$48,000 in Starlink Kits Scammed Away

🐊 Florida man at it again

Listen, when a story starts with “Florida Man”, you know its going to be interesting to say the least.

This “Florida man”..(Here we go).. posing as a County Procurement Officer, successfully scammed his way to 7 Starlink Kits. Here's how it went down…

For 11 months, Keith Merard (26) and his crew were living the scammer's dream. Posing as Volusia County officials, they emailed hundreds of equipment vendors from fake government email addresses, and opened credit lines like it was Black Friday...

Most vendors saw through it. But some? They got played. Like the company that shipped $7K worth of reusable respirators straight to Miami. Easy money.

Then Keith got greedy. October rolls around and they land their biggest score yet - $48,000 worth of Starlink kits. Our man is probably feeling like Ocean's Eleven right about now.

🥷 Swiper no Swiping

But here's the thing about stolen Starlink dishes - as soon as they're activated, you're essentially shooting off a location beacon. So when Keith tried to connect his stolen space WiFi to the mothership, Starlink's fraud team lit up like a Christmas tree.

Broward County Sheriff's deputies walked our wannabe procurement officer straight to jail. 11 months of successful scams, hundreds of vendors contacted, and my man essentially calls the sops on himself 💀 lol

Just another day in Florida.

🔍 Take Aways:

Scammers like Keith here count on vendors being too excited about a big government contract to double-check the details. Take 10 minutes to verify = save $48K.

• Government purchase orders deserve a phone call back. Not to the number ON the order - look up the county office yourself

• If they're rushing a big order with next-day shipping to a random address... maybe time to take a pause and ask some questions

• Multiple orders from "different departments" at the same agency? Red flag

• When a new "purchasing director" suddenly wants to open credit lines everywhere... yeah, check those credentials. Also RED FLAG

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Don't Get Got!

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