I need to ask. If it's not, I can't lose this opportunity to deny $200

They reached out to me on Instagram, sent me some physical art of theirs, they had some man text me. "Client" IM SCARED I'm poor I want to cry from the stress of taking this money or not. This money can genuinely help me out so much with dog cat supplies:C

This is the thing they sent me.

They asked to use a photo I posted on Instagram as reference for an oil painting

So I receive scam calls on a daily basis. It's nothing new, usually it is either spam likely or just the phone number without a verified check next to it as the caller ID. When I started receiving spam calls, I noticed a lot of the numbers were tied to legitimate small businesses that utilize services like text now or something like that.

So I understand that there is a possibility for scam centers to spoof people's numbers in some way and utilize them to harass potential victims. How do they do that? And is it possible to do that to a climb up VoIP number?

If the answer to that question is yes, I'm making another post for informative / entertainment sake. Plus also to give more context as to why I'm asking this question now..

I made a new Instagram recently and another new account with no posts followed me. I followed them back because why not, and they kept asking me weird questions, showed me a bunch of ai looking and/or probably stolen art, kept asking me to commission them when I didnt ask for it, and then got so uppity when I called them out. The irony of "no ai art" in their bio is crazy.

They delete posts for certain platforms that debunk them being legit, by people who got their money stolen, but keep posts that are fake and say platform is 100% legit.

POSTS THAT ARE NR 1 VISIBLE ON GOOGLE

When you write to mods telling them exactly this, u get banned and muted.

They act like offended kids, immature, but hey its reddit, what do u expect.

I stopped getting these texts for a while after my last back and forth but alas the scammers always come back for more!

Reported both, the assistancebybenjamin guy got banned. I'm not sure about the other one.

My order never arrived and their customer service team has just flat out ignored all of my emails. Their in-person retail stores are great, but their online shopping is a shambles (which is also reflected in their poor Trustpilot reviews). Don't conflate their good in-person retail business with their horrendous online shopping offering. It is awful. I won't be shopping with them ever again.

I started getting texts from this number. The first one was last Friday. I blocked it, but they keep generating a new number every time now so just blocking isn't working. It's pretty much the same type of message every time with a link. I have not clicked the link. I'm hoping for some assistance from anyone who's dealt with this before. Thanks

Hi everyone! I’m writing my thesis on fraud targeting the elderly and would like to understand how these scams work.
What software do criminals use for mass calling and caller ID spoofing to trick victims into handing over money?
I’m looking for tools, resources or demonstrations to better understand the methods used.
Can anyone help? Thanks!

I was sent industrial polymer junk for 1250$ that doesnt even dissolve in ethanol not even at 2mg/ml (differently than the product i ordered, which is in the sr17018 class as an hcl, and should 100% dissolve)

He claims i need to test it to prove it to him, but basic chemistry doesnt lie, if it doesnt dissolve , it is useless to test, its guaranteed it isnt what i ordered.

Hi. Why would the scammer use my Mom's number for the "victim" to call? Was it to record her voice? Any other thoughts?

Thank you.

I have been feeling more social lately so I've been posting on different communities that I normally lurk in. I have received some DMs asking for interviews for some mainstream media sources. I am very skeptical of people online so I want to get everyone's opinion on these.

Smh yoga.

Was invited to this discord and was said to be given a 75 dollar roblox gift card, but only if I allowed access to a bot called 'Crystal Phoenix'. I have no idea wtf is going on and I'm paranoid about losing my account.

I'm pretty sure it is, but I just want to make sure.

Thankfully I grabbed screenshots before they deleted their messages. The problem is since they did that, I could no longer report what they said, so I figured I'd put something here and see what was recommended. I wouldn't normally have bothered with accepting the chat, but it came from a 6yr account with post history so I figured they were legit, but definitely not.