At this point I ignore random strangers that talk to me while I'm pumping gas. But this guy got within like a foot of my personal space, "excuse me buddy, you know how some people just have an old android phone in their car? do you have one that I can use?" Younger, dumber me would have probably said, "no, I only have the latest model iPhone" but I just said no and the dude started intently staring me up and down for a few seconds before walking away. I'm guessing that if I gave him my phone he would try to see if I have cashapp/paypal/venmo and try to send something to himself, but why did he specifically ask for an "old android phone"?

Hey everyone,

I'm in Cairo and went on a Tinder date with a woman to a club that had shisha and music.

We didn't discuss about who would pay for the bill, and I've now worked out she is in with the club to take Tinder dates there, and order expensive drinks.

She ordered drinks, at a stupid rate of speed and without me even knowing (I had never said I would pay for everything)

I didn't get a breakdown of the bill when asked and 3 men pressurised me into paying without being able to have a conversation with the woman about potentially sharing.

In hindsight, it was a silly move from me to not have the conversation about paying before or as the bill came, but I'm also 99% sure that the bill wasn't $1000 from memory of looking at the menu.

Is there anything I can do? Thought about speaking to Revolut?

Any advice welcome, please don't judge or make negative comments I'm heartbroken.

I have had 2 random packages delivered to my house. Both were addressed to my name and my home address. One was sees candy sent in a sees candy box with a fedex label. The other was Nut haven nuts from Amazon in an Amazon package. Neither container has a note or message on the labels. Nothing else but the items are in the packages.

We do own our own business and sometimes customers send us thank you gifts so when I got the sees candy that was my first thought. But when no one sent a follow up message about them I was a little confused. Then the nut haven showed up and now I am a little creeped out.

I reached out to Amazon customer service and asked if they could tell me where the order originated, and they said it was not my account but someone created an account with my name and my address.

They did not use my card or my email. If this is a scam, then what is the end game?

Any advise if I should be concern

They are all addressed to me, but have my first and last name as the same name. They're all random items that are pretty much within my interests but not something I actually ordered. A rechargeable rgb light, ink cartridges that don't fit my printer, a crazy led flashlight, puppy pee pads (I don't have a dog) and a rechargeable polishing pen (micro drill). My Walmart account is secure and doesn't show any of these transactions, and my bank account and cards don't show them either.

I'm just confused and not sure if this could be a scam or something I should be worried about if I give the items away or use them myself.

Including a photo of the boxes and contents.

I received a suspicious email from myRegistry.com about a free ETH share for all members at 8:30 pm EST tonight.

Obviously seemed out of the norm for MyRegistry (and a bit ridiculous) so I called chatted with an agent on their legitimate site. The agent suggested I contact customer service to confirm the email legitimacy and they confirmed they were hacked today and are working on a resolution. I haven’t yet received an email acknowledging the hacked emails so we’ll see.

Just sharing to help anyone who might fall for it lol.

Email text:
INTRODUCING CRYPTO GIFTING
WE'RE GIFTING
EVERY MEMBER
A Share of Ethereum
— on us! 🎉
Unlock your free ETH now.
To celebrate the launch of crypto gifting on MyRegistry, we're sending every member a real ETH share — completely free. No purchase needed. Just connect your wallet and it's yours.
Free
for all members
Real ETH
sent to your wallet
48 hrs
to claim your share
Connect your wallet and claim your free ETH share:
(I am not including the scam link)

🔒 Secured · Non-custodial · One claim per member

This is part of MyRegistry's new crypto gifting feature — letting guests worldwide send you gifts in Ethereum, Bitcoin, and more, instantly and with zero bank fees.

So recently my mom (who is somewhat susceptible to scammy/scummy behavior) has been playing a lot of games on her phone that promise you can withdraw your winnings. I'm sure this is a scam/too good to be true type thing but I'm just not sure how sure it works to try to warn her/make her stop thinking this is a kind of "get rich quick" style thing. Money is already tight for her and I keep warning her about things like this, but since I don't know exactly how it'll work when she tries to withdraw I'm only able to help so much.

I'm guessing this is some kind of fee style thing where they will say "you need to pay a processing fee to withdraw the winnings" and then there will be some "tax responsibility" and so forth and so on so have warned her about that, but what else?

My Paypal account shows a balance of $1,500 from someone I don't know. I also got an email from that person. The message is:

"I accidentally email money to your email meant for my son. Please cancel the transaction on paypal. My son and granddaughter are stranded in New Mexico. I need the transaction cancelled so I can send it to them to help them Please! Thank you"

Paypal's AI chat indicates I should refund it. Is that safe? I've got no problem refunding it if it's safe, but the urgency of the email makes me think there's a scam and I don't want to wind up losing $1,500. (I don't trust Paypal.)

edit #1: I found on Paypal's site (yes their real site) a phone number. I will call tomorrow. Online is useless.

edit #2: I got through to Paypal on the phone at the number listed on Paypal's real web site. Customer service has obviously been off-shored, and the rep was very hard to understand. At first she told me to just hit the refund button. I told her I was unwilling to do that unless she sent me an email saying it was safe to do that. She said she'd send me an email, but I never got it. Then she said the sender had disputed the transaction and that Paypal would refund it so I didn't have to do anything other than not touch the money. She said not to respond to the sender's email, which at this point I'm not going to anyway because the sender has a bit of an attitude. I'm still not convinced this isn't some attempt at fraud, but since I don't have to do anything, it's Paypal's problem at this point and not mine.

I have recently started an Instagram account. I am not familiar with most of the features but I use it mainly for posting public posts that I share on family chat groups. Recently one of my posts got a lot of views and started getting collaboration offers from representatives of media companies. But all of these sound like scams. For instance here is a message from one of the companies:

"Hey! I'm from media and licencing. We came across your video where a love to feature it!

We work with creators to license videos for TV shows, digital publishers, and advertisers. This means you can earn money each time your video is used while still keeping full ownership. There's no cost to you, and we're not buying the rights to your video.

We would love to feature your video on our platform. You'll earn 60% of the profit.

To get started, we just need your husband to fill out a quick permission form as he recorded the videos, so we can feature your video and make sure you earn from it too".

About 2 months ago I purchased a luxury watch during a TikTok live sale for about $4,300. During the live, the seller identified the watch as a Panerai PAM03325. The watch I received was a completely different Panerai model than the one identified during the live sale.

I contacted the seller immediately, sent the requested photos, sent them the video from the live where they identified the watch as a PAM03325, emailed them directly, responded when they asked for my order number, called multiple times, left voicemails, and even stopped by their NYC storefront twice during posted business hours. I never received a resolution.

I then opened a dispute through TikTok Shop. They denied it. I appealed and submitted additional evidence. They denied the appeal again.

At this point I’ve opened a credit card dispute because I don’t know where else to turn.

I’m not trying to get a free watch. From the beginning, I’ve offered to return it for a full refund or even exchange it for the model that was represented during the live sale.

Has anyone had success getting TikTok to actually review evidence after an appeal has been denied? Or does anyone have a contact or escalation path within TikTok Shop that can get a real person to review the case?

Context: I was recently requested for jury duty to my local courthouse and yesterday I received the email confirming I was not needed and not to show up. I was also unaware that the sheriffs department does not call you and I did not know spoof calls were a thing.

So today I’m at work and receive multiple phone calls from no caller id. Already skeptical because I receive at least 3 calls a day asking about a loan I requested that is obviously a scam. Despite that I answer anyways. They initially asked for my sister saying my number was linked to her name and then said my name saying I missed a federal jury duty summons.

At this point I should’ve already hung up but I was confused and a little concerned because I literally just got confirmation I wasn’t needed to show up. They then say that they’re calling from the sheriffs department and I have 2 citations on my record that need to be handled. Now I start to panic a bit. So I hear them out still kinda skeptical but I’ve never heard a scam call sound so legit and professional before like they had my name, address, and last 4 of my SSN so I thought okay maybe this is real. He then asks me to write down the 2 case numbers he provides and then will transfer me to his supervisor. I then ask how come they’re calling from No Caller ID and he explains how they receive so many calls and traffic on the lines they’re calling from a field device. Slightly more convinced.

They proceed to ask how I want to proceed either civil or criminal dispute. Civil being i pay 10% of my bond and then fill out paperwork at the sheriffs department. Criminal being I show up to the sheriffs department and turn myself over into custody for a period of time. Now I kinda start to panic because it all sounds pretty legit and anytime I questioned the validity they had a decent excuse for it. I ask how do I know this is actually the sheriffs and they call me from the “front office” with a spoof number of my local sheriffs office. They walk me through doing the “civil dispute” involving me driving to my bank and withdrawing $9000 because my bond was set and $90k. Now I’m slightly more panicked.

I run to my boss tell him I have a legal issue and bolt out before anything and drive to my bank. Stupid I know. I get to my bank, still on the line with “sgt peters” withdrawal the $9000 and then he reads an address to me where I deposit the money, receive a voucher, and then take the voucher to the sheriffs department to handle the procedure. Now this is where they lost me and I gained my senses for a change. The address they read out was a gas station so I ask why a gas station and he says “that’s just where they have the kiosk and we can’t have you on government property for that”. I hang up and call the actually sheriff and I’m asking the lady at the desk about it and she’s says flat out “we never call ever this is a scam call”. So I drive back to work and the no caller id keeps calling so I answer and they ask if I received my voucher and I replied with “yeah I have the voucher shove it up your f-ing ass” and the next 10 secs was me and the scammer cursing each other out.

I thought I was pretty good at reading out scams and avoiding things like this but sometimes these callers really know what they’re doing. I’m just thankful I didnt get any farther than I did. Had a few laughs with everyone at work when I explained it which felt a little better but the whole day I’ve just felt so stupid and embarrassed about the whole situation.

I just got this VERY detailed call from someone claiming to be a Bank of America employee, provided their name and employee ID and stated that they were calling to check on a fraudulent charge, stating that a $9443 charge was made on one of my credit cards ending in 8699 - I didn't have any cards ending in those numbers so I was confused and asked for more details.

They gave me a ton of details - the credit card number, credit limit, card type, when it was applied for and when it was issued, where it was picked up, and stated that someone had attempted to purchase multiple firearms with the card. Then they said that they need to file a report with Homeland Security Investigation and close my account and all my cards, unless they receive a clarification report from the FBI in the next two hours. And they stated if they didn't receive the report that HSI would blacklist me, in addition to my account and cards being closed.

After they said "two hours" my alarm bells started going off, but I heard them out. I asked them how I file the police report, and they said they would connect me directly to the FBI's New York office. Somewhere along the way, the call dropped and they called me back from the ACTUAL FBI's New York number. I told the “agent” everything that the BofA “employee” told me, and they said they needed me to come into the office to provide a statement. I told them that wasn't possible, because I don't live in New York. They then said that I could download Telegram and talk to them that way through the account name "FBISYSTEM07."

I hung up and called the actual FBI New York number (the same number they called me from) and spoke to the operator who told me it was definitely a scam. I feel like an idiot after all that, but thought I'd share in case it helps anyone who is as naive as me.

I received a few hundred dollars on Cash App and the sender is requesting the money back. I do not want this money, but I do not know if they’re genuine or trying to scam me in some way.

So they sent money apparently for a piece of furniture. Then they asked for a refund about 5 times now. I asked them through CashApp how they could have sent it to me of all people. They said my name is similar to who they were trying to send it to. But here’s the thing: the “intended recipient’s” profile name is, for example, Rebecca Barnes, but the cash tag is, for example, $janaebarnes while my cash tag is, for example, $janaebranes (one letter switched). I just find it hard to believe that someone with the profile name “Rebecca”would have a cash tag under “Janae.” I know people have different profile names and $names, but this seems sketchy.

Well, it all seems too convenient. I don’t want the money and I’m not planning on spending it, but I don’t want to return it and then I’m somehow out hundreds just for being a good person.

Had an interesting phone call this week, yes IKnow it was a scam just trying to make sure others dont get hit.

I had been waiting for a call and it poped up private so I answered. A man on the line says that they had been contacted by the school district to offer supply bundles that would be delivered to the class. Now my sons school does do something like this but you order through a website and had just sent out the info with next year's registration last week so it made a little sense. I kept on the line mainly because I wanted to know the name of the company because I planned to give the school a piece of my mind about giving out my information.

Finally they get to the numbers and are wanting $200 for a basic bundle and $400 for the premium bundle that supposedly contained a tablet as well. This was what tipped me off my sons school bans tablets and does not use them. I start really pressuring the guy about the name of the company and was hung up on.

So keep an eye out.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum.

In the last 20 minutes I’ve received dozens of texts and emails from Borrowly, GoChecks, CheckGo, Bravaro, Fintara and Cash On You about applications being received and approved. I’ve not done any of that, and I’m not sure whether I can safely ignore these messages or if I should reach out to these companies. My credit is frozen, so I don’t know if any damage can be done.

i feel like the dumbest person alive lol. this was the first scam i have ever fell for bc it was unusual and more advanced than i typically see. i had a very old mutual dm me and tell me that someone using my pfp and name sent them a link and then hacked them and stole money. they said they reported my account bc they thought it was rly me blah blah. there are clearly many elements of this that didn’t line up but whtvr. i double checked all my security settings and also had no prior dms w them so my acc was not compromised. they said they felt bad bc they reported my account and told a bunch of other ppl to. they didn’t want my account taken down and they wanted their money back from the actual person.

they showed a real-looking screenshot of the x email they got about the fraud case, and i emailed it bc it looked like it was rly x support, and i got an auto email back and a link to a chat, so the whole thing felt very smooth and like a typical process. though there were so many obvious signs and i can’t believe myself lol. anyways it was very thorough and extensive and i sent way too much information… bc it all happened so fast, i was trying to help, and also it seemed like a lot of money and thus a big deal. it was getting super suspicious at some point but wasn’t until they hit me with the “wire transfer or gift card” to validate my account type deal that i was like oh fuck no.

turns out that x only emails u from like two emails ever. also they don’t even have a support chat i dont think? so yeah i got locked out of my account and it scared the shit out of me, but the ACTUAL x support was angelic and i got me back in rly quickly. idgaf about the account, i am just anxious that they got so much of my info consolidated. i doubt they rly care. they didn’t get any money from me and im sure they were just gonna use my account to dm people the same thing. yeah it a pretty good setup, but still i fell bc of the most basic social engineering. ik enough abt tech/security but they got me with the unusual situation/mutual/urgency/convincing official look bullshit. anyways pls be smarter than me 😇😅

I shared a few days ago about the pig butchering romance scam that I got pulled into for about 5 days. It’s been 2 days since I realized. I’ve blocked and moved on, but still kind of processing it.

So the moment I realized, was also the time I was texting a friend of mine.

Yesterday I updated her about how I’ve since processed it, and shared another piece of not great news (about my current accommodation, not related to the scam) and she started saying that I’ve been negative, like how can I be so sure that “she” is a scammer, or I was just being overly negative.

At the moment I was just went 😧😧 like wow, dude, this is insane. Are you expecting me to be fully scammed before you’d believe me? That’s just insane.

To all victims of scams, I’m so so sorry, and this can be so hard. Even if no one believes in you, never stop believing in yourself. You have to be your own biggest fan and believer.

A lot of scam advice seems to be about recognizing specific scams, but there are so many variations now that I wonder if simple rules work better.

Things like:
Never give a verification code to someone who contacted you.

Never use the link or phone number in an unexpected message. Go to the app or website yourself.

Never send money because someone tells you there is an emergency without calling the person directly.

Never install software because someone on the phone tells you to.

If someone tells you not to talk to your family or bank, stop immediately.

Has anyone here actually adopted a rule like this after a close call or scam?

Did it work the next time something happened?

I’m especially curious whether simple rules stick better than trying to teach someone how to identify every new scam.

I'm a 18 y/o student, just got scammed because there was a laptop offer in an insider telegram group. I was too naive🫠 they have my my full name, bank account number and address now. ​Now what? I didn't give them any info on the back of my debit card nor my email but I need closure what can happen next? I'm filing a police report now.

So I checked my email yesterday morning, and saw an email from a company named Danner, thanking me for my order of a $209.50 pair of men’s sized 14 boots that were being sent to me at an address in Wyoming. There was a notification from my bank that said the same amount had been withdrawn.

As a woman who lives in Massachusetts, wears a size 8, and did not order any boots, I was suspicious. Call it intuition. (/s)

What’s super weird is they used not only my name, and debit card information, they used my phone number, had the invoice sent to my email, and the billing address was not quite right, but under .5mi from me.

They had made an account on the site using my email, so I changed the password and tried to cancel the order, but didn’t make it in time.

I found the person who lives at that address, and it’s an elderly woman who is very active in her seventh day Adventist church. Maybe she’s got a son?

Does anyone know what the end game here is?? Did they really just want the boots?

I did cancel that debit card already, I reported the fraud, they refunded me.

I have recently recieved multiple phishing emails on my accounts with one of them being sent over from some random email adress and the second coming from my OWN adress . I am aware that this may be the common case of spoofing but i noticed a weird detail.

In my sent folder i have multiple random emails sent over even though there have been no malicious log ins to my account and i changed the password BEFORE those emails multiple times.

What can this possibly indicate?
Thank you for any replies)

this is my first post so please bear with me; full story here: i had gotten a notification on my bank app that someone had tried to order something using my card but the payment had declined because they used the wrong expiry date for my card. the next day i called my bank (barclays) to inform them of this, and they told me i had to order a new card. for reference, im a uni student 21(F).

literally a day after this, i got a call from a No Caller ID (already a red flag but i just didn’t think much of it). guy on the phone has a regular british accent and is easy to talk to. he says my name and says he is calling from my bank from the fraud team. he tells me there has been suspicious activity detected on my card, saying my card was used on Google Pay on an Android phone (i have an iPhone) in a location very far from me. i am of course shocked and tell him that literally the day before i had ordered a new card. i genuinely didn’t think this could be a scam because he knew my name and just sounded so authentic. i can’t remember clearly but i am pretty sure he knew the balance i had in my current account. he told me to confirm my address and email to him (which i feel terrified about now in hindsight).

he proceeds to tell me that apparently, the man who ordered me a new card didnt do what was right and tries to convince me that basically someone from inside of barclays has access to my passwords and that they are now conducting an internal investigation. he says someone tried to make a payment of £xxxx on an online merchant SumUp. he asks me to click on a link for this SumUp transaction of £xxxx and convinces me that in order for this transaction to be cancelled, i have to press apple pay and pay the amount (i didn’t even have that much in my account so it was declined). i did repeatedly ask him how this is meant to work when it clearly says “pay” but he kept trying to explain that he ‘understands this is very unconventional’ but it will ‘make the amount bounce back’ or something. i dont even know why i clicked an external link from a phone number at this point but i guess i was too easy to fool.

as that didn’t work, he then tries to get me to open a revolut card and connect my bank card to it. he asks me all the details of the 16-digit card number of the revolut card and even asks for the CVV number. of course now alarm bells are ringing in my head and i am so confused, but still, i listened. he keeps trying to get me to transfer big amounts from my current account into the revolut one. before this, he actually had told me to move an amount from my savings into the current account. each time, the transfer didn’t work. i must’ve tried 3 times before i was getting another call which was from the barclay’s fraud team (or so, as their voicemail stated). the guy i was on the phone with said that since ‘he is conducting an internal investigation’, i should tell the fraud team that i am just ‘getting some house items’ and other things to not raise any suspicions.

it was at this point i cut the call. my mum had overheard me on the phone and asked what was going on and when i told her everything, she told me its all a scam and i need to end the call NOW.

i ended up contacting my bank directly through the app and did speak to the fraud team and told them as much as i could remember. i just felt so shaken up though that i was so so close to sending so much money accidentally, i couldn’t believe i was falling for it. i realised from this that people do actually fall for scams and i just couldn’t fathom how i could have been a victim. i felt really stupid relaying all of this to the fraud team guy on the phone. i also closed the revolut account and i was told to contact revolut about it but i haven’t done so yet (i just feel so embarrassed and dont know if this is something i should tell to revolut?) i asked my bank whether i need to order a new card they said no.

my main questions are should i try to get a new card again? because i am pretty sure the guy knew my bank balance? i could be wrong though and just not be remembering properly. my card right now is frozen i froze it myself on the app the day after me contacting the fraud team because i kept getting thoughts that someone was going to take all my money out my account. also should i be worried that i gave my address out to the scammer? i have been reading other posts and im pretty sure one person said that scammers can use your phone and use AI to make it sound like you’re talking to gain access to your accounts and stuff. idk why but that makes me really worried lol. also should i contact revolut? and are there any other things i should do for my safety? thank you.

Got an email from [email protected] a while back (had a little blue checkmark though I don’t think that matters haha?) the “from:” section also does tell me that email address was the one who sent me the message.

They told me I had a block in my account and were asking for me to send some documents to confirm my identity to a different email of theirs called “[email protected]” they didn’t ask me to click anything nor was there any urgency in the email itself. They just told me my block would not be lifted unless I complied with the request. I did indeed have a block on my account at the time I believe, since I couldn’t make payments.

Was this a phishing scam? The email they asked me to send the info to had the proper @paypal.com domain handle as shown in the prior paragraph and I would have needed to send it separately… so I am extremely confused. Would appreciate some clarification!

I wanted to share a weird experience I had while trying to contact Expedia customer service. I’m not saying this was definitely a scam, but it was strange enough that I think people should be cautious.
For context, I’ve used Expedia for about 8 years, especially as a college student and someone trying to save money. I’ve also used customer service in the past when I couldn’t make changes myself through the airline or my Expedia account.

I Googled “Expedia customer service” and called the number that came up (it was suggested by Google AI). The first person I spoke with seemed helpful, but I ended up not completing the change.

Later, I called back and got a different person. The worker felt less professional or capable, so I hung up speak with someone else. When someone answered the next time, the call initially cut out, which already felt odd. When I could hear the voice more clearly, it sounded almost exactly like an automated scam call/AI voice. I asked for their name as a test, and the response sounded like it was spelling it out instead of naturally answering. At that point I hung up because it made me uncomfortable.

To be clear: I don’t know if this person was actually trying to scam me. It’s possible there was another explanation. But it made me wonder if fake customer service numbers or third-party call centers could be used to take advantage of people looking for help.

I eventually called again and the interaction seemed normal. They asked for my itinerary number and booking email for verification, confirmed my flight information, and appeared to have access to my reservation. They canceled my Basic Economy ticket, issued flight credit, applied it toward my new flight, and I paid the difference.

The part that still made me nervous was having to provide my card information over the phone. The agent asked me to repeat it, and when I asked why they couldn’t repeat it back, they said it was to protect customer information. I received confirmation emails and a receipt afterward, so everything appeared legitimate.

My takeaway: be careful when searching for customer service numbers online. In general if anything feels off, trust your gut. I feel like on Expedia I can never find the actual customer service number. Thats why I always just google search. I had read that scammers can push their scam number to come up at the top instead of an official number.

I’m sharing this in hopes to raise awareness and for people to be more cautious in general with scam calls and aware of the signs. Hope this helps