Yesterday I got a text from a number I didn't recognize. (786) 481-4680. Miami area code. The message? "Hi Christopher, right?" Three words. That's it. My first instinct was to reply. Be polite. Say "wrong number" and move on with my day. I didn't. And that split-second decision might have saved me thousands of dollars. Here's what I almost walked into. That "innocent" text is the opening line of what the FBI calls a "pig butchering" scam. Weird name. Devastating consequences. HERE'S HOW THE SCAM WORKS They send thousands of these texts. "Hi [name], right?" They're fishing. Waiting for someone polite enough to respond. If you reply—even just "wrong number"—you've confirmed two things: 1. This phone number is active. 2. There's a real person here willing to engage. Now you're a qualified lead. The scammer apologizes. Strikes up a conversation. Maybe mentions it's "fate" that you connected. Over the next few weeks—sometimes months—they build trust. They become your friend. Maybe more. Then comes the hook. A cryptocurrency opportunity. A trading platform. An "investment" that seems too good to pass up. By the time you realize what's happening, your money is gone. And I mean gone. Think I'm being dramatic? Last year, text message scams cost Americans $470 million. That's five times higher than 2020. These aren't Nigerian princes with bad grammar anymore. They're sophisticated operations using AI to manage conversations with hundreds of victims simultaneously. The Miami area code on that text I received? Spoofed. Could have come from anywhere in the world. The fact that they used my first name? Probably pulled from a data breach. Or my LinkedIn. Or anywhere else my info exists online. This isn't random. It's targeted. It's patient. And it's designed to exploit the one thing most of us were raised to be: Polite. So here's what you do when you get one of these: Do NOT respond. Not even "wrong number." Silence is your best protection.