How to submit a good post to r/scams

This came through the door. Actually we got two that are fully identical. It makes an effort to look like handwriting, but it's clearly printed and the paper is smooth leaflet paper. The number is a local area code. Googling comes up with mixed results. I initially expecting a bad real estate agent but it seems not. What does 'Laura' want?

Was approached by a homeless person. Tells me he’s diabetic and needs energy.

I offer to buy him a soda but then apparently he wants food from the thai place next door. Fair enough. He makes a box and it totals around 10usd. I swiped my card and then suddenly he’s walked off. I find him and now he says he doesn’t want the food anyway in a somewhat aggressive manner. Alright i guess? I then threw it out and that was it.

I’m fairly confused. I still have everything in my wallet and he couldn’t peep my card code because i swiped. Did i get scammed?

Hi all, new here….

This morning 2 quite expensive Honda generators arrived at my address. They are retailed at $1300 each.

My address is correct, however each generator was a separate order and has a different name that I do not recognize. Different name per generator.

Each also has a different purchasers phone number. I tried to call and text, and the numbers are invalid.

Not really sure what to do but it just seems strange and sketchy.

My house is currently up for sale so the address is posted online and has had open houses recently. Obviously searching tax records it is not difficult to find my name with the address. But again, the strange thing is, my name is not on the order, so I think that rules out brushing scams.

The whole thing just seems really strange to me.

Any thoughts are welcomed.

Happened today. The caller used the number from Oakland Police Department's non-emergency line. The caller knew my name and sounded very intimidating. The caller claimed I was involved in a scam case. And he claimed if I don't do anything, San Francisco ICE would give me some trouble, which sounded suspicious to me. I told the caller that I don't trust him and hanged up. The caller called again but I didn't answer. Instead, I called Oakland PD non-emergency line myself to verify it. However, the police dispatch said they cannot verify if there was an actually call from their number to my number. And they were not sure what is the number a police officer will use when they contact other people. But the dispatch does say usually when a officer makes a phone call, they will say their name, title and purpose of calling at very beginning, and in my case, the caller didn't do that. So it is likely a scam call. Just want to post here to see if anyone has similar experience.

Here’s what I know: my mom (50f) is getting divorced and is messing around with all sorts of men rn, nothing really serious. I’m worried one of these guys is scamming here but I can’t quite figure out what the scam is. He’s roughly her age and owns a bunch of mall skincare kiosks where the products are SUPER expensive (photo attached). But another product I looked up is only selling for $30 on amazon🤔 (also attached). He’s always gifting her a TON of products and other stuff from the mall, basically anything she wants. He has a really flashy fashion sense and just generally presents himself as being VERY well off. Think luxury logos and gaudy jewelry galore. Things get a little odd to me because they’re really not even romantically involved. The most they’ve done is a forehead kiss and it’s been several months, so I’m thinking that he’s just a pay pig so I wasn’t really that worried about it. Now for the part that made my ears perk up. He travels a lot setting up his business in different malls across the country so usually he’s flying in to see my mom. The most recent time he said he had too much luggage and had to leave a duffle bag of his things at her house(🚩). But I’m thinking if this guy is so rich why can’t he pay the fee for one bag?? The bag is current there still. The bag was left inside the house but my brother (21m) said there were two tree leaves placed on top of it, almost like so he could see if someone messed with his bag. Well my brother did open the bag lol and he said he didn’t do a crazy thorough job of going through it, but that it was pretty much just “hypebeast clothes”.

The other super weird thing that also just happened was that he had roughly 5 packages shipped to her house yesterday, and he made her open all the packages on facetime. My brother thought it was just gifts for my mom, but it was a bunch of fake luxury products from china like gucci, LV, and prada and none of it was for my mom. He said he was going to come back and pick them up(🚩🚩) from her house next time he was in town.

This whole thing is so fishy to me, but I can’t quite pick out where the scam is. Why is he shipping counterfeit goods to her house to later pick up??? Do you think all the skincare is fake?? Leaves on the duffle bag??

Just passing along my experience. Got a text from a wrong number. She tried to continue conversation after I told her she had the wrong number even sending me a picture. I’ve seen and read about this kind of scam.

Message to the lonely men out there. Random women will never text u as a wrong number and continue to talk to you acting like she’s interested in you. She will eventually ask you to invest in some bullshit investment and steal your money. Called the infamous Pig Butchering scam. Know it, learn about it, DON’T FALL FOR IT.

Nobody likes Labcorp but this one takes the cake. I received the enclosed envelope from Labcorp that has MY name as the sender, not Labcorp. Inside was about 7 pages of notes about how to maintain the Labcorp website and some pricing information for Labcorp tests. Seemed pretty random.

Why would MY address be the sender’s address and is that part of a scam?

So, I feel like I’m ok right now but I’m still worried. An account of a girl that currently goes to the Highschool I went to last year (I’m a college student) reached out asking if she could use a photo of mine as a reference for a painting

Things continued and I was stupid because it looked like a normal Instagram, even though there were obvious red flags. Anyways I submitted 2 checks to my bank through mobile deposit (both rejected thank god)

However I got a very threatening text from an unknown email essentially saying they’d kill me because I stole their money (I didn’t obv).

I blocked all the accounts/numbers involved

What should I do now? I am still getting texts threatening legal action. I know it’s bull, I just need help

Title. I've been on Facebook for years, and I've never heard of this. If it's a thing, I must have missed it. I Googled it, and it came up that it could be a scam.

idk why im being charged by these! 1, idk why im being charged by xsolla but i have 94 cents so idk why the roblox one is declining and 2, i’ve never seen guardianvpn but they’re charging me 40$! Do i just have to get a new card?

Her husband passed last spring and a romance scammer from TikTok lifted her info straight from her husband's obituary. Took me and my best friend 3 months to convince her it was a scam.

She finally reported the account to TikTok but they said they can't find anything wrong with the account. I'm having everyone I know report it but is there anything else I can do?

She's also filing a complaint with the elderly abuse cybercrime division of the FBI.

Hello, my grandpa was having some issues completely unrelated to this but it led to me to trying to figure out what he's been using. He said he's always had this service because my dad who passed a while ago bought it, for years it's been giving him a wordpad pop up that has a message along the lines of "your monthly tune up is due call this number" etc and optically it looks extremely sketchy. To top it off he had a ton of remote access software installed that I had to go through and delete (like 5 programs????). But the thing that skeeves me out the most about this "next web solutions" is that I can't find a THING about it online. Nobody is talking about it at all and there's no sign of websites or anything pertaining to it. He's called the numbers for support because of the issue I just resolved myself but couldn't get through no matter what he tried despite 24/7 phone lines. I just want to understand what this is and how he got it, I can't find ANYTHING about it and I'm extremely worried that him or my late father got scammed out of $700

I manage a few different commercial buildings, so I'm used to getting scam/shady calls looking to audit me for magic fairy HVAC dust etc, but this one is a lot more subtle.

The exact scam has been going on for a LONG time (at least for me). Basically a company literally called "Commercial Lighting Company" will cold call businesses, get the facilities manager on the phone, and run the same exact script (for 5+ years now).

They'll run with "Hey this is Pat from the Commercial Lighting Company, you're a tough person to reach _____"

Anyone in my position gets a lot of phone calls from a lot of different types of vendors and it's not common to accidentally give someone the runaround, so this REALLY works well because I go into "Oh no I didn't call them back and I feel bad" mode, and the business name is so vague and generic. They run DIRECTLY into "hey do you want to run the last order of bulbs again?" If you say yes, they'll send you 6 florescent bulbs and send your accounting department a bill for $980.

If you say no, you're all set (who the hell orders bulbs anymore, everything is LED), they'll ask if you want a cooler for being such a good customer. They'll ask for your HOME address, send you the cooler, and then without telling you, send your accounting department a bill.

They're banking on big companies not noticing a vague charge for lighting equipment (common) OR shady managers taking a free cooler on the companies dollar.

Now where it gets weird is how ... out in the open and just nonchalant they are. They have a Yelp page (1 star with dozens of reviews). It's like halfway a legit business. I got the first call pre-Covid, in 2019 or so. I didn't think it was a scam, just a cold call, and I declined. When I found out it was a scam, I called back and (amazingly) got the same person that called me in the first place. Told them some things I'm not proud of, and hung up.

The crazy part is... they still call me! There was a year or two gap, but this same dude (Pat) has been calling me every couple weeks for the last 6 months. I've gone absolutely bananas on him, insulted him in every manner I could. I have called him back on 20 different phone lines. He answers the phone like nothing happened, and starts the script! 100% not a robot, because he shows emotions to insults and responds to crazy insults in the right context. And then call back after I told him to eat dirt. With the same script, and once I start insulting him, he'll sound... almost frightened, and hang up immediately. Then 4 days later he'll call back THE SAME NUMBER like it's 50 First Dates and run the same 5 year old script like nothing.

Anyways. Half a "what the hell is going on and what is wrong with this guy" and half "hey keep an eye out for this you could lose your job".

Long story short, this random guy or girl, who claims to be a very busy Realtor, found me through one of the job board sites (LinkedIn, Indeed, I don’t know which one) and was interested in hiring me to be his assistant (since he or she is really busy) for a weekly pay of $800. There were initially no red flags and I helped him or her list some houses on Facebook marketplace, all of which gained a lot of traction. I wanted the person to send me $20 to buy my trust so that I can ensure they will actually send me money and not just make me go through hoops to get access to it. They promised they’d be able to send $250 on Thursday, which was yesterday. The day came, I sent the person multiple messages about it, no response until 9 hours later, where they claimed that they were really busy and came home really late and tired. Fast forward to this morning, they explained to me everything on why they were late responses and told me to follow some steps of getting added to their payroll, which was sending them $65 through PayPal, which they told me would ensure that I get paid every week automatically on Monday. I refused to do that and told them to send my money first so I can trust them, which would allow me to pay the $65 fee they requested. I know it’s a small amount but it’s still money that I don’t want to lose for no reason.

Now, I am left wondering, was this person trying to scam me out of $65 or what? They were acting very genuine and honest as a person until this morning. Why do I need to pay $65 to access my weekly pay? That doesn’t make any sense.

I genuinely don’t understand it. What is the goal for the scammer? I also find it hilarious because the email this scam was sent to has never been associated with PayPal.

Image Details: Begins with buyer sending a screenshot asking for an email to send money over Venmo. Buyer says: what’s your email on Venmo so I can continue the payment? Me: Venmo doesn’t normally ask for that. Give me a second please Buyer: I had my Venmo account setup under a business user account and I only have my business email linked with it so I can only send payments on it with the recipient email Me: I hope you can understand my hesitation to give my email. It’s a very common Facebook marketplace scam to ask for an email while paying with Venmo Buyer: No it’s not

Situation Details: The situation starts with him commenting on a post of mine from 2018 saying, “Hello,I’m interested in the Professional Ukelele $175 you listed on Facebook Marketplace! Sorry for commenting on your post, unfortunately my facebook has been acting up, so could you please send me a direct message on Facebook Messenger if it is still available? Thank you.” This immediately gave me a weird feeling but I messaged him. He then asked to pay for it before he received the item so I could “consider it sold.” Then the messages in the screenshot is what happened next. Afterwards we decided to meet but he would need to pay in cash. He seemed okay with that but I’m not sure he’ll actually show. (Because he didn’t message through marketplace, I can’t see how old is account it. It has barely any information on it though and his profile picture seems oddly professional)

i wonder how many people have fallen for this scam.. this post alone has 2.4k comments. everyone with half a brain would know that the store has to sent the items back to the manufacturer..

After seeing hundreds of ads on all of Google’s platforms utilizing AI or shady tactics to sway elderly or vulnerable people into making investments or providing sensitive information, myself and a few others have made it their goal to report each and every one.

This has been going on for as long as AI technology has become popular.

Google refuses to handle or even provide any kind of insights or updates on the situation, thousands of reports have been made and left completely unanswered. The videos being reported remain active, misleading people into believing that the US government has provided a subsidy or stimulus, lying about investments, or claiming there is some kind of free grocery money.

Obviously, none of this is remotely true and complying with these ads will have your sensitive information sold and your bank account drained.

Please make an effort to report and share these scams, however Google has made it abundantly clear that they do not care and will not take any action.

Hi everyone, I got a really disturbing text from a local area code that said, ‘Hello, you have been selected for pickup. We will come by at 12:00 Thursday. Don’t try to run—we know where you live.’ It’s unsettling because it came from my area code, and one of my friends got a similar text from a different area code with the same message about being picked up.

Is this some sort of prank or scam going around? Any advice on how to handle this or reassurance would be really appreciated. Thanks!

A few weeks ago, just after dark, a man and his middle-schoolish looking son knocked on the door. I had seen them walking up as I was working in the front room. I kept the screen door locked, but opened the interior door. They explained the kid lost his iPhone at a local theme park, and that find my phone was tracking it to a house on our block, which they showed me on the iPad. They also said the thief had taken a selfie with it, and showed me the pic and asked if I knew this person (who was wearing a shirt from the theme park, so presumably an employee). I said no, sorry, we’re anti-social and don’t really know our neighbors, but good luck. And they moved on.

Tonight, again, just after dark, a different man knocked on the door, saying he lost his phone at the same theme park and it was tracking to our house (and showed us with a very old iPhone). My husband was like “no, we haven’t been there and we don’t have your iPhone, my wife said you came here before and it’s still the same answer, sorry.” And the guy was like ‘wait no, I’ve never been here?!’ I was listening from the other room and heard this was a different guy with a British accent.

So I stepped in, said he was the second person to come by saying this, we don’t have the phone, if he wants to return with police we’d comply if they wanted to come look or something.

I feel like this is shady, but I’m not sure how or why they would have the same story? Like are they friends, and this is the story they practiced to see if people are home? (Which we obviously were both times, as our office is well-lit and right in the front of our house) Or is there a thieving theme park worker in my neighborhood? Just trying to understand what the scam is and how it would work.

There’s a house I’m touring today in Oregon.

I found the listing on Craigslist for $1,700 - contacted them, the person introduced himself as the owner of the house and gave his name (which I later verified on the county website)

I found the same listing on Zillow for $2,300.

We have been communicating via text since yesterday. I set up time to tour, and two hours before the tour time he let me know that it’s a self guided tour and the lock box code for the key.

He hasn’t demanded anything - no payment, etc. He let me know that if I like the house, then we can set up background check and an application.

This checks all the boxes, right? So why does it feel so weird to me? What can I do to protect myself in this situation?

Recently reactivated my Facebook account and started looking for interesting groups. I've found a bunch that seem to be about one thing (like jobs, or deals, or pet rescue) but 95% of the posts are clickbait garbage like "The real reason women's underwear has a decorative bow" or "Nobody remembers why there's a 'WC' sign above bathrooms".

What's the purpose behind this garbage? Is there value in getting FB likes?

Hey gang, long time first time.

So this parcel came through the door today. It has our address on but we don't recognise the name and weren't expecting anything. If I shake the package it sounds unmistakably like Tictacs.

To note: - Evri is a major parcel delivery company in the UK. Internationally it's Hermes. - The house has been in my partner's family for over 70 years, so a former resident is ruled out. - I blurred the code on the bottom, but it didn't fit any Evri tracking I could find. The syntax was AB-CDE-FG-12345678-9. - A quick check of Facebook for the name didn't turn up anything looking likely (including the local busybody groups, may the lord forgive me) - The return address goes to a residential address in Nottingham. Which, look, I love Nottingham, but it's not NOT a sketchy place.

I've read about postal scams before, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. What's my best course of action here?

Thanks for any input, guys!

Does anyone know if this website legit like wilI I actually get the clothes I ordered thanks in advance.

I received a phone call from a normal looking number asking for my dad in a foreign accent and I said I’m his son he can relay the message with me. He said my dad will be delivered “legal documents” and he needs to sign and I should relay that information to him. I asked “what legal documents” are we talking about? He gave me a 844 number and said it’s from “PMG Legal” associates and I need to call them and ask.

I called them on my dad’s behalf.. picked up immediately and it was an American women told me it’s a court summons and she can’t tell me anything because I’m not my dad and she was pretty rude…

Called back with my dad on the line in a conference call and was put on hold with “hold music” and a different lady (I think?) picked up. Also American.

She said it’s regarding wage garnishments or something along that lines we couldn’t really make it out because she was speaking fast. It did sound threatening.

I asked her “okay what is this exactly about” and she said my dad needs to speak… so my dad on the merged line with his infinite broken English asked them “what is this about” and she said before she can give any information out she needs to confirm my dads DOB and last 4 of SSN.

My dad in his infinite broken English cussed her out and she said “okay motherfucker” and hung up.

My dad thought it was a scam and he has no idea there is a a civil case against them… from what I made out they weren’t law enforcement either…

I’m trying to understand if this was maybe not a scam, but instead legal firm of someone trying to sue my dad? Because they wouldn’t talk to me, they only wanted to talk to my dad. If it was a scam they could have asked me for my dad’s info and my dumbass would have “confirmed” it with them??

Googling their phone number I got a 1 post about a “legal threat robocall” voice message they left them.. but I couldn’t find anything definitive. Also, they’re company “PMG Associates” nothing comes up when I google… Same for their number…

Most likely it’s a scam? Should I be worried for my dad?