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I have been talking to a gentleman who says he’s a sugar daddy and would love to spoil me for a personal online connection because he is lonely.

He has my banking information and is sending me a check for 10K and told me to keep 1K to myself and send the rest to his “son” through bitcoin because his son wants to invest in that.

I asked him why I had to be the one to send the money to his son when his “account officer” is sending me the money. Am I being scammed? If I don’t return the money to him, will he be able to do me harm?

I also should put it out there that the only reason I met him was because he messaged me on Pornhub. I just need some help.

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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Jacky Romero
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    Check is reversible. Bitcoin is not. You will lose 9K. Variants of this question have been asked dozens of times over the past year or two. – Rodrigo de Azevedo Dec 07 '20 at 19:47
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    You said "He has my banking information and is sending me a check..." What banking information does the scammer have? Whatever he knows you may now want to change (passwords are easy, but account numbers require your bank's assistance). Also, just FYI, no one needs any of your bank information to write you a check. (But when you deposit it they will know your account number, so you still only want to deposit checks from people you trust.) – TTT Dec 07 '20 at 20:57
  • There's a decent chance that the scammer will threaten to do you harm, maybe say he'll call the cops or the FBI on you, but that's all bluster. Destroy the check when it arrives, cut off all contact with the scammer, and (if necessary) contact the bank to change any information you gave out. You can be vague and say you "have reason to believe X, Y and Z details have been compromised, please help me change them" without going into embarrassing details. Also, don't mix finances and pornhub, ever. – Steve-O Dec 09 '20 at 15:30

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You are being scammed by accepting the money. Contact "him" immediately and let him know that you will not send any money to anyone and that he should not send you any money. Time is of the essence here.

You don't want to be knowingly receiving money that does not belong to you. Once you've done that, you are already going to be in trouble when the bank finds out that the money doesn't belong to you, which they definitely will because the person who it does belong to will want it back.

Do not contact this person any more under any circumstances other than to let them know that you don't want their money and won't do anything for them. You now know they are a scammer, an expert on scamming. You are not an expert on scamming and you will not be able to protect yourself from every possible scam they might try.

It is possible to scam a scammer, but it takes significant expertise. Many scams rely on the victim thinking they know what the scam is and believing that they are going to put one over on the scammer. This almost never works out well.

As you point out, you don't know how he'll react to you not buying the bitcoin. So you don't know what the scam is and what his angle is. So you won't be able to protect yourself.

Get out now. Get out completely. I hope it's not too late and you haven't already knowingly received money that you weren't entitled to.

David Schwartz
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    Why bother contacting the scammer again at all? – spuck Dec 07 '20 at 20:57
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    @spuck To, with luck, prevent the OP from knowingly receiving money that doesn't belong to them. It may be too late to prevent that, and thus the OP may already run into big problems with their bank. But it's worth trying. Money you are not entitled to is like toxic waste. There is nothing safe you can do with it and eventually it can cause you huge problems if you keep it around. – David Schwartz Dec 07 '20 at 21:00
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    Seems like the right contact to have is with the OP's bank to revoke any credentials the scammer might have. The poster said they were going to be sending a check which should not be a problem, because fake checks can be safely thrown away. – spuck Dec 07 '20 at 21:08
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    @spuck I hope so. You don't need anyone's banking information to send them a check though. But maybe he just wanted that for future use. – David Schwartz Dec 07 '20 at 21:10
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    @DavidSchwartz If the OP contacts the spammer again, they're unlikely to go "oh, you've seen through me, I'll leave you alone". They're far more likely to come up with a plausible-sounding reason why it isn't a scam ("yeah, a lot of online forums claim this sort of thing is a scam, but this one isn't because...") IMHO, the OP shouldn't give them that opportunity to re-engage them. – TripeHound Dec 08 '20 at 12:27