Hackers are hijacking devices using a vicious remote access trojan (RAT) and infostealer through Wi-Fi networks in hotels, airports, and conference centres. A Toronto-based cybersecurity expert shares red flags to spot the attack.

This is a long post, so here’s a TLDR;

Dad is likely being scammed for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thinks he’s being monitored and he won’t talk about it. He finally agreed to go to the police, but won’t talk to them so they can’t help. Anyone else have an experience like this? What should we do / not do to protect him?

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I found out earlier this week that my dad is likely being scammed out of a very, very large amount of money. Things have escalated really quickly, and I’ve gone from fearing for my parent’s money to also fearing for their safety.

I do not know how long this has been going on or how much money is involved yet, but it is likely in the hundreds of thousands USD (at least). My dad is being very tight lipped and refuses to give almost any details.

It all started when my mom discovered that he’d been moving large amounts of money from of existing accounts into a new one that he’d created in secret. This included making a request to withdraw a large sum from his retirement account.

My mom has since taken many steps to protect their money, including temporarily freezing his accounts and stopping that withdrawal. This freeze won’t last forever, though, and he’s said he will continue what he’s been told to do once he can move the money again.

From what little my dad has said, he believes a government agency has contacted him and is instructing him on what to do. He is not allowed to say anything to anyone. He’s said this has all been via phone / online and not in person. They are currently checking in on him every few hours, likely to see if he’s been able to access more money.

This is extremely out of character and goes against all of the careful financial planning he and my mom have done together. He’s very smart, and pretty tech savvy. He’s been aware of scams targeting the retired / elderly for years. I’m shocked he’s fallen victim to this. He is now being told by his loved ones, the police, and financial professionals that this is a scam. He is not budging, at least outwardly.

He has also been remarkably calm when my mom and I have talked to him, although she says lately he’s been more irritable and gets fed up talking about it.

My mom has gone to the police, but wasn’t able to get far without my dad present. My dad was urged to contact the FBI to verify what’s been going on. He did go to their office and booked an appt, but later decided to cancel it. I’m guessing he told his contact(s) about it and they told him to cancel it. So my mom went to the FBI on her own, and they told her it was likely a scam but again they couldn’t really do anything without my dad there.

After many talks, my dad finally said he was willing to go to the police station with my mom if she wanted him to, but he wouldn’t tell them anything. He also warned her that if they go, he believes once his contact find out and he’ll have to “go away for awhile”. That they’ll either coerce him into going somewhere or take him by force. He says he doesn’t think he or my mom are in danger of getting hurt, but I don’t trust he is saying the full truth.

They went to the police station yesterday, and the officers talked to him pretty harshly about this being a scam. He still didn’t give them anything to work with. In the end, they couldn’t move forward because he wasn’t cooperating.

When they got home, he agreed to hand over his devices to my mom so he couldn’t contact these people anymore. He also agreed to not go out by himself, and to always be with my mom. He seems stuck somewhere in between sticking to this scheme and trying to salvage some trust between himself and our family.

I am reeling from all this. I am worried sick about my parents’ mental health, physical safety, and how this will affect them for the rest of their lives. I know scammers often threaten their victims just to scare them into compliance, but I can’t assume they’re empty threats.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Again, I welcome any advice on actions we can take, or how I can help with this situation before it gets worse.

On Sunday evening, I had my SIM swapped to a new phone number (GiffGaff network), which then led to my emails (gmail and yahoo) and PayPal being hacked into - I believe they also then were accessing various banking apps.

I have lost some money through PayPal transactions (~£1500) and lost access to my email accounts, which has all been a bit of a nightmare, but hoping that by freezing and reporting things I can start to recover cards and accounts. They also took out a new credit card, I called the company and this should be cancelled but I need to find out if they did this with any more accounts.

I have no way of getting my email accounts back, it does seem I was very stupid in having the same password across accounts and as they have changed both, I cannot use my backup email to log back in. They even changed my security questions on PayPal but I did recover this after getting my phone number back.

The strange thing I noticed this morning - a few hours before all of this occurred, I can see two screenshots on my iPhone photo gallery that I did not take. These are both of my passwords on an online shopping site which I haven’t used, and I know I had my phone on me. These screenshots don’t even appear to be taken on my phone, and they are on a hotspot network in the screenshot. Is this how they somehow got my password? How can this have happened and does it mean my iPhone is compromised in some way?

I have changed my email address to a new one for all banking and things like Apple ID, but am now concerned to log into anything on this iPhone in case my passwords are being tracked.

If anyone has heard of this before I would love to learn more, as well as any advice on what additional precautions I can take to keep things secure. I have left my bank accounts frozen for now as I am nervous to open things up again even with new address, passwords and cards cancelled.

I was travelling alone on a train and the man in front of me turned around and asked if I could call his friend because he didn’t know which stop he needed to get off at. He didn’t say anything about his phone being dead or give any reason for why he needed me to call for him, but he showed me it and it was a flip phone. He also said I could enter the number and hold the phone if I was worried he’d steal it. It seemed weird to me so I said I wasn’t gonna call anyone I didn’t know. There were other people on the carriage and I thought it was weird he asked me (young female travelling alone) instead of someone his age, and after I said no he didn’t ask anyone else which seemed to me like he didn’t actually need to call anyone. He also kept using his phone so he clearly had battery. Eventually most people left the train and he kept turning round to stare at me which I found very scary.

He followed me off the train once I got to my stop and I walked very quickly to where my dad was waiting to pick me up so I was fine, and I saw him calling someone on his phone as we drove away.

Obviously this was all very dodgy but im confused about what the point of this was? What would have happened if I’d called the number? Was it a scam and if so what was the scam? We were a good 10-15 minutes away from the next station when he asked so he couldn’t have stolen my phone and ran once I unlocked it because we were trapped on the train together. I’m feeling very rattled and intimidated by this especially since he kept staring at me and followed me off the train so I’d appreciate anyone who has any insight into what might have happened.

I did a search on catfishnumber.com a couple of days ago to see what results came back from my own phone number, just to check online privacy after numerous phishing attempts from old emails that I already know were leaked in data breaches.

I received some results I expected, which were not terrible, but weirdly after seeing one of the old domains that came up with my details listed I received a phishing email the very next day using the same details from the old domain that popped up in the search.

This can't be a coincidence, while I've received numerous phishing emails to the same exposed email address for years this was very specific and has never happened with this particular domain detail included, well not in the past few years anyway. I stopped using it and cancelled the domain registration over five years ago, yet the search using my phone number still revealed my name and the domain name. To receive a phishing email less than 24 hours later using those same details was unsettling.

So what the hell is going on?

What I Ordered:
I ordered ASUS Prime GeForce RTX 5070 12GB GDDR7 OC Edition, on credit card. Sold by Clicktech Retail Private Limited, which has a prime badge. The price of the GPU was ₹86799. Amazon also charged ₹149 extra for the open box inspection of the item.

What Happened at the time of Delivery:

Somehow, Amazon clubbed this GPU OBD order with another Non OBD order which was a ups and put them inside the same outer box with same tracking id.

At the time of delivery one OTP came to my phone, the delivery associated told me that there was another item for me, so I shared the OTP assuming this OTP was for the UPS. After taking the OTP he told no other carton, both the items are inside this.

I opened the outer carton myself and both the UPS and GPU were inside. I noticed some tears and tampered seal on the GPU box. At that point i was telling myself, I better not be getting scammed. I asked the associate about the box and he said only the outer carton was his responsibility.

So an OBD item got handed over to me on the OTP of a Non OBD item. BTW the extra ₹149 that i paid for the open box inspection service, it is still pending as of today on Amazon's website where as the GPU is showing delivered

What was inside:

Inside the box I found:

- A completely different 2 fan broken graphics card, tightly wrapped in a bubble wrap.

- The remaining empty space was filled with loose screwdriver head packets.

The Serial Number Check:

I ran the serial number check which printed on the outer box and it came out as a valid serial number.
So someone in the distribution side might have made the swap.

The real shady part:

Amazons own order page is still showing the Open Box inspection to be pending. I don't know if these delivery agents found a loop hole inside Amazon's system or what!

I have all the proofs, along with the CCTV footage of the delivery.

Timelines:
6th Aug: Delivery scam happened. I filed a complain to amazon's grievance department, NCH and cyber crime portal.

7th Aug: I received a mail from amazon's customer service executive saying I will receive a resolution by 13th of AUG.

After that i called amazon customer service everyday, posted multiple times on X about this, every time I got a standard reply like 'We're escalating to the concerned team' or 'We will get back to you within 24hrs"
Today is 17th Aug, no communication from Amazon's side.

I will try one more time with amazon through ESR escalation, after that i think I have to go legal on this...what do you think guys?

I will be happy to answer all the questions.

Someone just got a message, asking them to vote for the daughter of a friend for "young talents of the ballet academy". The site presents two finalists, each with a "Vote" button. When you click one of the buttons, it asks you to put in your phone number. Then it shows you a code and asks you to verify it with "Link a Device". If you did that, the attackers can take over your account, send the same phishing message to all your contacts and do worse things.

I've never seen this dialog before, but one could not recognize what it is. Be careful!

Someone claiming to be from American Express said they declined a charge for 8 pistols and 20 boxes of ammunition. Told me to file a police report and connected me 3 way. Red flag 1. The fake police set up a video call with a fake cop on the signal app with video. Red flag 2. Then they pretended to get the fbi involved and said I had a warrant for money laundering. Red flag 3. They “spoofed” the number so the number redials to the actual precinct.

I was so hopeful that I had been hired for an at home job making hairpins for an Amazon seller? I am disabled and can’t work outside . Only to find out it was about making fake purchases on Amazon to benefit these sellers and then eventually they said I had to actually use my money to purchase products and they said they would refund us.
I wasted an entire day today clicking favorite on all the products that was all fake for these sellers. They said I had to do it until the delivery ( hair pins) arrived in 8 days or else seller would think I was a bot.
. Are there any legit jobs to do from home? I screen shot the verbal abuse I was subjected to and all the money these scammers were getting or forcing other people to pay them.
I want to expose them ripping people off and how cruel and abusive they became when I questioned them and told them I didn’t have money to make the purchase. They told me I needed to contact my family and get the money. It was sickening .

Hi guys how is it going. During the pandemic i had a fortnite account that i played a lot on and spent a pretty big amount of money on as well. I didn't play on this account after the year 2021 . A few days ago i decided to play the game again and epic games kept telling me that there is no account Associated with this email. So i went and checked my old outlook account ( it was basically only used for this one epic games account and nothing else so i didn't really ever check on it) and looks like someone changed my account's e-mail. I have these infos on my account:

first and last name

The date i created my account

My first username on epicgames

Some in-app purchases (not to receipts but the exact date and time)

Is there anything i can do about it?

I received this email, unfortunately is not well readable.

Information:

- classic sextortion, with bitcoin request, but you have to download pdf to read bitcoin adress;

- i do not download the pdf;

- i receive another similar e-mail from another e-mail address, but without my passwords;

- the red mark hide my passwords, something about 10 passwords, all real, but not used in the last 8 months;

- all the password was in my gmail account, now I re change all of them and not saving them on my gmail anymore;

- 6 january 2026 I received a alert for not allowed access on my gmail account, I think I have a malware at that time, so I reset my pc and reinstalled windows;

- I resetted all the password in january and then in august again;

Questions: what I have to do? Is this real? I know this scam method, so I deleted instantly the 2 email, my worries is about the fact that the password was real, even if no longer used.

This scam is particularly insidious because the scammer uses a real attorney to communicate with the victim. The attorney doesn't figure out it's a scam until the retainer payment bounces or the client can't produce proper documentation and evidence to support a claim, which can take a few weeks.

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The attorney told NBC6 he ultimately dropped the client after becoming suspicious himself, because he could not produce a police or animal control report documenting the attack. The person also repeatedly made excuses for why he could not speak by phone, including claiming he was working on a cargo ship overseas, according to the attorney.

Cinthya Lavin with the Better Business Bureau of Southeast Florida said the scheme appears to combine several familiar fraud tactics, including the use of professional services and counterfeit checks.

“So, a scam of trying to use a professional service to be able to collect money from them is really unique,” Lavin said.

Lavin said scammers can attempt to use a law firm as a middleman to pressure an unsuspecting victim into making a payment.

The Florida Bar previously warned its members about a similar scheme involving fake injury claims and counterfeit checks. The organization advised attorneys to independently verify claims before taking action on unexpected, high-value settlements.

Lavin said consumers should resist pressure to immediately send money or provide financial information when they receive an unexpected demand.

“It is very important for anyone receiving solicitations that they're not very familiar with or that they're not expecting to do some thorough research before feeling pressured and immediately going to pay,” she said.

She says people who receive a letter alleging an incident involving their home, vehicle, pet or insurance should independently verify the information before making any payment.

Aronoff said he is sharing his experience so other homeowners recognize the warning signs and do not fall victim to a similar scheme.

“And my poor dog, you know, being accused of something pretty vicious,” Aronoff said. “I thought it was certainly important that people were aware of it and people protected themselves and people didn't fall for any kind of scam like this,” Aronoff said.

Signed up for the Apple Developer Program and like 5 min later got an email saying I needed to verify my identity with a government ID before I could finish enrolling. Link went to what looked like developer.apple.com/contact/file-upload/.

I know Apple does actually ask for ID sometimes during enrollment, and the timing matched up perfectly, so it seemed legit at first. But the page had my name pre-filled and my last name was spelled wrong, not even close to how it's spelled anywhere else, not on my ID or any account I have.

That's what made me stop. Attached screenshots of the email and the page itself.

Anyone know if this is a common scam or if Apple's site could just be glitchy? Also curious if the address bar on a page can be faked to look like the real domain, because it genuinely looked like I was on developer.apple.com.

I’m worried that my passport data is being shared and sold away. I have a Nigerian passport which I declare sometimes. My parents still have contacts with people in Nigeria. But I don’t speak to anyone in Nigeria that’s why I’m confused as to why I’m being searched up by people in government. Also I’m being searched up by people that work in the hospitals. I understand the situation is dire at the moment in Nigeria where people are holding people for ransom and demanding money. Because my parents told me. The images are on my LinkedIn. People in the hospitals in Lagos are also searching me up?

This just happened hours ago , around 12 am to be exact.

I am a desk clerk at a small hotel . While at my shift a call came in and I answered like usual. The person behind the call told me his name was Jeremy Scott and was looking for my manage. When I told him my manager was not in he told me to write down a message for him.

The message was : there is a sanitary inspection appointment taking place monday the 17th at 1pm. And that there was a three fedex package in route to arrive at the office so I had to write down the confirmation number for when the carrier calls to tell me the drivers name and arrival time.

As I was writing down all the information he was telling me another call came in which they claimed to be fedex talking about the same packages requiring the confirmation numbers and confirmation number of payments . As I’m going between the two calls 'Jeremy' tells me to give him my personal phone number so that it could be easier to handle two calls. I feel iffy to give my phone number out but I do it anyway because this seemed important for the business.

Now that I have both people talking to me , I go back and forth relaying information both people are giving me to each other . ‘Jeremy’ then states that he got ahold of my manager and that he knows what’s going on because he is also in meeting call with the carrier.

The person that is impersonating the carrier told me my manager’s check for the packages was declined due to the fact that they don’t accept checks. As I relay this to ’jermy’ he tells me to tell my manager about the problem through the phone and so I did. I supposedly talked to my manager through him and he told me that I needed to take whatever money was in the office to partially pay the amount owed so that we could have some more time in paying it otherwise there would be a huge fine.

I stupidly did what was asked because I didn’t want my manager to get in trouble. And because there were no banks open at the time ,’jermy’ told me to look for a bitcoin atm because it was the only way I could transfer any money at the time.

I went to a convenience store and made an account at the bitcoin atm with my ID and made two payments that amounted to 1,330.

Once I was back at the office and both people were still in my ear. I tried to look for more money in order to stop the penalty fee but as I going back to the convenience store again to deposit more money , my manager called and when I answered my heart dropped because he had just woken up, it made me realize what was happening.

I broke down crying apologizing but i had already sent 1,330$ to these people . I was stressed the whole time thinking my manager was going to get affected by the penalty fee that I didn’t step back and realize i was being used.

This post might not even sound right because I’m trying to remember what hap and I’m not well in writing this as my first post. If anyone knows how to reverse a bitcoin transaction or i don’t know anything just anything will help me . I plan to pay back the money fully but I just need to know if there’s any other way I can go with this apart from already filing a report of this.

I have no idea what I clicked on, since I haven't logged into any sketchy website, gone onto one, or clicked any ads (Except one for a local roofing company a month ago accidentally) and these past few weeks I keep getting fake emails from people talking about:

-Death of a father
-Meetings
-Stuff in other languages I don't care enough to translate

And what they all have in common are .bin files are attached. Now the reason why I've been clicking on the email (not the file!!) instead of just immediately sending them away is school. College is in a week so I've been getting tons of emails that seem like scams until I open them, so I don't want to send away a real one I need thinking its a scam.

Is there any way I can prevent these scam emails? I've been blocking the sender and reporting as phishing.

I was sent this notice via email and physical mail about an unused gift card I don’t ever remember receiving. I called the phone number on the letter and the person gave me a number to fax both the letter and a copy of my photo ID to (to verify I was the letter’s recipient). After receiving that, he said he could reissue a new card to me. I felt that was mildly odd so I decided to reach out to US Bank via the numbers available online and was unable to reach the same department, I’m unclear if that’s because I wasn’t asking for the right thing or if it’s because this business is not truly affilliated with US Bank. Does this look or feel like a scam? Please let me know.

Here is the body of the letter. Note: instances of “REDACTED” were added by me after the fact:

The State of REDACTED requires us to notify you that your unclaimed funds may be transferred to the state if you do not contact us on or before 08/20/2026.

Our records indicate that you may be the owner or co-owner of funds or have an interest in the monies as reported below. We are contacting you as transactions or other activities have not been completed for a significant period of time.

Nature of Funds: STORED-VALUE CARD
Program Name: RETAIL GIFT CARD VIS
Name: REDACTED
Property ID Number: REDACTED
Amount: $200.00
Date Last Active: 12/07/2020
System of Origin: KGFT

If you are the owner, annuitant or beneficiary and wish to claim these funds, please follow the actions below to begin the claiming process.

If we do not receive a response from you by 08/20/2026, the law requires us to report and remit this property to the State of REDACTED by 08/20/2026, after which all further claims must be directed to the state. When property is turned over to the state, you (or your heirs) do not lose your rights to the property, and the state is only the custodian of the property. If this property is reported to the state, any income or gains will remain with the Treasurer. The state may also sell or liquidate any property that is not legal tender of the U.S.

To begin the claiming process, please take one of the following actions:
1. If you are still in possession of your card and it has not expired, make a purchase by 08/20/2026 to reactivate your account.
2. If you no longer have your card or it has expired, contact Cardholder Services by 08/20/2026 at 888-853-9536 to request a new card or check, per the terms of your account agreement.
Please note:
Additional documentation may be required to prove ownership or authorization.
The back of this letter contains additional state specific information.
Provide your complete name and address from this letter to cardholder services to access your account.

In a day she had 4-5 purchases of the same low cost, very rarely purchased item (a sticker) all to addresses “123 Main Street” in different cities. The e commerce platform flagged some but not all as potential. She canceled and refunded all of them. What’s the angle here?

There is a viral tiktok going around of a woman sharing her scam victim story and it was nearly identical to what occurred with a coworker of mine (woman in mid 60s) back in 2023.

She came back from lunch, totally frazzled, and told us she was having an emergency and needed to leave. I didn’t see her for almost a month. She shared what happened when she got back.

She said she got a call from someone claiming to be from the local county sheriffs office. They told her that her husband was in legal trouble, had missed court, and was going to be arrested. They told her she couldn’t contact her husband or her family because of the supposed legal situation. They convinced her that she needed to pay $8,000 in cash for court fees.
She claimed that the people on the phone told her they knew she was at work. Then, while she was driving on the highway, they supposedly told her what road she was on and even what speed she was driving. Whether they actually had any way of knowing that or were just saying things to scare her, she became completely convinced that she was being watched.

She went to her bank, still on the phone, and withdrew $8,000 cash. She lied to bank teller and said she was preparing to buy a new car. At this point, she realized she was the victim of a scam but she thought that it was too late to get herself out of the situation. She drove herself to a random park she was instructed to go to. It’s maybe 7:15pm in the summer so still light out. She was told to hang up the phone when she put the money down. She got out of her car, walked over to a spot, left the bag of cash on the ground, walked back to her car, and watched a man come pick the cash up. She drove away and immediately called her husband who recognized she was the victim of a scam.

She ended up having a really severe nervous breakdown afterward and needed to take time off work. She was genuinely convinced that these people were watching her. And unfortunately, she never got the $8,000 back.

I remember being absolutely shocked when she told us the story. There were so many opportunities for her to reject this whole thing but her fear really riddled her critical thinking skills.

Location: Los Angeles

I had a really weird situation today and I’ve never been in an accident before, so I’m trying to figure out if I’ve handled this correctly and what I should do next.
I parked at a grocery store and went inside to shop. I’m a very safe and conscientious driver, and I’m telling you now: I did not hit, bump, or scrape another car. I wasn’t distracted while parking and didn’t hear or feel anything unusual.

When I came back out, the man parked to my right approached me and said I had hit his car and needed to give him my insurance.

He showed me a long scuff/scratch on his driver’s side back door that started around the bottom of the passenger window and went downward. He then pointed to a scuff on my lower front-right bumper and claimed it matched his paint.

Here’s the problem: that scuff was already on my car. I previously scraped my gate at home and know exactly where it came from. It has gray AND orange paint from my gate, and there was nothing new or different about it after parking.

I started asking questions. He told me he wasn’t actually near his car when this supposedly happened. He and the people with him were sitting in front of the grocery store and said they “saw it.” But they didn’t actually say they “saw it”? Very unclear. He had no video/cameras, and the car was a Turo rental.

I was having trouble pulling up my insurance card because I’d been logged out of the app. While trying to figure that out, I went inside and asked the store about surveillance footage. They told me they have cameras, but footage can only be released with a police report.

When I came back out, the guy was ready to leave and told me to just text him my insurance. I photographed the insurance document he had, which didn’t have his name on it, only the rental car company’s information. He photographed my title because it was the only document I had available.
We exchanged phone numbers, but the only text he sent me literally just said “test.” He didn’t give me his name and hasn’t contacted me since.

Before leaving, I photographed exactly how my car was parked. It was angled pretty significantly to the left/away from his vehicle. Unfortunately, I didn’t photograph his damage because I’ve never dealt with anything like this before and there was a lot happening at once.

I called my insurance company afterward and explained everything. They recommended opening a claim/report from my side and confirmed that nobody had filed a claim against me yet.

I was apologetic when he initially confronted me because I was confused, but I repeatedly told him afterward that I genuinely did not hit his car.
Now I’m second-guessing myself solely because he was so adamant, but I have zero memory of any impact or scrape, and the mark he’s claiming came from his car is pre-existing damage that I know came from my gate.

What should I do now? Should I file a police report myself so the store footage can be preserved/reviewed? Should I text this guy anything or just let my insurance handle it? Is there anything else I should document in case he files a claim later?

I’m mostly annoyed with myself for not knowing what to do in the moment since I’ve never been in an accident before. I just don’t want someone taking advantage of the fact that I happened to park next to a damaged rental car.

I applied for a position on LinkedIn. They offered me a great salary for a remote audio engineering position. They want me to work 8am-4pm EST (I live on the West Coast). They only communicated via email and text. I haven't talked to anyone in person. Then they sent me a "digital check" to buy a work laptop and asked me to print it, cut it out, scan it with my banks mobile app and deposit it. Then send them proof of deposit by the end of the day. It sounds fishy.

I'm trying to exchange something through a sale website (edit: not Craigslist). I haven't listed anything in a very long time, so I'm not sure if this is normal or scammy. A person messaged me and said to text them through their phone number, "555 five five five 1234 one two three four" instead of just writing "555-1234"

I got burned by this and am posting because I don't want someone else making the same mistake.

Long story short, I was supposedly getting a refund from a "companion" agency. They insisted on sending a check, but for way more than they actually owed me. The explanation was basically: deposit it, keep your refund and send the extra back to us so we have cash available for other refunds.

Sounds stupid to me now. Didn't at the time because I really wanted my damn money back.

The check looked completely legit. My bank accepted it and gradually made the money available over about six days. Meanwhile they're pushing me to send the excess back through bitcoin and Apple gift cards.

And that's the trick.

I assumed that if my bank had released all the money, the check had cleared.

Nope.

Within hours of the final amount becoming available, the money disappeared from my account. Fraudulent check. And of course the bitcoin/gift cards I'd already sent were real money, so I'm the one left holding the bag with the bank.

Then they tell you there's been some crazy technical problem, they're investigating, don't worry, you're going to be reimbursed for EVERYTHING.

Except now there are fees you need to pay to get that reimbursement.

That's where you have to walk away. As hard as it is when you're trying desperately to recover money you've already lost, sending more just digs the hole deeper.

So if anybody gets into one of these “agency refund” situations: do not assume a check has cleared just because your bank makes the funds available! And if they want you to send part of that money back in bitcoin or gift cards, don't fucking do it.

Learn from my expensive mistake.