Nice idea, scammers! Weeding out what works and doesn’t with this feedback! But it won’t work on meeeeeee
I don’t care what anyone says, the first time they encountered “You’re the 1 millionth visitor” they clicked on it unless they’d heard about it before.
For most of us netizens though, it’s so long ago that we consider everyone gullible who clicks on it while denying to ourselves that our first time is just further back than it is for most.
But those ads did not really do much besides being annoying. I’ve never heard of anyone who went through those ads and continued - because, 99% of the time, it redirected to some shady site that absolutely didn’t play into the millionth customer shebang.
Right, this is of the “gotten close to falling for” type.
I made a purchase on a sketchy site (during Covid when things were hard to find). A day or so later, some unauthorized transactions were made on my card. “Bank” called from actual number of my bank, to verify if I actually made the transactions. provided some of my personal information, transaction amount etc then asked to verify ssn. It was very convincing.
Luckily I refused because I know anyone can call you claiming to be any number, and I didn’t give out any info, and said I would call back that number (my bank).
Bank had no knowledge of a call.
15 minutes later, get real fraud department call from my bank. They just wanted to know if it was fraud or not and didn’t ask for any other info.
Moral of the story: if someone calls you, never give out personal info. Tell them you will call back if needed.
Anyone can call from any number? Surely it’s not easy to spoof numbers.
It’s supposed to be getting better, but moving very slowly.
spoofing is pretty common still afaik.
How do you even spoof numbers? just say “oh my number is 1234 not 5678 ignore that is from 5678”
My bank sometimes call me with questions about verification, as I travel a lot and have weird purchase patterns that can span several continents over a few days.
But it’s easy for me to verify that it’s them: Not only is Norwegian a rare language among Nigerian princes, but I use a tiny local bank so I recognize them by the dialect.
And even if it were a scam verification, they only ask for relatively inconsequential information, such as how much I have in my savings account, where I use my card the most, and roughly how much is paid into my account by my employer every month.
got a phone call that I owed money on some loan that I had taken out like 10 years earlier. they had enough information correct to make me actually believe I might have done it (I’m a former junkie, and did a lot of dumb fucking things to get money, plus decent sized holes in my memory).
I was planning on doing research before sending money, but as soon as I explained exactly how the conversation had gone to a friend of mine, they were like “that’s a scam”. and as soon as they set it, it was so fucking obvious too.
I’m a lot less inclined to make fun of people who get phished or social engineered
In college I lost one of my jobs and knew I needed another one fast or I wouldn’t be able to make rent. I spammed my resume on Indeed and Monster.
I got an email offering an IT-adjacent job in town. It was Saturday and they said I could stop by in a few weeks to fill out the paperwork or we could do it over the phone and start Monday. I called so I could get my first paycheck before the end of the month. We eventually got to her asking for my Social Security number and I froze.
I realized this could be a scam, but I was really desperate. I tried to think of a way to test them, so I said that I just realized I would be unavailable during certain hours, would that still be okay? She said she had to put me on hold to talk to the manager. After a while she came back and said it should work, but I would have to discuss the specifics with my supervisor once I started.
That sounded real to me. If it was a scam surely she would have just immediately said my schedule was fine, right? I gave her my SSN. She said I was ready to go and to have fun on Monday. I got there and it was just a parking lot. Couldn’t get a response via phone or email.
A couple months later I found out someone across the country had used my SSN and I had to freeze my credit.
The problem is you have to give your SSN for legitimate employers as well. It is mind-bogglingly stupid that there’s a magic number you have to keep secret and also have to give to everyone to participate in modern economy.
college
One time when I was in middle school I started playing RuneScape, and there was this helpful guy hanging out in the starting area. He told me he could get me better gear if I followed him. He took me to the wilderness and killed me and stole all my stuff. I didn’t really know anything about the game so I thought that without my precious starting gear I would be lost, so I started a new account.
And then once I had played a lot and understood the game better, I made a bunch of sets of steel armor and food and I hung out in the starting area and gave it out for free to new players. Because fuck that guy. I decided I would take his evil and turn it into kindness.
I honestly don’t know what he had to gain, the starting gear is worthless. Maybe he just liked fucking people over.
I remember having the same thing happen to me in RS
The Earl Tablet.
What is that?
It was this thing. Ages ago. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/camping/earl-rugged-revolutionary-tablet/
Exactly
Been there lol
Didn’t fall for it but one time I was recruited to be a secret shopper. They mailed me a cheque for 6,000 dollars with instructions to deposit the money into my chequing account and use it for the shopping at a jewelry store.
Once I got over the initial shock of the money I did some googling and found out how the scam worked. The troubling thing is that I was communicating with my parents the whole time and they never once clued in that what was happening was suspicious.
How does the scam work?
so the check is bad, but it takes several days for the bank to notice apparently. and for some reason, when they do finally notice, it’s your problem not theirs?
there are several ways this one could have worked, depending on the next step.
the typical scam is: the scammer sends a check for way more than they’re supposed to, then they ask the victim to refund the difference, but the check was bad. by the time the victim figures out the check has bounced, the scammer’s got the money that the victim “refunded”.
in this case, likely the potential victim would either have been directed to a storefront that’s affiliated with the scammer, where they can sell you $6,000 worth of junk. then the check bounces, and they have all the money you just spent.
or, they send you to real jewelry stores to buy real gold and diamonds, and you don’t notice the check has bounced until after you’ve mailed them away.
I’m not entirely sure how cheques work being that I’ve not used one in about 15 years, but I’d imagine they give a cheque from an account with no money. Because cheques are awful the money will appear in your account for a time period by which you are given the illusion of getting legit money. They ask you to buy something like jewellery or gift cards and ask for it back at the end, maybe letting you keep a bit of it for yourself. A while goes by and the cheque bounces, which means you’re then on the hook for the cost of everything you purchased and the scammer gets a ton of free items that they can then sell on.
Got duped into giving my login info to a dude who promised to put money into my bank. Lost my account for like a week, and when I finally recovered it, they had taken what little I had. I cried.
Runescape as a child was a good place to learn life lessons
Hahahaha I also just posted a story about being a kid on RuneScape!
Mine was about a guy who told me he could get me good gear and walked me out to the wilderness and killed me.
Ouch. My heart goes out to you.
2 minutes to realize I couldn’t log in because someone else was logged in as me wasn’t an error. 3 minutes to realize and verify the login page was a clone. An eternity to change my password immediately. The bot had already handed off 1.6B in gold, my many many feathers, lobsters, swordfish, and ores. Probably my armors too. Never even left the Grand Exchange. I raged and then I cried. Haven’t played it since.
Sad memories, but good lessons for adults too.
Didn’t fall for it, but I got hit with an attempt at a pig butchering scam a week or so ago.
It was fun. They texted, I acted like I knew them, and I think that they eventually got frustrated because I kept agreeing that I remembered them very well, and that it wasn’t a ‘wrong number’, oopsie I sent a photo to the wrong person tee-hee.
Moving into a new neighborhood with my girlfriend. We each lived in different parts of town and worked different schedules, so each arranged for separate moves. I had just finished unloading my stuff. Friendly neighbor walked over to say hello. We started chatting. Nice guy.
At some point, he mentioned something about having to head home for a pizza party. Checked his wallet and he was short. We all know where this is heading so I’ll skip to the end. It only cost me $40. Never saw him again.
Lesson learned.
When I was younger I read somewhere “If you give someone $20 and never see them again, it was probably worth it.” Accounting for inflation I think that perfectly fits your situation.
I moved into a new place, there was a tenant in private suite downstairs.
We hung out here and there and I fronted him for a couple restaurant meals over a few weeks.
When I started asking for him to pay me back he laughed and said no, you shouldn’t give money to strangers.
I let the landlord know, he didn’t care, we stopped talking and I eventually moved out.
Lol, I’d rather be a nice person and short $40 than a jerk to every new friendly person I met.
Student loans for in-person university. I’ll be paying for that for a long time.
Eventually dropped out and finished my degree with WGU. I highly recommend that for anyone considering a college degree. I was able to finish with PELL grants so I added no debt and have a degree
Student loans had to be a top answer. The fact that they even call loans “student aid” is bonkers. There were two events with student loans that really drove that home for me.
First, there was a school I was considering applying to that advertised that they would pay 100% of what the government determined was your family’s need. They had 2 admission windows, one “early-decision” with a good chance of getting in, that was before when the govt releases their estimates of your need, and another with abysmal acceptance rates, but after you’d know the cost. For someone without money, you would have to give them a binding agreement to go there if accepted without knowing what you will end up paying, or you likely wouldn’t be accepted at all. I ended up not applying, but if I had, I could have attended a good school for around $3,000 per year, including room and board.
Second, one year i was in college, my parents (who weren’t paying for any of my education) made less money. This made the government offer me higher loans. Because I could get more “student aid” from the government (loans), my school reduced my scholarships.
The fact that you count as a dependent on FAFSA until well after your parents don’t write you as a dependant is wild.
I used to help people apply, and it was hellacious when there was animosity from one parent due to a divorce. It could really fuck things up for the poor kids.
Not really fallen for, but at some point you don’t really have a choice. So in Bali near the waterfalls you sometimes have these people who claim to work for some official company asking for the entrance fee, but of course they don’t. But are you gonna just say no and keep on driving to save like 2,50 bucks when 2 burly guys are telling you to stop?
Seems like happens in almost everywhere in 2nd & 3rd world countries. :(
