/r/Scams

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Sikkamicaniko on 2024-09-28 13:39:42+00:00.

Hi All.

My girlfriend has I’m fairly sure, been scammed for her life savings of 10k plus 1k of my money.

She messages me yesterday morning asking to borrow 3.5k for a couple of hours. Wouldn’t give details as she was rushing and would explain later. I said I couldn’t but I can give her 1k and if she can tell me whats up I can give her more. This is very unlike her and I guess I thought she could be in trouble or maybe has not been paid on time and needed to pay a bill.

Anyway, I then message a few hours later asking for her to catch me up what she needed it for. Said she would tell me later blah blah (this is very out of character for her, I even called to check it was her).

Anyways, I push al day and then she asks for more money. So I called her and she says ‘I’ve been trading stocks, I’ve made a mistake and I need to recover the mistake’ straight away I assume she is being scammed. Tell her to stop right away. She tells me I’m not helping, she needs to put more money in as she had made loads of money blah blah.

I left work and drove straight to her. I check the app (WT.Terminal) which seems sketchy. I ask what’s been happening and she shows me communications via WhatsApp with an alleged broker. Red flag for WhatsApp and the stock are a screenshot from his notes. I was confused at one point as she told me she clicked the wrong stock which caused her profits to crash horribly. But then I noticed the one they told her to pick, was not actually an option. So she clicked one that looked like it and I feel this is part of the scam.

Anyways, She had started off with 1.8k. Was shown a 10k profit and convinced the put more it. Has put 10k in total and was trying to get another 5k to ‘save the trade’ when I got there. WhatsApp guys telling her she would owe 30k because of the mistake if she don’t deposit more.

I’m ware this can happen in a margins broker deal but I assume this is not that.

WhatsApp guys call themselves certain people from certain business and she did look them up on companies house. But I assume they are pretending to be the company, and the people.

So, I assume this is a scam. But just wanted quick opinions. She is devastated. Lost everything she had chasing the dream of a better life for us. Will try to chase it through the bank and hopefully can be resolved. Bad lesson for her to learn, can’t even pay the bills this month and she obviously lied to me and should have told me she was about to risk my money but that’s a convo for another day. I think she has enough to contemplate without me coming down on her.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/SexyBiscuitYT on 2024-09-27 21:30:55+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Flower127 on 2024-09-27 21:36:37+00:00.

Earlier this week I sent my Dad a link to a specific item on Amazon. In my Amazon app I clicked on the Share icon, copied the link, pasted it in an email, and sent it to him.

I didn't hear from my Dad until today when he texted me, "When I opened the link all my files started to shoot out and a voice stated all my data was gone and to call Microsoft which they gave me the number. 45 minutes later they had full access and code to my computer. The whole thing was a hacker scam and they have all my information."

At first I thought he was joking, but nope, he was absolutely serious and it really happened. I wish he would have reached out to me instead of calling "Microsoft", but he didn't, so here we are.

I went back to the email I sent him, clicked on the link, and it took me right to the product on Amazon. I forwarded the email to my husband and he opened the link on his laptop and it also took him to the product on Amazon.

I just can't figure out how an Amazon link I sent my Dad ended up being a virus, but only on his computer. Does anyone know how this could have happened?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Whatswrongbaby9 on 2024-09-27 20:47:16+00:00.

God this one was annoying. Received three calls back to back to back from an unknown number, declined the first two (was at work), on the third I answered and was pretty pissed off because I hate when people do this.

So I answer: What!?

Guy: This is officer blah blah with (redacted) county courts looking for Mr. xxxxxx

Me: That's me, what?!

Guy: I'm calling because you had a jury summons sent to (over a decade old address in a different county), and you didn't show, so now there is a bench warrant for your arrest

Me: That's pretty funny because I don't live in (county), haven't lived there in a long time, haven't registered to vote there in a long time, and also I have no idea why an officer would be calling me from a blocked number

Guy: Our outbound system sometimes blocks numbers, look I'm not here to go back and forth with you, you were summoned and didn't show, so do you want to settle this or am I going to need to dispatch officers?

Me: It's pretty funny you'd dispatch officers since you don't even know where I live

Guy: Well do you live at (more recent but still not correct address)?

Me: Nope, sure don't

Guy: Well how do you want to handle this?

Me: Sounds like it's your problem to handle, if you're gonna send officers please do, again they'd be going to not where I live.

Hung up. No officers arrived.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/CrownVicDude on 2024-09-27 18:52:03+00:00.

I just had a very strange interaction with someone who rang my doorbell. A middle aged man had pretty legitimate looking tickets, the type you would get for a local fundraiser or banquet, for a chicken BBQ lunch of some sort.

Here's the catcher.....they had my home address printed on them! I live in a town of about 100,000 outside of a larger metropolis, so there's a lot of houses around. It said the location was at the "Handy Center", which I have never heard of, and doesn't show up on Google Maps, and once again had my home address on it.

This person was not suspicious looking or acting, and did not continue to try to engage once I said I couldn't help. I was so shocked I didn't ask key questions like, "Where did you get these from?" or "Who sold them to you?" Or "Where did you come from?" There's a lot of scams out there, so tickets to a fake fundraiser aren't shocking, but why my home address?

After saying goodbye, the guy drove his car very slowly down my street (which is only ~40 houses long), like he was still looking for the chicken lunch, which makes me think that he was the one who was scammed.

I'm not sure what to make of this one.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/tayishere on 2024-09-27 16:10:07+00:00.

I joined this ‘trading’ company today and before joining i had to do three days of training where they taught us about the financial markets and how to answer calls and face objections. We were asked to choose stage names and I really thought the reason why was our mother company is in UK. And after the training they gave us a simulation and I passed.

Today was my first day on the floor handling ’sales’. First it seemed fine. They had these target boards with everyone’s names and as I calculated for this month they have passed 10k USD in sales. Whenever someone secure a sale that person rings a bell that is mounted to the wall and everyone claps and celebrate.

Within less than an hour I figured what they celebrated was scamming innocent people from all over the world. They have 3 ways of scamming. First is asking people to ‘invest’ for the first time. Then there is a retention department where they scam the same people over and over. And then there is ‘recovery’ where they find victims that got scammed from other unregulated platforms and scam them again saying that they will help them recover the lost money.

The whole operation is very elaborated and no can bring phones inside. No one knows the real names of anyone. They make everyone sign an NDA on the first day of training.

I feel bad for everyone that is getting scammed by this inhumane people. And people are fucking RINGING BELLS AND CLAPPING when they successfully scam a person. The person sitting infront of me scammed a person (this person was a previous victim) who was in the NICU for 5 days and who just returned home.

I don’t know how these people do what they do. I will never understand that.

Also, the mastermind (owner) behind this scam showed up during the shift. He was a British guy scamming British people. All of them are going to hell and I hope they all suffer someday I had to watch and learn today so I’m happy I didn’t take part of anything

Edit: They show fake accounts of blockchain/ e wallets with fake amounts to previous victims and convince them that the lost funds have increased due to market prices and what not. Therefore they should open a temporary wallet to get the funds that we have recovered. and to activate the new wallet they should pay a minimum amount. Minimum amount depends on what information the client disclose. If they reveal they make more suddenly the minimum amount to activate the wallet goes higher. They alter the website using the ‘inspect’ mode and change the wallet amount / name, phone number and email of the wallet. And they say the can only transfer the recovered money to an active account therefore the client feels obligated to pay again. And this is not a ‘payment’ in client’s mind because they are depositing funds to a wallet that is linked to ‘their’ email and phone number.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/blahhhhhhhhh99 on 2024-09-27 17:32:49+00:00.

Original post:

So I had a talk with her, and essentially told her all of the input from my previous post. How it was unanimous agreement of being an MLM/scam/cult. How many, many of you said it was Amway.

Well, she went to the “mindset meeting” anyways and was there for almost 2.5 hours. She gets back late and I ask how it went, “good”. I pried for more, she didn’t want to talk, was too tired.

This morning I asked again, her response “can we talk about this tonight?” I was getting annoyed and said no, I wouldn’t respond but I need to know like wtf you were gone almost 2.5 hours and you won’t tell me anything…well it was Amway 😑

She was told she would make a minimum $40k/year and she was “lucky to be chosen for the opportunity”. The leader who talked was “very well known”

I asked if I could say 1 thing, she said yes. “You say you’re going to make minimum $40k from this, did you know from the 2023 Amway income disclosure the top 0.66% who were Founders Platinum level made $41k…”

She didn’t have much of a response besides “well even a few extra grand per month would be great”

I’m at a loss with how to proceed. Any insight would be appreciated

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Life-Evidence-6672 on 2024-09-27 16:38:24+00:00.

Me: hello.

Paul: hello this is Paul calling from Amazon.

Me: No you’re not… come on Paul, we both know you aren’t calling from Amazon.

Paul: Hangs up.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/aceking136 on 2024-09-27 13:28:33+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Expensive_Roof_7557 on 2024-09-27 05:09:12+00:00.

I’ve been lurking this sub for a year or so just out of curiosity

Last week my daughter texts me “mom, someone tried making fraudulent withdrawals from my high yield savings account!”. I immediately knew it was a scam because of similar stories on this sub. She had already given them her password. She said they sounded so convincing. They knew her username, bank info, address. I told her to call her bank immediately! She said she did call the bank, the number they gave her. Oof. She then called the bank number from the banks legitimate website. Nothing had been transferred out luckily. She was able to put a hold on her account and change her password.

She feels dumb. I had warned her of this type of scam before. I told her she’s not dumb, just naïve. I told her to get on this subreddit and search for bank scams.

Here is what happened so others can be aware

She got a text from a Hawaii number(we live on the east coast). It said that there were fraudulent withdrawal attempts and to call them. When she spoke to them they seemed concerned and were assuring her they were trying to protect her account. They had her name, telephone, address, and balance amount (that’s what made her think it was legitimate). They then asked her for her password. She should have done a full stop then, but she was scared. Her entire life savings are in that account. Then she texted me.

Thank you r/scams for exposing these rotten scammers. Her quick action calling the bank avoided her losing thousands of dollars.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/AdventurousFuturePhD on 2024-09-26 23:45:54+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Undermost_Drip on 2024-09-26 21:30:11+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/dog_from_china on 2024-09-26 21:25:37+00:00.

So now he realizes it was scam and everything was a lie. My mom is mad, sad, and disappointed. I am mad, sad, and disappointed. He doesn’t wanna bring it up to no one and none of us want to talk about it. Shit sucks. My mom was joking that it would’ve been better if he was caught up in gambling instead because at least he had a chance of winning big lmao. He’s honestly the smartest person I know in my family, but I guess the title changed. Now we have all these scenarios in our heads on what we could’ve spent the money on… It was definitely a recovery scam I’m pretty sure, so thank you for everyone that helped.

Edit: So apparently it was something called Vbitex, and it might be a similar story to u/Zestyclose_Drummer_8 he posted 156d ago

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/crap-happens on 2024-09-26 18:48:54+00:00.

I don't get it. If you're not in my contacts, I don't answer the call. Let it go to vm. Had a call today. Left a vm related to a person I haven't had contact with for 6+ years. Gave me a case # in Travis County, TX. Googled the phone number left in the vm. Googled the case number referenced in the vm. Both are scams. I'm fricking old and even I know to do research.

Can only relate to my sister. She's lonely, answers every call. She's been scammed so many times but still answers calls. I don't get it. DON'T ANSWER CALLS from people not in your contacts.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/TheLastGinger420 on 2024-09-26 17:35:15+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/hawtgirlsummer on 2024-09-26 17:08:08+00:00.

This just happened and honestly I'm still shaken up but I do want to warn others. My wife is a teacher and never really calls me during the school day. I got a call from her, which made me think something was wrong and I answered. It sounded like her but she called me a pet name I don't like (red flag) and said she left work early and needed to talk to me about something "of great importance" (she doesn't talk like that.. red flag #2).

As soon as I go to ask questions, I hear her scream and the sound of crashing and the phone disconnected. Now I'm scared and tried to call back and as the phone was ringing, I got another call coming in. I ignore it and they call me again. At this point, I'm shaking and panicked and just trying to call my wife. The number calls me a third time and I answered. The person sounds weird and has an California accent (I live in the north east) and says "your spouse had accident and needs surgery right now, you need to send $900 on zelle right now to (some random number) so we can proceed surgery" and I knew immediately it was a scam.

At this point I have emotional whiplash and was just angry. I said "get a real job you piece of sh*t" and hung up. This is so disgusting and shameless. For a little over a minute I thought something might have happened to my wife. Spoofing her number and voice, then calling me demanding money. It's honestly so crazy and I hope you guys never experience what I just felt.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/Important-Ad4239 on 2024-09-26 14:37:17+00:00.

Today I received a call saying that my identity was being used to traffic drugs from a customs and border patrol agent. I should have immediately recognized this as a scam but due to several fraudulent charges on my credit card recently, I've been paranoid and for some reason believed them. They proceeded to talk for a very long time, where they listed off a few addresses, 2 of which were my current and past address, which I stupidly confirmed (they also listed some other random address which I had never heard of).

They then proceeded to ask me about my assets, which I very vaguely answered (along the lines of "yes, I have a bank account" and "No I dont own a car") but nothing specific. At this point I began to pick up on it likely being a scam, and let the call play out but didn't provide any further info.

Should I be worried? Do I need to do anything to keep myself safe? Am I screwed? I know I'm an idiot for falling for this so spare me those comments please.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/schizophrenicDEV on 2024-09-26 13:54:33+00:00.

I’ll be withholding the names of the business so they don’t appear on Google for this post and become associated with the scam, since they’re a victim as well.

Yesterday I noticed an unknown credit card transaction on my bank app. This was a $40 payment to a small business in Texas that sells a special stain remover. I googled around and found their website. It all looked legit, just a small business selling a product.

I contacted their support email to confirm I (or my wife) didn’t actually make this purchase and confirm my card actually was stolen. I provided my name, last 4 digits of the credit card number, the card type (Visa) and my card’s billing address. They promptly responded with all of the information they had on the order, including the shipping address and the associated email and phone number, as well as the billing info.

The billing info was my name and billing address, while the shipping address was to a girl I’ll call “Kelly” in Ohio (not my state). The email was for a long proper Vietnamese name with some numbers at gmail and the phone number was for a phone number in Michigan. This obviously confirmed that my card was stolen. The company canceled the order and immediately refunded my card and contacted FedEx to hold the package (which they had already shipped).

The whole situation was weird, so I continued digging. I found “Kelly” on Facebook and sent her a message, which was a sort of weird thing to do, but whatever. She responded a few hours later saying that she actually did order this stain remover product yesterday, but using Amazon, not the company’s direct website. This is notable because my credit card was charged by the official website, not Amazon. She then sent me a screenshot of the order on her Amazon.

I quickly noticed that she had purchased from an “unofficial” seller. One of the sellers that would appear on a product page under the “Buy New from these sellers” link on Amazon. This seller was undercutting the official Amazon product listing by about $8 with free shipping. She saw the good deal and purchased through them. Looking at the account, they are selling a couple of different “boutique” products like small brand lotions and a lot of this stain remover company’s various products.

Using this information, I was able to figure out how the “scam” works. The bad actor finds listings on Amazon that are fulfilled directly by the manufacturer, not Amazon, and also have a website you can purchase through directly. They then create an Amazon seller profile and list that company’s items and undercut them. When people purchase from them, the bad actor uses stolen credit card credentials (in this case, mine) to make the order on the manufacturer’s official website and have it shipped to the person who ordered from them on Amazon (in this case, Kelly). Then the bad actor pockets the money from Amazon.

This is actually quite a good operation, because normal people (not me) would either not notice the transaction on their statement or would just cancel the card and have the transaction reversed. The manufacturer would maybe receive a chargeback, but wouldn’t have any additional information to go off of. The legitimate customer (Kelly) would receive her product. Nothing really traces back to this illegitimate Amazon account.

I’ve passed all this information along to the stain remover company as well as other companies that have their products listed to be sold by this scammer Amazon seller. The stain remover company was VERY appreciative for the info and is working with Amazon to have this resolved.

I just figured I would pass info this along. If this is a novel scam technique it’s good to get this info out there and if not I would love to read more about it. I like to keep up-to-date on scams like this and read about the methods used by scammers and haven’t seen this specific flavor of scam before.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/KEmFries on 2024-09-26 02:39:35+00:00.

After telling my mom numerous times not to click on any links from any texts or emails, today, she thought this UPS undeliverable mail link was fine to click on because of a package she thought she was getting from my brother who lives overseas. She ended up providing her name, address, phone number, birthdate, and 2 credit card (debit cards) info! Thankfully we caught it ASAP and froze/cancelled all associated accounts so no money was lost. However, I'm more worried about her identity and private information being leaked to the dark web. The address she used was mine to because she lives with me. What could the worse happen? Will scammers track her/ us down since they know where she lives? Will they sell her info to the dark web? Will she get more scam attempts? I'm really worried.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/imjusthere7777 on 2024-09-26 01:11:02+00:00.

So I’m in a group chat for a sports team on Facebook. There’s a guy trying to sell tickets to people for the games which is a GIANT red flag. The guy has this whole copy and paste looking paragraph about the tickets and at the end says “kindly get back to me”. I call him out and he gets offended calling me a dummy blah blah blah.

What are your thoughts on the word kindly ever being used in our language? Is there anyone that uses it because i still have yet to hear someone from the United States to use it, but maybe that’s just me.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/board_bitch on 2024-09-26 02:24:09+00:00.

I found out today that my neighbor is expecting her new kids to arrive any day now. Here's the story (with what details I know):

She met a doctor from London online 2 years ago (We are in the US), video chatted with him, and they became engaged with the expectation that he would move to be with her. (My neighbor is older with a big heart and has fostered lots of kids in her life.) Earlier this year, the doctor's son and daughter-in-law died in an accident and all 7 kids survived. He became their legal gaurdian, and then was murdered at an atm while trying to get 6k in cash to send to her. She told me that he left her 7.5 million and she would receive it as soon as she had custody of the kids and signed some papers. She's paid the lawyers lots of money trying to get these kids, and they were supposed to arrive back in February. She told me that she has a lawyer from London that she's working with, but he's currently working out of Australia. She also said that one of the lawyers from the estate is going to prison for trying to steal some of the inheritance.

I'm pretty sure this is a scam but I have no idea how to bring this up to her. Has anyone heard of a scam like this and can maybe link me to something that I can share with her?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/dog_from_china on 2024-09-25 21:13:12+00:00.

He says he doesn’t remember his password credentials and that he needs to give them $15,000 to be able to unlock it? My mom at least took half of his savings out from the bank to stop him from paying more but he’s already down 10k… I don’t want to ask him any questions because I would probably just go crazy on how he let this happen. Anybody knows anything about the gold bar scam? How does it start and develop?

Edit: It started off as 1k one week, and then 5k next week… So it seemed to be progressing and luring him back in for more bullshit.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/SurveyExternal27 on 2024-09-25 20:05:04+00:00.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/EmptySighs66x on 2024-09-25 18:47:28+00:00.

I live in an area that had a lot of elderly people, and those people go to this particular grocery store because it's in the neighborhood and not too far into the city.

When I got to the grocery store, I heard loud music start up as I was getting out of the car, and I looked around the parking lot to see where it was coming from before I saw one of those people who fake playing the violin. Only reason why I caught it instantaneously is because they always start with the same Ed Sheeran track and we get them a lot at the shopping center where I work.

I didn't see any employees who weren't already with customers when I stepped into the grocery store, but when I finally went to check out, I spoke to the lady who was attending the self checkout and told her what was going on. She then brought over a manager who I relayed what the guy was doing to, and how it was a scam and he went outside and told the guy to pack up and leave.

As I was loading my groceries into my car, I saw the guy climb into a big (and expensive) truck (which definitely did not tell the story his sign said) and tear out of the parking lot.

I consider this my good deed for the day. I've seen a lot of elderly give money to people who do things like this, and I didn't want them giving their money to someone who is lying. I just hate that them doing things like this make it look bad for the people who actually need help.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/scams by /u/waltzthrees on 2024-09-25 16:03:28+00:00.

The online scammers “managed to make these women believe they had become so close to the well-known American actor that they believed they had a romantic relationship with him,” the statement added. Authorities said the Pitt imposters then asked for money. One women sent them about $168,000, and another sent around $195,500. Only $94,000 has been recovered so far as part of the investigation.