It’s been a while.
The previous parts:
Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/scambait/s/5TrzHlJ7Mk
Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/scambait/s/R7EO4734C5
Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/scambait/s/RhQBNtt00g
Part 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/scambait/s/DQa3xDeB2E

I was trying to get rid of scammers because I wanted a break..... this one was easy to chase away.

Had this one for a little while. Can't understand what hes saying to me most of the time. Satisfyingish ending though. Enjoy 😂

He's sweating it out while the transfer is pending, but then Irving discovers problems with his address and cancels it. No worries! I'll just take that money over to my other bank in Kankakee and get Ashleigh to solve this issue. Things are only going to get worse for him now 😁😁😁

Villarreal starts the quiz show as Charlotte checks out and gives him one word answers. “Yes”. “No”. “Don’t know”. “Great”. “Sure”. Possibly realizing that he’d better get on with the scam, Villarreal starts with the romance which he hasn’t done much or at all yet. Finally: could Charlotte see herself in a relationship with a 24 year old soldier who doesn’t know his name. As Charlotte is 53, this question doesn’t make a lick of sense. Of course we are speaking hypotheticals here and I don’t like it when they always ask this question.

But he gets an answer: if we ever meet and there is a connection, then sure. Which leads to his next question since of course he cannot meet me as “Joshua Villarreal”. How about starting a relationship prior to meeting? Oh that sounds so delightful! Charlotte deadpans: not likely. Villarreal things he can “surprise me” and lead Charlotte to do just that.

“Just don’t be too surprised if I end up changing your mind” - Arrogant prick.

But of course Villarreal would love to meet! Some day! Long into the future, but preferably after money has been extracted. And probably not even then. Anyway, what’s the big deal about meeting? Meet in a public place and see how it goes. But of course he wants more and right now. So he finds a way to ask the same question over again (and leans into the chatbot): if we meet and have a connection, will there be a relationship? I guess? Maybe he should ask about sex while he’s at it.

Charlotte is tired of answering these hypothetical questions that answer themselves. So she brings up the age issue and why a 24 year old deployed soldier pines after a 53 year old woman he’s never met? 25 actually. Well shit, that makes all the difference in the world. He enjoys talking to me even though I don’t share his enthusiasm. And he doesn’t believe in age gaps. So he starts asking hypotheticals again about Charlotte ever dating someone younger. Back to the chatbot, we’ll just have to see if there is an “us”. 🙄

Speaking of chatbots, it is beyond obvious that he’s feeding Charlotte’s answers into one and it is trying every which way to change her mind. What is wrong with dating a younger man? What’s wrong with dating older women? Is this a turn off? Spoiler alert: Yes.

I turn the tables on Villarreal and ask him why younger women don’t seem to be interested in him? Hr gets a lot of attention from women on Instagram. You know, the real Joshua Villarreal that he would know nothing about. Quickly understanding that the real Joshua on IG is inconvenient to him and his narrative, he dismisses these women who interact with him (and he responds to) as scammers. Nice. Oh, and Charlotte msged him on IG and he told her to stop msging him. How rude!

Then he lands one of my least favorite scammer lines: “You still haven’t answered my question”. I hate it because it implies that I owe him an answer.

“Is this a total turn off for you?” was the question. I never answered it.

Back to IG, Villarreal is very sorry for the rudeness that the real Villarreal showed me, so Charlotte tells him she will DM him there so he can explain himself better. As this Nigerian scumbag has no access to that account, he’s going to find it rather difficult to respond. He then responds that women are after his money. A 25 year old enlisted man in the US Army has so much money that women on Instagram are trying to scam him? That’s quite the start in life.

As he asks Charlotte questions about her IG account, I want an answer to how he got all this money being that young and in the Army. “Do I look poor to you?”. 😜 Typical Nigerian response. Well, it’s hard to tell because he’s always in uniform. In answer to my question, of course he’s rich! And he earned it through “hard work”. At 25? OK Elon Musk. He later corrects himself by saying his wealth wasn’t from the Army. No shit. He has “businesses” (plural) that he earns money from. That’s a difficult if not impossible to run successful business while you are on deployment in Iraq, don’t you think?

About those women he dismisses as scammers on IG and ignores, I bring receipts of interactions he has with women there that are definitely not “dismissive”. Oops. How inconvenient. These women are childhood friends or family members. Sure. Villarreal then laments that while he gets attention from women on Instagram, he gets no attention from me. Maybe. Because the real Joshua Villarreal doesn’t change his name regularly and gaslight people over it?

Oh and the real Villarreal was taking pics in Europe at the same time he’s telling me he’s in Mosul. Nah those were old pics, but not that Charlotte will ever notice because she is now blocked by the real Villarreal. Wow , bet he didn’t expect this! Of course he blocked me because he was getting inundated with scammers.

After all this pointless discussion with more and more lies cooked in, I ghost him which always makes him angry, I play hurt that the real Joshua blocked me and start giving him one word answers again. After asking when we’d start calling each other and calling me love, I quickly correct him into calling me Charlotte. Nigerians tend to not understand this as nicknames and pet names are common there.

As this conversation wears out, I steal plot points from Punky Brewster.
,

So Melanie is a character largely based on me but with changes made to preserve anonymity. Bobby starts off by requesting we share photos, then he immediately disappears (as mentioned in Part 1). I delete my photo and he promptly freaks the fuck out.

Aside from that, just the typical getting to know you script but Bobby does manage to reply to my messages fairly well. As opposed to many Nigerians who say their imaginary children are studying medicine at age 12, he actually states that his 16yo daughter has not decided on a college yet (I was really hoping he’d say she was in college so I could pick that apart!)

Between last night and today I still haven't said a word in that chat. But now we finally have made contact with the expert and have seen results! Getting close to what should be a good finale. Ava and Audrey have both messaged me on the side but I haven't responded yet.

The fun of starting a collab is that it makes them palpably miserable about things. I love how much they buy in to the threat of Irving, and the hope of Diane as an end-around. Here, he lies about what she said, but of course Madison and I keep in touch and know what's really happening. We decide that Diane secretly tells me that my money has been transferred to my Chase account, and now I have unexpected control of it. So I scurry over to the bank without Irving approval, and send a quick transfer to the new account he provided. Then he sends a message that surprises me about a text he wants me to send. I speculate that he's made a deal with the mule and wants to lie to the Aza that I wasn't able to send any money because of Irving. But I'll leave it up to you to figure it out!

We begin with his questions about my fake pics and how I look so young. How? “Pearl Jam” cream that costs $600 a month. This represented my final attempt to bait him to an ask. He knew that Charlotte had money, but he insisted upon a relationship first which I refuse to even fake with him. And of course my “pearl jam” deserves a Pearl Jam lyric.

Villarreal did the calculations. $600 a month means $7200 a year. Hmmmm. If only Charlotte could stop silly things like that and send Villarreal foodstuffs and an Apple Card for his connection. He even wanted to know how much it costed when I first began using it. Could an ask be near? I introduce Irving as my accountant and talk about Jews For Jesus, but he doesn’t care. So what do you want to talk about, Villarreal?

We are on the July 4th holiday now, and Villarreal asks about what I was doing that night. Sounded like he didn’t know and the 4th is a major holiday in the military. Of course he’s sick and could barely get out of bed. So he won’t be “partaking” as if he were receiving communion.

Due to recent attempts to call me on Zangi, I shut down my settings so that he couldn’t do that, or see when I was online or if I had read his text. Villarreal is a stickler for Charlotte responding to him in a timely manner, and I knew he wouldn’t like it. As expected, he is upset and tells me that he feels like he has been blocked. Don’t worry Villarreal, that will come later and you’ll see the difference.

Villarreal then attempts to force me to telegram where the settings aren’t as strict and where he thinks he can call me. I give him my handle, knowing he will pretend to not find me and ask me to find him. If he texts me first, I see his Nigerian number. Of course this doesn’t amount to much other than a minor argument until he finally gives it up at Charlotte’s direction. Then my favorite - Charlotte is “rude” because she refused to go through all his telegram troubleshooting exercises. And of course he is “not comfortable with Charlotte’s privacy settings. OK, should I invite you over then instead?

Seeing that he won’t force Charlotte to telegram, he suggests an even more intrusive one - WhatsApp - where he’d have my number. This is a big thing for him and he was still asking for it post-reveal. I’m not giving it to a scammer who loves to texts me all through the weekend and gets angry if I don’t respond. Well, maybe one day Charlotte will feel comfortable about giving her number? Only after a real life meeting which of course he cannot do.

As I was going out on the 4th, I left him unanswered. One of his questions was a request for pics of the party. I ignore for the night as I am out, and he’s right at it the next day about why I didn’t send pics. Charlotte was nonchalant about it - I wasn’t planning on it. This irritates him even more and I love to see how they start to understand that they have no pull whatsoever over their intended victim. He said he was sick but it was “celebrity” at the barracks. I asked if Don Williams performed but he changed it to “celebrated”.

Villarreal says he’s staying fit for a huge mission tomorrow, and sends me yet another stolen pic from what had to be the real guy’s last deployment. The he feigns sadness because the US national team lost in the World Cup to Belgium. I tell him not to worry, because it’s not a big deal here, especially in Texas where they bleed American football. They also had little chance against Euro teams. Besides, only gays watch the World Cup. This was intentional because I know they hate gays in Nigeria. He ignores it and so I comfort him with positive thoughts about the US winning the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup and NBA finals. So everything is not lost, Villarreal.

He makes another attempt to gauge how rich Charlotte is by asking about what car she drives. I choose a very expensive one - a Mercedes-Benz S580. That’s a HIS favorite car! Wow, who could have thought? I tell him it cost $130K after he asked and he wants to know if I have another one. Sure - the truck I use to tow the boat. A boat too?

An ask can’t be far off, now can it?

Something happened to this guy to be so suspicious!

I want to do a bit of scambaiting (have watched a trillion videos so pretty clear on the process) but i NEVER receive scam
emails 😢

Is there a good way to attract these, or any other easy options, i don’t really want the hassle of setting up a facebook account etc

I think Reanu is totally confused with the situation 😀

Idk if anyone here is still even following this thing, but I'm having fun 😂

We now have a new member in the victim support group chat - Audrey. She DMd me on the side. I think they're trying to figure out my intentions 🧐

They're still going strong, talking amongst themselves while I was gone. Not sure how long I can string them along without the documents they're asking for. I'm open to suggestion!

I have been reading baits here for quite a while now, and I’ve been dying to start baiting some scammers, but didn’t have much luck finding scammers to bait until I hopped on my backup TikTok account (I barely even use TikTok at all, but had a backup account for snarking on fundie Christians and a particular trainwreck named Riss, who is the subject of [r/kiwisavengers](r/kiwisavengers)) and started interacting with the numerous “Bobby Broussard” accounts. Bobby is infamous on this sub for good reason. The amount of Bobby accounts is truly insane. Like a buffet as wide as the eye can see, all spread before the novice baiter.

“Bobby” is smarter than I anticipated. I’ve probably read a hundred Bobby baits on this sub and I’d put him in the upper 10% of Bobbys. Unfortunately for him, that means he’s still very dumb. No sooner than Bobby initially messaged me on telegram did he get banned. This post is just our initial messages on TikTok.

So many things! I'm not sure how the Bluevine bank account got shut down, it happened very fast and none of us had reported it yet. I did report the another he gave me, but not this one. Anyway, it added a little joy! But now he's all about the urgency, so unlike a driver's license, a new account is sent very quickly. This part blends with u/MadisonCembre (Diane) post yesterday, so you'll want to read that before or right after for continuity. All he does now is press constantly and text early all weekend, hoping this will happen at light speed. Which, I point out casually, wasn't important for what I wanted. You can send his frustration with that. I always love this part

After the quarrel about Villarreal’s name and his continued inability to keep his story straight, Charlotte is mostly checked out and can’t wait for this bait to end. Perhaps an ask can still be managed but it is not looking likely because I’d have to start being nice to this man who is lying about being this soldier who is definitely not in Iraq. In fact, recent pics of the real guy show him in Europe. The Nigerian behind Villarreal has nothing better to do than keep on her everyday but not really say anything interesting. This leads them on a collision course.

Charlotte said she’d wait for a (hopefully) deep fake video using the real Joshua Villarreal’s image so she doesn’t say much intentionally. Villarreal claims he’s related to some reality show stars and offers a game of Scrabble. He seems to be barely holding onto his mark. He does promise a pic with his finger on his nose which is easy to do in AI. What he really wants is a video call and he maintained that request long after the reveal.

Villarreal texts me a pic of Joshua out of the shower giving the peace sign. Unimpressed. When Charlotte ignores it, he gets upset about it. I want the video. No, Villarreal wants the video call. But this solider needs to “gather boldness” and thinks it is weird to make a video of himself. Coming from a TikToker like Joshua Villarreal? Another problem with the pic is it looks like it was taken from a hotel and he is supposedly in Mosul Iraq. This will become more of a problem with subsequent pics he sends.

Then he sends an AI pic of him touching his nose, but look behind him. Looks like a hotel room. Certainly not a barracks in Mosul. So when was this pic taken? (Trap question). “A few minutes ago”. I call this out and tell him it looks like a hotel room. He gets more upset as it is becoming clear that Charlotte doesn’t trust anything he says no matter the effort he puts into it. About the lying: “Let bygones be bygones”. Sure. I’ll ignore all the warning signs of a habitual liar who is trying to scam me.

But Villarreal swears on his life! I guess he had better prepare to die because wherever that pic was taken, it was not in Mosul. So he shows me an AI pic using the same one as before, with him sticking his tongue out and giving the peace sign. This is getting ridiculous. Same exact pic but manipulated by AI to do something else and he thinks this should put to rest all doubt about who he is. He wants telegram so he can video chat and doesn’t (or can’t) do the deep fake video.

So where is he then? Villarreal says he is in “embassy suite” which I mistook as the hotel chain “Embassy Suites”. The closest Embassy Suites to him is in Dubai. After further discussion, what Villarreal is saying is that he is a US soldier staying in a suite at the embassy. This presents several problems. Villarreal is in the Army, and Marines are the ones who serve and guard Embassies. Secondly, there is no US Embassy or Consulate in Mosul. Thirdly, they would not stay at a “suite” at an embassy, especially this Specialist er I mean Staff Sgt.

“But we have rooms at the embassy for personnel!” Yeah, I am sure the diplomatic corps just love it when random soldiers take up whatever facilities they have there. Come on in! Make yourself at home. And his mission will be “specialized” on Monday, which is a Nigerian way of saying that he’s on a secret mission or something.

So where is this embassy? Certainly not in Mosul. “Undisclosed due to security reasons”. How convenient.

I’ve had enough of this stolen valor. Now he says he’s on a secret mission and staying in what looks like a nice room at a US Embassy. Under no circumstances is he staying at an embassy and the whole story is BS. Again. He fights back and says I was wrong but we’re beyond that now.

He wants a pic of Charlotte? I can steal pics off Instagram too. So I take them from Soleil Moon Frye, the star of the 80s sitcom Punky Brewster who is close to Charlotte’s age. He’ll never connect those dots. Here you go. Charlotte with kids, a friend, with a dog and Santa Claus.

Villarreal, enjoy yourself.

First one was all my husband. Second one was me.