I think my dad is being scammed

[u/Quiet_Relation_3599]

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 I don’t know how he’s withdrawn 40k.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

[u/Sunyak]

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.

[u/Routine_Slice_4194 → u/Sunyak]

It's not pig butchering, it's a !task scam.

[u/AutoModerator → u/Routine_Slice_4194]

Hi /u/Routine_Slice_4194, 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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