On another day in Mexico drinking some rum and enjoying music like this here, I was waiting for UPS to deliver a package to me.
As I wrote here, getting mail delivered to you from the US is sometimes tricky in Mexico but I had confidence the issue would resolve itself this time.
And so, while waiting for the package, I received a phone call.
“Could this be the UPS driver calling me?” I thought.
Though, in the moment, I wasn’t sure if it was as the number had an area code not associated with Mexico City.
Based on my brief research afterward the call, I’m guessing it’s from Tamaulipas?
The area code was 834.
So I picked it up and I immediately hear someone crying through the phone.
It sounded like a woman.
Immediately, I didn’t understand the first few words spoken to me as the person was seemingly talking quite fast.
Then I said, in typical Mexican fashion, “buenoooooo?”
And the person on the other line started asking me “me escuchas? Me escuchas?”
“yeah, te escucho. Que quieres?” I responded.
Right away, it was pretty obvious that this wasn’t the UPS driver.
In fact, I had no idea who was calling me in general.
Never seen the number before.
And so this complete stranger starts speaking more coherently and tells me that “she’s being kidnapped and in the back of a pick up truck.
Right away, I naturally just respond “that sucks bro.”
Too much rum to give a shit right now. Sure hope they don’t rape you.
Now, perhaps you might be thinking, “how could you be so heartless, Matt?”
After all, this poor innocent woman is being kidnapped to a Wearhouse as we speak where she’ll be gangraped by a bunch of THUGS who will DESTROY her holes and then sell her into sex slavery.
“Help her Matt, help her!”
Nah, fuck that bitch. Not my problem.
And, after I responded with my initial reaction, she responded back something like “me escuchas?”
“Si si, te escucho” I responded back again.
And the crying continued!
To which I asked her in my best rum-induced Spanish “espera, quien eres exactamente? Anita? Ese es tu?”
There was a pause for like a second or two.
“Si, es Anita!”
And, during the exchange, we talked a little more and I kept the story going with her.
Invoking the names of “family members” and asking her if “Jose” knows about what’s going on.
Of course, Jose doesn’t know! Can I reach out to him?
Now I’m worried!
But, long story short, it came down to money.
“Como le puedo ayudar?” I asked her.
And she said responded something to the effect of “they need 100,000 pesos.”
By this point, I was done with Anita.
So I responded “Para que no te violen en el cárcel?”
There was a silence for a few seconds.
And Anita was no longer Anita.
All of a sudden Anita’s voice seemingly changed from that of a distressed woman to a more masculine voice cussing me with a hundred variations in Spanish of “VETE A LA VERGA!!!”
To which I respond back “como esta la vida en el cárcel, Jose? Muy bien?”
The cussing me out continued.
The moment resembled more of something like this here.
Latina-pilled bros 10 seconds after marrying their based mestiza mommy gf
I soon hung up and blocked the number.
Back to more rum and romantic Spanish music!
Do YOU Have a Kidnapped Daughter in Mexico?
It’s a topic I wrote about here.
The point being, for those who are new to Mexico, is that you have folks in this country who will call random numbers trying to get money out of people.
The usual story being that a relative of yours is kidnapped and they need money NOW or else the kidnapped person gets killed.
During the exchange, the person calling you will also usually try to get private information out of you to make their call more convincing.
So let’s say you don’t know any Anitas – I certainly don’t – and you mention to the caller “are you Anita? Is this Anita?”
You could throw any name up in the air and they’ll say “yes, yes, this is who you think it is!”
In hindsight, I’m kicking myself right now for not exploiting this opportunity even more.
Assuming the caller didn’t speak English, I should’ve came up with a more immature name like “is this imagay? Are you imagay?!”
And then see if the caller would say “Si si! Imagay! Soy imagay!”
“Oye oye mariconcitoooooo, eres gay, wey?!?! JAJAJAJAJA”
Then i’d have laughed him off and gone on with life.
But, unfortunately for me, I was not clever enough to pull that trick on the dude in the moment.
I apologize for failing you.
Either way, they’ll try to get that personal information out of you so they can reiterate it and make themselves seem more convincing.
Scare you some more.
And then try to get you to send money.
Did the dude really think he’d get 100,000 pesos out of someone IN THE MOMENT or did he just start high and would be willing to settle for lower?
I’d imagine the latter because my phone number he called was a Mexican one and how many Mexicans got a 100,000 to piss away IN THE MOMENT?
Some do but many don’t.
And, as for another interesting detail, the dude in question quite likely was calling me from a jail.
For those who don’t know, this type of scammer is often calling from a jail where they smuggled a phone into the building for these prisoners to engage in these scams.
How does he get the money if he’s in a jail though?
I honestly have no idea.
I never figured that one out.
But it’s something I’ve heard before that they’re calling from jail.
I imagine the scam involves other people to collect the money from the outside in the same way that they got those smuggling phones to inside the building.
Either way, if this happens to you, what should you do?
First, don’t panic. In all likelihood, they don’t have your daughter or anyone you know kidnapped.
Second, it’s not the worst idea to troll them and take them along for a ride.
Personally, I figured in the moment that I might as well stay on for as long as I could (the call was slightly over 30 minutes actually) so that you take time away from the dude from calling other people who might fall for the scam.
In a way, it’s a little charity work if you choose to waste this dude’s time and, if you’re like me where you got ENDLESS amounts of free time, then why not?
Third, if you only got a phone number from outside Mexico, this scam won’t likely target you.
This is the first time in a long time since I have ever taken a call like this and it only happened after I activated my Mexican phone number as I was waiting for a UPS delivery.
Fourth, how did they even get my phone number?
Who knows.
Others have told me that they just dial random numbers into the phone and I’ve heard others say that they have a list of numbers to try.
For me, I bought my Mexican phone a long time ago at a place in Mexico City where you can buy stolen phones as you can read here.
So, if they even did have a list of phones to try, maybe they try first on stolen phones that other criminals have stolen?
But that’s just a guess. I’m not saying that happens but it’s still something to wonder for those who might ask “why was I targeted?”
Fifth, if you really want to piss the dude off, literally just say the word “carcel.” They’ll know pretty quick that you know that it’s a scam involving some low life in a prison.
Sixth, in hindsight, I wonder what this dude would do if you doubled down on how evil this type of scam is?
You know he’s a fucked up person for calling you as a woman being kidnapped who needs help NOW or else will die, right?
He doesn’t mind scaring people like that or stealing from them.
So why not double down, if you got the time, to be more fucked up than him?
Respond back wishing that this Anita gets fucked because she owes you money or something.
“Oh, es Anita?”
“Si si, es Anita!”
“Recuerdas el día cuando rompiste mi Xbox, pinche vieja? Espero que te violen y que te maten. Me vale verga lo que pasa a ti. Si ya estas jodida, voy a tu casa ahora pa’ robar tus cosas, puta. jajaJAJAjajaJAJAjajaJAJA.”
To which, perhaps just speculation here, the dude responds back breaking out of character in his normal voice “QUE?!?! CON QUIEN HABLO?? EL DIABLO?!!?”
Seventh, if you don’t have the proper mentality for sufficient trolling nor the free time to do so as a fellow homeless person like myself, then you can just hang up the call and block the person.
Easy as that.
Either way, I’m still disappointed that the UPS delivery never arrived that day.
It’s supposedly in Mexico City but I’ll have to wait until Monday now to get it.
But, either way, this is nothing more than another warning for those to not fall for this scam and some tips on how to deal with it if it happens to you.
Surprising to see myself being a target as this hasn’t happened in forever to me.
Like I said, once the Mexican phone was activated again, is when I got the call.
So maybe there’s a lesson in that?
Anyway, drop a comment below.
And follow my Twitter here.
Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt