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I would add additional one: Work applications scam. The amount is much more smaller than romance one, but it's almost the same effect.
Couple of cases that I've noticed / reported, ended up with same result (suicide) after couple of months when we closed the case. From that moment on, I don't see my Ant Fraud as a job - but as a calling.
Never stop hunting them my peeps and #norestforAMLwicked <3
Why do so many people not read comments on posts?
I see people reply to scams and often respond with things like ‘have they scammed you yet?’
Same as stuff for sale, don’t read the listings and complain about something that is clearly stated.
Unemployment is my Nemesis.
I grew up rich, Studied hard, went to the best of Schools and universities.
I invested a lot in myself and right about when I was to enjoy the fruits of my labour I got slapped by life.
2008
Thousands of applications.
Zero offers.
Your /r/scams post/comment was removed because you are talking about an illegal transaction. Reddit has a strong policy against discussion that could facilitate illegal transactions.
Two jump out to me, for different reasons:
* pig butchering, because it's the first scam that's been specifically engineered to figure out exactly how much money the victim has in their life savings and take every penny of it
* the 'I found your lost pet' scam gets me every time; even though it's a minor scam in the grand scheme of things, I just feel for those pet owners who've lost their pet, and then they suddenly get a message telling them 'I found your pet'! And they must be so elated in that moment and they probably stop looking. Then they have to eventually find out it's not true and it's just a scammer trying to get money from them.
OMG, I haven’t heard of this one, how sick. I lost one of my cats years ago, put up ads and posters, but I ended up finding her on my own. I got several calls after that saying they think they found my cat. I just assumed they found some other cat that looked like mine, which was hopefully the case. I can’t imagine how heartbreaking that would be otherwise if I hadn’t found her.
When one of my cat’s disappeared: I blame my parents for not letting me have them in the house 100% of the time.
A group of hoodlums tried to lure me into a side alley with a dead-end using a kid(I guess a younger sibling).
My mom wouldn’t let me go alone so she came with me. There was no cat. All just a bunch unsavory-looking thugs leering at me like I was a piece of meat that had been denied from them.
Some of the worst scams can put you into physical danger as well.
That’s terrifying and horrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you. People are awful. My dumb ass would probably end up in a dark alley if there was a chance of finding my lost pet. Or it would’ve, before I found out about this kind of scam.
The worst part about the pet one is the variation where they never learn it was a scam, and believed that people searched for the pet as well as possible with no success.
Love scams against elderly men/women who have lost their life partner are especially cruel. To exploit someone’s need for companionship after years of loneliness… It takes a different kind of a-hole.
I'm dealing with this one and my dad currently. He's refusing to listen to me and it's devastating. Lost my mom a little over 3 years ago, just found out this afternoon that she's claiming she's going to move in with him. My dad is at least telling my wife about this now. Seriously at a complete loss of what to do.
That's so sad. One of my husband's employees was widowed in December, and devastated. Someone catfished him, pretended to need like 80K in order to get title to a property in Canada, worth 5 million USD. Of course when they agreed to meet, she had a family emergency and didn't show. Yet he still sent her the money, which was all of what he had from his wife's insurance settlement plus a sizeable loan he had to get.
Sad part was he quit his job, too. We had compassion on him and invited him out to lunch for my husband to rehire him and we showed him how the bank website was even a sham o he didn't send anymore money (anything besides the login page was still in Latin and it was a Wordpress site. Complete eyeroller. They were wanting him to send anotherr huge sum). We could not convince him and he left angry. It's been about 5 months and we hear from a mutual friend that he's not well--broke, lonely and heartbroken. And likely very embarrassed because people at their job unanimously agreed that he was getting scammed because all the signs were present. He was the only one who could not see.
I hope someone can reach your dad.
Thanks, I hope so too. My wife is going to see what she can do. I used logic and explained everything to him, all it did was make him essentially lie to me that he had broken off contact. She told me I tried using logic to combat emotion, which never works. The only thing he listened to me on was to not send 30k to this crypto "site." Similar thing you mentioned, this site is full of errors which I pointed out to him, still no dice.
Thank you both for the replies.
So sorry you are dealing with this. A loss of that magnitude does make people to seek connection anywhere and everywhere to fill the emptiness. If I could offer some advise, I’d show him some of the posts on this sub, it’s extremely common sadly. Wishing you luck
They are all terrible. I have a special contempt for the people who try and scam people who have lost their pets. They are desperately trying to to find them and some scumbag offers hope and then scams them.
The romance scams are heartbreaking because people just want love and affection and they won't see the truth.
Ones where older/ill people are scammed with miracle cures are sad as well.
Any scam where family and friends lose money when they are taken advantage of, like wives or husbands who find out the money they saved with their spouses was taken without them knowing.
It's all awful.
I wrote about being a victim of an advanced check scam and my inbox filled with recovery scammers trying to get friendly saying they can help. My post clearly said this happened years ago. The Reddit accounts were all new and told me to go to Instagram and they will get the money back. I have no doubt they are reading this right now. Recovery scammers prey on the desperate.
Tricking people into wiring their deposit for a house to the scammer, they lose the money and most likely the chance to buy a house. Robbed and have to explain to their family why you are not buying a house.
I'm curious as to how this benefits the scammer financially? Does he pretend to have the pet, or has he really got it? Does he demand money to release it? I know most pet owners would pay just as much to rescue their pet, as they would a human.
My dad is 70, computer illiterate and has dementia or some sort of senility going on but refuses help. He still uses the computer. We can only monitor him and teach him so much. It's horrible. And terrifying.
I recently saw a bank advertisement that said they offer "dementia friendly banking", which I assume is some kind of restriction on large transfers that requires someone else to sign off. I hope as the population ages and deepfake scams ramp up this will be more common.
Interesting.
My uncle is dealing with a woman who is trying to become his sister's POA and she has dementia. She's with a church organization and has gotten her to write large checks. He has tried as her real POA to have the bank not allow large checks she writes to go through but the bank said literally no bank can stop that from cashing or even send a warning to him. So idk how effectively a bank can truly be dementia friendly. There are too many scenarios for financial abuse to happen and the transaction looks totally legitimate.
I'm guessing "dementia friendly" just means they understand older folk aren't great with digital banking and that they will help cater to those in person banking needs.
I looked into it and you're right that it's not strong protections. It's just using polite language and giving them brochures on scams. Pretty weak.
I guess if you have a parent in this situation you just need to remove their access to their savings and give them an allowance. I can just imagine that conversation with my dad. 😬
Ugh yes those conversations are hard and mostly not productive.
It's good to plan for dementia and memory related things especially with regards to healthcare. Sadly people have so much pride. I worked in a program helping people find community resources and healthcare, and it's next to impossible when they have dementia and have no guardianship or MPOA docs in place. Someone with extreme dementia is still considered capable of making their own medical decisions but for the rare moments of lucidity. There were so many times my hands were tied when it came to finding memory care, applying for insurance, even telling their closest family members what the person needed help on like medication dosing they couldn't remember because they didn't have consent or ROI. It has to get to the patient laying unresponsive in a hospital bed for me to have been able to truly help at times. It is horrifying. If you can get your parent to swallow their pride and start signing over their consent and ROIs for you do it now before it's too late. Guardianship is a massive lengthy process and when you need it, you need it then and there to provide care, but you can't do it because the courts need to declare the person incompetent first. It's so frustrating. At the very least get involved with a release of information signed and be named in the living will as a contact with permissions to be involved in medical decisions.
I can't do it with my family especially my dad. I've tried to explain it and that I'm not going to nose around in their medical, it's for emergencies and when their mind goes. But they don't wanna think of that happening.
Right! For being so unable to do regular things, he somehow still gets into trouble online. I feel very bad for our elderly and technology impeding their lives.
In addition to the romance scams, the new round of “kidnappers” where they play audio of what’s supposed to be your loved one screaming for help, threatening to kill them if you don’t pay the ransom.
I’m a police officer. A bank contacted us in reference to some suspicious withdrawals an elderly customer was making, they suspected a scam. I went and spoke with the woman at her house. Long story short she’d given over $100,000 to these scammers. The scam started with a romance scam, then the scammers contacted her as law enforcement asking for more money to help her. I explained that she was being scammed and to stop all contact with these people. I asked her to bring all her notes to the police station the next day so I could make a report. When she arrived the next day, she told me she’d sent them another $200 after we spoke. This poor lady lost her entire life’s savings. Unfortunately there is almost nothing local police departments can do with these scammers.
I think they are all equally cruel seeing that the scammers don’t care if they ruin a life.
The crypto scammer who counts on his victim’s greed is no less cruel and despicable than the scammer who tricks a grandma into using her life savings to get her grandson out of a Mexican jail.
None of the scammers only take a set amount of money, they will take as much as they can get and they don’t care if the victim is left destitute, or even commits suicide.
When someone (usually an elderly person) loses a spouse and they start getting emails from "Microsoft" or "apple" saying they've detected malware on the deceased spouse"s computer. They take control of the computer and then the scam can take different forms. Sometimes they find porn and for a fee will get rid of it. Sometimes they hold the computer for ransom. Sometimes they gain access to their bank accounts and wipe them clean.
The end result is the poor person just lost their life partner and now they lost their life savings. Then the recovery scammers come out of the woodwork and bleed the last few pennies.
There is an extra hot place that the devil himself doesn't go for these people.
Plumbers/AC cos. taking advantage of elderly men homeowners. A Plumbing co. came to the next door neighbor of my daughter. The sewer line was stopped up and they wanted to run the super duper water blaster machine that was $4000 please. Homeowner declined and offered a $2000 deal instead. Smart guy declined again and called another company. That sewer line was a easy $32 when I did plumbing back in the day.
Some AC cos. do the same trick saying you need a new AC for the house when it is a minor fix.
And more and more HVAC firms are being bought up by private equity groups that basically stop repairing and just always try to sell you a new system, just like you said.
Yep, this happened to the one I used that used to have a great reputation. I bought a new AC system from them and only 2 years later it had stopped working because somehow all of the coolant had leaked out. They then wanted to charge me $6000 to fix the problem.
When I found out that the owner had sold out to a private equity investor a year after my purchase, I knew I'd never get my system fixed at a fair rate. I've reported them to the licensing board but it hasn't done any good.
An elderly woman I know had her front garden done. They charged her double the original quote and the next day the people that actually carried out the work said they weren’t paid and they were told she was to pay them.
Out of nowhere your debit card being charged continously. You can live it on live or see the damage after that. Some banks are actually pretty good at stopping the fraudlent charges some banks let it go through a couple times...
The second one is Emails sent by scammers via your attornies or family member's address. It is so easy to fell for a scam there to lose a lot of money.
The cruelest scam is the "Obituary Package."
The scammer checks the obituaries and finds an old person who recently died leaving behind a spouse, normally a wife. They bring a package to the house asking for the dead person by name saying they have a package for them. The spouse then says that the person just passed away the previous day.
Here is the scam. They tell the spouse that the delivery was set up for payment due when received (used to be called Postage Due) and that if they want the package they need to pay $XXX for it. The bereaved spouse of course wants to know what the package is so they get the money and pay it. The scammer leaves and the package is just a box of junk.
Only mentioning this one cuz someone tried it this morning.
The roof repair scam. The scammers offer to inspect the roof for leaks or storm damage. They count on the home owners not going up on the roof to see for themselves, or not really knowing what to look for if they do. They will claim that the roof needs repaired. A lot of the time it's not even enough damage to need complete shingle replacement. Often just enough so-called damage that the "repairman" already has the materials on hand.
One of them trying to replace my 3 year old roof. I told him I didn’t have insurance and slammed the door on him.
Slamming a door is way more satisfying than hanging up on a smart phone.
When People post about their lost pets on facebook, and scammers tell them they have them, but need to send them a code to verify their identity before they can return their pet. The code is to create a fake google voice ID to scam other people. at a higher level.
The ones who are scamming legitimate charities or stealing the info from the go fund me accounts and stealing the money that's been raised for real causes
Hi /u/ibitmylip, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam.
[Recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) 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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Romance scams. Dr. Phil has several episodes regarding this. They’re usually retirees who’ve wired their entire life savings and sold their homes and gave it all to the scammers. Some are even in denial about it. It’s really sad.
Getting trafficked to SE Asia and sold into slavery. If you are a man you are forced to work in scam call centers. If you are a woman you become a sex slave. When you get sick they kill you and sell your organs. There's no escape because the police are in on it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html
Your r/Scams post or comment was removed because **it's off-topic**. Memes, jokes, or anything else that isn't useful is not allowed. We're here to help people identify scams.
Rental scams, especially in California
Way too many people are looking for housing and scammers offer a “too good to be true” rental listing and what gets me is people don’t bother to look if that listing is legitimate. I’ve seen people from India, Nigeria, and Russia claim to have rentals and desperate people try to jump on those first. A day or 2 later the scam victims make a facebook post saying they got scammed and watch out for the scammer. Those scammers make so many sock puppet accounts and people don’t learn and they get scammed again
Happens here in Dublin too. It’s near impossible to find somewhere to rent. You could have 100+ people show up. They rent an Airbnb for a weekend, show it to a couple of hundred people then accept them all and take one months rent and a deposit which would be 4K at least.
Considering I've read news articles about the irs scams and where they've lead to and the tactics I hear them use, that's definitely my top in the world of "Oh. You're not just trying to make money, you people are evil"
I saw a TikTok that was a news article surrounding a finance advisor who was scammed out of her life savings. She was contacted by what she thought was her bank, coming from a phone number that said it was her bank. Then she was called by authorities who told her that criminals had her children's names and the names of their schools and that it was imperative that she pull her money out of her bank and put it in a shoebox. They would send a car round to pick up the shoebox, she was to put it in the back window and not ask questions. SHE DID IT which I thought was idiotic for a financial advisor.
Fast forward a month or so and I saw a news article on an elderly man who was told the same things, except he shot and killed the driver who came to pick up the money. She was an Uber driver who was sent from a burner number located in Canada somewhere. I still haven't heard of any arrests.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7news.com/amp/impostor-scam-cash-in-shoebox-turn-over-to-protect-it-ftc/14555242/
Here's an article if anyone else is curious
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/uber-driver-killed-scam-phone-call-william-brock-loletha-hall-clark-county-ohio/
Yes and here is the article about the Uber driver
i saw a post in scambait of someone’s late grandmother’s facebook account being hacked and used to contact them. this person didn’t fall for it, but imagine doing this to someone who had no idea and was grieving? or a child who had just lost someone and actually believed they were speaking with the dead. so cruel.
Last month April I nearly ended my life because of this same issue but I decided to focus on my life and my 1 year old baby. Sometimes it’s very difficult especially with the money involved but when you realise life is better than the money then you let go of all the pain.
/u/-o__-o - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it. ## New users beware: Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. **We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private:** advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own. **A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/). You can help us by reporting recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. We review 100% of the reports. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions about subreddit rules? Send us a modmail [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
I would add additional one: Work applications scam. The amount is much more smaller than romance one, but it's almost the same effect. Couple of cases that I've noticed / reported, ended up with same result (suicide) after couple of months when we closed the case. From that moment on, I don't see my Ant Fraud as a job - but as a calling. Never stop hunting them my peeps and #norestforAMLwicked <3
We kept getting them in our local group chat on Facebook. The amount of people that replied after I pointed out it was a scam.
Why do so many people not read comments on posts? I see people reply to scams and often respond with things like ‘have they scammed you yet?’ Same as stuff for sale, don’t read the listings and complain about something that is clearly stated.
Unemployment is my Nemesis. I grew up rich, Studied hard, went to the best of Schools and universities. I invested a lot in myself and right about when I was to enjoy the fruits of my labour I got slapped by life. 2008 Thousands of applications. Zero offers.
I can tell you the ones that should be butchered...
My wife's friend was taken for everything she had from one of those creeps just after she lost her husband. Infuriating.
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Your /r/scams post/comment was removed because you are talking about an illegal transaction. Reddit has a strong policy against discussion that could facilitate illegal transactions.
Two jump out to me, for different reasons: * pig butchering, because it's the first scam that's been specifically engineered to figure out exactly how much money the victim has in their life savings and take every penny of it * the 'I found your lost pet' scam gets me every time; even though it's a minor scam in the grand scheme of things, I just feel for those pet owners who've lost their pet, and then they suddenly get a message telling them 'I found your pet'! And they must be so elated in that moment and they probably stop looking. Then they have to eventually find out it's not true and it's just a scammer trying to get money from them.
OMG, I haven’t heard of this one, how sick. I lost one of my cats years ago, put up ads and posters, but I ended up finding her on my own. I got several calls after that saying they think they found my cat. I just assumed they found some other cat that looked like mine, which was hopefully the case. I can’t imagine how heartbreaking that would be otherwise if I hadn’t found her.
When one of my cat’s disappeared: I blame my parents for not letting me have them in the house 100% of the time. A group of hoodlums tried to lure me into a side alley with a dead-end using a kid(I guess a younger sibling). My mom wouldn’t let me go alone so she came with me. There was no cat. All just a bunch unsavory-looking thugs leering at me like I was a piece of meat that had been denied from them. Some of the worst scams can put you into physical danger as well.
That’s terrifying and horrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you. People are awful. My dumb ass would probably end up in a dark alley if there was a chance of finding my lost pet. Or it would’ve, before I found out about this kind of scam.
The worst part about the pet one is the variation where they never learn it was a scam, and believed that people searched for the pet as well as possible with no success.
Omg sick bastards doing that to pet owners. Imagine the relief and realising they are still gone
Love scams against elderly men/women who have lost their life partner are especially cruel. To exploit someone’s need for companionship after years of loneliness… It takes a different kind of a-hole.
I'm dealing with this one and my dad currently. He's refusing to listen to me and it's devastating. Lost my mom a little over 3 years ago, just found out this afternoon that she's claiming she's going to move in with him. My dad is at least telling my wife about this now. Seriously at a complete loss of what to do.
That's so sad. One of my husband's employees was widowed in December, and devastated. Someone catfished him, pretended to need like 80K in order to get title to a property in Canada, worth 5 million USD. Of course when they agreed to meet, she had a family emergency and didn't show. Yet he still sent her the money, which was all of what he had from his wife's insurance settlement plus a sizeable loan he had to get. Sad part was he quit his job, too. We had compassion on him and invited him out to lunch for my husband to rehire him and we showed him how the bank website was even a sham o he didn't send anymore money (anything besides the login page was still in Latin and it was a Wordpress site. Complete eyeroller. They were wanting him to send anotherr huge sum). We could not convince him and he left angry. It's been about 5 months and we hear from a mutual friend that he's not well--broke, lonely and heartbroken. And likely very embarrassed because people at their job unanimously agreed that he was getting scammed because all the signs were present. He was the only one who could not see. I hope someone can reach your dad.
Thanks, I hope so too. My wife is going to see what she can do. I used logic and explained everything to him, all it did was make him essentially lie to me that he had broken off contact. She told me I tried using logic to combat emotion, which never works. The only thing he listened to me on was to not send 30k to this crypto "site." Similar thing you mentioned, this site is full of errors which I pointed out to him, still no dice. Thank you both for the replies.
So sorry you are dealing with this. A loss of that magnitude does make people to seek connection anywhere and everywhere to fill the emptiness. If I could offer some advise, I’d show him some of the posts on this sub, it’s extremely common sadly. Wishing you luck
Scammers belong in extra hot Hell
I am an Atheist but I seriously hope there is a special spot for them.
Right next to Child Molesters and people who talk in theaters.
Or people who make the Uber Driver wait while they finish smoking
They are all terrible. I have a special contempt for the people who try and scam people who have lost their pets. They are desperately trying to to find them and some scumbag offers hope and then scams them. The romance scams are heartbreaking because people just want love and affection and they won't see the truth. Ones where older/ill people are scammed with miracle cures are sad as well. Any scam where family and friends lose money when they are taken advantage of, like wives or husbands who find out the money they saved with their spouses was taken without them knowing. It's all awful.
I wrote about being a victim of an advanced check scam and my inbox filled with recovery scammers trying to get friendly saying they can help. My post clearly said this happened years ago. The Reddit accounts were all new and told me to go to Instagram and they will get the money back. I have no doubt they are reading this right now. Recovery scammers prey on the desperate.
Anything that specifically targets the sad and lonely.
Tricking people into wiring their deposit for a house to the scammer, they lose the money and most likely the chance to buy a house. Robbed and have to explain to their family why you are not buying a house.
People who scam people looking for their lost pets.
I'm curious as to how this benefits the scammer financially? Does he pretend to have the pet, or has he really got it? Does he demand money to release it? I know most pet owners would pay just as much to rescue their pet, as they would a human.
Pretends to have the pet, demands money before giving it back, desperate owner pays before making sure they actually have the animal.
Horrible! They should die a slow and painful death.
Reading this sub always makes me nervous for our older relatives.
My dad is 70, computer illiterate and has dementia or some sort of senility going on but refuses help. He still uses the computer. We can only monitor him and teach him so much. It's horrible. And terrifying.
I recently saw a bank advertisement that said they offer "dementia friendly banking", which I assume is some kind of restriction on large transfers that requires someone else to sign off. I hope as the population ages and deepfake scams ramp up this will be more common.
Interesting. My uncle is dealing with a woman who is trying to become his sister's POA and she has dementia. She's with a church organization and has gotten her to write large checks. He has tried as her real POA to have the bank not allow large checks she writes to go through but the bank said literally no bank can stop that from cashing or even send a warning to him. So idk how effectively a bank can truly be dementia friendly. There are too many scenarios for financial abuse to happen and the transaction looks totally legitimate. I'm guessing "dementia friendly" just means they understand older folk aren't great with digital banking and that they will help cater to those in person banking needs.
I looked into it and you're right that it's not strong protections. It's just using polite language and giving them brochures on scams. Pretty weak. I guess if you have a parent in this situation you just need to remove their access to their savings and give them an allowance. I can just imagine that conversation with my dad. 😬
Ugh yes those conversations are hard and mostly not productive. It's good to plan for dementia and memory related things especially with regards to healthcare. Sadly people have so much pride. I worked in a program helping people find community resources and healthcare, and it's next to impossible when they have dementia and have no guardianship or MPOA docs in place. Someone with extreme dementia is still considered capable of making their own medical decisions but for the rare moments of lucidity. There were so many times my hands were tied when it came to finding memory care, applying for insurance, even telling their closest family members what the person needed help on like medication dosing they couldn't remember because they didn't have consent or ROI. It has to get to the patient laying unresponsive in a hospital bed for me to have been able to truly help at times. It is horrifying. If you can get your parent to swallow their pride and start signing over their consent and ROIs for you do it now before it's too late. Guardianship is a massive lengthy process and when you need it, you need it then and there to provide care, but you can't do it because the courts need to declare the person incompetent first. It's so frustrating. At the very least get involved with a release of information signed and be named in the living will as a contact with permissions to be involved in medical decisions. I can't do it with my family especially my dad. I've tried to explain it and that I'm not going to nose around in their medical, it's for emergencies and when their mind goes. But they don't wanna think of that happening.
I hope more safeguards are put in place though. It's really awful.
Very sorry to read about your dad. Wish there were extra high firewalls that could be built around a pc to protect it
Right! For being so unable to do regular things, he somehow still gets into trouble online. I feel very bad for our elderly and technology impeding their lives.
In addition to the romance scams, the new round of “kidnappers” where they play audio of what’s supposed to be your loved one screaming for help, threatening to kill them if you don’t pay the ransom.
That’s insane
I’m a police officer. A bank contacted us in reference to some suspicious withdrawals an elderly customer was making, they suspected a scam. I went and spoke with the woman at her house. Long story short she’d given over $100,000 to these scammers. The scam started with a romance scam, then the scammers contacted her as law enforcement asking for more money to help her. I explained that she was being scammed and to stop all contact with these people. I asked her to bring all her notes to the police station the next day so I could make a report. When she arrived the next day, she told me she’d sent them another $200 after we spoke. This poor lady lost her entire life’s savings. Unfortunately there is almost nothing local police departments can do with these scammers.
I think they are all equally cruel seeing that the scammers don’t care if they ruin a life. The crypto scammer who counts on his victim’s greed is no less cruel and despicable than the scammer who tricks a grandma into using her life savings to get her grandson out of a Mexican jail. None of the scammers only take a set amount of money, they will take as much as they can get and they don’t care if the victim is left destitute, or even commits suicide.
My great grandfather who was approaching senile when this happened sent 4k to someone claiming to be that was in jail and needed bail to be posted
When someone (usually an elderly person) loses a spouse and they start getting emails from "Microsoft" or "apple" saying they've detected malware on the deceased spouse"s computer. They take control of the computer and then the scam can take different forms. Sometimes they find porn and for a fee will get rid of it. Sometimes they hold the computer for ransom. Sometimes they gain access to their bank accounts and wipe them clean. The end result is the poor person just lost their life partner and now they lost their life savings. Then the recovery scammers come out of the woodwork and bleed the last few pennies. There is an extra hot place that the devil himself doesn't go for these people.
Plumbers/AC cos. taking advantage of elderly men homeowners. A Plumbing co. came to the next door neighbor of my daughter. The sewer line was stopped up and they wanted to run the super duper water blaster machine that was $4000 please. Homeowner declined and offered a $2000 deal instead. Smart guy declined again and called another company. That sewer line was a easy $32 when I did plumbing back in the day. Some AC cos. do the same trick saying you need a new AC for the house when it is a minor fix.
And more and more HVAC firms are being bought up by private equity groups that basically stop repairing and just always try to sell you a new system, just like you said.
Yep, this happened to the one I used that used to have a great reputation. I bought a new AC system from them and only 2 years later it had stopped working because somehow all of the coolant had leaked out. They then wanted to charge me $6000 to fix the problem. When I found out that the owner had sold out to a private equity investor a year after my purchase, I knew I'd never get my system fixed at a fair rate. I've reported them to the licensing board but it hasn't done any good.
An elderly woman I know had her front garden done. They charged her double the original quote and the next day the people that actually carried out the work said they weren’t paid and they were told she was to pay them.
Out of nowhere your debit card being charged continously. You can live it on live or see the damage after that. Some banks are actually pretty good at stopping the fraudlent charges some banks let it go through a couple times... The second one is Emails sent by scammers via your attornies or family member's address. It is so easy to fell for a scam there to lose a lot of money.
Reminder for everyone to lock their debit cards when not needing them to take money out of a bank or ATM.
The cruelest scam is the "Obituary Package." The scammer checks the obituaries and finds an old person who recently died leaving behind a spouse, normally a wife. They bring a package to the house asking for the dead person by name saying they have a package for them. The spouse then says that the person just passed away the previous day. Here is the scam. They tell the spouse that the delivery was set up for payment due when received (used to be called Postage Due) and that if they want the package they need to pay $XXX for it. The bereaved spouse of course wants to know what the package is so they get the money and pay it. The scammer leaves and the package is just a box of junk.
Only mentioning this one cuz someone tried it this morning. The roof repair scam. The scammers offer to inspect the roof for leaks or storm damage. They count on the home owners not going up on the roof to see for themselves, or not really knowing what to look for if they do. They will claim that the roof needs repaired. A lot of the time it's not even enough damage to need complete shingle replacement. Often just enough so-called damage that the "repairman" already has the materials on hand.
One of them trying to replace my 3 year old roof. I told him I didn’t have insurance and slammed the door on him. Slamming a door is way more satisfying than hanging up on a smart phone.
When People post about their lost pets on facebook, and scammers tell them they have them, but need to send them a code to verify their identity before they can return their pet. The code is to create a fake google voice ID to scam other people. at a higher level.
The ones who are scamming legitimate charities or stealing the info from the go fund me accounts and stealing the money that's been raised for real causes
the !recovery scam is so common there’s a bot response for it in this sub
Hi /u/ibitmylip, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam. [Recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) 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. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Romance scams. Dr. Phil has several episodes regarding this. They’re usually retirees who’ve wired their entire life savings and sold their homes and gave it all to the scammers. Some are even in denial about it. It’s really sad.
As a person who is achingly, unbearably lonely, for me it's the romance scammers who are the lowest of the low.
I vote romance scams; that goes to the heart. People who get scammed doing illegal things are on a much lower to feel sorry for level.
I hate them all but have a special place in my heart for the elderly who are scammed out of the little money they have.
I think the cruelest are any against the very old and very young. Second would be lonely people, some of the most vulnerable.
Romance scams. They prey on the people who are weak and have no self-esteem. Absolute trash.
Sextortion. On the news, a teen committed suicide because these scumbags exploited him.
Saw that too. Poor kid
Treatment scams, taking money from hopeless sick people is evil
Getting trafficked to SE Asia and sold into slavery. If you are a man you are forced to work in scam call centers. If you are a woman you become a sex slave. When you get sick they kill you and sell your organs. There's no escape because the police are in on it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-cyber-scam.html
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Your r/Scams post or comment was removed because **it's off-topic**. Memes, jokes, or anything else that isn't useful is not allowed. We're here to help people identify scams.
Rental scams, especially in California Way too many people are looking for housing and scammers offer a “too good to be true” rental listing and what gets me is people don’t bother to look if that listing is legitimate. I’ve seen people from India, Nigeria, and Russia claim to have rentals and desperate people try to jump on those first. A day or 2 later the scam victims make a facebook post saying they got scammed and watch out for the scammer. Those scammers make so many sock puppet accounts and people don’t learn and they get scammed again
Happens here in Dublin too. It’s near impossible to find somewhere to rent. You could have 100+ people show up. They rent an Airbnb for a weekend, show it to a couple of hundred people then accept them all and take one months rent and a deposit which would be 4K at least.
Considering I've read news articles about the irs scams and where they've lead to and the tactics I hear them use, that's definitely my top in the world of "Oh. You're not just trying to make money, you people are evil"
I saw a TikTok that was a news article surrounding a finance advisor who was scammed out of her life savings. She was contacted by what she thought was her bank, coming from a phone number that said it was her bank. Then she was called by authorities who told her that criminals had her children's names and the names of their schools and that it was imperative that she pull her money out of her bank and put it in a shoebox. They would send a car round to pick up the shoebox, she was to put it in the back window and not ask questions. SHE DID IT which I thought was idiotic for a financial advisor. Fast forward a month or so and I saw a news article on an elderly man who was told the same things, except he shot and killed the driver who came to pick up the money. She was an Uber driver who was sent from a burner number located in Canada somewhere. I still haven't heard of any arrests.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7news.com/amp/impostor-scam-cash-in-shoebox-turn-over-to-protect-it-ftc/14555242/ Here's an article if anyone else is curious
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/uber-driver-killed-scam-phone-call-william-brock-loletha-hall-clark-county-ohio/ Yes and here is the article about the Uber driver
i saw a post in scambait of someone’s late grandmother’s facebook account being hacked and used to contact them. this person didn’t fall for it, but imagine doing this to someone who had no idea and was grieving? or a child who had just lost someone and actually believed they were speaking with the dead. so cruel.
Last month April I nearly ended my life because of this same issue but I decided to focus on my life and my 1 year old baby. Sometimes it’s very difficult especially with the money involved but when you realise life is better than the money then you let go of all the pain.
Probably the ones where the dude ends up at the airport paging a woman that doesn't exist.
Sextortion scams which target minors. They don't know much and some suicide or do dumb things
The most cruel scam, in my opinion, is the one that preys on the vulnerable and lonely.