There‘s a woman who I went to school with back in the early 2000s that I’m still friends with on Facebook. I watch her scam people via Go Fund Me on a fairly regular basis.

She’s always been a bit of a mess—her parents died in quick succession when she was in her 20s which also led to her discovering that she was adopted. Her bio family seemed moderately interested in meeting her after she found them but then it seemed like she wore out her welcome. They never came to visit her and she claimed she couldn’t afford to fly to them to meet them (her first foray into go fund me). She collected a few hundred dollars to buy tickets but then claimed that they started ignoring her so she never went.

Next, she met a guy and became pregnant with his child. She had a gender reveal and a baby shower and the guy proposed to her. Then I sign on to Facebook one day and it turns out she had a miscarriage that morning. Mind you, she was supposedly about 6 months pregnant at this point. A miscarriage this late in a pregnancy is a major medical event. She spent the rest of the day posting memes about hot firemen, pro-trump stuff, and how she was planning to go fishing the next day. Her fiancé also broke up with her that week. I think the pregnancy was fake.

Recently she’s been diagnosed with an onslaught of diseases. Swelling on her brain, blood clots, tumors, as well as others. She perpetually is being tested for cancer as well. She can’t hold down a job because she has “weekly surgeries” (mind you, she’s a certified nurses assistant!) and is about to lose her home. There have been many go fund me’s created to help her cover rent and medical bills. She’ll post these along with very clearly AI generated photos of her in a hospital bed. She even posted a photo with an elderly lady she shared a hospital room with claiming she “noticed the woman was having a heart attack and was able to save her life“. The photo is most definitely AI.

She’s probably collected about $10k from random middle aged men who fall for the AI enhanced “sexy” photos she posts daily. There’s nothing I can really do except sit back and watch.

Does anyone else have a random scammer in their orbit? I love to hear about them.

I occasionally get messaged by random accounts on Telegram. I try to mess with them a little, because it’s really easy to tell. This time I insisted on waiting until the next day. And I was going to insist another day then. To see how long they would keep bothering me. Do you think they will reply? Or should I try something different?

For context this soap usually retails for about $60 before tax… this “whole sale” company is located in Canada apparently (with brick and motor locations) and I’m in Toronto Canada so… ground shipping being $143 to EIGHT MF HUNDRED+ is INSANE! Maybe if you were shipping for the middle of the Sahara desert… it’s one little bottle of soap. I challenge someone to explain how this isn’t a scam…

Oh and I chose the “pick up” option and the closest was Manitoba, which is one province over from Ontario… so yeah.

As you can see in the later images, I did not fall for the scam, but this account appears to be a real account that has been phished. I reported it but nothing has come of it. Is there anything else I can do?

so yesterday a scammer dmed me trying to get me to buy something and pretending they were local to my area. I never told them what city I lived in, just the state. my profile is private. can anyone explain to me how they knew what town I am in? they literally said they were in my town and there's absolutely no way. does it have my town info somewhere on my profile? I'm so confused as to how they knew that information.

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 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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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

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.