5 ways to deal with Telegram scammers

You know that feeling when you’re anticipating an important message and when your phone finally buzzes, it’s a notification from Jane from XYZ Recruitment Pte Ltd instead? 

Your anger probably heightens when you swipe to open the text to see a poorly crafted message with an atrocious number of spelling errors and grammar mistakes.

As if anyone’s going to fall for your “professionally written” recruitment message, Jane. You say you want to help me get a job. Why not help yourself first and use Grammarly?

And so what if Jane is promising a higher-than-average salary and flexible working hours? You weren’t even looking for a part-time job in the first place.

While it’s easy to block and report such scammers, sometimes it’s more gratifying to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Here are five ways to outdo the doer:

As we’ve established, if there’s one thing these scammers have in common, it’s their poor command of the English language. And if there’s anything we humans have in common, it’s our hatred for Grammar Nazis.

Want to get on their nerves? Simply point out the countless grammatical errors they have in their message. A few minutes later, they’ll likely want nothing to do with you.

Another way to irk scammers is to spam them just like how they did to you.

Intrusive questions, meme stickers, song lyrics, the list goes on.

Take it from Nathan Hartono himself. Make use of the in-built Telegram tool “Delete for everyone” and trick the scammer into thinking they’ve made a mistake on their end.

Confused, they’ll resend the same message over and over again, till realisation hits.

They’re probably not getting paid enough to deal with time-wasters like you.

Why on earth do these scammers choose such weird names, I have no clue. At least it gives you ammunition to take shots at them.

If the previous methods have yet to make them lose interest, this video by popular local TikTok creator Caydences might. Actually, it could just make them lose their minds.

In the clip, he exclaims in Mandarin: “This is my last warning. I’m not interested in you, I’m not interested in your girlfriend, I’m not interested in your family, and most importantly, I’m not interested in your crypto investment, your stock market, your Telegram group. Stop adding me.”

Other users have commented on the video’s effectiveness, saying the scammers blocked them immediately and that they got kicked out of group chats they were involuntarily added into.

That said, in all seriousness, the proper way to get these scammers off your backs is to break off contact with them before proceeding to block them. You can also file a report by emailing a screenshot of the scam account and any other information to abuse@telegram.org.

To safeguard yourself from receiving such unwanted messages from unknown contacts, you can toggle your Telegram privacy settings.

For further assistance regarding online scams, you can reach the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. It is managed by the National Crime Prevention Council and operates from 9am to 5pm daily.