Say you sent that to 200 women, maybe ten had a child they lost touch with, and two or three of those ten would probably be curious.
A man would just go, "Oh shit," delete the email and close his account.
Nah. The quota is far, far worse for the scammer than 1/20.
This scam doesn’t go for „out of touch“, but for women who have given children to adoption, which certainly isn’t more than 1/1,000.
And due to the necessary personalization (they have a personalized email, which doesn’t even make sense in the adoption case, anyways).
It’s far too complicated.
Scammers include absurd elements such as this, or other implausible situations -the notorious Nigerian prince- and also intentional spelling and grammar mistakes.
This serves a very useful purpose: if the mark is somewhat smart, they'll sooner or later figure out they're being scammed. The time that the scammer *invested* into that person will be wasted with no return.
But if there are absurdities and someone still bites the bait, then the scammer has found a goldmine: someone who doesn't pay attention, someone gullible, someone intellectually challenged, someone *vulnerable*. Now the probabilities of success have improved greatly for the scammer, he has already filtered out the smart-ish people (they read the message and ignored it) and will only interact with the easy targets.
Unfortunately this strategy is wildly successful.
There is a form of the Phishing scam which is targeted at an individual. It's called Spear Phishing. In your case you seem to have been targeted by a moron, if the aim is to persuade you that they are a child of yours that you know you didn't have. :)
More likely is that it's something between regular Phishing - sending millions of emails out indiscriminately and targeted Spear Phishing. They're probably targeting thousands of people, including women who may have had a child adopted many years ago, in the hope of a catch.
These people really are the scum of the earth.
The sad part of the message you received is how easy it is to verify or debunk. You probably would have noticed if a person popped up on your DNA matches, especially a child. I had a niece and nephew appear yesterday and it was easy to see them. Plus, targeting a woman is just plain dumb; like you aren't going to notice carrying and delivering a baby.
Question about your website. Do you have any CAPTCHA-type measures on your form? If not, definitely add some. Why? Because a bot might have submitted the form without a person typing in this crazy message. I had lots of that when I first added a form to my website but once I added controls (and keep them up to date) the submits dropped fast.
They can't pop up in your DNA matches if they've never had a DNA test run.
Women know how many kids they have and whether there might be one they gave up for adoption. Men would be more vulnerable because they may have children they were never told about. Either way, I'd be asking them to get a DNA test before going any further. If they're legit, they shouldn't have a problem with it.
Ancestry wouldn't have led them to sending an email via contact form. How common is your name? I'm wondering if they googled the name from ancestry and found your website and assumed it's the same person.
It could be that there's someone else with your name that actually is their mother and that person isn't as prevalent online as you.
If the "last sign in" was a while ago they might have thought it was inactive. It's also possible they tried that and didn't get a response.
I agree though a message through ancestry would make more sense, but people don't always make sense 😊
I do a lot of DNA work on Ancestry and this sounds like the most likely explanation.
Many people take DNA tests and never check their accounts for messages. The very low return of responses when you are trying to verify information can be frustrating.
I bet the person decided to try to connect outside of Ancestry in desperation, and probably found all the people with that name and messaged everyone hoping their 'mum' would respond.
Sad. All they probably want is to find their fam...
Thank you! If I had a more common name, I would think that it was a genuine mistake, but given that they emailed me via my website which has a picture of me and shows that I'm not that old (given the tone of the email, I feel like he's older) and the surname he gave being literally my surname (highly unlikely if adopted), I'm leaning towards scam. Additionally, I checked the IP and it came up as in the US, not here in the UK!
The scam is they get you talking over their sob story, befriend you, then introduce you to their crypto exchange where they fool you into thinking you can make a killing by investing there.
You should ask them for a kidney.
It’s either this or you share the same name as the maternal match. The email is a bit bizarre and has something that doesn’t feel genuine. Maybe they just have poor judgement.
Not sure how easy it is to send a message on your website but there are bots that just send messages to all places they find and scrape your name from your website. Not sure if you might have an “About me” section with your name and city. The fact that you’ve done a DNA test might be a coincidence. Put up a captcha or something or hide the contact email to prevent bots from messaging if you don’t.
They are probably just looking for an opening. You tell this person you’re not their mom, they respond with how disappointed they are and then comes the story and attempts to make a personal connection. John Oliver has a segment about pig butchering. Starts with a phishing scam, gets you on the line, they fatten you up, and then drain your accounts. They can invest weeks or months in messaging before they introduce the scam.
Could be someone who doesn’t understand DNA at all too-you could just be the highest match on their maternal line and they think that must mean you are their Mom. I got a message once from someone thinking that my grandmother was their Mom even though they shared no where near the correct amount of dna and connected to a different line then my grandmother. I sat down and figured it out and it was actually a cousin once removed of my grandfather who was his mother, so they weren’t even close. I think they just saw a match and got excited.
It’s probably a very odd/rubbish scam, yes, but I wonder whether it could simply be a case of mistaken identity - I don’t know what the nature of your website is, but could they have googled your name and assumed you’re the Jane Smith they’re searching for?
Adoptees know not to message on ancestry directly because people often just get their test done and then never log in again. I'd encourage you to respond just once letting them know they absolutely have the wrong person as you're certain you've never birthed a child and emphasize that you checked your ancestry account in case there was a mistake in the system but there is not. (If their real mom hasn't logged in in months or years that might corroborate your truth) If you don't respond they won't know to keep looking for their real mom and may not leave you alone. They may start their search again too late and don't discover the true identity of their mom until it's too late to meet her alive.
Personally I'd also tell them how creepy that last part came across! So often even bio families think it's a scam, even if they are actually blood related, they think the distant relative is crawling out of the woodwork to ask for money. That's so heartbreaking that phishing has led to even more reasons for skepticism when an adoptee reaches out.
Well since you can't *upload yourself* on Ancestry they got that wrong from the start. And about half of your matches would be labelled Maternal, which of course doesn't make you mum to all of those maternal side matches.
Just ignore it. If your web site form or email program let's you see the ip address, server info and any details of the sender, screen shot that info and save it just in case anything else odd happens in the near future.
I wouldn't trust it, but just to play Devil's advocate, it's possible that they have a match with the same name as you and simply contacted the wrong person.
This almost seems like the way "Nigerian Prince" scams selectively filter their targets by still doing the Nigerian Prince scam. Same thing goes for scam emails with a bunch of grammatical and typographic errors: they don't want to sound too convincing and end up wasting time with a skeptic that will inevitably balk. Seems like the kind of person that could be convinced they gave birth to a child they never had would be the easiest mark for whatever scam you want them to do.
At the same time I can't help but notice the use of "maternal match" and that *they* are the ideal mark for misunderstanding. They know that maternal means mother, but not that it means the entire family of their mother. Small possibility they are just a very unsharp or unstable person that actually is searching for their birth mother.
Have you combed through your matches to find them?
I've been thinking about this since yesterday and I'm really unsure if it's a scam or someone who is genuinely confused. However, having searched my matches there is no name match. Additionally the name in the email had my surname, which...wouldn't be the case if he was genuinely looking for his birth mother.
I would not jump straight to scam.
I've gotten ancestry messages from people who think our 27cm match indicates a close relationship, instead of a distant cousin. Alternatively, they may be someone with the same name as yours who is their mum in London.
You are not obligated to answer of course, but since they went via the web form you could check your logs for their IP, and investigate that and their email address to see if they are legitimate but mistaken instead of being scammers, and decide what to do from there.
Thank you! If I had a more common name, I would think that it was a genuine mistake, but given that they emailed me via my website which has a picture of me and shows that I'm not that old (given the tone of the email, I feel like he's older) and the surname he gave being literally my surname (highly unlikely if adopted), I'm leaning towards scam. Additionally, I checked the IP and it came up as in the US, not here in the UK!
I can't decide whether I am more outraged at someone preying on women who have lost touch with their children or if I am more amused by the fact that a woman HAS to know how many children she had so this is really dumb.
I did once have someone claiming they had an 83% match to me on my maternal side so we were siblings and wanted to connect, to which my response was WTF???
Turned out she didn't understand DNA results, we had a 8.3cm match and she was a distant cousin on my mum's line. She was also older than my parents.
Still, my parents thought it was hilarious when I told them I had a 30second freak out that they'd given away a sibling of mine and kept the one I don't get on with.
Which is a long way off saying that while it's probably a scam, it might just be someone who doesn't understand DNA.
Could be a scammer from a country worth really bad sex education. He may think that a woman could have a baby without knowing it. I worked with a young man groom a very religious background who had a college degree but was unaware of exactly how a baby was born and mostly how it was created.
Odds are it's a scammer, unless you've been an egg donor, which I'm sure you'd know if you had been. If that were the case the "child" could have easily turned off DNA matching so they wouldn't have shown up on your match list.
Other than amnesia or alien abduction, this kid isn't yours. I'd be tempted to try and string them along to see how far you could take it, for funsies. I get a kick out of watching the scammers get scammed on YouTube.
I don't think it's a scammer, I think it is someone trying to find their birth mom, who isn't responding on Ancestry. They either have the wrong (insert mother's name, or they are messaging everyone with that name.
Poor bugger is just trying to find their parents, it would be really mean to 'string' this particular person along and get their hopes up...(real scammers - yes!)
I thought that at first as well but there’s something odd about the phrasing. If it was me, I’d be a lot more cautious and ask questions and confirm that she was living in a certain place at a certain time, had been an egg donor or had given up a child for adoption or something before jumping to “You’re my mom! Let’s meet!”
Personally, I think it’s a scam where you respond and say you aren’t the mother, best luck in search, etc. and then they draw you in with a story to make a personal connection and eventually (several weeks) they have a hot tip to share about how you can make a lot of money. Probably took her name directly from her personal website. Person seems so desperate that you want to respond with sympathy.
I wonder if it's a similar idea to sending out scam emails with obvious mistakes, it instantly roots out the people who are daft and gullible enough to fall for an obvious scam
If you are gullible enough to believe that a woman could have a child she didn't know about them you'll believe whatever other rubbish they were hoping to get past you
Probably just a case of mistaken identity by a noob who kinda knows how to use google to search for a name and your website appeared.
Not likely sinister. Don’t read extra into elipsis, that’s so much overthinking than you imagine it to be.
Just ignore.
That’s bizarre. Wouldn’t it make more sense to try and con men into thinking they have a child?
Absolutely!
Say you sent that to 200 women, maybe ten had a child they lost touch with, and two or three of those ten would probably be curious. A man would just go, "Oh shit," delete the email and close his account.
Nah. The quota is far, far worse for the scammer than 1/20. This scam doesn’t go for „out of touch“, but for women who have given children to adoption, which certainly isn’t more than 1/1,000. And due to the necessary personalization (they have a personalized email, which doesn’t even make sense in the adoption case, anyways). It’s far too complicated.
Scammers include absurd elements such as this, or other implausible situations -the notorious Nigerian prince- and also intentional spelling and grammar mistakes. This serves a very useful purpose: if the mark is somewhat smart, they'll sooner or later figure out they're being scammed. The time that the scammer *invested* into that person will be wasted with no return. But if there are absurdities and someone still bites the bait, then the scammer has found a goldmine: someone who doesn't pay attention, someone gullible, someone intellectually challenged, someone *vulnerable*. Now the probabilities of success have improved greatly for the scammer, he has already filtered out the smart-ish people (they read the message and ignored it) and will only interact with the easy targets. Unfortunately this strategy is wildly successful.
There is a form of the Phishing scam which is targeted at an individual. It's called Spear Phishing. In your case you seem to have been targeted by a moron, if the aim is to persuade you that they are a child of yours that you know you didn't have. :) More likely is that it's something between regular Phishing - sending millions of emails out indiscriminately and targeted Spear Phishing. They're probably targeting thousands of people, including women who may have had a child adopted many years ago, in the hope of a catch. These people really are the scum of the earth.
Wow, I've not heard of that before! Crazy!
The sad part of the message you received is how easy it is to verify or debunk. You probably would have noticed if a person popped up on your DNA matches, especially a child. I had a niece and nephew appear yesterday and it was easy to see them. Plus, targeting a woman is just plain dumb; like you aren't going to notice carrying and delivering a baby. Question about your website. Do you have any CAPTCHA-type measures on your form? If not, definitely add some. Why? Because a bot might have submitted the form without a person typing in this crazy message. I had lots of that when I first added a form to my website but once I added controls (and keep them up to date) the submits dropped fast.
They can't pop up in your DNA matches if they've never had a DNA test run. Women know how many kids they have and whether there might be one they gave up for adoption. Men would be more vulnerable because they may have children they were never told about. Either way, I'd be asking them to get a DNA test before going any further. If they're legit, they shouldn't have a problem with it.
Exactly
Ancestry wouldn't have led them to sending an email via contact form. How common is your name? I'm wondering if they googled the name from ancestry and found your website and assumed it's the same person. It could be that there's someone else with your name that actually is their mother and that person isn't as prevalent online as you.
Wow, that sounds much more likely to be the case. It sounds too weirdly specific to be phishing.
That’s what I thought. Plus… why would you not just send a message through Ancestry? Seems way more direct.
If the "last sign in" was a while ago they might have thought it was inactive. It's also possible they tried that and didn't get a response. I agree though a message through ancestry would make more sense, but people don't always make sense 😊
I do a lot of DNA work on Ancestry and this sounds like the most likely explanation. Many people take DNA tests and never check their accounts for messages. The very low return of responses when you are trying to verify information can be frustrating. I bet the person decided to try to connect outside of Ancestry in desperation, and probably found all the people with that name and messaged everyone hoping their 'mum' would respond. Sad. All they probably want is to find their fam...
Thank you! If I had a more common name, I would think that it was a genuine mistake, but given that they emailed me via my website which has a picture of me and shows that I'm not that old (given the tone of the email, I feel like he's older) and the surname he gave being literally my surname (highly unlikely if adopted), I'm leaning towards scam. Additionally, I checked the IP and it came up as in the US, not here in the UK!
The scam is they get you talking over their sob story, befriend you, then introduce you to their crypto exchange where they fool you into thinking you can make a killing by investing there. You should ask them for a kidney.
It’s either this or you share the same name as the maternal match. The email is a bit bizarre and has something that doesn’t feel genuine. Maybe they just have poor judgement. Not sure how easy it is to send a message on your website but there are bots that just send messages to all places they find and scrape your name from your website. Not sure if you might have an “About me” section with your name and city. The fact that you’ve done a DNA test might be a coincidence. Put up a captcha or something or hide the contact email to prevent bots from messaging if you don’t. They are probably just looking for an opening. You tell this person you’re not their mom, they respond with how disappointed they are and then comes the story and attempts to make a personal connection. John Oliver has a segment about pig butchering. Starts with a phishing scam, gets you on the line, they fatten you up, and then drain your accounts. They can invest weeks or months in messaging before they introduce the scam.
Could be someone who doesn’t understand DNA at all too-you could just be the highest match on their maternal line and they think that must mean you are their Mom. I got a message once from someone thinking that my grandmother was their Mom even though they shared no where near the correct amount of dna and connected to a different line then my grandmother. I sat down and figured it out and it was actually a cousin once removed of my grandfather who was his mother, so they weren’t even close. I think they just saw a match and got excited.
Maybe something Ancestry needs to make clearer on their matches - although it looks pretty clear to me!
They draw you in with a narrative to lure you to a meeting where the scam goes forward. Why or to what end is not important. Stay clear!
I most certainly will!
It’s probably a very odd/rubbish scam, yes, but I wonder whether it could simply be a case of mistaken identity - I don’t know what the nature of your website is, but could they have googled your name and assumed you’re the Jane Smith they’re searching for?
Adoptees know not to message on ancestry directly because people often just get their test done and then never log in again. I'd encourage you to respond just once letting them know they absolutely have the wrong person as you're certain you've never birthed a child and emphasize that you checked your ancestry account in case there was a mistake in the system but there is not. (If their real mom hasn't logged in in months or years that might corroborate your truth) If you don't respond they won't know to keep looking for their real mom and may not leave you alone. They may start their search again too late and don't discover the true identity of their mom until it's too late to meet her alive. Personally I'd also tell them how creepy that last part came across! So often even bio families think it's a scam, even if they are actually blood related, they think the distant relative is crawling out of the woodwork to ask for money. That's so heartbreaking that phishing has led to even more reasons for skepticism when an adoptee reaches out.
That's so helpful to hear, thank you!
It's another iteration of financial scams/identity theft.
Maybe you have the same name as the person he/she is matching with?
Are they a little bird? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_My_Mother%3F#/media/File%3AAreyoumymother.gif
I loved that book when I was little!!
Well since you can't *upload yourself* on Ancestry they got that wrong from the start. And about half of your matches would be labelled Maternal, which of course doesn't make you mum to all of those maternal side matches. Just ignore it. If your web site form or email program let's you see the ip address, server info and any details of the sender, screen shot that info and save it just in case anything else odd happens in the near future.
I wouldn't trust it, but just to play Devil's advocate, it's possible that they have a match with the same name as you and simply contacted the wrong person.
This almost seems like the way "Nigerian Prince" scams selectively filter their targets by still doing the Nigerian Prince scam. Same thing goes for scam emails with a bunch of grammatical and typographic errors: they don't want to sound too convincing and end up wasting time with a skeptic that will inevitably balk. Seems like the kind of person that could be convinced they gave birth to a child they never had would be the easiest mark for whatever scam you want them to do. At the same time I can't help but notice the use of "maternal match" and that *they* are the ideal mark for misunderstanding. They know that maternal means mother, but not that it means the entire family of their mother. Small possibility they are just a very unsharp or unstable person that actually is searching for their birth mother. Have you combed through your matches to find them?
I've been thinking about this since yesterday and I'm really unsure if it's a scam or someone who is genuinely confused. However, having searched my matches there is no name match. Additionally the name in the email had my surname, which...wouldn't be the case if he was genuinely looking for his birth mother.
I would report this email to the people at the dna site and not respond at all.
Isn't it much more likely that the person is just confused?
This could just be a nutter.
I would not jump straight to scam. I've gotten ancestry messages from people who think our 27cm match indicates a close relationship, instead of a distant cousin. Alternatively, they may be someone with the same name as yours who is their mum in London. You are not obligated to answer of course, but since they went via the web form you could check your logs for their IP, and investigate that and their email address to see if they are legitimate but mistaken instead of being scammers, and decide what to do from there.
Thank you! If I had a more common name, I would think that it was a genuine mistake, but given that they emailed me via my website which has a picture of me and shows that I'm not that old (given the tone of the email, I feel like he's older) and the surname he gave being literally my surname (highly unlikely if adopted), I'm leaning towards scam. Additionally, I checked the IP and it came up as in the US, not here in the UK!
I can't decide whether I am more outraged at someone preying on women who have lost touch with their children or if I am more amused by the fact that a woman HAS to know how many children she had so this is really dumb.
You know this is a kink also
Please.. explain 😂
Likely someone searching for their birth mother- they have a name but it is a common one...
I did once have someone claiming they had an 83% match to me on my maternal side so we were siblings and wanted to connect, to which my response was WTF??? Turned out she didn't understand DNA results, we had a 8.3cm match and she was a distant cousin on my mum's line. She was also older than my parents. Still, my parents thought it was hilarious when I told them I had a 30second freak out that they'd given away a sibling of mine and kept the one I don't get on with. Which is a long way off saying that while it's probably a scam, it might just be someone who doesn't understand DNA.
Ha! My parents were very excited to have a fake grandchild they didn't know about!
Could be a scammer from a country worth really bad sex education. He may think that a woman could have a baby without knowing it. I worked with a young man groom a very religious background who had a college degree but was unaware of exactly how a baby was born and mostly how it was created.
Odds are it's a scammer, unless you've been an egg donor, which I'm sure you'd know if you had been. If that were the case the "child" could have easily turned off DNA matching so they wouldn't have shown up on your match list. Other than amnesia or alien abduction, this kid isn't yours. I'd be tempted to try and string them along to see how far you could take it, for funsies. I get a kick out of watching the scammers get scammed on YouTube.
I don't think it's a scammer, I think it is someone trying to find their birth mom, who isn't responding on Ancestry. They either have the wrong (insert mother's name, or they are messaging everyone with that name. Poor bugger is just trying to find their parents, it would be really mean to 'string' this particular person along and get their hopes up...(real scammers - yes!)
I thought that at first as well but there’s something odd about the phrasing. If it was me, I’d be a lot more cautious and ask questions and confirm that she was living in a certain place at a certain time, had been an egg donor or had given up a child for adoption or something before jumping to “You’re my mom! Let’s meet!” Personally, I think it’s a scam where you respond and say you aren’t the mother, best luck in search, etc. and then they draw you in with a story to make a personal connection and eventually (several weeks) they have a hot tip to share about how you can make a lot of money. Probably took her name directly from her personal website. Person seems so desperate that you want to respond with sympathy.
I wonder if it's a similar idea to sending out scam emails with obvious mistakes, it instantly roots out the people who are daft and gullible enough to fall for an obvious scam If you are gullible enough to believe that a woman could have a child she didn't know about them you'll believe whatever other rubbish they were hoping to get past you
Better to post this at r/AncestryDNA
Probably just a case of mistaken identity by a noob who kinda knows how to use google to search for a name and your website appeared. Not likely sinister. Don’t read extra into elipsis, that’s so much overthinking than you imagine it to be. Just ignore.