[dataqat]

Overall things are much safer, but contact by scammers online (online scams in general) is much more a thing now than it was then. There was a turning point in the mid-late aughts for me where the level of trustworthiness of random anonymous online contacts took a dive.

[Aperocky]

This is my feeling as well. For some reason online community feels more "trustable" in the early 2000s. That is definitely NOT true today.

[uncletaco]

What's funny about this is at the time I most trusted my online friends people who weren't terminally online felt much more vocal about online predators and scammers. Now that everyone is terminally online they don't seem to be as worried.

[_9hey]

Sounds like a sad story. I’m sorry to hear that