"Are You Dentist John?" — Scammer Pretends to Have Toothache in Bizarre Opening Text

There's no shortage of scams involving phone calls and text messages from strange phone numbers. Some scammers might wrap you up in some Bitcoin group chat group you'd rather not be a part of.

And then you'll have folks who'll send you emails of fake invoices stating that your order's been completed. This, of course, is a phishing scam.

The idea is that the recipient messages the scammer, which then puts them into "play" with the con. The scammer can message the person back and forth in the hopes of getting them to click on a specific link or give up some of their personal information.

But have you ever seen a scam involving booking a dentist's appointment? That's what an X (formerly Twitter) user named Chris said they encountered in a recent post.

In a screenshot of a text convo, you can see someone contacts Chris and asks, "Hi, is this dentist John?"

It's a strange kind of nomenclature for someone to go by, as if we're all living in the Busy World of Richard Scarry.

Unless there are throngs of folks out there putting people's names in their phones as "Accountant Mike" or "Lawyer Brittany," it seems like a weird thing to message someone out of the blue about.

Chris replied to the random texter, "It is not."

But the person who reached out to him took this as an invitation to keep messaging, writing, "I have a toothache today. My friend Mia recommended this number. It would be great if you could recommend a dentist you are familiar with."

Chris seemed perplexed by the exchange, writing in their X post about it, "This has to be a scam text but what's the end goal here?"

And there were plenty of folks on the application who were willing to share their speculations as to what their intentions were.

One commenter said that these kinds of opening texts are ways for scammers to target "lonely" individuals who just want to have a friend to converse with. They wrote: "They are trying to build a rapport. Their main target is lonely and old people who just want someone to talk to. So they 'mistakenly' text you and when you let them know it's the wrong [number], they try and keep the conversation going in hopes you'll want a friend and keep talking to them."

In a follow-up X post, they wrote that this was done as a means of attempting to get strangers to feel comfortable with them. Once their friendship is established and they've latched onto a goodhearted person willing to help, they then up the ante to a place where they've created a type of romantic dependency.

Once it's brought to that place, that's when the financial asks begin pouring in. "If you keep talking to them they will at first just chat and act like a friend, or they will move the conversation more into a romance scam type of deal. All of this is just to build trust so when they ask you to send them money or crypto you are more likely to send it," they wrote.

Another X user shared a screenshot of their own conversation with a random potential scammer who randomly asked, "I just came out of gym. What are you doing this morning?"

They posted an obscene response that'll probably let anyone on the other end know that they're either onto what their trying to do. Either that, or they conversed with someone who is very open about their nighttime plans.

However, another person said that the scam texts are actually done for a much simpler reason: just to see if the numbers are active. If you don't reply or immediately block these texts, then whoever sent them won't be sure that there's any service currently being supplied to these phone numbers.

One person said that they, too, received an out-of-nowhere text from someone who utilized the same phrasing with their vernacular. "I got one recently that asked if I was 'coach Amy'. Weird a-- phishing," they wrote.

But there was one X user who thought that the post was actually a strange type of guerilla marketing being conducted by dentists who were looking for prospective patients in their area: "Plot twist: It's actually a dentist looking for patients."

Have you ever received scam texts like this with seemingly strange conversation starters/intentions?