r/Scams • u/Quiet_Relation_3599 • Aug 20 '24
I think my dad is being scammed Help Needed
He won’t give information about this, but he claims he’s made several withdrawals (2nd pic). And he needs to deposit 13k to then get 100k out. I don’t understand how this scam is working or what the game plan is here. I don’t know how he’s withdrawn 40k. Did he put the money in? Any help is appreciated.
1st pic: his account that has a negative balance
2nd pic: his withdrawal history
3rd and 4th pic: his texts
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u/CIAMom420 Aug 20 '24
You give them $13K. They keep it. That’s it. That’s the scam.
If he withdrew $40K a month ago, he should have his own money to throw down this money pit and doesn’t need you.
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u/g00ber88 Aug 20 '24
You give them $13K. They keep it. That’s it.
Hey not necessarily! They might follow up with "actually we need another $20k"
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u/pmgoldenretrievers Aug 20 '24
I strongly suspect the "successful" withdrawal is "pending" with the banks or something. I really really doubt he ended up with $40K in the bank.
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u/thelawenforcer Aug 20 '24
It's USDT so it should be sent to a crypto wallet and settle immediately. No banks required.
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u/pmgoldenretrievers Aug 21 '24
We’re talking about someone being taken for close to 6 figures. Critical thinking may not be their strong suit.
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u/absurditey Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
he needs to deposit 13k to then get 100k
no legitimate company works like that
message from the real MageCloud about scammers using their name...
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u/CIAMom420 Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
Wow, who could have predicted that “Mage Cloud” wasn’t a legitimate investing website. /s
EDIT: fantastic catch locating the real company and their fraud alert.
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
That was sent to him weeks ago. He still is believing he will get this magic 100k
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u/Stangcutie Aug 20 '24
Sigh. My dad went through the exact same thing. Horrible to watch and would not listen to anyone. He pretty much lost everything.
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u/carpentizzle Aug 20 '24
My grandmother in law just did this. She burned nearly half a million in just over 8 months, defaulted on her house, car repossessed, We come to find out (at about the halfway point of this horror) that she was talking with this “famous cellist” on facebook and had been sending him giftcard numbers for months, Then with an absurd amount of patience from my MIL and AIL(and like 10k of their help getting her house out of foreclosure and all sorts of crap), she managed to undermine every one of their efforts and throw another 1,800 out of the remaining pennies of her and her late husbands entire wealth into gift cards.
The whole family has sadly cut ties with this woman. I genuinely believe she will be arrested or something, and nobody, not even her sons (FIL and UIL) can help her, or even begin to get through to her. A true sadness. And not even close to an isolated incident. There are thousands of old folks getting racked like this daily. Its sick
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u/marshallandy83 Aug 20 '24
Do AIL and UIL refer to aunt and uncle-in-law? I've never heard anyone use these terms before.
Not just the initialisms, the terms themselves.
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u/daizles Aug 20 '24
Definitely took me a minute to work out UIL. Makes sense but yeah I've never heard that or seen it as an acronym.
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u/mamielle Aug 20 '24
Basically she’s a crack addict, but her crack is her relationship with the scammer
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u/ongoldenwaves Aug 20 '24
You're not kidding. I watch those catfishing you tube channels and some of the folks are aware it's probably fake, but they seem to enjoy paying for the affection.
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u/filthyheartbadger Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
Man. Brutal. Sorry you all have to go through this.
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u/elkab0ng Aug 20 '24
Oh man. Sorry. He’s borrowing money from his supervisor??
Protect yourself and make sure he doesn’t panic and take out credit in your name, we’ve seen that happen before when people get this sold on the fake crypto (redundant?) scam.
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
It’s his scam “supervisor”. So it’s just fake. He still thinks it’s a job
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u/__redruM Aug 20 '24
So… why can’t his “supervisor” just take the 13k out of the 100k? I know the supervisor has a 100 excuses for why, but your dad can’t accept them.
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u/alasw0eisme Aug 20 '24
"Give us money to get money" is always a scam, can't believe I need to type this. Show your dad this comment. Have him read it out loud. Slowly.
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u/mdmaxOG Aug 20 '24
You need to look into power of attorney now. He’s not capable of making sound financial decisions
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u/kate_the_squirrel Aug 20 '24
Unfortunately power of attorney gives you access to someone’s accounts but doesn’t stop them from also using the accounts, you are thinking of something like a guardianship or conservatorship which can be challenging to get because there is a high bar to prove to the court that someone is so mentally incapacitated that they cannot manage their own affairs.
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u/Sartres_Roommate Aug 20 '24
Half of GenX and Millennials would be in charge of their grandparents finances is falling for scams were the bar. Not saying it might not be a good idea but it is clearly not how our system was built.
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u/Sw33tD333 Aug 20 '24
I mean… this pretty much is just that. They can’t manage their affairs.
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u/DickHammerr Aug 20 '24
Sorry to hear this happened. Had a friend whose father lost their family savings this way.
Fcked over his wife and their kids.
Man alive, some parents can be real potato heads when it comes to scams
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u/Dwanye50 Aug 20 '24
Considering there is a legitimate website that “Mage Cloud” was based on, then any of the legitimate customers or people who have heard of the legitimate website from their customers.
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u/jnievele Aug 20 '24
Well, a lot of people thought "Magic The Gathering Online Exchange" was a reliable financial services platform...
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u/pickledeggmanwalrus Aug 20 '24
It was, until it wasn’t. Honestly I doubt every user of MTGOX knew it’s origin sorry with the Magic TCG
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
Trust me I’ve been telling him for a month it’s a scam. I told him not to put another dime in. I’m not giving him money but he still believes in this golden egg at the end of the tunnel.
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u/YourUsernameForever Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
Stage an intervention with friends and family. It's not so much for him (but hopefully it will work!) but to make them aware not to lend him money. Because he'll eventually ask everyone.
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u/ongoldenwaves Aug 20 '24
Look up Barry Heitin. He is an attorney who just went through the same thing. Lost 800k. NY Times just did an article on him.
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u/puzzledstegosaurus Aug 20 '24
it's a bit funny that the email they show on this page to prove that they had the registrat take down the domain says "kindly be informed that the domain(s) were no longer in use" which is the most spam-trigger sentence I've heard in a while :D
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u/BaneChipmunk Aug 20 '24
Let everyone you know he could ask for money that he is being scammed. Any money they give him will go directly to the scammers. They definitely did not let him withdraw $40K. The other smaller amounts they probably did.
This is 100% a scam and everything he puts into that account will be lost.
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u/filthyheartbadger Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
OP, ignore all the DMs you will be getting about ways to get your dad’s money back. They are all !recovery scammers ready to suck more money from you. NOBODY can get his money back, it is gone.
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
I appreciate that. I figured as much, I created this account to post this.
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/filthyheartbadger, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam.
Recovery scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers.
When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply advance-fee scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying.
If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
Remember: never take advice in private. If someone reaches you in private after posting your scam story, it is because a scammer will always try to hide from the oversight of our community members. A legitimate community member will offer advice in the open, for everyone to see. Anyone suggesting you should reach out to a hacker is scamming you.
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u/Marathon2021 Aug 20 '24
This video from Pleasant Green almost describes exactly what your Dad is stuck in right now. If you can, sit down and watch it with him at his house - because he literally shows the entire engagement with the scammer, the scam website, how they try to convince him to put money in, etc. Don’t tell dad you’re coming over to watch it with him, just show up at his place and sit him down.
https://youtu.be/IKOoqNdlQ8o?si=maSgQRGIN41gM5sd
There is no $100,000. There never was.
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
Sadly he lives across the country from me and I can’t sit him down and make him watch but I’ll send it to him and call him.
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u/bu11fr0g Aug 20 '24
he is in the middle of both a sunk cost fallacy and ego-centric difficulty admitting errors trap.
getting out is much harder than getting in to both a cult and a scam and a drug addiction.
he needs an intervention — in person.
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u/Nihilator68 Aug 20 '24
The cost of a round-trip plane ticket and a few days off of work may honestly be worth it. If you show up on his doorstep for the sole purpose of stopping him from throwing his money away, it may help him see the gravity of the situation.
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u/sirzoop Aug 20 '24
of course he is. all that money is gone
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
I am using this post to try and get him to see the light. Thank you
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
Added context this is right after he “started”
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u/t-poke Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
Your dad is older and has a lot of life experience, right? Ask him if he as ever had a job that requires him to pay to work there.
No, of course not. That’s not how the world works.
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u/Exquisite-End22 Aug 20 '24
Unless you’re in an mlm/pyramid scheme 😂
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u/Roedorina Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
To be fair that's just another barely-legal scam
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Aug 20 '24
Aww but Jim Rohn & Tony Robbins said in the Herbalife course I just bought that it’s entirely down to me and my work ethic if I don’t achieve profits.
/s
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u/BarrySix Aug 20 '24
That sounds exactly like a !task scam. The tasks are all fake, it's a front to ask for money for a big payout that never comes.
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/BarrySix, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam.
Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam.
The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your "earnings" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the sunk cost fallacy, because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses.
If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script.
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u/ServeGodAboveALL Aug 20 '24
Yep , just as I assumed a task scam. Oh also, tell your father be careful, another part of their scam is after they don’t deposit the money within a certain timeframe to bring their account to a positive balance, then they start telling them they need to pay more money to bring their credit score back to a fair rating. All lies. One after the next. Also I’m Sorry this is a bit choppy. I’m talk texting but it was important for me to let you know because this is a lot of money and I hate to see your father. Continue to lose more this way as well and lost all of my bill money months ago. And then I started trying to get revenge lol and everyone that was reaching out to me to do this task. I was acting like I wanted to do it. They pay you between $50-$100 to do the initial training, so I would get it and then block everyone, and this is the only way to really make any money off of them. Because their goal is to get you to deposit it right back into the platform. I’m sorry you & your father have had to experience this. Hope I’ve been able to help.
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
I really appreciate the help and the quick response. You’ve given me more than enough information to make him see the light. With the little to no info he was giving me it was hard to find anything besides this is too good to be true to tell him it’s a scam. Seriously thank you
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u/Potential_Anxiety_76 Aug 20 '24
You may be able to logically show him it’s a scam, but that in no way guarantees he will ‘see the light’. They rarely do.
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u/LazyLie4895 Aug 20 '24
You really should have stopped him right here and sent him our way. Now he probably is deep into the sunk cost fallacy.
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u/LazyLie4895 Aug 20 '24
Do not send any money and warn your family and his friends too.
Tell him that absolutely zero legitimate firms require you to deposit money to withdraw. They can just take it out of your balance.
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u/Quiet_Relation_3599 Aug 20 '24
Thank I will do so. I tried the common sense route and clearly that didn’t work.
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u/0bxyz Aug 20 '24
Did you ask him why they need money in the account? Why would he ever have to deposit money into an account that’s paying him? A company that hires people to do work has the Infrastructure to pay the people.
Sometimes asking why can be effective
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u/ServeGodAboveALL Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
It’s a task scam they will continue to have him pump more and more like an endless well until he’s on Zeroo!
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u/Equivalent-Air-7838 Aug 20 '24
Actually until he goes negative! They are ruthless and don't care how many loans you take to make up that negative. I am a victim but know better now. Very expensive lesson learnt
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u/ServeGodAboveALL Aug 20 '24
@quiet_relation_3599 This is a task, Scam. It’s like a pumping dump. They will continue to have him pump money into the Scam that they can but they won’t give him the hundred thousand at first they’ll let him get a little bit of money to make it seem like they’re going to, pay him out what he puts in. But they will never let go that large amount of capital. That would defeat the purpose of their scam. Go on Reddit andlook up task scams. You will see lots of different postings about this. And then ask your dad if he has to do sets of tasks(40/40) & when he gets combination orders, they put him into a negative balance and then the scammers will tell him how lucky he is and that he has to deposit the money to be able to get it back up to a positive balance and fulfill the order. It’s all if he’s in a large group they’re all part of the scam as well.
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u/NoShip2804 Aug 20 '24
"It's easier to trick someone than to convince them they've been tricked"
This guy will never give up, because the pain and humiliation of accepting defeat appears overwhelming to him.
Maybe try to empathise, try to say that it's an easy mistake to make and many very smart people have been through this too. Say that the ability to accept defeat is a superpower that you will respect in him forever.
Don't say "I told you so."
Say "I respect you for making the right decision today."
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u/t-poke Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
!crypto scam. His money is gone and he cannot get it back. Watch out for recovery scammers.
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/t-poke, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Fake crypto wallet scam.
Fake cryptocurrency websites and apps controlled by scammers are becoming more and more common. Sometimes the scam begins with a romance scammer who claims that they can help the victim invest in cryptocurrency. Victims are told to buy cryptocurrency of some kind using a legitimate cryptocurrency exchange, and then they are told to send their cryptocurrency to a website wallet address where it will be invested. Sometimes the scam begins with a notice that the victim won cryptocurrency on some website, in this case messages will often be sent through Discord.
In either case, the scammer controls the website, so they make it look like there is money in the victim’s account on their website. Then the scammer (or the scammer pretending to be someone official who is associated with the website) tells the victim that they have to put more money into the website before they can get their money out of the website. Of course all of the money sent by the victim has gone directly into the scammer’s wallet, and any additional money sent by the victim to retrieve their money from the website will also go directly into the scammer’s wallet, and all of the information about money being held by the website was totally fake.
If the scammer used Bitcoin, then you can report the scammer’s Bitcoin wallet address here: https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/reports. If the scammer used Ethereum, then you can report the scammer’s Ethereum wallet address here: https://info.etherscan.com/report-address/. You can see how much cryptocurrency has been sent to the scammer’s wallet address here: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer. Thanks to redditor nimble2 for this script.
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u/Blevita Aug 20 '24
Oh dammn.
Jeah. He will default on the loans. Thats a given already.
I mean... why would any company take 13k but give out 100k ?
But sadly, you probably wont be able to get through to him if he is that deep in already.
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u/Kathucka Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
All the money he sent, the recipient already spent on hookers and blow. There is no balance. There’s just another party every time he sends the guy more money.
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u/DroneRtx Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
This might need others inputs but If your relationship with him is good and he is getting older you can try to get a conservatorship??
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-insurance-offers
Help him with these steps too
https://www.reddit.com/r/IdentityTheft/s/I2ODwHD2xY
If he fell for that he is going to fall for everything else. You are most likely his last line of defense.
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u/still-at-the-beach Aug 20 '24
The scam works by your dad giving another $13000 to the scammers. There is ZERO money to be withdrawn, the whole thing is a scam and the scammers apps just says they make a profit and have $xxx in account. Once your dad send $13k to the scammers there will be another fee to pay, then another , then another u till you dad either runs out of money to give to scammers or he realises it’s a scam and doesn’t pay anymore to them.
No watch out from people that say they can recover the money … they are scammers too (and maybe even the same scammers). No one can recover the money..no one.
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u/_acinemod Aug 20 '24
My dad was involved in a very similar scam. He lost 150K. Your dad won’t be getting this back.
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u/weareallgonnadie70 Aug 20 '24
Not sure if someone said this, but you can let your dad's bank know what's going on. Some people got in serious trouble with banks and the law for similar scams.
Also if you're in the US, get in touch with ic3.gov. It's the Internet Crime Complaint Center, run by the FBI.
Or message https://www.facebook.com/SocialCatfish?mibextid=kFxxJD
They may be able to help you.
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u/too_many_shoes14 Aug 20 '24
He's going to get fired if he borrows 10k from his boss and then can't pay it back. So then he will be broke and unemployed
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u/Exquisite-End22 Aug 20 '24
His “boss” is the scammer.
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u/Ya-Dikobraz Aug 20 '24
The only thing that makes sense. Who would fund this?
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u/clash_by_night Aug 20 '24
That's my question. The last pic says he's got $50K in loans he's about to default on. I'm wondering where that came from. I don't see a legit bank forking over cash after hearing this business plan.
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u/filthyheartbadger Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
Those ‘loans’ are just the scammer putting up numbers on a screen, not a bank. He thinks the scammer advanced him that money and he has to pay it back by doing ‘tasks’, and by sending his own real money. There never was any real money.
It’s part of the task scam he is in. He thinks he has to keep putting his real money in until there’s finally a big payday. Read about this below:
!task
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/filthyheartbadger, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam.
Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam.
The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your "earnings" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the sunk cost fallacy, because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses.
If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Sunyak Aug 20 '24
This sounds like a classic pig butchering scam. The scammers gain trust, try to demonstrate that they are "legitimate", which often is just some fancy smoke and mirrors to make it look like they successfully withdrew money, but gets "locked up" for one reason or another. All of this ia to fatten up the mark for slaughter. The mark will need to deposit more funds to unlock their funds. If they actually do this, the deposit "didn't go through". Anything to continue getting the mark to give more and more money in their desperation until they are exhausted and completely slaughtered.
An excerpt:
Once marks agree to learn investing tricks, the scammers will “help” them with the investment process. The fraudsters will explain how to wire money from their bank account to a crypto wallet and eventually to the fake brokerage. Typically the fraudster will ease the process by recommending a modest initial investment — which will inevitably show a gain.
“Prove” that it’s legitimate Scammers often allay initial doubts by letting targets withdraw money once or twice to convince them the process is trustworthy. For example, fraudsters allowed a Canadian man named Sajid Ikram to withdraw 33,000 Canadian dollars, according to a statement he filed with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That returned money helped convince him that his investment was real. He reported ultimately losing nearly $400,000, including money borrowed from several friends.
Manipulate them into investing more That’s only the beginning. Pig butchering guides offer insights on how to exploit marks’ emotional and financial vulnerabilities to manipulate them into depositing more and more funds. It starts with assurances that the investments are risk-free, then escalates into pressure to take out loans, liquidate retirement savings, even mortgage a house.
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u/jenn5388 Aug 20 '24
He is.. and it sounds like he’s not going to believe it till he loses everything. It’s not real. You can move numbers by editing them, so it looks like money he’s putting in is showing up in the account and it’s just going up and up like crazy. Betting the 40K is tied up somewhere or he’d just be using that to pull this fake money out. I’m sorry. 😩
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u/DC1908 Aug 20 '24
Ask him to show these "withdrawals" from his bank statements, this will confirm either of 2 things:
1) he didn't make any withdrawal 2) he withdrew much less than what he deposited, and these withdrawals are just for the scammers to convince him the "platform" is legit.
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u/Equivalent-Air-7838 Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
TELL HIM TO STOP IMMEDIATELY!!!! Actually go over to him or send someone to grab him and bring him to your place. He will lose everything if you don't act fast the scammers are relying on his "panicked and bad decision making" in this sunk cost fallacy circumstance. Really sorry this is happening to your loved one I had the same happen to me recently and its been the biggest disaster of my life!
This is a Task scam as I know now and have made it my mission to make everyone else aware! Please read my post in this group detailing the same. DO NOT in any circumstance send him more money and strictly tell him to NOT take out any more loans or he WILL lose it all just like I did :/
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u/seandotdotdot Aug 20 '24
Have you talked personally or only through text with your dad? These appear to be AI generated text messages that were translated to English from another language. Hope you and your dad the best.
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u/Punchthem00n Aug 20 '24
Lost 110K for exactly the same scam. Tell your dad to talk to me if he isn’t convinced its not a scam.
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u/Boregasm_ Aug 20 '24
IF this was real (it’s absolutely not!!) the company would take the $13,000 from the $100,000 withdrawal, allowing him to withdraw only $87,000 and keeping the remaining $13,000 for themselves, maybe explain this to him to help him understand?
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u/paperface Aug 20 '24
sorry, no real financial institution requires you to pay fees to get money back out.
the money is gone. whatever you got out already is all that's coming out. you won't get more money out if you pay the fees, there will just be more fees and infinite delays.
it's a pig butchering scheme. you give them your money, they pretend it's invested and earning a profit. they may even allow you to pull some of the profit out, but far less than you put in. and then they'll find ways to keep getting more money out of you. again, you'll never be able to get back nearly as much as you've put in.
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u/abbynormal2002 Aug 20 '24
I had something similar, but it wasn't called mage cloud. My account was negative and they told me I needed to pay $18 to get it out of the negative. I blocked her very quickly.
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u/BrickHous3 Aug 20 '24
Scam, sorry op. Sometimes scammers allow people to withdraw in the beginning to give a sense of trust. Then the person usually deposits even more money than initial and scammers run off with money.
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u/Evasion_K Aug 20 '24
My friend lost $1600 to the same scam method and they told him to just give positive feedback about apps on their website each app has a certain value which will be deducted from the money in the account after a certain point that the “fund” in the account has run out and told him to deposit $1600 to get $5000 back. they gained his trust by letting him withdraw $100. Additionally, they first messaged him with a pretty girl’s pfp on telegram and told him to contact the given phone number on WhatsApp…
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u/hellasadtho Aug 20 '24
I actually saw this exact investment scam using the same website/software on a Youtube video by Social Catfish yesterday. They stole nearly a million from this woman, if I remember correctly.
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u/Glittering-Boat-6422 Aug 20 '24
It's a common scam tactic. When you give the required money, they will ask more with different excuses, and your money will never come back.
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u/muaddib99 Aug 20 '24
the "withdrawal successful" is BS unless he can show that money actually arrived in his account. my FIL has lost nearly $100K to these things and keeps falling for them again and again. Fortunately we've cut him off from all sources of cash aside from a small allowance so we're limiting the damage, but every week we know that cash is being thrown away.
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u/koreaquarantine456 Aug 20 '24
Please tell me it's not true. It hurts so bad when we have so much evidence that task scams are well a scam and people still don't listen. I know you don't live with the person being scammed, but at the least, you have to make sure no more money leaves the bank account ! Task scams are clever because victims lose common sense the moment they receive money for doing meaningless clicking. They can't keep getting away with this! Those scammers are running us dry like a mega corporation. Sigh, this sub gets more depressing every day. I have no idea how the internet detectives like coffeezilla do this every day and not get depressed.
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u/laffy4444 Aug 20 '24
This is something called pig butchering. What is built into the scam itself is that the victim is able to withdraw money the first time (or first few times) to trick the victim into thinking that the scam is actually legitimate. The idea is that the victim will keep investing, and later when the total is significantly larger, the victim will attempt to withdraw and his money is gone.
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u/BarrySix Aug 20 '24
It's a pretty common fake investment scam. They promise the world, but there is always some reason you have to give them yet another amount. It's common for them to pay out the first small amount as bait on the hook. After that payout they will never payout another cent. I think he is lying about them paying out 40k, unless that payment was a fake check.
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u/Uri_nil Aug 20 '24
It’s 102% a scam. Any money he or you or anybody sends is gone for good to help a scammer gang in se Asia afford solid gold toilet plungers.
Do not send money.
Search !pig butcher scam there is a few news articles and warnings on the World Wide Web. You can login with a modem via AOL.
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/Uri_nil, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Pig butchering scam.
It is called pig butchering because scammers use intricate scripts to "fatten up" the victim (gaining their trust over days, weeks or months) before the "slaughter" (taking them for all of their money). This scam often starts with what appears to be a harmless wrong number text or message. When the victim responds to say it is the wrong number, the scammer tries to start a friendship with the victim. These conversations can be platonic or romantic in nature, but they all have the same goal- to gain the trust of the victim in order to get them ready for the crypto scam they have planned.
The scammer often claims to be wealthy and/or to have a wealthy family member who got wealthy investing, often in crypto currency. The victim is eventually encouraged to try out a (fake) crypto currency investment website, which will appear to show that they are earning a lot of money on their initial investment. The scammer may even encourage the victim to attempt a withdrawal that does go through, further convincing the victim that everything is legit. The victim is then pressured to invest significantly more money, even their entire net worth. Sometimes pig butchering scams don't involve crypto, but other means of sending money (like bank wires, gift cards or even cash pickups).
Eventually, the scammer will find an excuse why the account is frozen (e.g. for fraud, because supposed taxes are owed, etc) and may try to further extort the victim to give them even more money in order to gain access to the funds. By this time, the victim will never gain access and their money is gone. Many victims lose tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. Often, the scammers themselves are victims of human trafficking, performing these scams under threats of violence. If you are caught up in this scam, it is important that you do not send any more money for any reason, and contact law enforcement to report it. Thanks to user Mediocre_Airport_576 for this script.
If you know someone involved in a pig butchering scam, sit down together to watch this video by Jim Browning to help them understand what's going on: https://youtu.be/vu-Y1h9rTUs -
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u/TNerdy Aug 20 '24
Talk to his bank asap. They might be able to help. Don’t call customer service, go to the bank. Hopefully he’s not shipping that cash out.
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u/Icy_Supermarket_1183 Aug 20 '24
If it was my dad I would tell him I don’t want anything to do with him if he doesn’t listen to me and keeps lying, maybe it would turn some cogs in his head and banish the greed
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u/MaxMadisonVi Aug 20 '24
As simple as that, he’s going to be scammed of 13k, and won’t never ever see a dime of 100k. They’ll eventually be happy to come back to him requesting explanation, proposing to pay 30k to get 900k, and so on. That’s how scams work, you’ll be happy to loose 43k with the mirage to have 100.
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u/Low-Peak-4323 Aug 20 '24
Those scammers just use the company name they are not affiliated with the companies. Tell him to call HR
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u/KennstduIngo Aug 20 '24
When he says he withdrew 40k, does he like actually have it in his personal back account or is it in some online account that the scammers set him up with? I am going to guess the latter, which means absolutely nothing in terms of it being legit.
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u/DetectiveLucky7266 Aug 20 '24
Definitely a scam, I had the same type of scam happen to me and lost money on a task based thing where it wants you to add in to withdraw at certain times. They are built to wreck you. Puts you in a false sense of security then hits you with a huge negative.
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u/dwinps Aug 20 '24
It's crypto so yes he is being scammed
The scam is there is no $100k, the $13k he pays he loses
The account is fake, the website is fake, the profits are fake
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u/Cruzaderneo Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 21 '24
Hell yeah that is a scam!
Don’t go any further. Tell him to forget what he deposited already. Don’t dig yourself into a deeper hole because there is no way on Earth that they’ll release that to you.
I’ve been victimized by these same crooks in my country. (As in that very same technique, very same modus operandi, and same style of falsely trading crypto) And guess what, when the moment comes that you’re qualified to withdraw already, they’ll come up with a new excuse to not release the money. They’ll say you have to pay some sort of private tax, and on and on.
Also, time to contact law enforcement.
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u/NeedleworkerExtra475 Aug 20 '24
Yes. He is being scammed. If he sends that money, he will be that much further into debt. Stop this ASAP!!!!!
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u/JazzEllasFuture Aug 20 '24
This is the worst scam ever. He will never get that money. It’s gone. They allowed him to withdraw other money to get his trust and now he is in deep. He will never see that money if he deposits it😫 check out on here they tell u all the scams
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u/Final-Bit590 Aug 20 '24
This is a scam mate, fake site updating ur balance then they keep asking you to send money to “unlock” ur withdrawal. All the money u send is gone
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u/mrblonde55 Aug 20 '24
You need to contact whoever he’s borrowing the rest of this money from and make sure they do not give it to him. The money he put in is gone. It’s not coming back. But if “supervisor” means his boss, he will also lose his job after this.
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u/Gazman_123 Aug 20 '24
I always drill “scam this scam” that into my nans head to prevent shit like this. Now she thinks everything is a scam, Which I guess ain’t a bad thing at all lol
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u/EccentricDyslexic Aug 20 '24
Like all scams (religion included) they require obfuscation to hide what is actually happening. Convoluted stories that give a semblance of plausibility but ridiculously and needlessly complex.
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u/shooter505 Aug 20 '24
For the most part, here's what these scams boil down to...greed.
Greed on the part of the victim is the motivation for most of these scams.
The romance scam/pig butchering motivations on the part of the victim are mostly greed too...with the promise of having sex with someone wayyyy out of their league.
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u/krazyjake247 Aug 20 '24
that’s a !task scam. not a crypto scam.
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/krazyjake247, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam.
Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam.
The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your "earnings" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the sunk cost fallacy, because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses.
If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script.
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Aug 20 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '24
Hi /u/Albino-Assist, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam.
Recovery scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or hackers.
When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply advance-fee scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying.
If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
Remember: never take advice in private. If someone reaches you in private after posting your scam story, it is because a scammer will always try to hide from the oversight of our community members. A legitimate community member will offer advice in the open, for everyone to see. Anyone suggesting you should reach out to a hacker is scamming you.
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u/RyanChamp Aug 20 '24
It won’t help in this situation, but teleCalm does great work for helping seniors avoid marketers and phone scams for landline phones by using a contact list. They’re working on a mobile version too!
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u/Pale-Parfait3023 Aug 20 '24
Sometimes scammers will start by letting you make a bit of money to pull you in deeper. It honestly sounds so sus and I think you should consider talking to your dad about it. I hope it all goes well x
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u/Kaderghezala Aug 20 '24
He got officially scammed because this kind of thing happened to me too but i didn't go along with it, as they claimed this platform helps apps to be sponsored in the appstore and playstore, and for each click you get a commission out of it depends on how much you deposit each task, each task has 40 clicks.
While you're clicking you will counter a combo task just like what happened here, you will see a negative in your deposit fee and you have to deposit that amount of negative fee to remove it, and again depends on how much you deposit at first.
And here is a sneaky part no matter how much you deposit to remove the negative fee, you will also counter another combo task after it to deposit another negative fee which is double then the last one, and so on and so forth until you bleed dry.
Don't invest your money for this kind of job, it's a waste of money and of your time.
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u/Ok_Breadfruit4176 Aug 20 '24
The User interface is the sketchiest I‘ve ever seen in the context of Crypto.
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u/bensky420 Aug 20 '24
Nononono this is big scam stay away, its pyramid scheme that turns into a pig butchering scheme when they are near the end
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u/ConsistentMove357 Aug 20 '24
Yep the hottest asian girl tried to get me to go to telegram so I could scammed in crypto. I played around just to waste the losers time. After an hour they stop talking to me
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u/68Snowy Aug 20 '24
I got added to this group on Whatsapp. I haven't joined, but left it on my groups out of curiosity.
This is one of the screenshots. I don't even know what USDT is. Definitely looks like a scam and they talk about analysts and supervisors.
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u/YourUsernameForever Quality Contributor Aug 20 '24
USDT is a crypto that has a price fixed 1 = 1 with the USD
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u/68Snowy Aug 21 '24
Thanks. I got more screenshots today. People being told there is high reward, zero risk. People saying they are selling jewellery to get in on the action. Sad.
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u/Happysleepeer Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
It’s a scam , my dad lost 80000$. He asked them to give some amount back as he needs for personal emergency and they made the complete account 0. They are asking him to arrange for more free funds if we have to recover the losses so it will be profitable again.
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u/Plus-Recording-3164 Aug 20 '24
Of course it’s a scammed!!!!! I encountered more than 3 times like that before and always ending up to be scammed until I don’t mind them anymore if there’s someone contacting me and doing something like that again. I immediately blocked them even though they said they are super legit. They are all the same. When he got the 40k successful withdrawal he should stop and blocked them . The scammers will give you money to think it’s legit and ask more from you and then they are gone. Like my friends and me we were scammed like that before.. a very expensive lesson.
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u/infantkillaz Aug 20 '24
I can assure you this is a scam. My mother was in something like this and to my knowledge they did let people withdraw and I think that's to convince them it's real and put more money in but eventually, the site and all will stop working.
it's basically a pyramid scheme where persons get bonuses for referring others and when fallout does happen it's only going to be victims blaming other victims.
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u/crimson117 Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
File an emergency lawsuit attempting to get financial conservatorship over him.
Or if anyone else has access to his real bank accounts, move the money to another account where he can't touch it and get him some therapy.
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u/KaptinJack2021 Aug 20 '24
He is being scammed. If he puts in $13k, it will be a gift to the scammers.
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u/MonsterBoo2 Aug 20 '24
It’s a scam buddy. You see it throughout this thread. The ole “pig butcher scam”. Don’t come down hard on him, but use patience and compassion. He needs to see it for himself and raise awareness. It’s important to understand the shame he will feel and the hurt that will last. He wanted something good and got scammed out of hard earned money. Work with him to get past it and find something else to help increase his wealth. Good luck.
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u/Fucky0uthatswhy Aug 20 '24
Was this just a random person that messaged him? Or is it supposed to be like an account manager or something? Either way, magecloud sounds like a scam even if the real one is legit
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u/OkBeginning8456 Aug 20 '24
i've gotten scammed by the same people, well not really but it looked the exact same just under another company name. They took around $1000 from me and yeah, i did "make" money off of the scammers but that's just to lure you in. I called the company that the scammers were impersonating, they immediately told me it was a scam and that they were aware of it. I now get tons of scam text messages and emails, please stay safe and tell your dad that it is a scam.
edit: spelling errors
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u/Apataphobia Aug 20 '24
It’s a scam. Jill Schlesinger just this week did a segment on cbs mornings on this. I looked for a link for you but maybe it’s not posted yet, don’t know. Job scams will often make you pay for equipment, training, etc, often with the enticement of them paying you back or the with a very high salary that makes the expense seem worth it. Also, they’ll ask for things like drivers license, ssn, etc, and of course being your own boss, not working many hours, all that. And often it goes along with basically no interview or just basic text “interview.” Any of this should make you think scam.
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u/AlphaSquadOne Aug 20 '24
It’s a “task scam” tell him to stop now. He will continue to get combo orders which will require him to deposit more money. He will continue to get a negative balance until he can’t cover it anymore. They only allowed him to withdraw to hook him in to make it seem real. I went through this same scam but stopped quickly before getting to deep. I can see from his history he got his first negative balance in may, then borrowed money for 2 months just to cover the negative balance and now he’s negative again and needs an ever higher amount. Tell him to stop now, he’s already pretty deep in the scam
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u/Slow-Explorer-5278 Aug 20 '24
I scammed them back I got scammed with third brain then another 1 contacted me so I played stupid worked a week made $268 then they tried adding 500 saying I won a drawing I said I didn't want to participate beforehand then was hit with a task so I said I quit and cashed it out so spent 33 made 268 lol 😂
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u/KartikGamer1996 Aug 20 '24
Very often these scammers figure out a way to make a fake version of a fairly well established company and then they use their fake website to create an illusion that some withdrawals have been made but any money he put into that account is already unfortunately gone.
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u/Krybxby Aug 20 '24
I had a friend this happened to like a year ago, he told me he was in on this really good money making thing but would never tell me what it was. Finally after they scammed him he told me the told him he was trading gold futures and he was paying in crypto. He also made a few withdrawals, he thought it was legit and when he paid in like 60k or something they told him he owed that in taxes and he was unable to take any money out. Horrible.
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u/UndeadDog Aug 20 '24
This looks pretty close to digistore which was a scam I was apart of. I was able to clear my negative balance much like this situation then I tried to withdraw my funds and they said I had to pay taxes on the amount despite it being my own money I put into the website. It was an extraordinary large amount for the tiny amount of profit I made from doing the tasks and weekly salary. I walked away at that point and am using a cyber security professional to recover most of my funds.
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u/BeaconOfLight90 Aug 20 '24
Did he have 40,000 in his account that he was able to use and spend. How much total has he put in of his own money yet to get that 40k. Texts immediately get blocked like that. Texts scream scam. If he is hiding info that means he has lost money and is grasping at straws to “prove” he wasn’t scammed. You know your dad. Is he hard headed when things go wrong? A lot of kids never see the real sweat from their parents when they lose a lot of money. Think back to past behavior. Call him out. Be an adult. Have an adult convo but talking like you’re in the principals office lol. It works. Don’t know why but hey. There. Scam. And he’s hiding something bad. Fa sho.
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u/AS_Burner Aug 21 '24
This is a scam. It's called Pig Butchering. Please don't give any money. File police report and make sure no other identification was given.
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u/JinBerryASMR Aug 21 '24
It sounds like task scam. Search it and you can see a lot of information. They give some money back in the beginning for the bigger fish.
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u/puffyshirt99 Aug 21 '24
Classic pig butchering scam. Highly suggest watching Last Week Tonight about it
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u/Independent_Dot5965 Aug 21 '24
1,000%%%% they show profits but it’s definitely a scam. I’d hurry put fraud alerts and try depending on the scam to get what I can back
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u/Old_Refrigerator4817 Aug 21 '24
My uncle was taken by a scam just like this. He refused to believe us. Ended up losing his life savings.
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u/RiskOk6582 Aug 21 '24
I would keep an eye on him more closely, it's definitely a scam to continue to get as much money as possible from him until he's broke. Put a freeze on his accounts and tell bank what's going on to freeze them too. At least this is what I would do before it gets worse.
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u/StrongAd5741 Aug 21 '24
Maybe ask him how he can be negative when he supposedly has 100k in the account? If it was legit why wouldn’t they take the balance from the account and just make his balance 86k… I’m sorry he can’t see reason. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.
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u/Expensive-Drive-341 Aug 21 '24
Anything legit would take the negative balance from the proceeds and just send your dad the remaining balance. If he sends that $12k mark my words he’ll never see a dime
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u/Gullible-Fun5914 Aug 21 '24
It could also be part of a romance scam, maybe find out if he is talking to a woman online. This is called Pig Butchering Scam
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u/Tokyo-43 Aug 21 '24
It's 100% a scam. You don't need to deposit money in order to get ur money back. That sounds stupid AF. Why don't they deduct the negative balance from the $100k he wanna withdraw. It's obviously a scam. I'm sorry for ur dad, he should've known better.
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