PSA: just don’t accept chat requests

I post comments on this sub fairly regularly. I like to participate and am in love with getting my few moons every month. I get chat requests almost right away when I do. I am never going to accept a chat request this way.

If someone wants to add to the discussion then you would think that they would reply publicly to me in a post.

Chat requests are often the first to step to a scam. Can anyone help me under and a logical reason why someone would want to chat with me instead for post publicly? Maybe I’m just cynical but I read too many things where people are taken advantage of from this sort of thing.

So I guess this post is mostly a warning that scammers are out there and the chat function is one of their greatest tools because a non public conversation lets them prey on people without the oversight of the community.

Our community is one of the best tools we have in preventing scams because other users will call out suspicious replies.

Do your part! Keep your conversations public.

Edited: I added two words I left out in a sentence.

Edit 2: just got a chat that is like hi I see you’ve recently been scammed. What a bot!