Scam Called ‘Pig Butchering’ Cost Her More Than $1.6 Million

A Text Scam Called ‘Pig Butchering’ Cost Her More Than $1.6 Million-The average losses reported from these scams are $300,000
The scammers are often based in Asia, where the con is known as “pig butchering”—a reference to the practice of first “fattening” the victim’s cryptocurrency account with fake gains before the scam ends, according to advocacy groups and law-enforcement officials.
Have you received an innocent looking text message on your phone that came from a number you didn’t recognize ? Message would usually be like "Hey what's the plan for tonight. Let's go to a party" “Are we going to the salon tonight?”, or something like that.
You will be wise enough to ignore such a message, and if you have spam filter or such other measure on your phone, it will sent to clearly marked Spam Folder.
But, in case of Jane Yan’s, three months after beginning a conversation with the person who texted her, Ms. Yan had lost more than $1.6 million, the victim of a wave of messages that have flooded onto mobile devices this year via text message and social media, according to law-enforcement officials.
All over US, especially in New York and California, complaints about these scams have skyrocketed over the past two years as people have become more accustomed to meeting and doing business virtually.
The scam preys on basic decency—the impulse to help someone who sends a message by mistake—and loneliness, “There are a lot of lonely people out there, and while the vast, vast majority of people are not going to respond to that kind of text, a few will,” An official with the County where Jan lives said.