Received a call yesterday from a private number claiming to be my local sheriff's office. When they started telling me I had signed and returned a Jury Duty summons the previous month and that I had missed court, some alarm bells went off and asked if they could provide me a number to call back at to confirm this was not a scam. Of course not, he answered, something about the emergency lines being busy with actual emergencies, which didn't make any sense.

Still, I did not hang up.

He instructed me I was under a gag order and could not tell anyone what was going on. He said I would need to drive to the Sheriff's office to "get this cleared up" by some sort of signature analysis.

He says I'm on a "tier 3 recorded line" and could not mute or pause the call for any reason, or they would know. I told him I didn't know what a tier 3 recorded line was and that it sounded made up. The guy asks me if he should just send uniformed deputies to my house.

No no, I say, I'm going.

I holler to my boyfriend that I have to go take care of this and asked him to come with me, because apparently I just disregarded the gag order thing. The guy on the phone becomes indignant, demanding that I go to the station alone. "Can you not operate your own motor vehicle?"

I asked him to identify himself again. He again insists that I need to go alone to the Sheriff's Office. Now I'm indignant, telling him that this whole thing was extremely suspicious. At this point I heard another voice say something I couldn't make out, and they hung up.

The whole thing lasted about 9 minutes, but should have been cut off the moment I wised up about speaking to a "cop" over the phone. Don't talk to cops.

I didn't understand this scam until I came here. At no point did he mention anything about money. I guess the way it would have worked is, once on my way, alone, he would have told me I had a warrant out for my arrest and needed to transfer bail money.

From reading other peoples' accounts, it seems like my guy was missing a few hallmarks of this scam. He never sent me a fake warrant, or even lead with the fact that a warrant was out for my arrest. It seems he just wanted to get me into my car and isolated as quickly as possible. He used some "lingo" (if you could call it that), but didn't drop scary-sounding citation numbers. And he didn't spoof my Sheriff's Office number, just used a private one.

IMHO, this one was a little scary and did cause me to ignore a lot of my gut feelings about how this call was total bullshit. I can see how this is a pervasive and effective scam, though I hadn't heard if it until searching here.

is this a scam?

she messaged me $50, and immediately messaged saying it was a mistake. i looked it up, realized its a common scam, and sent her a text to tell her to take it up with apple but now she is blowing my phone up because her child won’t be able to play basketball if she doesn’t get the money sent tonight.

originally i thought this was a classic scam, but i am really struggling to figure out if she is genuine or not. i’m such an empath, so im heartbroken if this is real and not a scam.

I am an idiot. I’ve never heard of bitcoin scams. Today, I reached out to a mobile mechanic to repair my car. He quoted me $970 for parts and labor. I sent his $750 for parts. It was via a link he sent from Cash App. I didn’t know that bitcoin was irreversible. I’ve literally never dealt with any bitcoin anything. Time for the repair and he’s ghosted me. Contacted Cash App and was told there’s nothing that can be done. Talked to my bank and they said I can’t dispute until the transactions cleared. Filed a police report now. Literally dumbfounded. I’ve learned a hard and expensive lesson.

I woke up this morning to a text message from Apple notifications stating that my order number was almost ready for pick up. I then received another notification from my bank for a charge from apple.com and the amount of $1,278.43. I tried to track the Apple order using the order status page online, but it wouldn’t work when I entered my email. I then called Apple who transferred me around a little bit, but eventually got me to an automated system that said my order was going to be ready later in the afternoon at a local Apple Store. When speaking with the rep to cancel the order and to claim it as fraud, she informed me that all of my personal information was correct (name, address, phone number, ZIP Code, etc.) and when I asked her for the email that placed the web order as a guest she read me my grandmother’s email. My grandmother does not even know how to get to apple.com. Let alone place a web order, using my credit card and personal information.

The whole kicker in this situation is that I just recently changed my last name yes I have updated some of my accounts to reflect my new last name, but there are still many accounts that reflect my old last name. This fraudulent order knew all of my personal information, including my new last name. I’ve of course gone ahead and changed all of my grandmother’s passwords that used similar or the same password (yes, I know…I have been telling her for years not to do that). Her email inbox was also being flooded with spam email messages. I also received an email from MetroPCS thanking us for being interested in them. I quickly turned on SIM protection for our cell provider and I’ve changed my associated passwords.

This situation has left every rep I’ve spoken to on the phone agog and I don’t know if there’s anything else I should be doing!?

The images show the web order from Apple and what was placed, what my bank showed the charge as and the email I got from MetroPCS.

My dad is lonely and has almost no tech skills. He thinks he's found a new partner online, but it's clearly a scammer. He has to pay to talk to her using an app. I see a Facebook post where "she" was directing him to use an app called "Zangi." I don't know if that's the only one. He's new to social media, and I see the ai photos they're using from a clearly fake profile. Us (grown) kids have tried to tell him that there's no reason to pay to talk to people online like this, but he believes she's real anyway. Is there anything we can do? I'm completely lost in knowing how to deal with this.

I don't want to embarrass my dad, but I want him to open his eyes. No one really knows how much money he's spending, but he needs every dollar he earns. He's newly back to work after a long illness my mother's death. Please help a worried adult child out. Thank you.

I'm pretty sure I have unpaid tolls but I'm unsure if this is the right website for it or if I may have accidentally found a scam website. I genuinely can't tell if this is the real site so anyone with knowledge about it would be appreciated. It seems fairly legit but I don’t want to make payments before I’m absolutely sure that it’s real

https://dsparkingportal.com/ilves

I tried to think if my previous employer maybe signed me up, but that doesn’t sound plausible considering I was working as support staff in a restaurant.

I got a letter from Human Interest about an account I don’t remember opening at all. It says I have a certain amount of money “contributed” and a chunk of money that was taken out as “expenses”. I’ll be honest I don’t even know what to make of what I’m looking at because this is something I’ve never dealt with.

I’m just so unsure of what to do and if it’s even legit. I tried out putting both of my emails in on the login page then doing forgot password, but never got a password reset code sent to either. There’s an account number, but I have no clue what to do with that lol. I’m not good with this kind of stuff.

I’m suspecting it’s a scam, but just wanted to get some advice on what I should do.

Hi everyone, I received this message from a seller On Depop

"Hi! I am SO SO EXTREMELY sorry! The batch of packages that got shipped along with yours got all mixed up and some orders went to the wrong people! I am honestly not sure if yours was labeled correctly, but wanted to see if I could ask you for a huge favor to refuse the package once you receive it so usps ships it back to me for free! I'll cancel the order and resell the item for you with 50% off if you're still interested!!! Or you can any other item from my closet for free. I am really sorry for an inconvenience, no idea how this whole batch got messed up and where my head was at! I'd truly appreciate your help and understanding!!! SB 12:51PM"

Is this a known scam where they try to get me to refuse the package so the tracking closes and they keep the money? What is the safest way for me to handle this when the package arrives?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been seeing ads and mentions floating around for a platform called Datheon (datheon.in), which positions itself as an "AI systems and automation studio." They offer various online training programs, structured "task packs," and "internships" (including free standard tracks and paid/advanced options) covering things like Python, LangChain, RAG pipelines, and non-IT product building.

I’m trying to figure out what the actual catch is here. Has anyone here gone through one of their programs or interacted with them professionally?

• Are these free/standard online "internships" actually worth anything on a resume, or are they essentially glorified self-paced tutorials with a certificate template slapped on the end?
• Do they try to upsell you on expensive training packages or certifications down the road?

Would love to hear if anyone has first-hand experience with them or if this is just another lead-generation setup.

is the web address in the title line really apple? I got an email from appleid@id.apple.com saying my apple password had been changed. I don't remember changing it (honestly I don't ever remember setting it up but I must have since I have an Iphone.) There is a link that simply said "apple support". it also had a link for iforgot.apple.com to change the password. can someone tell me if this is real? I went to the account.apple.com site, it seems legit, but i haven't done anything there yet. I know so many scams start with these types of emails, I just want to be careful since A) I have no memory of doing this, and B) so many scams start this way.

Also, I did recently change my gmail password, is there any connection? Doesn't seem like there would be,

I got offered a job at some Sonic blockchain - full/part time, worldwide.

Suspicious offer. The guy said he found me on GitHub and somehow found my email despite private settings, i assume it got leaked through git commits. That was weird because almost all my repos are private and public activity is very low.

Then i saw the link - i am afraid to open it. ScamAdvisor says it was registered 6 days ago and doesnt recommend to trust it. I sent AI to check it and of course it is not affiliated with Sonic in any way.

I maybe hastle too much about that kind of stuff, but i face this kind of scam for a first time and wonder what is the scam itself? They want me to open the link and what next? Or they want me to have a call and make me install some software? Anyone had such experience before?

For the last few months I have been getting like 15 spam calls a day. I have tried blocking the numbers, but it doesn’t help because they always call using a different number. I installed AT&T active armor, but that didn’t do anything. I have never picked up these numbers or even forwarded them to voicemail because I don’t want them to know that I’m monitoring this number. I’ve tried looking up how to solve this, but most of the time the solution that’s offered is to change the settings on your phone to silence unknown callers. My problem is that I work in a more high intensity job where I get calls from people I don’t know all the time that can be very time sensitive, so silencing Unknown calls could be dangerous and is not an option for me. What can I do besides changing my phone number? I feel like I’m at my wits end constantly getting spam calls

Hey everyone,

I have a friend who visited one of the many Mr Beast Crypto Scams, and registered using a spam email and a throwaway password. They seem to think things are alright, but I want to ensure they're safe.

Their close friend's Discord was hacked, sent the image we've all seen, and so my friend googled the site and visited the top search result on their mobile device.

I then asked if they'd given the website any information. They said they registered using their old spam email, and created a password they claim they've never used before (thankfully). I'm taking them at their word here.

They did not interact with the site any further. From what I understand, the scam is aimed at those who try to withdraw money, and will either steal bank info or charge fake fees until the victim catches on. With that said, I just want to make sure my friends phone is still pure and untainted by some potential malware.

Thank you for any help!

I recently received an email about a job offer; they contacted me through a profile I have on a kind of LinkedIn for translators.The whole thing seemed suspicious to me, but I continued with the work they proposed until the moment of payment, and you can probably guess the rest. They didn't take any money from me or anything because the whole thing was too suspicious, and in the end I decided not to play along anymore, but I'm still posting this to report these people. They didn't have an official website, a LinkedIn profile, or any reliable source, so they were suspicious from the start, plus they only communicated through Microsoft Teams chat.

I keep receiving phone calls and texts messages about selling a house I've never owned nor been associated with in anyway.

For context, the aforementioned property is in the area I grew up in and moved away from when I was in my twenties. I have never lived at that address nor knew anyone that has/had lived there.

It doesn't show up on any credits reports, nor has any unexplained drafts ever hit my bank accounts.

I'm a male, but they always ask for or call me Deborah whenever I'm called or texted. I have no doubts it's a scam, but I'm trying to figure out why it seems to them like I own or have owned the property. I own a house now, and I have people always calling asking if I want to sell, but I still get called asking if I want to sell the mysterious property I'm writing about.

I'm not sure if this is something I should dig deeper and make sure there isn't any kind of fraud or identity theft, or just let it go. I don't respond and haven't responded to the calls or texts in years.

Here's a picture of the "Lucky Mall" tasks.

Option A: Pay $40, 30% commission, earn $12, pay 52+ (I think that means we're supposed to end up with 52+ dollars total?) (random amount for 1-3 orders)

Option B: Pay $60, 30% commission, earn $18, pay 78+ (random amount for 1-3 orders)

Option C: Pay $90, 30% commission, earn $27, pay 117+ (random amount for 1-3 orders) (limited quantity)

I felt bad because my first instinct was to look up 'lucky mall' and send a Reddit post about the job to everyone in the job's groupchat. I got removed from the group chat and talked to my "manager" of a company whose name I never learned, who sent me receipts of the lucky tasks paying out and called Reddit an illegitimate site, saying "even the Federal Reserve gets [slandered, paraphrasing.]"I could only find one Reddit comment that said they actually got paid. After a short conversation she said she respected my decision.

All done over Telegram and CashApp. I deleted Telegram after but I feel guilty because 1. she respected my decision, 2. times must be tough if you gotta pay people to scam them, and 3. for all I know it's trying to be legit, just offshore and can't pay people if people keep getting money out and then leaving before they pay back in.

If it was just liking YouTube videos, it'd be legit (as far as view-botting goes.) Besides the CashApp payments all coming from different names. That's how it started, and then task 12 was where the 'lucky mall' picture was sent.

Thanks for reading!

Got a call from a 559 area code claiming to be US Bank. Red flag #1, but I answered anyway.

The caller asked if I used Zelle and claimed there were two suspicious pending transactions—$2,000 and $1,000—to a "Jennifer" I’d never heard of. When I said they weren't mine, he started asking if I had traveled or connected to public Wi-Fi recently to make it sound official. He assured me the funds were on hold and gave me a fake "case number" and "cancellation number," then transferred me to their "returns department."

Red flag #2: While on the phone, I logged into my banking app and saw zero pending or active Zelle transactions. When I brought this up, he quickly claimed that was "a good thing" because it meant the money hadn't officially left my account yet.

Red flag #3: The next guy instructed me to open my bank app, go to Zelle, and enter the "cancellation number" as the recipient's phone number/email to cancel it. When I questioned why I had to add a recipient to cancel a charge, he insisted it was standard procedure.

At that point, I told him I was right next to a physical branch (I wasn't) and was heading inside to deal with it in person. He started rambling, but I hung up, called the official 1-800 number on the back of my card, and confirmed it was 100% a scam.

These scammers are getting sneaky. Rule of thumb: If your bank supposedly calls you, hang up immediately and call them back using the official number on your card or app.

Hello everyone, I got subscription bombed this morning for the second time unfortunately. Changed passwords and checked bank accounts but have two follow-up questions:

• The fraudulent purchase was made using my Ticketmaster account. However, the credit card used was not mine. I have no clue how it got saved to my account but I went ahead and removed it. Is this normal? Why would the scammer use someone else's card? I'm trying to understand how this scam works.
• I caught the activity fast enough that the four purchased tickets had not been transferred yet by the time I changed my password, so they're just sitting in my account now. I've reported this to Ticketmaster. Do I need to do anything else? (I can't go to the game lol, it's not even in my city)

Thank you!

I fell for a classic recruiting scam to get me to launch malicious code on my computer. Here's the details so you can hopefully avoid falling victim.

The details: I got an email from a recruiter at Salesforce mentioning they found me on LinkedIn for a role that I seemed to be a good fit for. I am on LinkedIn and my personal email is connected to my account, so this didn't seem off (but it obviously should have been a flag). I did a quick search of the recruiter's name, which was real, and proceeded to respond. They sent back some details of the position and wanted to setup a quick video call to provide more details. I agreed and provided some times the following day, and was told to expect a Teams link 15 minutes before the call would start (this should have also been another flag).

I tried looking on the Salesforce website for the job posting but couldn't find anything, and the post blurb I was provided didn't provide too much details other than some stock language. The job title they were proposing is an exact match to my current job, which is generic enough that it could be real but also a huge coincidence I should have flagged.

I checked my email at the meeting time and didn't see a Teams link, so I emailed the recruiter and was sent back a link very quickly. When I selected the Teams link my browser opened to the link that was shown and indicated my desktop version of Teams was out of date and I needed to use the mobile version. I have had Teams issues on my computer before so didn't think too much of it and selected the browser option, which opened a Chrome window that looked very real at first. There was even a video in the bottom right of a person moving ever so slightly as if they were waiting for me to join.

I was already flustered running late to this call so I missed some warning cues (like how you usually need to be admitted to the call, or how the person should have been full screen since they weren't displaying anything.) The browser view almost immediately had a popup saying my microphone or speaker wasn't working properly and that I needed to repair it, with another link. This should have been another big giant red flag, but I have had legitimate audio issues with Teams (although never had a link pop up), so I clicked through like an idiot, which brought up a window prompting me to run a PowerShell command. This final red flag actually stopped me as I knew there was absolutely no way Teams would prompt me to do this. I immediately stopped and closed out.

I immediately ran Bitdefender antivirus software which appears to confirm nothing was infected. I do realize any of the buttons I clicked could have launched some code, but my assumption (and hope) is that the Powershell script is how they actually compromise your system.

I later reviewed the email communications and realized the domain was not a clear match for Salesforce(@careers-salesforce.us) which I shrugged off as Salesforce using a separate domain for recruiting (again, this is dumb on my part). While the recruiter's full name does appear as legitimate through a quick Google search, the email address only included her first name, and a 50k person company is clearly using both first and last names in their email addresses. Furthermore, her signature only had her name. No title, no phone number, signature, or logo.

Sad to say I actually fell for this scam but did stop once I realized it was prompting me to launch a script, which Teams would clearly never have me do. Hopefully you all can avoid something like this in the future!

I recently got a new google phone number for my bookkeeping business. This week, I have had 2 calls from elderly gentlemen inquiring about a $300 deposit into their account. I can't get a clear understanding of how they are getting my number. The name, Blue Heron Fund, listed on the deposit is similar to my business name, but phone number on the statement is different from my business number. I can't help with the callers with the unknown deposit, but shared my concerned that an unknown deposit might be from a scammer. Any thoughts on why I keep getting these calls?

I received an unexpected €330 payment through PayPal from someone I don't know. I wanted to contact PayPal support to figure out how to handle it properly, but before I could get the situation resolved, I received another unexpected payment of €265 from a different account. Both senders appear to be from the same country.

The sender of the first payment has now opened a case against me, falsely accusing me of scamming them over an eBay purchase. They provided screenshots that are fake and that have nothing to do with me. The €330 payment is now on hold because of this case.

I've tried contacting PayPal support multiple times, but I haven't received much useful help. One agent told me they would arrange a call with a specialist within 1–2 days. It's now been two days, and I still haven't received a call.

I'm getting increasingly anxious about the situation because I don't know what to do with the money or how to get this resolved safely.

Update: My paypal just got permanently deactivated.

In the past few months I have received about a half-dozen emails which are variations on "will you come on my podcast to talk about your book". I'm an academic. My books are published through large publishers, and are really only of interest to people working in the field. They are successful, but I have no illusions about the limits on the audience for them.

The emails are pretty obviously AI-generated, regurgitating the text on the back cover the book, that sort of thing. In one case the email purported to come from a well-known person who does have a podcast, though it's clear from the return address that the email did not in fact come from US National Public Radio (who in any case are unlikely to be interested in a book about Canadian law). In other cases it's been an invitation to have one of my books discussed by a book club, or an offer to help with marketing - which makes no sense for a book published by a multinational publisher with a marketing department.

I'm assuming that if I replied I would eventually be met with a request to pay them something to proceed further. Is it anything other than that? It doesn't seem likely to be aimed at gathering email addresses, since they would already be pretty certain mine is accurate and current.

Is this a scam? A company that emailed me looks like it’s a legitimate payday loan service out of CA says that I applied for a payday loan…

I definitely didn’t apply for a loan with them, so not sure if it is someone trying to get some cash or if it’s a phishing scam to get me to call them, but not sure if it’s worth calling them and telling them this.

I have all of my credit frozen so trying not to freak out about this.

Contents of the email:

“Hi xxx,

My name is Emma K and I am your Client Care Manager here at Boost Credit Line. I'm just checking in to see if you would like to finish up your loan application. The process is simple and only takes a few minutes! If that is something you are still interested in, please feel free to give me a call at xxx or respond to this email. 
I am here to help! I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks!”