The Biggest Scam in Country Music

there's traffic, there's cars passing by. You might hear some horns. All right, it shouldn't change the podcast. It should add to the flavor today Episode five. I want it. I want this to be a little bit different. Now. The previous four have all been a story about me on the road, how I became a fan, how I became a songwriter, road travel tour stories. I'm gonna switch gears. This is totally different. But it's something that I feel like needs to be talked about because I'm seeing more

and more of it, and it's a scary thing. There are people out there impersonating celebrities, singers, actors, athletes, and stealing money on the internet, on social media. So I'm digging in. I'm gonna find out who these people are so we don't get scammed. Looking out the window, it's kind of dreary, cloudy, a little bit rainy. This is the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and moved up from the Atlantic through Florida and now it's broken up. But it's

in Tennessee and we're seeing that today. Tonight is a guitar pool. That's the style of show that we're about to play. And that means it's me and other singers on the stage at the at the same time, and we each play a song and we go down the line and we start over and we do that for five rounds. Now today it's me and Josh Turner and Easton Corbin. So we'll get up there. I have a guitar player with me and so we'll have a couple acoustics and the other guys will do the same and

we'll each play a song. And it's a very different style show, very low key. We tell stories, we interact between each other. It's not your typical loud guitars, lights in your face, running around the stage. It's very low key in Varieties Despice of Life. So this is going to be a fun, sold out Wednesday night. I'm excited. I'm going to talk about some uneasy, scary stuff today about scammers on the internet. But there is some good news today. Today we announced that I'm coming out with

a new album. Twenty seventh is the date. It's called When the Good Guys Win. And it's great to finally say it and finally tell people because I've known for a long time. I mean, I've been working on this for about a year, but it's good to finally let people know you could expect new music and I'm really excited about it. So in the near future you'll start hearing a lot more about this and a lot more details. But until now, at least the title and the date

are out in the universe. Are you ready. It's time to get a little creepy. I don't like this. I don't like this subject, but I need to talk about it, and I think you're going to be surprised at what happened to me and why I decided to make this an actual podcast. But I started hearing about this, I guess about a year ago. Here's the gist. Of it. People were getting on social media and they're creating an account, which is so easy to do, you could do it

in thirty seconds. They create an account with a celebrity's name, they use all their same pictures, they fill up the media, they retweet what that celebrity is saying, or they completely recreate the same post that the celebrity made. Essentially, they create the same looking page. So you just scan it. You see a celebrities page, but it doesn't have the blue check. Now that's the key to this whole story. If it doesn't have a blue check, it's not that celebrity, right.

That means they're not verified. So the whole thing, this whole problem could be solved if everyone just really paid attention to that blue check. If it has a blue check, it's them. Unfortunately people don't. People fall victim and they're gullible. They believe this, and so because of that, I have to explain more to the story. They're doing this because they'll take the name and they change one letter in the actual username. So for instance, if it's me, it would say Granger smith S M I T H. So

one letter's changed. It allows them to get the username. But then in the title the main in bold print, it says Granger Smith spelled normal. So that's how they're able to take that domain, that user name because it's slightly spelled wrong. Here's the purpose. The reason they do this is because they could follow you, or they could add you or like you, depending on the social media, and they expect you to go, oh wow, Garth Brooks

followed me, so I'll follow him back. When you follow them back, when you like their page back, they can then send you a direct message. When they could send you a direct message, that's when they could scan me from money. Now, they could do this in a lot

of different ways. They could say that they're having a charity for a hurricane and they're looking for donations, and they want to start it by saying, I'm seeking out my best fans, my most personal fans, the ones that care about me the most, and I can get personal donations from these fans, and then they could figure out ways for you to send the money. Or they could just say I'm looking to do something that my management doesn't know about, so I need to do it in private.

I want to make sure that I could trust you. But I have three hundred thousand dollars on the line. I need to move a briefcase from point A to point B. Can you pick it up for me? And then they'll figure out a way for you to pay for the postage or something small, ridiculous that could be one hundred bucks, and then there goes your hundred bucks. After that, after all these scams, they slowly disappear into the night. They're gone forever and moved on to the

next person. It's just wrong. It's criminal. Now, the reason I first started hearing about it is because people were either screenshotting it because they figured out that it wasn't me, or it was people that were telling me that they had talked directly to me. Now, I don't direct message fans I have. I consider myself very open to my fans, and I consider myself someone that opens up a lot

and meet and greets, and obviously this podcast. But come on, I'm not going to sit there and direct message people and talk about personal things and ask them for donations to a charity on through a direct message. It's not just gullible people that fall for this. It's smart people. It's people, it's family members that might think this. I had my Midwest record label rep. Jennifer. She told me,

she said, can I ask you a question? You've been messaging me on Instagram and why don't you just text me? And I said, Jennifer, I'm not direct messaging you on Instagram. That's somebody else that's a scammer that's trying to get close to you. And they'll start with several conversations about, you know, thank you for being a I hope you never stopped listening to my music, Where do you live, what's the next concert you're going to? I hope to meet you. Then they build this up like it's getting

more personal. So who are these people? That's the question I have? Who are the people that are scamming innocent victims and playing on their insecurities and their vulnerability. Who are these people? That's the question I have. That's the question I asked right before I did this podcast. And would you believe me if I told you that I figured out exactly who they were? Yes? I did? All right, follow me here. This is where it gets a little

bit weird. So I'm kind of pissed off that there's people impersonating me and other artists, other celebrities and asking for money from our innocent fans. So I'm ready to find out who these people are. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I find out, but I just want to know who are these people? So I begin my crusade. I want to set my trap. I go to Twitter, I create a new account. I decide that a young girl will be my best bait for my trap.

I go to Google Images and I actually typed in cute girl, did a quick image search, grabbed a random picture, made it my profile pick, gave her a name, completely made up a name, and during this process, Twitter asked you, what are your interest music check? What kind of music? Country check? Do you want to follow the standard country list? That's what Twitter isd asking, Yeah, and so boom. It instantly follows about one hundred people. It's everywhere, It's I'm

one of them. It follows me. It follows Garth Brooks and Dirk s Bentley and Toby Keith and Darius Ruckerds. It's a great way to kickstart your social media page. Now, this whole process of making this fake person took me about twenty seconds. By the time I finished, I already had a follower. I don't even know who. It was,

just a random bought follower. And then I got a couple more from certain people that had accounts where they had some kind of software program written in where if you follow X person, their account will automatically follow you. And that's how people use social media on ethically. So here I am about sixty seconds later, I have created a fake person. I've created a fake profile. I already have four or five followers. This is just weird how easy this is. And for the record, I want to

say for this podcast, don't do this at home. This is not good stuff. And my brother Tyler, who's my manager, was seriously against this, by the way. He said, man, you can't do that. And then say on a podcast that you created a fake account. That's illegal, And I said, I don't think it's illegal, and I looked it up and sure enough, in Louisiana, this is illegal. I'm not currently in Louisiana today or when I created the account.

Point being, I know it's weird. I'm sorry it does break the law in certain places, but my intentions are true. I'm making this account is bait so that I could find who these scammers are. I want to see how easy it is for me to try to get scammed because I want to be able to talk about that process as a warning on this podcast. Asked right and after just a few hours there it was the follower I was looking for Garth Brooks with no blue check. I found my first scammer. I want to take a

second to talk about EEE Energy. That's my unofficial official sponsor. It's also my drink. It's not a partnership with some big corporation. It's me and my brothers and we made this from scratch. I'm very proud of it. I'm biased, but I think it's the best energy drink. I think it's the best drink that I've ever had. But that's also because we created the recipe and made all these adjustments until it was the exact taste that I wanted. And if you want to see EEE Energy stocked in

your hometown, contact info at EEE energy dot com. You know, it's not just the drink that we have. We have a complete clothing line my brothers and I. Right now we have brand new Camo backpacks, tumblrs for drinks, baby onesies, new women's tanks, pass lanyards for the fall, we have new shirts, hoodies, flannels, blankets, beanies, you name it, we probably have it with the EEE brand on it. You

can get all that stuff at grangersmith dot com. Boo sitting here in Memphis, and tomorrow we start our Luke Bryan tour for the fall, and we start that in Roanoke, Virginia. So we're gonna leave here, We'll drive all night to Roanoke, and then we play Ronake, Indiana and Illinois this week with Luke Bryan. And that is the real Luke Bryan, the one with the blue check by his name on the social media, unlike this Garth Brooks account that followed me.

And I want to tell you about that Garth Brooks account, but first I want you to hear a story from my buddy Chris Lane. Chris Lane's another country artist and I've known him for a while, but we got really close touring together on a Florida Georgia line tour last fall, and that was a month long tour in Canada, and

we got to be really good friends. Recently, we were doing a show and he told me about this story of a fan in a meet and greet line that approached him and they figured out he was getting scammed. I called Chris just now and he could tell you about it. Hey, old buddy, old pal, what's going on? Man? So hey, I'm doing a little story on these what do you call it, scammers? I'm doing a little story in these scammers, on these scammers. And you told me a story the other day that kind of blew me away.

Tell me about that. Yeah. Yeah. So this this guy walks up to me after a show. It was him and his mom, and they basically had this look on their face as if I should know who they are. So the mom says, hey, make sure you return my text when you get on your bus, and I was like, ah, yeah, I just kind of played it off, and then she said it again. I said you have my number. She was like yeah, so make sure you text me that. And the guy, her son, I guess in the process,

was like, Chris is mom. And at first, the way he started out in the conversation was like, well, are you not gonna say hello to mom? And I'm just I was confused in that moment. I thought they were joking with me. And so, to make a long story short, he keeps saying, Chris, it's me, it's your brother, and I'm like Corey and he's like yeah, and I'm like that's crazy because my chin brother's name is Corey. And he like looked confused in that moment. Then I was like,

is are y'all playing a joke on me? Or what's going on here? And then he was like, well, what do you mean? He was like, it's me, it's your brother, and I'm like, I'm like all right. At this point, I'm just so confused, man, Like what's going on here? He's like, well, you text me every single day and you tell me that you love me, and I'm just like I do. He's like yeah, I'm like, show me

the text message. So he pulls up his text message and he's got three texts from people, ones from me at the top, one's from somebody I have no clue who it is, and then the one under it is Dustin Lynch and I'm like, well, show me what it says. So at the top it says it's him saying hey, I'm here, and then it's like, look, looks is what looks like a response for me? And it says, Hey,

I'm just chilling on my bus. I'll see you after the show Love You My Brother something like that, and I'm like all right, and I looked at the rest of the text and I'm just like, you know what, this is right, And he's like no. I'm like, man, that's not me. That's somebody who is pretending to be me. And they look like they had seen a ghost, like they were like, wait a minute, what this is not you kind of thing. But I'm like, yeah, dude, people do this every day with every country music artist or

any artists in general. People are pretending to be somebody that they're not, and you're basically getting catfished. At this point, he's made you think or whoever's behind this has made you dank that you've been talking to me this whole time, and if you're not careful, are gonna ask you for money. They do it every single time, Like I get messages

like this every single day. He's like, well, I've already given them a bunch of money and proceeded to say that this has ruined his life and kind of broke down, and I was just like left sending They're like, oh my gosh, like this is guy to stop people. It's hard for me to believe that people actually believe that, you know, they're talking to whoever it is that they're getting catfished by. But you know, how much money do you think he gave him? Man, I don't know. It's

it's hard to say. He did say it ruined his life though, so yeah, I don't know. I didn't know what that meant. I was just a little taken back by the situation. But yeah, I get messages every day, as I'm sure I know you do, and as well as a bunch of artists. I've seen cons of artists posting up videos saying, hey, make sure you only look

for the blue check mark. That's how you know it's real. Like, you know, people are asking people for money and they're doing it for toure dates where they're acting like you get free tickets to a show if you purchase iTunes,

gift cards, just like the craziest things ever. I can't believe people actually do that, but I guess they're making money off of it, and people are believing that it's really the artist, or they're making up some calls for some calls where it's like a, hey, I'm hitting you up because I need a donation to my childhood Cancer Foundation of some sorts, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's a multi million dollar scam. Oh wow, yeah, that's

that's crazy. Yeah, well, dude, I hate that happens. I know you're on the golf course and you got to hit some balls. But all right, man, well thanks for thanks for letting me share the old story. You're welcome, dude. I'll see you soon, all right, brother be So that's Chris Lane and his story. It's probably like a lot of other people's stories. And who are these people? Who? Who is this guy that's trying to scam Chris Lane's fans? Maybe it's someone exactly like this Garth account that I'm

looking at right now. So I dive into looking at this account. It looks exactly like Garth's account, except for it has about fifty followers and Garth has hundreds of thousands. The name is Garth Brooks, but if you look closely on the handle, it's at Garth underscore Brooks underscore one.

These are all things that you probably wouldn't notice if you weren't looking for it, or if you weren't paying attention, or if you're just a fan that's excited to see this Garth Brooks character following you once again, I cannot stress how important it is to know that it does not have a blue check. Every celebrity is going to have a blue check that means they are verified through management, through the actual social media account checked and they cross checked,

and they figured out that this person is legit. It's the real person, it's the official account. It doesn't matter if it says official account. It needs to have the blue check to signify to you that it's official. Right. So what I do is I follow back. Following back two people following each other allows me to direct message. So here's where I'm going to bait my trap, my little pretty face teenage girl profile. By the way, I know it's weird that I'm a fake account talking to

a fake account, but get past that. The point is that I'm able to warn you now on this podcast what I'm doing. So I shoot them a direct message and I say, I know you'll never reply, but I just want to say I'm a huge fan smiley face, and I put huge in all caps, and then I went ahead and added a little angel emoji at the end. I really have to sell this young girl thing, right, that's a little bit nerve wracking because now I have now sent This is the first time I've done this.

I've sent my bait to what I think I think is this scam artist. I'm pretty sure this is a scam artist. And I wait for a reply and then I get it on the bottom of my screen. It says messages. It has a little envelope and then it turns blue with a little circle one. Oh my gosh, I got a message. I open it up. It's from Garth Brooks. It says good morning, and then it has a sunshine and smiley face emoji and it says I am here to reply, which already this is that's just

weird English. I'm here to reply who says that? And of course I reply back, OMG, is it really you? Question Mark? Question Mark? The account writes back, yes, real and legit. Hmm okay. So I say, this might be the greatest day of my life. I would do anything for you. I'm trying to say that to, you know, speed up the process of them asking for money. And guess what he says. He says, are you sure of your words? And you sound like you can die for me?

So already by reading these words I'm thinking this sounds like a foreigner. This sounds like somebody that either English is a is not their first language, or they're using an English translator. Continuing with the dialogue, I say, OMG, I would absolutely die for you, mister Brooks. He says, sounds so great to me. Baby. Which state are you? I say, Illinois? When do you come back here? He says it's not on my tour list for now, but will let you know anytime I will be coming there.

And then he goes on to say, so are you single, divorce, separated, or married? And do you have kids? I say single, of course, right. You'll never believe what he writes next. This is unbelievable to me. It says, get me iTunes card one hundred dollars, and there you have it. He took the bait hook line and sucker Josh Turner in my head. Back here in Memphis, the show is now over, and I've come back to the bus and we're about

to roll to Virginia. I hope you don't mind. Now the engine is on and I sleep by the engine, so it's gonna be a little loud by this microphone. I hope you don't mind. So back to Twitter. This Garth Brooks, this fake Garth Brooks has straight up asked me for an iTunes gift card for one hundred dollars. Now I want to keep him on the line. I want to keep this thing going because I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a victim. So I want him to tell me how to go about doing

this so that I could be well informed. So I say, how do I do that? Lol? He says, and I quote because I'm not misreading this. He says, just went to Walmart or any store and buy iTunes card. So obviously by now we know this is not an American by the way that they're typing. I say, and then how do I get it to you, mister Brooks? He says, when you buy it and you open it and snap

the front and send it to me. So me trying to keep him on the line, trying to keep things going here, I say, Okay, I love you, I don't have much money, but I want to get you this gift card. Why do you need me to do this? Will I get to meet you? And how many do you want? He says, Well, Well, I needed to upgrade my phone and I am in tour. I want you to be one of my biggest fans that I could be able to visit when I come down there. Okay,

so there's the hook, right. He's promising fans you get to meet him and you could be guaranteed one of his biggest fans if you buy him an iTunes card. I say, OMG, if you promise to visit me, I can give you thousands of dollars of gift cards or do you only need one hundred? I'm kind of joking here, he says. If you could afford one thousand iTunes card, I will use it, but I have to be one hundred in to ten whenever that means, and I promise you that I will visit you. Oh, he promised me.

I say, I'm so excited buying them now. I also just got tickets to your show in Indiana. I'll bring them with me and give them to you by your bus. Okay, two thousand dollars. This is my way to see. Well, how's he going to handle fans telling him? How about we meet in person? He says, my show in Indiana is October fifth. I said, yes, I know. I'm so excited. He said, And here's the kicker. If you are true to your word, kindly get some now and send it to me and get the rest when you come to

my show. Then I will know you are serious. Man, he's being harsh. Huh. He says, I need to upgrade my phone now, So you want me to wait till October fifth before upgrading it? The guilt trip, right, I say, that's what I thought. I was just wondering why you need my one hundred dollars. I loved you, garth, He says, I have told you that I need to upgrade my phone. If you really love me, you won't be questioning me.

So you know. By this point, I'm pissed off because I'm thinking about he's talking to my profile pick I told you as a young girl. So he's talking to a young American fangirl, the kind of people that put me in business. Hell no, you can't talk like that to us. So I snap on him. I say, my name is not the name I put on the profile. I'm actually a middle aged man. I report scam accounts like yours. You will not be caught today, but sometime soon, somewhere in your life, you will slip up far away

in whatever foreign country you live in. Karma will catch you and you will pay good luck. Oh and thanks for the conversation. I was able to screenshot silence. He didn't say a word. So several hours go by and I say, no more talking. You're a coward. I'm trying to hook him. He says, what are you talking about? I say, what kind are you in right now? He says Canada. That's a lie. I say, what's your nationality? Don't be a coward, open up to me. That's the

last I heard from that Garth. He then blocked me. So I realized at this point, Okay, if I want to find out anything about these fake people, if I want to know who they really are, I can't just attack them. I can't just say you're gonna get caught. Karena's gonna catch you. That was just me being angry. So I decided to change my tactics and start over. By the way, by this point, by the end of this conversation with Garth, I've had a lot of friend

request and they're all, guess what fake accounts? Let me

just name you. The request I got Dustin Lynch, Jason al Dean, Danielle Bradberry, Toby Keith, Dirks Bentley, Dirks Bentley again, Darius Rucker, Garth Brooks again, Keny Chesney, Thomas Rhet, John Party, Colsewindell, Garth Brooks again, Dirk s Bentley again, Martina Bride, Brad Paisley, Brad Paisley again, loret Alynn that's creative, Trace Akins, Garth Brooks, Garth Brooks again and again, and Cole Swindell, all of which I accepted, all of their friend request and all

of which we started a conversation. Let me tell you more about that. Shutting Payne and Nowhere Town sign up, the Sundown, making bad summer time money. Damn. Okay, we're rolling now, rolling to Virginia, and I haven't done a podcast since we've been rolling, so I hope you don't mind.

This engine's going to be loud. I'm debating whether I should finish this tomorrow, but we're gonna be busy tomorrow, and I'm on a roll, and I've got this story, and I've got Twitter pulled up, and i've got these fake conversations that I've had with people that I really want to read to you. So if you don't mind. I'm gonna keep going. But let me go to the

one that I finally had a breakthrough on. I had a couple in between that first Garth and then I found Dirks Bentley at d I E r k ss Bentley with no eve before the y. So that's how they're able to make the fake account. So I started this one. I started the first message. I said, I'm a huge fan, and he says, how long have you been my fan? I said a long time. I would do anything for you. He says, thanks for your love and support. Have you ever been to my concert? I

say yes? Is this the real you or management? He says, thanks for your love and support? Have you ever been to my concert? Yes? He just repeated the same thing. I think he's I think a lot of these guys copy and paste. And then he says, what are your dreams and determinations, which obviously he's using a translator, copying, pasting into some kind of English translator, which it makes no sense. So I just cut right to the chase. I take what I learned from Garth and I say, hey,

you want an iTunes gift card? He says, what do you mean? I say, I just love you. He says, why do you ask such a question? I say, because I love you and I would do anything for you just to notice me. He says, do you believe you were able to achieve your dream? Okay, this and now it's just getting stupid. So I just cut to the point. I say, what country are you in right now? He says, am in the state preparing for concert? I say, no, not your fake account, the real you, whoever you are.

Where are you Africa? He says, I will open up to you. What Okay, I got something now right This might be the first truth I've seen from any of these guys, and so I say, okay, open up right now. He says, Okay, promise me you won't report me. I say yes, he says, I'm from Nigeria. I said, do you have many friends that do this on Twitter? Pretend to be famous singers? He says no. I said, do you live in Aboujah? I just googled it and that was the first city that came up. He says, no,

I live in Lagos. I said, how much money have you made doing this? I won't report you, he said, I swear to God. I just started I said, how do you decide to try it? He says, just an idea. I'm very creative. By the way, that's a lie. I know he's lying. I said, I don't believe you. Be honest, Many many people do this, he said, I swear to Almighty God, I don't have friends that do this. I just opened up to you. I said, Okay, how old are you? He said twenty? I said, do you have

a real Twitter account? I want to see the real you? He says, no, I only have a Facebook. I say, what's your name? He said, let me send you a friend request on Facebook. I say, I don't have a Facebook. What's your real name? He said, Are you try trying to track me? I'm scared. I said, I'm not trying to track you. Can you just set a pick of yourself. I want to see the real you. You don't have to tell me your name, he said, send me yours first. I said, I wonder if you have a boss that

won't let you. He said, no, I'm alone here. I stay alone. I'm just scared. I said, no, one can trace a selfie from your phone. Send a peace sign so I know it's you. He said, it's late here. I said, yes, I know it's twelve twenty eight. I was watching his time. He said, yes, you're right, and guess what he did. He sent me a selfie and so there I get the first look at what these these thieves look like. And it's a young man about

twenty African American. Obviously. He has a white shirt button up with a dragon on the front, and he's given me kind of a melancholy face and a peace sign, just like I asked him. I said, thank you. You have a real name. He says, yes, Raphael, that's my real name. I said, yes, I believe you. I say, are jobs hard to find in Nigeria? He says, yes, very hard to find for the youth. People are suffering here. I say, and by the way, he still thinks I'm a girl. I say, I'm a man. I made a

fake account, just like you. He said, where are you from? I say, Texas, USA? He said, okay, that's good, Sirs, so nice to meet you. Say you take care of yourself. Be careful on Twitter. Most people aren't who they say they are. He says, I know I'm being careful, sir. May I ask why you did create your fake account? Sir, I say to find guys like you and ask them to please not take money from innocent girls. It hurts people's lives. He says, Oh, okay, that's good, sir. I'll

delete this fake account soon, Sir. I say, find ways to help people, not hurt them. I know you can, he said, Okay, I will. He still hasn't deleted that account. That was several days ago. He still hasn't deleted it. I checked just for the record, knowing that I was going to do this podcast about this subject, because I think it's important for if you're listening to this podcast, to spread the words, spread the message. Tell your friends,

say make sure your look for that blue check. You're not talking to celebrities, right because this is a multi million dollar scam. I looked it up. It's called the four to nineteen scam. Four nineteen that was named after a Nigerian law. It's been around a long time. And all of these, all of these people, at least all the all the ones that I talked to are from Nigeria, all about twenty years old. And I started going right

to it. I started some of these friend requests. We would have one conversation, one back and forth, and I would immediately say what part of Nigeria are you from? Lagos? There's several other towns, but they're all in Nigeria. Sometimes they would block me right away, and sometimes they would open up. Sometimes they would call me a fool. Sometimes they would speak out in their own language and yell at me and say things like settle down, crazy woman,

and their language. I looked at that. I looked it up. Raphael wasn't the only guy that sent me a picture I actually got. I got several people to send me pictures of them. It's crazy, I know, but I was so curious about their life. And a lot of these guys are saying that they just graduated college or they're still in college, and when you graduate, there's no jobs in Nigeria, so they they have no money, They have

no way to pay for their school. They just they just got out of and everybody else is doing this four nineteen scam. And to me, what they're probably thinking is America is so far away, Western Europe is so far away, and everyone has money, right, they're doing great. So if I get one hundred dollars here, fifty dollars here, or two hundred dollars here from these people. It helps me and it's nothing off them. I guarantee you that's

that's their mindset. But I I talked to a few really nice people that opened up and that that got nice. But then there's a deeper, darker side to this. I think there's a lot more that I don't know. And that's when my brother Tyler's saying, hey, you need to stop going down this rabbit hole. You're gonna find something you don't want to see. So to date, so far since I started this, and by the way, I started this three days ago knowing that I was gonna do

this podcast in Memphis today. Three days ago from when I started did this fake account, and I started hunting these scammers. I've talked to twenty two people. Twenty two people. They're all from Nigeria. They're all in their mid to lower twenties. Some of them are nice. Some of them tell me to go to hell and block me. Here's a funny one. This is from another Dirk Spentley. It said, hello, thanks for the likes of my page and all the love that you've shown me. I hope you never stopped

listening to my music, and I say you're welcome. How long you been doing four nineteen and then block I'm deleted. Sometimes that's all it takes. And there's a lot of different tactics. There's a lot of ways that I handled these twenty two people. But the one question I still have that no one has answered is do these people Are they really doing it alone as they're all saying they are and they don't know about each other, which has to be a lie. Or is there some kind

of boss that's running this thing? Are there mob bosses? Is this some big underground operation? Is this some room with a bunch of computers and one leader walking around and forcing these people to do this? And what a scary thought. It's scary even talking about it on this podcast. But is that true. Here's a conversation I had with a Dustin Lynch impersonator and after several back and forth, and this person admitted that they were a scammer, and I admitted that I wasn't the girl on my page.

And on day two person said, can you please send me your phone number? I said no, I prefer to talk here. And then the Dustin Lynch said, nothing much to say to you unless you get this package. If you're not ready, to pay then buy. And what's funny is this person copied and pasted the wrong reply to the wrong person. That wasn't even to me, that was to some other poor soul that they're talking to. And I said, are you messaging the wrong person? And they

said yes, I'm sorry. Can you send me your number so we could really talk? And I said no, I'd prefer to talk here and they said I could not talk here any longer. I'm being watched. Sorry, goodbye, and that's the end. The hell does that mean? I'm being watched? What's going on with these people? To another person? This was Toby Keith. I said, how long have you been doing four nineteen? He said, we have no choice, man, I said, our job's hard to find. Do you have

a boss not letting you talk? He said I couldnot speak about this oga ou Ean boys at ye whatever the heck that means, and then he blocked me. That's some weird stuff. And honestly, I'm gonna be happy to delete this fake account and stop these conversations with Nigerians. And I gotta say I have to. I wouldn't be truthful in this podcast without saying that I feel sorry for him. I do. I do I wake up? You know.

I yesterday before I came on this tour, I stopped by the grocery store and I went in and I got groceries for the tour. Then I was checking out and I pulled out my credit card and swiped it and got my bags and got back on my truck and went and met the buses. And it just occurred to me that, you know, Americans, the easy, simple things, we just get it. It's no big deal, go get groceries, And it's not like that in Nigeria. And I feel sorry for him. Is what they're doing right? Hell no,

it's wrong. That's that's why I'm trying to bring awareness to it. But that doesn't change the fact that I feel sorry for him. I do know. I can't. I have no empathy for their lives. I have no idea what they're going through. Their own government embezzels money from them, Their own government is corrupt, their own government is part of four nineteen. I mean, there's people that do this

same scam in the government at Nigeria. You know. I saw my mom the other day and as I was leaving, she said, hey, thanks for finally adding me as a friend on Facebook. Yeah, I said, Mom, I didn't add you as a friend on Facebook. I have an artist page, a fan page. I can't add anybody. She said, well, who added me? And I said a Nigerian added you, Mom.

She said what I said. Listen to my podcast episode five and I'll tell you inside out of the Blue Scats last year Winny capinside nothing news is writ into you, Julie or you can do to keep her around until the moon goes down in her back at your house. One things to another, you love at each other when look can you never loved back? It happens like that. Thanks for listening. I got a lot of tourdys and I hope you come see us when we're close to

you at cratorsmith dot com backslash tour. And remember Mom always looked for that blue check.