I cant even unpack all of this. Tried once before but the amount of scams my mom got caught up in made the post seem off topic. So, let me narrow down this post to just one. Kelvin, our friendly Doctors Without Borders Christian Missionary who is going to be paid 1 million from the UN when he gets back to the states needed money sent to his family here and asked his soon-to-be-fiance, my 72 yo mother, to mail, in cash, by UPS accross state lines and unfiled tax gifts. 50k in one box, 50k in another, 50k in a 3rd, 50k in the 4th, and dont worry, only 20k in the last one. All over the US, crossing multiple state lines over and over and unfilled gifts to random PO boxes. Does she remember? No. The addresses were deleted from the Signal, telegram and whatapps that she STILL communiicates with her lover. I have thrown up more times than I can remember these last 2 weeks. My mothers entire retirement and house is gone. Also, owes an enormous IRS bill now too from withdrawing cash from her 401k. jfk

edit: changed a bit for clarity, this is just one of several she got hit by last year.

Wife just got a call from Wells Fargo. Claimed someone opened an account in her name & was trying to transfer money with Zelle. They turned her over to their 'Zelle' representative. He tried to talk her through setting up an account to help 'investigate' the problem and she refused.

She got off the phone, called our main bank who said it sounds like a scam.

She has a call into another bank where we DO use Zelle for some stuff but they had trouble hearing her (annoying).

SOME THINGS WE NOTICED

One bank seems to 'hide' their phone number. They want you to use their AI agent which was not programmed to help people with a possible scam.

Wells Fargo is also notorious for hiding their phone number, then insisting you have an account with them before talking to you. This makes it really hard to do your own due-diligence. I suspect this is why so many bank scammers claim to be from Wells Fargo. They neither confirm or deny anything. In one respect this prevents scammers from calling them to add data to a script that will later be used against a customer. On the other hand - this makes them the perfect organization to claim to be calling from. I have mixed feelings about doing business with Wells Fargo.

ADVICE

Call your bank BEFORE scammers call you. Ask if they have a fraud page where you can learn about common bank fraud schemes. Also ask what your bank wants you to do if you get a phone call from 'a bank' and you suspect fraud. Learn what to do BEFORE you need to do it.

The more prepared you are for a scam call - the less likely you are to fall for one.

So 4 months ago she quit her job and spent her money on a high ticket sales course. Since then she hasn’t got payed a single penny. She’s been on her computer 10/13 hours a day in a discord doing role plays and trying to get “offers” which she got denied one because they were only hiring guys, sounds very sketchy to me. I confronted her about it and it got into a heated argument and heard she asked her coach about it and he told her “only tell people your doing sales and don’t go into details about it. Now I hear her role playing saying “you should sign up for my trading classes for free” this shows big red flags but they got her so into it she believes she’s going to making 10k a month after she finishes all her school. Is she getting scammed?

She met him on TikTok and they started talking on Telegram. According to her, he told her he wants to spend the rest of his life with her and said he was coming out to Tulsa to meet her. He even sent her an AI video of himself at the airport. Then, right before they were supposed to meet, he said his daughter had been in a car accident and he had to leave. Now he's telling her she's going to fly out to see him instead.

My wife and I have been trying to convince my mom for weeks that this is a scam. We've told her not to send money, that the videos and pictures could be AI, and that there are tons of scams involving people pretending to be celebrities. She knows these scams exist, which is part of what's making this so difficult. She just thinks this particular situation is different.

There are a lot of things that don't make sense to us. Apparently she's also been talking to someone who claims to be part of his management team, so we're worried about what information she may have given them or what they might eventually ask her for.

Everything he tells her is pretty over-the-top. He says he wrote songs for her, but then sends her lyrics that are obviously from ChatGPT. He told her his daughter knitted a scarf for her. He's talked about how she'll have to get used to paparazzi if she wants to be with him. Then he'll tell her some "behind the scenes" story about Journey that sounds convincing until you realize it's basically something you could find with a Google search.

To his credit, he's consistent.

My mom has also hinted to my wife that she and this guy have had some more intimate conversations, but she wouldn't say what they talked about. That's another thing we're worried about. We're hoping she didn't send any photos that could potentially be used to threaten or embarrass her later.

My mom is a widow, and it's basically just me and my wife trying to figure out how to handle this. She's planning to actually get on a plane sometime in October. We obviously don't want her getting on a plane to meet someone who doesn't exist, but we're not sure what we're realistically able to do if she refuses to listen to us.

Has anyone dealt with something like this with a parent before? Is there anything we should be doing right now, especially regarding the TikTok and Telegram accounts? My wife reported the TikTok account, including the obviously AI-generated video, but TikTok said the profile doesn't violate their community guidelines. We have the TikTok username and Telegram username, but my mom has gotten pretty guarded about the whole thing now and won't tell us much more.

I know she's an adult and ultimately gets to make her own decisions. I'm just trying to figure out where the line is between respecting that and sitting back while someone potentially takes advantage of her.

Had a strange experience. Knock on door, a youngish couple show up with a big brown paper package that they say is potatoes they don't have the space to keep in their fridge. Want to give it to me, as a gift. Never seen either of them before. They wave vaguely toward a parked car and say they live in an adjacent apartment near where the car is parked (rental apartments). I made some excuse about being on a diet. They suggested cooking for friends or feeding the kids (no kids here). I said other neighbors might appreciate it more and shut the door.

Can't stop wondering what it was all about though. Does this seem fishy to you too? What scam could it be? Big brown sack of "potatoes" gifted to a total stranger, no space in the fridge as an excuse (I don't keep potatoes in the fridge, don't know any frozen french fries that sell in plain nondescript brown paper packaging either); pushing on with suggestions - just doesn't add up...

My dad is flying to visit my grandma tomorrow. He is traveling with a gift that needs to stay cold, so he is packing it in dry ice, which he researched and apparently needs to be declared by the airline before traveling with.

He “didn’t want to use the chat” on AA’s website because he “doesn’t know how to do that stuff” so he used his Duck Duck Go search engine to look up a customer support phone number. Found some random number posted (I see now that they’re dropping their number all over airline Yelp pages, etc. as comments).

He called it, explained his situation, and they told him that his seat was not confirmed and the only way he could declare the checked bag was to have a confirmed seat. Told him he’d need to pay another $275 to confirm his seat to which he agreed (???). At this point he calls me to tell me (didn’t mention where he got the number) and I was annoyed that American Airlines could sell a seat that wasn’t confirmed then charge more to confirm it, it seemed crazy but it’s AA so who even knows.

This morning he called me again to tell me that he called back to ask about his bag again and they told him his ticket was canceled and he’d need to pay another $150 to reinstate it. He was about to do it but my mom was panic texting me and I was like omg absolutely do not!!!

I finally get him on the phone again and ask him for the phone number (can’t post it here because of Reddit rules, but seems like they have hundreds of fake numbers). Look it up and sure enough, it’s a scam.

You’ve been warned!

Hi, so this hit home because I legitimately am on morphine so I believed them, but after searching Reddit, someone got the exact same call. An Indian woman calling from a Sacramento number said she was from the department of public health and that someone had filled a *forged* morphine prescription under my name in Washington DC and she was calling to see if it was me and that they would be pursuing criminal charges, but that it's good to know it was not me and she would transfer me to her manager and that's when I got really suspicious and I told them if this was a real issue the police can call me because someone posted in this form the exact same story so unless both of us were scammed by the same person, it seems unlikely that multiple people have their identities being used to fill a morphine prescription in Washington DC but the weird thing is I get morphine once a month so it really freaked me out...

This is in California just like the other person who posted about the opioid abuse scam.

Haven’t posted on here but thought I could use some guidance. For context, a good friend of mine has been frequently giving large amounts of money to this account and is currently setting up a large fundraiser event for this person that im assisting with. The account is for someone in Gaza named Ayham, and variations of this account have existed over the span of around a year or so. I had never looked into the account because frankly I haven’t had any money I could give even if I wanted to, and after looking into it I worry it’s a scam.

The current account only has two or three posts on it, and one of the newest ones I saw on the highlight was a post requesting $70 for a gym membership. This was the first thing that made me question the account because a gym membership is a pretty extravagant request when lots of people in Gaza are starving and need funds for actually urgent needs. When looking into the account and doing a basic Google image search I couldn’t find any results for the images that appear on the account, or any information on this person other than what’s on instagram. The account says it’s based in Palestine according to Instagram but I image this is simple to mess with and change.

The reason I am looking into this so deeply is because my friend is 100% convinced this account is legit and has been sending money to it for the last year, and I would really like to have some kind of proof or concrete explanation for it. I know Gaza relief scams have become common with lots of people exploiting the situation for money, and while it would be easiest to start sending funds to a organization with a reputation I fear that my friend is too far deep to be easily convinced. While I am looking for any proof this account is legit and hoping my friend hasn’t wasted so much money to a scam I haven’t been able to find any. Advice would be much appreciated!

"Barrister & Solicitors NOTARY PUBLIC

REF: MS/CA55044778/L70044026 August 29" 2026

Dear

Mv name is

1 am a partner at

It may surprise you to receive this letter from rne, since there has been no previous us. There is an unclaimed "permanent life insurance policy? held by our deceased client.

correspondence between

The transaction pertains to an unclaimed "'Pavable-on-Death" ("POD') savings monetary deposit in the sum of Eleven Million, Five Hundred & Fifty Thousand, and Three Hundred United States Dollars ($11,550,300.00).

The policy holder was one of our clients, Late Eng who was a Real Estate Investor and precious stone deaier. He was a Covid-19 Victim, who died.about 2 years ago. Since His death no one has come forward for the claim and all our efforts to locate his relatives have proved unsuccessful

The insurance company code stipulates that * insured permanent policies" not claimed must be turned the abandoned property division of the state after 10 years.

over to

Therefore, I ask for your consent to be in partnership with me for the claim of this policy benefit, in view of the fact that you share the same last name and nationality with the deceased. If you permit me to add your name to the policy, all proceeds will be processed on your behalf. I wish to point out that 1 want 10% of this money to be shared among charity organizations while the remaining 90% will be shared between us.

This is 100% risk free; I do have all necessary documentation to expedite the process in a highly professional and confidential manner. I will provide all the relevant documents to substantiate your claim as the beneficiary. This claim requires a high level of confidentiality, and it may take up to thirty (30) business days, from the date of receipt of your consent. Kindly provide a reachable contact number, for faster communication

Contact me via email:

for more details on how to proceed further.

Your earliest response to this matter would be highly appreciated.,"

Letter from a law office in toronto, canada, sent via north carolina.

Struck me as very suspicious, is it a scam?

I’m in Australia and have had two unauthorised MoneyGram transactions appear on my ANZ account for $700 and $100.49, totalling $800.49.
I did not make or authorise either transaction. I contacted ANZ immediately and my card was cancelled and replaced. The transactions are currently pending, so I have to wait until they process before ANZ will let me formally dispute them.
I contacted MoneyGram twice. They initially said they couldn’t find either transaction, but after I emailed them they confirmed their team is now investigating and will provide a response.
I’m travelling overseas in about two weeks, so I’m worried about having $800.49 tied up.
Has anyone experienced unauthorised MoneyGram transactions with ANZ?
Did MoneyGram eventually find the transactions? Did ANZ refund you, and did you get all your money back?
That’s much more readable and gets straight to what you actually want to know.

Transcription of voicemail attached.

Ever since I bought my house I get calls from people trying to get money out of me and I'm usually good about spotting it. But this one was threatening court and what not? I know that's also an intimidation tactic, but I never know how to be 100% sure. They're talking about a debt | owe from 2018 with a bank I've never heard of, etc etc.
I'm well aware that this SOUNDS like a scam, and by threatening me they're basically getting the reaction out of me that they want; fear. How do I know for sure?
I called back, she gave me my name, birthday, last 4 of social, etc. but no details that really stuck out to me as niche or someone with advanced info.

Posted some rare old movies on Craigslist for $70, out of nowhere this guy emailed me offering to pay $160 for the lot plus shipping. He wants to buy the FedEx label and send it to me so I can just drop off the package. Now he already sent me the 160 tru cashapp and I have the money ready in my account

Is he going to dispute the charges with his bank? Should I call this off before I lose my items and the money.

I’m not sure if this is the right sub to post about this but here we go. I recently deactivated my old twitter account and tried to make a new one to find out that my number is linked to about 9 accounts that I did not create. My phone number is mine and did not belong to anyone else before. About two of these accounts were random names but the other seven had my real name attached to them. I reset the passcode and deleted one of the accounts but when I try to do the same for the others it says to try again later. I cannot log into these accounts as I do not have the password and it says they were all created in June-August 2022. Idk if this is important but all the accounts follow 1-2 news outlets, some even in my area.

My card is from a virtual wallet called Zinli, which it’s a platform of payments that lets you have a virtual visa card since in my country there are none or the one that we have are very limited.

I got two charges, one of 40$ that was rejected because i didn’t have money there lol, then another one 40$ again and the this one that went through, i checked in my google account to see if they charged something but i didn’t find anything, so i don’t know what happened

I just paid Claude with this card some hours ago and now i got this, i already froze the card and changed all my passwords

So this afternoon, I received a package containing what appears to be two small rolls of duct tape, individually packaged.

I checked my email for the tracking number and didn't find it anywhere. Additionally, I don't recall ordering duct tape or anything like it.

I have contacted the shipping company (a domestic last-mile delivery company,) requesting who actually sent the package, a shipment ID, etc.

Whats the likelihood it's a brushing scam?

i'm applying to companies as a software developer/engineer. i received a response from Naylor Association Solutions (don't specifically remember applying, but i've applied to a lot of places). they sent me a questionnaire, basically an interview in document form. weird, i thought, since none of my previous interviews did that, but i filled it out and sent it back. the questions made sense to ask a software engineer. the email i received today basically asked me to reply with my full name, address, and phone number, and they would send me an offer letter.

i found this suspicious since most other places usually have multiple interviews and a technical demonstration before offering the job. so i'm trying to figure out now if this whole thing is legit before i send them my information.

other red flags:

- emails came from Amanda Land, who is at NAS but not as a recruiter

- pay is listed hourly, not as a salary

- oddly verbose language used in the emails

any insight would be appreciated.

Sorry for my English i'm not fluent.

I make animated reels on instagram. In July, I got an email from a company, starting with a name, an "@companyname" and ".cn" at the end.

They said they were a fan of my work and would love to collab. I put together a quotation with the details, the price, the 1/3 of the price to be paid upfront, etc. (what i usually do).

They said their company didn't work this way and they could only pay me once the reel was published, within 5 to 6 days. I found that a bit risky but as long as the quotation was signed I felt protected by the law. I changed the payment details in the quotation and they signed it.

Side note, not sure if this is important : the signature is like nothing i had seen before. I can't recognize any characters, it's as if a child had written a very long word.

Fast forward to me finishing the production of the animation, after about 20 emails back and forth with modifications they asked me to make. The animation is now finished. I am supposed to publish it tomorrow on my insta account.

They have sent me an email asking me for A LOT of my bank info, such as : my bank code, the code of my bank's branch agency, the physical adress of the bank, the type of account i own, as well as my own adress, name etc.

I usually just have to give my bank number (IBAN).

Is this a scam?

My title is a pretty rough explanation, but I couldn’t think of a better way to articulate it for a title.

My card got flagged for suspicious activity due to a $0.00 charge to Veradyn. The card company told me someone had manually entered my information. I looked it up and I guess this is typical for fraudsters to test the card prior to taking a large amount of money. No money came out and ordinarily I wouldn’t really even care outside of cancelling my card but a week prior, someone who I have reason to believe would try to steal from me had access to my credit card.

So my question: for the average dishonest old man, is this something in their wheelhouse or pretty much only typical for prolific scammers and online fraudsters?

My computer got ratted. I lost everything (10k+) at 16, but I’ve reset the router and I factory reset the PC. Now, my main issue is my mother just got a text saying i lost my phone and she should text my work phone at xxx number. I dont know if it has any correlation, but you never know. My computer got ratted saturday, I wiped and reset the router + changed all passwords the same day, and today, tuesday, she got the text. What do I do? I dont remember her phone number being on there, but I’m sure it could have been.

I received this email from one of my company’s regular clients this morning, didn’t set off any red flags until I clicked the view button and it opened a browser rather than the Google Docs app. It sent me to a page with a .org.uk domain (our client is also local in the US) which I closed as quickly as possible but no idea what damage could have been done in the few seconds before I realized what was happening. I confirmed with the client that she didn’t send any documents this morning and that it was a phishing attempt. Nothing appears to have been downloaded onto my phone so fingers crossed that this is the end of it.

“I hope you’re doing well. I just wanted to follow up and check if you received my previous email? Regards, For Eric’s Law”
“Re: probate - inheritance act - unclaimed?”
I received this email asking if I had received a previous email regarding an inheritance act going unclaimed. There’s no links or anything (not that I would click them) and the only way to contact this “lawyer” is to just respond to their email. I couldn’t find any similar posts about this so I wanted to double check to make sure this was a scam before I delete it

So my dad owns a business and we both have the same name and we are on the same cellphone plan. But for some reason I am one that gets calls and texts about business loans for his business.

A couple months ago I put my phone number down on the National Do Not Call Registry, but I still get calls, just not as much. Any advice about the texts and calls?

Today, I received an email from what looks to be a club at my high school with an attachment reading "quote request, commercial invoice". There is a button asking me to download the attachment. There is no other content to the email, and the format being used is nothing like previous emails I've received from this club. Infact, I have not been in this club for over a year and have graduated already, but when I click on the email it is being sent from, it shows that we have an email history exactly like the actual club. I'm assuming it's a scam, as this club has never needed payments in the past, and I literally already graduated. But this is the first time I've received something like this (or at least the first time I've noticed), and I'm a little nervous, so I'm posting it here for reassurance.

I have redacted some information for privacy, but trust that it is not important.

I have been getting calls from this “company” since January. I finally gave in and left a message on the website and they gave me an 866 number to call in which I did.

The voicemails are as such “Hello, this is a very urgent and time sensitive call from advanced financial servicing regarding your account that is being serviced by our team. Please contact the number shown on your caller ID now to be connected to the representative who is handling your account. Again, this call is urgent from advanced financial servicing. Please call now to be connected. Thank you”

The same exact voicemail every single time and from different numbers.

I called the 866 number thinking it was legitimate and sure enough it was directed towards a rude person.

Stating this was a loan from EzMoney they are stating I took out an installment loan from them in 2021. I never did. It was for $500 and that they sent a certified letter to my address and they have a copy of my drivers license on file. I said you don’t need a drivers license on file.

First of all I’m pretty sure in 2024 I would have noticed I signed for something such as a certified letter. Second of all you don’t need your drivers license to sign for something. They said it was from a process server. Ok and another thing is you need a court order to send a process server to serve someone.

EzMoney I just recently found out surprise surprise doesn’t even operate in my state. I am so over these scam calls from these ignorant people!!

Stop this madness!!

I think they think people are stupid.

Not to mention , he threatened to serve me and garnish my wages from court. You as a debt collector can’t do that and it’s illegal to state this as well. I got tired of the spam calls.

I received this inquiry through my website from someone claiming to have recently opened an Irish restaurant in Austin, Texas.

They asked me to build a website based on a benchmark restaurant website and requested hosting, reservations, a shopping cart, and ongoing updates. They said their budget is “SUPER FLEXIBLE” and mentioned having a “private project consultant” who supposedly has the text, logos, and artwork.

They also specifically asked for my cell phone number.

The inquiry came from an Outlook email address. I haven't been able to independently verify the restaurant yet, so I'm wondering whether this matches a known website-development scam.

Here is the message I received:
Thanks for getting back to me.

I just open a new Irish restaurant in Austin Texas, which I now run and I need a website for my business to grow. I need you to go through this example link site but I need something more perfect than this if possible.

I will like you to get back to me with an estimate. The estimate should include hosting and I want you to understand that I want the same page as the benchmark website. I only want it in English language, you will be responsible for updating the site quarterly or yearly.

The site should be up and running by Early October. I want a shopping cart in my reservation page, also I don't have a domain name yet and I will prefer: NOREFESTIRISHRESTAURANT.COM.

My budget is SUPER FLEXIBLE for this project. I have a private project consultant, she has the text content and the logos for the site with the image artwork, so please go ahead and check the example site.

Kindly get back to me with:

(1) A price estimate/quote based on the above information

(2) your cell phone number:

Does this look like a known website-development scam? Are the “private project consultant,” unusually flexible budget, and request for my phone number typical red flags?

I haven't accepted any payment or sent any money. I'm just trying to determine whether I should continue communicating with this person.