon as I did, I began to laugh at the privacy settings on Facebook and its products.
What happened may also make you laugh. However, the results might make you think if your online social profiles are safe. Well, this is not one of the romance scammer stories, though it had to be. While such stories are common in Europe or America. In a way, romance scammer stories take place when you can’t identify the scam.
Well in Pakistan, you will find online scams beginning with depressive stories and war-stricken results. Like someone would email anonymously and say that he was once a prince of an African country. But after the war broke he is left with no option other than to save all his wealth. For that, he wants you to provide your banking information or the identification or anything like that which he can use to transfer his wealth to you. And if you are naïve enough to obey the commands of that prince, and you have millions of rupees in your bank account. Then the result would only bereave you from your wealth.
How Hira Amjad Play Maryam Amaria Scam?
Hira Amjad (but I don’t know what is the real name of that person) followed me on Instagram. I followed back like I always do. And I unfollow those who are not following me.
Well, that woman sent me a message on February 19, 2021, at almost 4 A.M (Pakistan time). The message introduced Hira Amjad that she was a Pakistani born in England (of course not a Pakistani then) and wanted me to reply in English.
Ø The person is extremely deprived of living rights
Ø Or that may be a scam
I did not take it as a scam in the first place, as I have seen several such examples. Women marry wealthy men just for the money. And they do not even mind the age gap. Because there is money involved in that. If that can be found in Pakistan, then you can find it everywhere in the world where there are humans. That is indeed a human behavior that we tag as “Lust”.
However, I was in the backseat, because somewhere in my mind there was a bell ringing for ripoff alert. You know the ripoff alert is sound to alarm the imminent scam. Well, next to that message Ms. Amjad sent me another:
That was a mess of a distress call from somewhere in the world, asking a Pakistani to help her. And that Pakistani was not interested in anything like that.
Scam Had Started!
Soon as my first reply the scam had started. The person was trying to convince me to give away my information like where I live, banking details, and else. Following the distress call, there was the wall cracker:
“New Life”! For youth, this can mean a lot. A wealthy woman wanting to return to Pakistan, though she does not belong to this country. And she wants to start a “New Life”. That can convince teens and guys in their early twenties. But people like me have no charm in that.
Instead, we began to think of scam stories. And if you have similar scamming examples you are hardly convinced it would be a reality. Even if that scam had been on a different channel with a different story, you may still not believe what the other person is saying.
Once again I replied something different and got a different answer in response. Now it was sounding more like a robot set to scam:
A different answer than your question can make you sure you are being scammed. That began to strengthen my faith that it was a scam:
How Do I know if I’m being scammed?
I was sure that I am being scammed, but I had no proof. So I began verifying the photos on Hira Amjad’s account:
It was indeed difficult to verify the account until Maryam Amaria’s well optimized photo appeared in Google Images:
Following that, I tried this photo:
And you know what I found? Take a quick flashback first!
This old man is not the husband
of Hira Amjad. And even I am sure he might have never met anyone by the name of
Hira Amjad. He is a famous entrepreneur and writer called Bob Proctor. While
this photo is from an entrepreneur’s convention in England. Read the caption next to the image mentioned by Maryam Amaria:
What was Next?
After I found the scam, I even learned that I wasn’t the only one being scammed. The followers of that account showed several of my former and present colleagues. And that gave me a hint that this could be someone from our circles. Or if not he targeted someone for the scam. But when failed, he or she moved on to the next ones the former target followed.
Well, it was my time to scam the scammer. I changed the story, and begin showing like I was following his commands.
To make me certain that she was the real person, the scammer sent me this:
Well, it did not affect me because I can also create such fake identification cards using graphic software.
The story moved on with:
Finally, it was time to expose that scam!
Exposing Maryam Amaria Scam:
I had to track the scammer to know where he was from. For that I created a link using Grabify and covered it with a Short URL:
I sent those links to that person, but the attempt failed. Instagram has bots that qualify the links. And if they find them as trackers or another spam, they prohibit the recipient to open those links. Here are those links in these messages:
Well, here the trial ended as Instagram did not help me. Instead, Instagram is right on its end. What next I did was report that account. And doing so I learned that it was the 9th or 10th account created by that scammer.
Some Additional Clues that Helped:
While digging into this scam I found some other clues that made by belief stringent that it was a scam. Check these out:
Maryam Amaria’s Instagram profile:
The first match:
The second clue:
Bob Proctor with Maryam Amaria Google Images search:
Maryam Amaria’s website, “Work with Maryam”:
Winding up the Maryam Amaria Scam:
The scam played by the person behind Hira Amjad was a “tradegy scheme”. The scammers try to build in sympathy and tend to win thousands of dollars through their stories. Ultimately it turns out to be one of the romance scammer tactics. Though the scammer failed to employ that on me. But the climax would have been a roman intimacy.
Well, better observe the
strangers you meet rather than forming an acquaintance. There is too much of a scam
on this planet Earth. And every nation has a different way to scam. This wasn't an organized scam. There are plenty of well organized and well managed scams that you may never identify.
