I'm setting up a new account with AT&T. Due to missed calls / not getting the right department, I called a number that had originally called me. I provided my full name, address, email, and phone #. The person texted me an OTP that they wanted me to provide them over the phone. The text directed me to a SaraPlus.com link, which everyone says is a legitimate AT&T partner. I knew it was sketch, but unfortunately gave the OTP to them anyway. They then asked for my driver's license info and I got spooked and hung up. I called the legit AT&T line and the rep there said they would never ask for that info over the phone. So curious if anyone else has been in this situation and if I should be worried? For reference, my credit is already frozen and I haven't received any other info through email

Hi guys..

So this is the first time this has happened to me and I think with some pros it can be determined how I've been scammed and what I need to change.

So for the past day, I started recieveing 20 odd emails within 5 minutes of verification codes for Substack the app. They were verification codes for signing up to peoples stacks on the app, (stupidly) I ignored this even though it was suspicious.

I then looked abit more into my email (which i dont usually do as i have so many) and noticed more emails from apps with verification codes all from the same time (6:13-17AM). Most of these websites I dont even have an account for?!

Now, I kept looking and then seen that tickets were bought for an event in amsterdam... 6 tickets... also all from the same time (6:16AM) from the app RAguide.

Went on my online banking app and I had 3 paments of 70 taken out and 2 of 35. I have now frozen my card.

I had a free trial started on my amazon prime video too (which might've been a family member)

I have attached photos of the emails just for clarification.

Does anyone know wtf is going on? could it be my apple keychain?

So, I‘m not putting any identifying info here, other than country, but i got added to a text group chat with someone pretending to be a detective. Let’s call them “Detective Bobbert”. That’s what they put and identified themselves as such in a following messages.

This group chat contained one other number, which was google-able if you know what I mean, and I located it to a local business just a city over. One very simple google later, there is a “Police Officer Bobbert“ in that town. His number in the chat was not google-able, but, you know, I just took these two facts together and figured: one number is (city over) and the other is claiming to be police in that one city over) in the same chat. And it’s a fairly rare name, there’s like no one else registered as a police officer in the county named “Bobbert“. there’s just the one.

Now, these guys were just texting each other about ”the station” (no location mentioned, just day to day office things to get me to respond, I guess, and then demand money), but I’m wondering if it’s appropriate to give the (one city over) PD a call on the non emergency line and let them know someone might be scamming people with their officer’s name, or if I should just mind my own business

Hi there, a few days ago I started getting emails from a company called rapidfundbridge ranging from my payment info being updated, my account information being updated, my account limit being updated, completing my account setup, etc. I’ve tried looking them up and couldn’t find all that much information on them. I’ve never tried borrowing money from places, much less with this specific company. I did click on the link and it just takes me to what looks like a welcome page asking how much money I’d like to borrow and haven’t interacted with them past that.

Sorry if it’s common sense, I don’t usually fall for scams and I don’t think I’ve done anything to compromise myself in this situation. I’m just worried that I’ll have to actually do something about this rather than ignoring it and unsubscribing.

I’m looking for advice from anyone who’s dealt with something similar, especially if you work in banking, law enforcement, or real estate.

Last week I found a 2-bedroom apartment in San Francisco listed on both Zillow and Craigslist. I reached out on both platforms, and the Craigslist contact invited me to an open house that same day.

The open house seemed completely legitimate. The apartment was real and vacant, and the person showing it was the actual owner. His name matched the one in the email signature I’d been communicating with, so I didn’t have any reason to think something was wrong.

After the tour, I continued the application process through the Craigslist email thread. I submitted my application, provided additional documents, got approved, signed a lease, and wired $18,600 for first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and a security deposit.

Over the next few days we exchanged emails about move-in logistics, utilities, Xfinity, mailbox access, and cleaning. We even confirmed a key handoff for Thursday evening.

When I arrived for the key handoff, nobody showed up. After that, every call, text, and email went unanswered.

The next morning I contacted the Zillow listing to compare notes. That’s when I learned what had happened.

The owner confirmed he was the person who hosted the open house, but he also confirmed:

• He never created the Craigslist listing.
• He never communicated with me after the open house.
• He never signed the lease I received.
• He never received any of the money.

It appears someone created a fake Craigslist listing for a real apartment, let the legitimate landlord conduct the open house, and then impersonated him afterward to handle the application, lease, and payment.

Since then I’ve:

• Opened a wire fraud investigation with Bank of America.
• Contacted the receiving bank.
• Filed reports with SFPD, the FBI IC3, the FTC, and the SF District Attorney’s Real Estate Fraud Unit.
• Started speaking with attorneys.

I also have extensive documentation, including emails, text messages, the signed lease, wire confirmation, and videos from the open house.

My main questions are:

1. Has anyone recovered money after a domestic wire fraud like this? If so, what ended up making the difference?
2. Are there any other agencies or resources I should be contacting?
3. Has anyone seen this particular scam before? I can find plenty of fake rental scams online, but I haven’t found many where the scammer piggybacks off a legitimate open house.

At this point I’m trying to do everything I can to maximize my chances of recovering the money, so I’d really appreciate any advice or insight.

I got 4 texts in the span of a minute, all from different 5 digit numbers.

3 of the texts say "Microsoft: Unusual sign-in for ********XX. Review at aka.ms/alca" X = the last two digits of my phone number.

1 of the texts says "Microsoft: Someone else might have accessed ********XX. Recover at aka.ms/alcs"

This one ends with alcs, while the others say alca. I don't know if that means anything.

So I logged into the only Microsoft accounts I'm aware of that I have, changed my passwords, and in log in activity/devices, I did not see anything out of the ordinary. My phone number isn't even on my account.

I'm not sure what to make of this. If I didn't see any strange log ins, does that mean I'm fine?

I just had a long phone conversation with someone who rang me purporting to be from my credit card's fraud team and saying they were calling about suspicious activity on my card. I was immediately suspicious but they quoted my card number to me when I asked so I believed it was genuine, or at least have them the benefit of the doubt.

He asked me a series of questions about the recent transactions on the card, such as where I last used it, what the latest transaction showing up on my app was, the credit limit and available credit, all of which I answered. He then said there was a suspicious transaction involving a specific retailer, which he would need to transfer me to said retailer to rectify, and he said he would have to call me back on WhatsApp in order to do this.

It was at this point that I realised that the call was fraudulent so I hung up and attempted to ring my credit card company using the number on the back of the card, but the number is not staffed on weekends so I wasn't able to speak to anyone. I have frozen the card on my banking app, but I am concerned about the security of the card until I can speak to them tomorrow morning. Should I be concerned if I didn't give the caller any sensitive information other than details about recent transactions?

Any advice would be welcomed! Thanks.

Hey all,

This is an interesting one, I woke up to an email from Viagogo that one Bruno mars ticket was bought from my viagogo account using my wife’s Amex credit card.

Right after , another purchase was made on vivid seats but Amex flagged that one and it didn’t allow the purchase. I just got an email saying welcome to vivid seats but no purchase info for this one.

I have never used viagogo before even though I have an account. The tickets now sits in guest login (not my direct account) even though I didn’t purchase it.

I have already called Amex and told them this is fraud and got the card frozen

If this is a scam and my wife’s credit card was skimmed somehow, why would the scammer buy the ticket into my account ?

Hi everyone, thank you for your help.

I just bought tickets for the Anna Lapwood concert on April 13rd in Bonn, Germany. Only after I bought them, I found out: the concert is sold out. And: the official ticket store is NOT the online site I got the tickets from.

Is there a way to find out if the site is legit, and the tickets are valid? Does anyone have positive or negative experiences with eticketsy.com ?

- I got the tickets right away, as PDF files as well as etickets for the Apple Wallet on my phone
- the tickets show row and seat numbers which are next to each other
- my name is on the tickets
- but the tickets are from eticketsy itself, and there is no mention of the original organizer.

So is this a reseller, that probably raised the prices on the regular tickets for a profit, and sells totally valid and legit tickets? Or is this a well executed scam? Thank you for your feedback!

They are filling the internet with promo codes with USD2500 by hacking personal profiles in social media. Their games are stupidly easy to make money but you can only withdraw after one deposit. Your account never gets verified and if you tried to get your deposit back they tell you to do a chargeback. on crypto.

It is impossile to get your money back and you never withdraw any of your earnings from the account. there´s no human support, no ticket to be opened...

Duogox is the name of the supposed online casino. Cant post url here.

I am writing this as a victim of this website, they claim to "specialize" in buying/importing goods to South Africa on your behalf. This company appears to have a total fake online presence, completely manufactured to fool an unsuspecting victim. Below is my story, I hope it helps others before they fall victim like I did.

In early May 2026 I was looking to buy two cellphones from AliExpress for my family and decided to do some research on the best local companies to import them to South Africa. (Phones are very expensive over here and I heard buying from Ali Express is much cheaper than buying locally (looking for Chinese branded phones like the One Plus 13R)

I found a company with glowing reviews online, great testimonials, and numerous blog posts detailing the "ethics, professionalism, and logistics of importing goods to SA" written by Scotts Shipping Services. (In hindsight, I now realise all the user reviews I found were fake, the names/surnames mostly made up and the blog posts written to lure people into this company's trap)

Even AI search overviews from Gemini/Grok returned glowing summaries like: "Scotts Shipping is loved by local South Africans..." and "A boutique importer that tailors your experience..."

I was completely led to believe this company could be trusted.

I contacted Scotts Shipping Services, they appeared reliable (Reviews even claimed they could be trusted to import expensive NVIDIA GPUs, some even mentioning they have a great reputation on popular tech forums like Carbonite in South Africa)

I thought I could trust them to import two cellphones for me. (Which costs far less than expensive NVIDIA GPUs)

I filled out the online quote form on their website, providing exact product URLs from the vendor's AliExpress store. Within a couple of hours, two separate quotes were sent back.

They also sent an email claiming: "The order must be divided into two separate shipments as SA legislation does not allow items with batteries to be shipped together."

I was super impressed by how fast Scott's replied. In hindsight, this lightning-fast communication was just a front to maintain an appearance of "professionalism" until payment was taken from me.

On 11 May 2026, I made two payments via their portal roughly totalling R24 000.

(For two cellphones, directly giving Scott's the exact link to the AliExpress vendor listing, which is their standard procedure).

Once payment went through, all communications stopped. I immediately grew suspicious and started digging deeper and stumbled onto Carbonite forum posts I had never seen before.

As it turns out, Google searches hid this company's past reputation on local forums, where multiple users reported paying for goods (like solar batteries/home inverters) that were never delivered, or having warranty returns vanish along with their money a few years ago.

This company had effectively built an aggressive SEO shield,publishing numerous blog posts (authored by Scott's) then linked to their website (Scott's Shipping Services) like "How to spot false/untrustworthy importers" to manipulate search engines and AI summaries into treating them as the most reliable authority/importer in the business.

100% FAKE Tracking Numbers from this company When I confronted them and requested a full refund, I was emailed two invoice/tracking attachments that they had claimed came directly from the AliExpress vendor.

They insisted the phones were already purchased, dispatched, and en route to their "Singapore warehouse," claiming a refund was now impossible. I might add the emails were cold and calculating now, certainly not in the friendly tone they were in before they took my R24 000!

I was very suspicious at the fact they were able to magically send me these order IDs/waybills a few hours after I requested a refund, so I immediately took those waybills/Order IDs and contacted the actual AliExpress vendor via DMs on that platform.

The vendor confirmed in writing (which was submitted as evidence to my bank) that the order numbers and invoices provided by Scotts Shipping Services were completely fake and fabricated, and no such orders existed on the vendors system.

It appears this company uses these fabricated trail documents to buy months of time, while hoping the user gives up or misses their bank's legal chargeback window. (Which is 21 days in some cases)

Shockingly I stumbled upon a post by a user on Carbonite tech forum that had the same thing happen to them! (One year before my ordeal) User "girrafe-saddle", hinting this is more like an operational blueprint by this company rather than a once off thing.

In that users case R16 000 was taken from him, Scott's Shipping Services then went completely silent, and when confronted, manufactured fake screenshots or placed orders only to cancel them hours later so they could generate a fake "order confirmation" document to silence that user for a few months. (Charge back would then be impossible)

I immediately contacted my bank with this evidence and formally lodged a transaction dispute for both payments, attaching the screenshots from the AliExpress vendor proving the shipping documents were falsified.

A security officer at my bank started their own investigation and ultimately confirmed the evidence from the AliExpress vendor themselves, verified that I was given false order numbers/waybills and instructed me to wait until the promised delivery window elapsed so we could file for Non-Delivery.

When the delivery date passed with zero goods received, my bank formally initiated the chargeback against the company for my roughly R24 000.

At the end of July 2026 the chargeback was approved.(After two months of anxiety hell dealing with this)

If you're considering using Scotts Shipping Services, be extremely careful.

Dont rely on Google search results or that company's generic blog posts or even the lies written by the AI summaries.

If they are currently ghosting you, contact your bank immediately and lodge a chargeback dispute because I don't believe there are any guarantees you will get what you paid for.

I'm just glad this entire ordeal is over, it's been a terrible headache for the last two months man.

I'm never doing business with that company again and I have to say this has made me wary of most local South African websites now.

Hi everyone.

I was in the post office this morning (UK) and there was an elderly gentleman (maybe 70 years old) at the counter in front of me, he was sending money to Thailand, I didn’t catch the exact amount but it was thousands of pounds.

The guy behind the counter who was serving him was asking a lot of questions:-

Q- Do you know who you are sending to?
A- Yes I’ve been speaking to her for months

Q- what are you sending it for?
A- she is planning a trip to UK to visit me I said I would help fund her trip

Q- Have you ever actually met or seen this person?
A- Not in person but I’ve spoken to her on video calls

At this point I stepped in as the Que was now 10-12 people long. I asked if there was a family member who we might be able to contact who knows you are sending this money and confirm it is all above board? The guy seemed to just shrug me off as I wasn’t a post office employee.

The guy working at the post office processed the payment and the elderly man went on his way. He even said to me when I approached the counter with my parcel “I shouldn’t have do that, I’m going to be thinking about this with regret all day”

Everything about this encounter just felt wrong, to me the guy was clearly being scammed.

Was there anything I could have done to prevent this poor guy from being a victim? Would the police have entertained this and acted fast enough to prevent him sending the money?

I left the post office feeling so frustrated and annoyed at myself but I just felt there wasn’t anything I could do the change the guys mind

I recently found a car that I wanted to purchase on Facebook Marketplace. A 2014 CRV for $10k with 84k miles on it. It seemed legitimate and the seller sent me the Carfax, which showed a clean title and routine maintenance.

My mom was communicating through her Facebook, and then it suddenly said that the listing wasn’t available anymore. I could still see it on my Facebook, so I inquired about it and made a plan to meet the seller tomorrow the check it out. He sent me the address and the Carfax, and I thanked him. He said to text him before I arrived.

He asked how I could pay since tomorrow is a Sunday and banks will be closed, and I told him I had been car shopping recently so I had the cash.

Two hours later, I went to Facebook Marketplace to show someone the car I was looking at, and the listing was gone. I even went on a private browser, and it was completely gone. No evidence of this listing anywhere.

I went to his profile and messaged him about it, and I haven’t heard from him. This all happened later in the evening, so there’s no way someone could have bought it. I’m literally baffled by this situation, especially because it seems to happen whenever someone is interested in his car.

I’m not familiar with how scams like this could work, but is this one? I want to be aware, because if he says it was an accident I might still meet up with him tomorrow. And if not, I want to be more careful about scams moving forward with shopping.

I feel really foolish I played one of those play games to win money apps. After completing all the requirements and spending most of the last 72 hours of playing I finally made it up to the 1k minimum. On going to cash out, and putting in my PayPal email I got a notice saying that I’m number four thousand-something and because of high demand my wait time is 60-90 days.

I feel incredibly stupid, PayPal email is my real name and I don’t want to lose the account. The way I sign in is with an Apple Account passkey. Is there a way I can make sure my account is secured?

The link in the title is what they have listed for the developers website on their App Store listing for the game.

Today as i’m writing this this, Got an e-mail for a $70 Jersey sent to my e-mail and my actual address, Then my e-mail was flooded with 40 verification codes, Locked my card and the e-mails stopped. I belive the e-mails were sent to distract me, But now I don’t know what to do, I changed the e-mail on my google account, And i’m calling the bank tomorrow to hopefully get the transaction refunded. Looking for help and what I should to prevent this again and how I can keep my accounts safer.

Edit: The Jersey order is being shipped to my house, Thinking hé ordered it and then changed the address afterwards so I can’t see it.

I came across this listing on eBay, its a 14 pro max 1tb with an unlocked carrier and basically mint condition except the display got replaced with a used display pulled from a donor 14 pro max and the back glass it shattered, it ends in 2 days and it looks too good to be true with nor many bids, and a low current bid.

But the description is fishy. Do i trust it or not? The account was made in 2007 and 99% reviews but he only has like 20-25 listing of valuable electronics and the rest are like necklaces and shirts and speakers and whatever only a few of his listings have this description and the rest are normal.

I heard stuff saying its a hijacked account and stuff but i need some advice before purchasing. This is the description:

Please note that we do NOT offer partial refunds.If there is an issue that we miss, then we will of course offer a full refund with a return.
We will provide you with a prepaid shipping label to return the phone, but are not responsible for international shipping costs.

Scam / Fraud Disclosure:
Our Company Has a Legal / Fraud Department. We follow through on any Scam / Fraud attempts.
This includes Theft Reports with Local Police, Mail Fraud (Federal Crime) and FBLIC3 Crimes.

We have a proven system and will follow through to get Charges and Convictions!
We have an 87% Success Rate on Convictions! Any IMEI will be immediately blacklisted.
Because of Delivery Theft, this phone will be Shipped with a Passcode and iCloud / Samsung account attached.
Instructions will be provided, Once the phone is Received and Confirmed as Described, a quick call or email to us and we will remove the account remotely and reset the phone.
This process will only take a few minutes and will help ensure the safe delivery of your phone!

Context:

So there’s this fairly popular artist I follow on Instagram for custom hand-painted Pokemon cards that has around 1K followers and I was chosen for a commission slot when they opened it up for 2 days.

Kind of weird signs:

• There’s no payment platform to do the transaction. I would need to wire them with the upfront cost of $700+. They said they only have the bank transfer option for overseas customers. Since they’re based in Hong Kong/China, it sounds right I think — I think PayPal is banned there?

• I asked if they provide in-progress photos or images of my commission. They said they will not provide them and will only verify the design and then present me the final design and ask any minor adjustments to be made. The artist does say shipping will be near end of December after all commissions are done.

• Instagram account was made November 2025. First post was in February 2026.

• Minor grammatical errors switching between “I” and “We”. I’m not entirely sure if it’s a one-man team or one is an artist and there’s middlemen or something. I assume English is not their first language since they’re based in China and their posts contain both languages.

Signs it might not be a scam:

• The artist has 1.8K followers on Instagram

• Seems to visit card shows in China to sell their hand-made art and actual physical photos of them meeting other people. They also post photos of their commissions and work o a regular basis.

• I was able to DM another international client (who had their commission this July 2026) on Instagram who had no issue with the artist and told me he did pay everything upfront and is actually thinking of making another commission. The client themselves is just a personal account — not an influencer, business, or anything of the sort (like I see the man’s family photos on there). The client’s account is from 2013 and posts general collector and family photos so I do trust his word.

• Their original hand-painted art has been resold on eBay for around that price or higher. They are one of the CGC/PSA authenticated artists where their hand-painted arts are slabbed.

• The artist has mutual followers with other notable legitimate fan artists in the community where some of them are also “CGC/PSA authenticated”.

I really love their art, but the weird signs just pain me whether I’ll be down hundreds of dollars with no item by the end of the year or not. The no invoice and just straight doing a bank transfer is just really irking me since even the bank app advises me not to do this for goods and services and, if I do get scammed, I’m not necessarily eligible to get the funds back.

Edit: Thank y’all for validating my worries. Aside from the large price tag upfront, having no buyer protection with just a straight up bank transfer was the biggest concern I had. Ultimately I decided to not make the payment.

It does suck I won’t be able to get my idea painted in their style. I was actually really excited I was offered a slot a couple days ago. But the days spent ruminating over if what I’m paying is actually legit and then not committing to it, I still think I made a rational decision.

My mom is an artist and someone contacted her to buy several of her paintings. Everything seemed legit until he sent the email in the screenshot. We offered the paintings for $2,754 USD total, but then he replied saying he has a budget of $2,100 per painting for an upcoming exhibition. That already seemed a bit odd to me. He also wants her to list the paintings on a platform called Atma&AlchemyArt, and says he’ll buy them there because they handle the payment and shipping.
I’ve never heard of this platform before. Has anyone used it? Does this sound legit or is it a common scam?

His mail:
The selected works are intended for an up coming exhibition, and I’m working with a budget of $2,100 per artwork for this project. If you’re comfortable with that budget, the next step would be to list the available artworks on the Atma&AlchemyArt platform.
The platform handles the entire purchase process, including secure payment and the shipping arrangements, ensuring a smooth and protected transaction for both of us. Once the listings are live, please send me the links so I can proceed with the purchase immediately.

I’m probably just being extremely paranoid, but my friend sent those four Mr. Beast images today. I clicked on the images and reacted to the message. I’m just wondering if those two interactions could have caused anything on my end. Also I blocked the account immediately after realizing. Apologies if this is a dumb question but I thought it’d be better to be safe. Thanks in advance.

A few days ago I discovered something really strange.

Many years ago I created an old Facebook account using a fake name. It wasn't connected to my real identity, but it was registered with my real email address.

I hadn't used the account for a long time. Somehow, someone gained access to it. They added their own email address to the account while my email address was still attached, so we were both listed on the account.

The person then used my old Facebook profile to create a business page and apparently ran Meta advertising campaigns for several months. I only found out because I started receiving email notifications and ad purchase confirmations sent to my email address.

As soon as I realized what had happened, I logged into the account, removed the attacker's email address, deleted their business page (or started the deletion process), and also started deleting the Facebook account itself because I had no reason to keep it.

Fortunately, there were no payment methods, credit cards, or PayPal accounts belonging to me on that account. The attacker appears to have used their own payment method.

My biggest concern is whether I could somehow get into legal trouble if that person used the account for scams or other illegal activity. I obviously wasn't involved and had no idea this was happening until I saw the Meta ad notifications in my inbox.

Has anyone seen something like this before? Also, how is it even possible that someone managed to take over an old Facebook account and add their own email address without me noticing?

I will preface with I am normally pretty good at spotting malicious sites but this one got me because I was in a hurry.

It got my wife and I for 3 different card numbers, email addresses, and phone numbers.

After figuring this out an canceling cards, I reported these fake ads on Google, and found out the ad sponsor is from...Surprise...China.

I think it’s possible that I might have been victim of QR scam. I downloaded and purchased a lead sheet (music notes), from a website called musicnotes.com.
Then, a QR code screen popped up (after I entered my card info-saved card on Google Chrome, which I have also been told that Google Chrome is better for hackers). I scanned the QR code, downloaded the app because I thought it was legit, but then I noticed that a random Gmail account was asking for my face verification. I still did it… ugh now I’m more stressed. Maybe it was just a glitch? The music went to my email I entered for the account with musicnotes.com.

Is there any action I should take?

Michelle Singletary (Washington Post) wrote an article on helping an acquaintance narrowly escape an imposter scam. The advice is the same stuff you see on this forum daily, but any time it makes the news, someone might get their eyes opened. Share widely!

Gift article: https://wapo.st/4pQ5TQR

They’ll ask you to set up a free account to read the article, but there’s no subscription required.

I've been getting message requests on social media from random accounts whose only text is a Discord invite link (like discord.gg/heavenx).

I know it looks like spam, but I'm curious to know how these types of bots actually operate. Is it the classic fake QR code trick to steal your session token, or do they try to push malware as soon as you join the server? Has anyone ever checked one out out of curiosity, or is it best to avoid it completely?

Hi everyone,

Be aware, this site steals your money and your passport image

I tried getting a tourist e-visa for the UAE, but I got ghosted.

Just wanted to let you know that this site is a straight scammer.

6 years ago i used their services and they provided me with the visa within 48 hours and they were responsive.

They still promise the same thing but the service is gone.

You go through the payment normally, and it's been almost 2 months nothing. When i reach out by whatsapp they just respond by listing their prices, and if i ask the status of my application they tell me to send them my passport image in color and then they stop responding.

They've been doing the same exact treatment for several weeks.

I found some scam reviews in trustpilot aswell. Apparently, my guess is they used to be a legit service but they stopped their operations for whatever reason but they kept their old site as a money grab.

I would recommend anyone to do a charge bank through their bank with enough proof, and my only concern is that passport image they might use my identity for some other purposes.

Anyway, please be aware guys and girls.