So I got an email from someone pretending to be my boss’ boss that asked me to purchase $1000 worth of gift cards to “surprise employees” with a promise of reimbursement. I believed this and went to CVS and bought the gift cards (2 $250 Apple Cards and 2 $250 xbox cards) using my debit card, and only realized it was a scam afterwards. I DID NOT SEND THE CODES even though he kept on asking me as I realized it was a scam afterwards. I went to CVS and they referred me to my bank and the banker said that they couldn’t stop the transaction and that I would have to call Apple/Microsoft support on my own. I still have all the cards and receipts. Is there any way for me to refund these and get my money back?
I feel so incredibly stupid because I thought it was really my boss’s boss and ignored all the red flags. What should I do?

I'm 19, and I was manipulated into a private video call by someone who pretended to be romantically interested in me. They secretly recorded the call and demanded $150 in Bitcoin, threatening to send the recording to my Facebook friends and family.

I haven't paid them. I've already used StopNCII and I'm filing an IC3 report. I'm trying to decide my next steps and would appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through this.

Did your scammer actually send anything after you stopped responding? Any advice would be appreciated.

I received an email from Amazon saying that I just won $10,000 in groceries payable by gift cards.

I went to the website independently of the email and did a search for the sweepstakes and found it. Everything comes from amazon.com but this all feels very fishy to me. I'm not sure how to verify it completely.

I put screenshots of the emails I received into chatGPT and it told me that it looks legit but that seems equally fishy. I'm trying to contact Amazon customer support and see if they can verify it for me but I have to be honest that I'm so wary of scams that I'm not even sure I would believe that.

How do I proceed with this?

So many people are asking me to send them gift cards as forms of payments for items I am ordering. Is this legit or am I being scammed? I haven’t gone through with it yet because something tells me I’m probably being scammed but I just want to know if gift cards as forms of payment = automatic scam?

Good morning all, I’m still new to posting on reddit so forgive any errors. I’ve been donating to this Palestinian man every now and again when he reaches out on WhatsApp. I’ve had phone calls with him but was still never 100% sure of his validity. Recently he sent me a new chuffed page that’s different to his old one, I checked the old one and he’s raised almost $20,000, but this new one only has a couple hundred dollars donated.

I’m on disability support pension and don’t do paid work, I’m not financially stable enough to donate $100 like I used to before I understood the importance of saving. But I really do wanna help and I care about this cause a lot.

I told him I could pay him Thursday and he messaged me first thing this morning asking for a donation. I’m slightly confused because of the time difference, but I’ve never really donated outside of my direct community before and am just unsure if I should be weary. Let me know if I should post the links, both chuffed pages have a different bio and the new one doesn’t mention his leg injury.

Thanks in advance!

2nd time ive had someone talk to me at this mcdonalds about the same thing. said hes a vet, that he has a vet id, that he needs to ask for money for transport and says its embarrassing to ask. im pretty sure it was 2 seperate guys, but it was pretty much the same spheal both times, so im not sure if its coincidence, the same guy asking me a 2nd time and i just misremembered the first guy, or a scam. he talked different and im preety sure i recall the first guy looking quite different, so that leads me to believe it might be a scam cause 2 people going to the same mcdonalds to ask me for money for the same thing is sus

So, I saw a post from a friend about having to sell her uncle's car bc he was going into assisted living.

I contacted her, scheduled a time, date, and location. Then she asked for a deposit. I ended up sending her $1000. We still chatted for a bit after that, changing the time based on my availability.

I went back to Messenger to ask a question, but it looks like her account was deleted.

I've contacted my bank, but nothing can done in terms of reversal or disputing. I contacted Meta Pay and reported it. But that may take up to 3 days.

Is there anything else I can do?

I’m feeling really embarrassed and sooooooo fucking stupid, so please be kind. More than a week ago I met someone on on a chatting platform. We talked for around 3 days, then we moved to discord and chat for hours every day, and the connection honestly felt amazing. In just those 3 days

Over those few days:
We sexted. He sent me explicit photos (including genital photos). And his face even

I sent him 2 normal selfies.
I also sent a few explicit videos, but my face was never shown in any of the explicit videos.

I sent around 10 seconds of voice messages.
He knew my nickname, my birthday, my country, my degree (not specifically named) and my tiktok bio briefly mentioned the city I study in (I’ve now removed it) it was a alt acc btw.

I never knew his full name.

I got suspicious and reverse-image searched one of the face photos he had sent me. It was an exact match to a photo that had been posted on Reddit about a year ago by an account that has since been deleted.

I confronted him by sending him the evidence. He read my messages and immediately blocked my Discord account without saying anything.

Since then I’ve:
\- Changed my usernames and profile pictures.
\- Made my personal art account private.
\- Removed identifying information from my bios.
\- change my alt instagram to private. Nothing links to my main acc at all

He never threatened me, never asked me for money, and never said he would leak anything. He simply blocked me after I confronted him.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation where they exchanged intimate content before discovering the other person wasn’t who they claimed to be?

Realistically, how worried should I be about my privacy and safety? I know I should assume he may have saved what I sent, but since my face wasn’t visible in the explicit videos and he doesn’t know my full identity, I’m trying to understand the actual level of risk.

Is there anything else I should do, or have I already taken the right precautions?

I know sending intimate content was my decision, and I already regret it. I’m not looking for people to tell me I was stupid. I already feel awful. I’m just hoping for honest advice from anyone who’s been through something similar or has experience with situations like this.
Thank you.

I recently applied for a job at a company called "Internal Healthcare Group" and was scheduled for an interview. The company has a good online presence even an article on Yahoo news. couldn’t find any Glassdoor reviews or much information about the company online.

so I tried to trace the owner, the only thing I found is a one public profile of a Nigerian woman. I called the company , someone answered with a Nigerian accent and then quickly switched to near perfect American accent. This is the only Interview I got so it's quite a bummer.

I am not at all biased against Nigerians or the African diaspora but this looks sketchy as hell

Today someone on LinkedIn told me they worked there for 2 weeks then the owner disappeared without paying any of the them. They were about 6

I visited an old pirated website and clicked on what looked like a normal CAPTCHA. It then changed into a fake CAPTCHA asking me to copy and paste a command.

I did not copy or paste anything. I only clicked the CAPTCHA again because I was confused. Then I immediately left the site. It redirected me to a gambling website, so I closed the browser, cleared the cache, and changed my passwords.

This happened on an old iPad running an outdated version of iPadOS.

Could my accounts or personal data be compromised even though I never pasted the command? Is it still safe to use this iPad?

I'm extremely anxious and would really appreciate any advice.

So I met this girl online 6 days ago. I made sure to do a couple video calls including a 2 hour one to make sure she's real.

She keeps telling me she loves me and she knows we're going to get married which is a massive red flag. But she still hasn't asked for money.

Then yesterday she doesn't message me back all day until the end of the day which is not normal and she says she hurt her foot and that's why she hadn't messaged me back. I seriously thought this was the moment she was going to ask for money and I would know she's a scammer.

But then, she didn't. She just said it was a bruise and she never said anything about going to the hospital.

I'm about 99% sure this is a romance scam and want to get it over and done with. I will not give her money no matter what. Do you guys have any advice as to speeding up this process so I can find out the truth now?

She lives in Algeria I'm from USA

So, some time ago, I went into my local mcdonalds, there was a nice looking, big sign by the pick up area that told you to text a number if you wanted to win up to a $200 gift card and something about a resort, Madison resorts.

I texted the number and i think I filled something out, then I just forgot it existed, until now.

I recieved 2 calls back to back and a voicemail. It was telling me I won the mcdonalds gift card and to call this number back.

I called the number and the guy on the phone tells me I actually won a complimentary stay at the resort, for 3 days and 2 nights. And that I will get a gift card on the second day after a tour of the resort.

Is this a scam?? Any other time I would think it is, but the fact that I signed up at a mcdonalds is throwing me off.

But I also cant find anything about mcdonalds + this resort online anywhere.

I would like to know what you all think.

How does tik allow and get away with so many different constant scams on their platform, half the time being underage kids. Between the scam of unknown added shipping or just all together product that doesn't ever come, some ads you can tell are an obvious scam, but it says there's been many purchases.

I was actually scammed during an auction, bidding starts at usually $1 for popular items, right now squishy's like the dumplings are everywhere. You win an auction for $15 for a few dumplings, the seller is obviously making a lot of profit because they buy a knock off bulk box for very cheap. But then instead of $15 coming out of my account, $25 does. It automatically processed a transaction without telling me there was $10 shipping added. It just instantly charges your card if one on file (you have to add it to file to be able to auction) I instantly messaged them asking to cancel my order, they instantly replied "sorry it's already been shipped." I said that's impossible, it's been less than 30 seconds. they just replied "if you have a problem, refuse the delivery when it comes." Probably a second scam where they get items back and still get their money.

but my post is about today i was looking at out ground pools online, and some ads talking me to the tik tok shop, where there are pools that sell everywhere else for $400-$1200 listed on there for $80 free shipping, saying there's been 40 purchases. No where else can you find a 48 inch deep pool for under a few hundred, let alone $80? with the pump ladder cover, and what you just lose your money and get nothing?

This happened two weeks ago. I work in a small retail gift shop in a shopping center in suburban Philadelphia. I answer the phone and it’s a gentleman asking if we sell Apple gift cards. We don’t sell gift cards of any kind, so I told him no. I’m immediately suspicious because I know Apple gift cards are often utilized by scammers. He then asked if the grocery store in our shopping center sold them. I said I didn’t know then I said “why do you want these?” He told me that the CEO of his former company emailed and asked if he could buy some Apple gift cards for an event the company was planning.

I told him that this was probably a scam and gave him a rundown of what a scammer will do with the Apple gift cards once they get the codes. He sounded older, and I asked him where he was located, and he said Florida, but that he used to work in the area but had retired to Florida some years back. I asked him if he thought it was strange that the CEO of his former company wanted him to buy gift cards. Then he said when she asked him for his phone number he gave it to her and she called him, he talked with her and she sounded sincere. Again told him that it was this was definitely a scam, he should not respond to this person ever again and block the number (which she didn’t recognize, and said that seemed odd to him), and definitely don’t buy any Apple gift cards.

Now I’m wondering why someone from Florida would call me in Pennsylvania and buy Apple gift cards over the phone for a CEO for a company he used to work at years ago. Is this a new twist on the gift card scam? I’m just hoping that I impressed upon him hard enough not to talk to this person again because I know they can be very persuasive in getting what they want and he sounded rather credulous.

In summary, my dad fell for a classic Facebook Marketplace fake car listing. The page directed him to a 3rd party site, he wired the scammers $20,000, and they ghosted him.

Longer context:

My dad was redirected off of Facebook Marketplace to a third party side called “topshelfmotorsllc.net” and is still up. They’re even still posting AI generated listings to Marketplace.

He contacted the scammer and was instructed to wire the money to their account (Listed under L S Motors Trading LLC) with a Santander Bank.

He sent the money, and then spoke with the scammer over the phone for 2 days, where he was told they were prepping the car for delivery. When the car didn’t show up on the 3rd day, the scammer blocked him on all platforms.

So far, my dad has reported this to the FTC, the IC3, and he contacted his own bank. His bank says there’s nothing they can do because he authorized the transfer.

Is there anything at all that can be done? My family is not well-off by any means. He only had this money because of refinancing, and he’s rather old so he isn’t aware of modern scams.

Sensitivity is appreciated, any advice is very much welcome, even if that advice is that nothing can be done

I was looking for a Puppy on subito.it and i found a girl who sells her pups (no pedigree but parents pedigree but idc) 300 each with some vet treatment done except vaccines. Dog is 2 months old. We accorded to meet tomorrow 15:30 at the train station because I have to go there and she will also go there because it’s 30 min car from her house and i told her i had to get a bus too if I went there so she wants to help. No Money upfront, pup pics sent and no result when i reverse search it except that ad. Do you think it’s legit? Should I bring someone?

I don't know if this is the right subreddit. My question is more related to phishing-defense rather than reporting on a scam...

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I'm already aggressively phished against via email/text/call. Signin attempts to my email every week. Phishing emails that get through spam daily. Fake invoices to my business. Fake stripe/paypal/bank notifications that get through spam on occassion. Okay.

But these texts, I'm getting these from both venmo and cashapp every 12-18 hours, started 4 days ago. a real text from a real 5-digit number (5 digit numbers seem reserved for legit / non spam usage, right?). so, seemingly someone trying to take over my venmo, or create a cash app under my phone number.

A huge pain. What if these guys successfully guess the 6-digit code one of these days? Then I'm fucked. Anything I can do to guard against this stuff? I set a 4-digit passcode on Venmo. I don't have a cash app account.

I just received a call from a number that I didn't recognize, so I sent it to voicemail. It seems like the speaker purposefully excluded part of the message, because there are a few seconds of silence before they say, "[inaudible] your resume. We're doing the interviews and actively hiring. I am available until 5. Again, my name is Amy and I look forward to hearing from you."

I am actively applying for jobs, so I don't want to ignore a call from somewhere I actually applied, but there are so many job scams right now that I can't help feeling cynical. I googled the number and no related companies showed up, just posts about 900 numbers having premium fees for callers.

Am I correct in assuming it's a scam is to make me call back and therefore owe money because I called a 900 number? If so, would there have been any negative consequences to me answering the call? Usually I just send all calls to voicemail and assume that, if it's for something like a job interview, they'll leave a message, but I almost answered this one since I'm in the middle of my morning "look at jobs to apply to" routine anyways.

I changed my phone number about 5 months ago. Recently I’ve been getting verification codes from several different sites including triple A, google, WhatsApp, Venmo and PayPal from the same number, and then I’ve been getting 8 calls a day from a strange area code number with a lengthy Ai voicemail about passwords. Worth noting I don’t have WhatsApp out of all these.

Are they actually guessing my passwords and activating the 2 factor to my phone? Should I change my phone number and all my passwords at this rate?

A Facebook link claiming to be an official Ministry of Education channel directed me to a Telegram group. I sent a join request, but then the group message disappeared and I couldn't cancel the request. After 2hrs I was messaged by a WhatsApp business account named Aura Time using an Iraqi number. Strange thing is they addressed me by my full legal name which isn't on my Telegram profile at all and the phone number involved isn't even registered to me. I haven't responded or shared anything. Just trying to understand: 1.Is this a known scam pattern (fake government recruitment/registration scams)? 2.How would they have my full name if it's not visible anywhere on my account? 3.Anything else I should do besides blocking and reporting?

So basically, yesterday I answered a call from an no caller id number. They stated my name, and said they was from the fraud team at 118118 money. I fell into the trap, I was exhausted from work.

They had my email, requested a change password, I was very stupid and gullible. I changed my account password for them, and they gained access with me supplying the OTP, again stupid of me. They also got my main bank details from me.

Once the call ended , something in my guy felt sick. I immediately logged into my 118 app, sudden transactions. I called 118, asked if they called me, and no, of course not. I cried my eyes out because I’ve never been this gullible, I was so furious with myself. So speaking to 118 I explained what happened how I fell for the scam. They immediately blocked the card asked me questions asking if I did the transactions if anyone had access to my phone etc. They said they were opening an investigation will take up to 30 days.

I immediately went into the app changed the email address to my other one. Change the password and my passcode to the app literally everything. I then call my main bank and told them what happened. They were really reassuring. They stopped my card immediately and sent out a new one. Luckily I only had £7 in my main bank account so they couldn’t take anything.

fast forward to today, I’ve gone onto the app to see what was happening and there’s three more transactions that’s happened today all with Uber which I haven’t used. I’ve not used the card since then I haven’t used the card in a couple of days especially since yesterday that’s when I checked my email and see that the card, the brand-new card has been added to Apple Pay again.

So I phoned 118 just now, and I’ve reported it again. They have blocked the card and removed all Apple Pay locations. I now have to wait for more news .

My question, how did they add my brand new card to Apple Pay when they no longer had access to my account? It makes no sense??

Also I have money going into my debit account on Friday, now I trust Barclays a lot more, so i assume that will be all ok (they also removed my old card off every merchant)

Any advice would be welcomed. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life that I allowed this to happen. I have definitely learnt from my mistake.

Guy dm's me the other day and says he got scammed from a link i sent. I originally thought it was real but i checked Login logs and nothing is abnormal. Not to mention i was on discord all day that day and nothing was abnormal and hes the only person that messaged me about this.

Just asking to be sure but im pretty sure it is a scam.

REASONS:

-Gave his payment details in the screenshots [Painted out incase it IS real"

-Wording isnt like how he usually talks

-I was on discord like all day and nobody else said anything

I

Got a call this morning, I lowkey believed it at first because I actually did have an international package delivered to me this morning too. I was told it contained illegal goods, they already had my full name and address and just asked me to confirm it.

I still thought this was about my totally normal package. I mean it was peptides but I figured they’d just take them and I’d lose whatever money I spent on it and go about my day.

That’s when the guy tells me a package containing forged and trafficked documents, 7K in cash, under my name has been seized and connected to multiple accounts under my name in the US being used to launder money. I had a bad run in with some crypto and malicious token so I legit thought I’d had my identity stolen.

They stressed this phone call was legally binding and that anything I said could be used against me and was being monitored by the RCMP and I was transferred to the Canadian intelligence agency. They knew what bank accounts I had. Not the account numbers just which banks and what kind. They asked me to confirm the balance, I refused. I was then told to cooperate or hire myself a good criminal lawyer. I started getting suspicious, he told me to stay on the line until I received a call from the local police service. He made me confirm the local police services phone number.

I had a feeling, I was kind of done being terrified my life was about to be ruined over something I didn’t do and I hung up and called the actual RCMP non emergency line. I gave them the details, the fake badge numbers, case number, phone number, told them that these people already had my information and just made me confirm it. I called my banks and made reports there as well.

I feel like a fucking idiot for falling for this, I’m genuinely embarrassed. I’m just confused on why they didn’t try to get any account numbers or money from me. The bank told me they can’t do anything with the information they have, just change my passwords to be safe. Anyway, has anyone else gotten a scam similar to this?

EDIT: APOLOGIES! I didn't realize that the iCloud Mail was changing the from address! It seems like the email was legit! Thank you everyone that responded.

Hello just trying to wrap my head around a text and an email I received that I believe are scams but what’s terrifying is the amount of details they know.

I have recently ordered two items on eBay from the USA and they are shipped to Canada through DHL International shipping.

I woke up this morning two a text message from a 5 digit number that had my full name and my eBay email. The text claimed that my package has incurred duties and that I should check my email to resolve the issue.

The email arrived 8 minutes after the texts and it is expertly formatted. It really looks legit. DHL branding seems well placed and professional. Email subject is concise and contains the actual tracking number. The subject and the body are written in both English and French which makes it seem even more legit.

It even has a neat breakdown of what fees I’m meant to pay. It also says that if I don’t “pre-pay” that I “might” still receive the package and I could just ignore this.

Two things that stood out:

1. They listed the contents of the package and while they listed one of the items correctly. There is another item that eBay is shipping to me using the same tracking number but that one was not listed!!!

2. The DHL address that sent me this email is an iCloud address! The address was: "package.notification_at_dhl_com" then a random string of letters and numbers separated by underscores.

This obviously isn’t a DHL email and I understand that scammers have gotten really good at formatting emails to make them look legit. But I just can’t get over how they would know all this info?

How did they find my full name, email, home address, tracking number, order details, etc…?

I am very careful when it comes to giving out my info on the internet. Furthermore, my eBay email address is an alias that I only use for eBay and nothing else. I am pretty sure my eBay account is not hacked or anything.

My head is leaning towards the seller of the item listed in the scam email. Either he’s compromised and somehow scammers are able to steal his customer's info or he's in on it but I really doubt the latter.

I also am not fully knowledgeable on the latest ways scammers find this type of info, so any insight would be much appreciated! Thank you for reading.

I was playing this game called "sled surfers" and then I got an ad telling me that I unlocked an award and that my Gravy Pass reward is ready for my wallet, (picture included but it says subway winner because I didn't actually get the one from mine since I escaped in a panic but it looked identical only instead it said "sledding winners" at the top.) When I went to pull up my phone arrows to spam the back button like I do with most ads it instantly took me to my google wallet trying to get me to add this pass to it to earn money and saying I can see this pass in multiple places. I know this most likely is a scam but with it redirecting me to my wallet I was scared my account is now compromised. I can't really find anything about this ad even where I found this picture it doesn't say much on it, just one person saying to report it to google and don't click on it. I did not click the add button on google wallet, is my wallet safe?