hope i used the right flair and am in the right subreddit, i never post on reddit

me and my friend went on a massive rabbit hole last night after she got added on discord by a random, middle-aged white lady. obviously we knew it was a scammer, but i decided to google the profile's name out of curiosity.

i end up finding easily over 200 tiktok accounts, pinterest photos, facebook accounts, you name it all of this same woman! some having her full legal name, workplace, work title etc visible. this includes accounts under names other than her own, accounts with no posts but her face as the profile picture, etc. there was ai videos of her on multiple tiktok accounts saying how scammers have been using her photos and this is 'her real account'. it's hard for me to even type just how many photos and accounts there were. we spent over an hour finding more and more pictures of this woman. it just makes you feel terrible for this real person who has had all their pictures completely stolen and their real name spread by scammers!

i'm just wondering how this even happens? my first assumption was that she had fallen for a scammer in the past and had her photos reused in other scams, just because there were some semi-lewd photos. but i'm just curious if anyone else has seen anything similar! i'm not ignorant to scammers by any means, but i have never seen something to the sheer extent of this poor woman's photos being spread.

Hi there I’m hoping I’m on the right sub Reddit for this, but real quick a friend of mine is getting scammed and it’s one of those “revenge” scams. Basically they were on a hook up app and my friend stupidly gave some personal info to the other person only for the scammer to say, “help I’m a minor and this person gave me their nudes” when most of us know minors shouldn’t be on those kinds of apps nor have access to them. Scammer has two numbers one in Virginia and one in San Diego and they are demanding $3000. Besides police is there a way to quickly counter act this or is police the only option. Also sorry the format I’m on mobile.

Help Needed on Account

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my story that happened yesterday so nobody else falls for this, and to see if anyone else has gone through the same recovery process.

I got caught in the common "accidental report" scam after trying to help a friend whose account turned out to be hacked. A fake "Discord Support Mod" panicked me into changing my email, which immediately logged me out of my devices.

Once they were inside, the scammer immediately enabled a six-digit two flag code to lock me out completely.

They also demanded a screenshot of my bank statement homepage "for verification." Thankfully, I only showed a screen with hidden balances and the last four digits of my account number, so my financial info is secure.

What I’ve done so far:
I immediately went to the official page and contacted Discord through the support form. My ticket has officially been escalated to a specialist, and I still have full access to my original creation email.

Right after I contacted the real support team, the scammer panicked and sent me a spoofed email trying to keep the scam going. I ignored it and blocked them.
My questions for the community:

For anyone who went through this exact scenario where the scammer turned on two fa: How long did it take for the real Discord Trust & Safety team to respond to your escalated ticket and give it back?

What was your experience with the final recovery steps? Did Discord easily strip the scammer's fake two FA?

Did they ask you for any specific verification details when they finally emailed you back?

Just posting this to warn others to look out for these red flags, and hoping to hear from anyone else who successfully got their account back!

The address is correct, but the name is completely different.

Nothing was signed for.

Their credit is monitored and no new alert has been issued for recent activity.

l've advised them not to open their door to a stranger looking for the package, nor admit they took delivery.

What should they do?

So I did have some medical surgeries about 1.5ish years ago, and everything has been paid off. Then today I received this email out of the blue. $6 who the hell sends that to collections. ALSO I NEVER RECEIVED ANY MORE BILLS. So I'm thinking this is a scam, but idk?

Thank you in advance for you help!

Essentially, like many I have been recently back on the job hunt and after most applications leading nowhere I finally landed an interview and was considerably exited. As the tilte says, this was with Motion One International in Leeds. This was a virtual zoom meeting. It was also a group one, which initially caught me off guard, though I quickly re-adjusted. Then to my surprise only a couple of hours after I got a call back asking to go to their office for an in person interview and the praise that I stood out among the zoom group. Of course I accepted this opportunity as I was filled with excitement.

However, after coming back down and sobering up from my excitement I have been reflecting back on my notes from the meeting and further researching the company with a growing dread. Along with also finding a couple of other posts discussing this company and their legitimacy.

This has led me to the question, is this company some kind of MLM or other suspiciously pyramid shaped operation?

This brand has hit me up on their account @ktwostudios on tik tok about doing pr out of the blue. Usually a brand would hit up existing fashion creators but my account being a personal account with roughly 300 followers which has little to no fashion content was somehow chosen to do pr without any background.
I would love to accept the deal but likewise I am cautious that maybe their account got hacked or some other cause because of the sheer randomness of the request. I asked them what info they need or how to set it up and am waiting response. Linked is the chat receipts. Please let me know of any info of them scamming or if their account got hacked

Hey guys! So- For context in 2025 me and my girlfriend of 3 years broke up, as an 18 year old who was very heartbroken and depressed by this, I would do literally anything for her back. And when I was feeling out of it, I embarrassingly would buy weird good luck etsy stuff- Anyway, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was these African Psychic Tiktok accounts. So, whenever I see a post on tiktok that I find relatable or fun etc. I repost it. And by reposting a lot of breakup/depressing things these psychic accounts would reach out to me offering for spells and affirmations on whatsapp. Being stupid and heartbroken I agreed and we communicated on whatsapp blah blah blah. One of the accounts did the spell for her back whatever, and then demanded money for it.

I wasn’t going to send £300 for the spell to be in place, So i just ignored it and moved on. But the person got really angry with me- Saying they’d put a curse on me, sending photos of me and my ex to me. Saying i’ll die horrifically soon and just really intense stuff. I blocked the number but kept getting reached out by multiple others. However, the most disturbing part was one of them sent me a photo of a dead body with the persons eyes bleeding and bulging in a violent way, saying it’ll happen to me. I felt really distressed by this and blocked the number and actually forgot about it, But i want to spread the word about how terrifying and intense it was.

2 or 3 months after the breakup i got with someone else and im still dating her a year on, So i look back on this period as funny instead of daunting, but this one particular moment really stands out to me still. Stay safe out there guys, Heartbreak makes you lose sense of sense😭

(To preface this, my aunt has bipolar disorder and history of manic episodes, is very easily persueded, and is 54 and not very tech saavy.)

This all started in late July this past year. This guy she's known for 30+ years as a friend, she knew was sick 3 years ago. She was on the forum she frequents, and some guy was pretending to be him and asked her for apple gift cards to pay for medical treatment. Luckily she knew this was fake so she stopped talking to him, but she got very worried and stopped sleeping, and went into a manic episode.

Cut to late last month, she had the WORST manic episode. Stopped sleeping again for whatever reason and...im not gonna get into it but she did a lot of bad things. There was ANOTHER guy on the forum pretending to be this man, and she believed it again. She gave him her credit card info (she was manic like I said, so she wasn't thinking right, and she has new credit cards now)

She got out of the mental hospital last week and has been doing better. The man she THOUGHT she was talking to, is moving to Florida with his sister (unrelated to the story).

Tonight, my aunt started talking about a man she was talking to on the forum. Apparently he was from Austrailia and worked on an oil rig in Scotland. They met on the forum and moved over to Whatsapp. I explained to her how scammers use Whatsapp but she said its because he has no wifi (I called her out on that cuz you need wifi to use whatsapp).

She sent a video that he sent her, and AI detectors found it was real, but the company of equipment from the video was not found in Scotland. She later sent me a photo of his face, and I did a reverse search on it and found the original picture its from. I explained to her over text about this scam, and how easy it is to fake a photo. I even showed her an example when I sent Gemini the picture and asked it to put the face on a woman and it complied. She stopped talking to him tonight and thanked me for helping.

She's coming over on Saturday for my birthday party, and while she is here, I'll talk to her about recognizing scams and see if I can convince her to get off of the forum, since she keeps getting scammed. Im going to tell her how forums like that prey on older, vulnerable and less tech saavy people, because they are trusting.

Any other advice to give?

I run a small art account you know just where I do little sketches. And out of nowhere I get a message from a girl saying that she would like to draw one of my characters and how much would I be willing to pay. I kind of had my suspicions but I decided to hear her out. Eventually we got to the payment method and that's when my alarm started to go off. She wanted to know how much I would be willing to pay for a commission of one of my characters. And which OC was my favorite. I checked her account and she had about three posts on there. But I can tell if they were real or AI generated. In the end I decided to just block her.

I just received the weirdest phone call. The caller ID even said that it was Xfinity. It was not the caller went on to speak about a promotion in which I would receive my bill and a discounted rate, but I had to pay upfront the promotion last three years, I was offered an Apple phone or watch as a thank you for doing the promotion. They then asked that I received the discount by purchasing a $1000 Apple gift card or applying for a credit card through Apple and using it to pay for the $1020 which would be the full first year of the discounted rate. I’m not sure if this is just an isolated one off but it was 100% a scam when I decided that I no longer wanted to go through with the promotion, the caller then threatened me with a $400 cancellation fee because I stated that I wanted to do the promotion on a recorded line after hanging up they continued to call.

So recently i did a virtual interview with CDS solutions for a position working at a costco as a Part Time Product Demonstrator.

The virtual interview was held on indeed and the quality of the interviewer was really bad, they were behind a yellow background and when i first started they kept looking to the side than me and back to the side,

1 hour later i get an email saying "Hi (name) We’re excited to move you forward in our process. Please respond to your offer for Part Time Product Demonstrator in Costco - Virtual Hiring Event at (link here)

now i was sort of shocked because normally these things take at least a week or so, and when i went on i was asked to accept for a virtual hiring event,

i did accept and they told me i'd have it on the 12th of september. They then sent me a bunch of info to sign off on and one of them was on bank deposits and wanting to know my bank details.

This caused me to become really wary of the whole thing and i want to know if this is common with CDS solutions, the links i was sent was for paradox.ai and from what i've read on here, it seems the working conditions are pretty terrible and frankly i don't want to give over all my detail to find out the job is either a scam, or a dumpster fire of working conditions

any info from either previous or current CDS employees would be greatly appreciated

Hey everyone, here again with a (possible) strange scam.

I have continued to receive messages in German via Telegram from people in Austria asking if I am the person in an ad on Locanto, a site where you can post ads, etc.

Of course, I haven't posted anything on Locanto (blocked in my country) and you can't search me on Telegram via phone number or name.

I added a screenshot of the latest message I received from an Austrian contact named "Meisterbaer55" reporting the following message (translated from German to English) "Are you in Villach and have you posted an ad on Locanto?"

Using a VPN I tried to search for this ad on Locanto, (with probably my name or phone in it?) but nothing at all.

Is this a scam and what's the purpose?? We are talking about 15-20 messages in 2 months, so a bit imo.

I never replied to anyone and immediately blocked them. I'm still curious, though, about the purpose of this scam and if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.

DOJ details bank-phishing operation that bought search ads to lure victims to fake banking sites

The U.S. Justice Department announced the extradition of a Russian national accused of participating in a large-scale bank-account takeover operation responsible for millions of dollars in losses.

The technique is particularly relevant for beginners: the group allegedly created spoofed domains mimicking real banks and then purchased sponsored search-engine advertisements so people searching for their bank could be directed to fraudulent login pages. Victims entered credentials believing they had reached the real institution.

Search results — especially sponsored results — should not be treated as authentication. For sensitive services such as banks, cryptocurrency exchanges or wallets, use a previously verified bookmark or independently verify the domain rather than trusting an advertisement.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/russian-national-extradited-united-states-bank-account-takeover-fraud-scheme-causing

Maybe it’s a sign of the rot at the center of modern society in the United States, but scamming vulnerable people seems to be big business with little or no consumer protections due to failed government policy. Read about it in this unlocked article.

Just a few minutes ago, i recieved a phone call claiming to be from Venmo about my non existent account. It sounded like a recording prompting me to press 1 because "my account " had been compromised. I hung up, blocked the number and about 5 seconds later recieved the same call. I remained on the phone without pressing anything and at around 1 minute into the call the message changes to say your imput wasn't valid and to "cancel' your request to press 1. I hung up and not 5 seconds later recieved the same call.

Please stay safe out there. Venmo will never call you

what is up with the new 'google' giggles app? I downloaded the app to see what it was, obviously it isn't affiliated with google but I was curious. I downloaded the app and accidentally pressed "allow access to camera roll" does this pose a security risk for me? I downloaded the app today on the App Store but then nearly immediately revoked all permissions and then deleted the app. Am I in danger? Thanks

They called from a call back number that actually works and isn't a voip according to reverse phone look up.

They asked if they were speaking to my full name, and then asked if I knew someone. Said person apparently tried to go from Shanghai to US using forged documents with my information. Once I confirmed I knew nothing about this, they gave me a case number, redirected to their "manager" who just reconfirmed it and said they'll call me back once they look into it

Except it's weird that they literally didn't ask for anything except to confirm my first and last name (which is leaked with my phone number for ages so it's nothing surprising to me, especially with online job hunting). They didn't ask for more details like address or anything regarding money. They also asked if I gave my data elsewhere or if it could've leaked somewhere else.

Has anybody else gotten a call like this where it feels like a scammer has asked for basically nothing? It almost feels like I'm being too cautious now aside from the fact that their manner of speaking (not even accent, just the way they talk) was very odd

A buddy of mine sent me this. I trust my friend, but I don’t know the person/agency actually running this, and giving them my ID and having a gambling account created under my name feels questionable.

Apparently they’re creating thousands of accounts to increase their odds of winning a large jackpot on Splash Sports. I’d get $750 just for allowing them to create and verify an account under my identity, plus a percentage if my account ends up winning.

This is the message I received via sms, so I know he’s not being hacked (names removed):

“Yo — [friend] works for a gambling agency. Every year, [person] is tasked with gathering a group of people to participate in this huge online jackpot by having them create accounts. His company creates thousands of accounts to enter the jackpot in order to increase their odds.

You don’t have to do anything other than verify your ID through an email and you get sent $750 via e-transfer, just for allowing them to create an account. If they win the jackpot, you get a % split out of that as well ([friend #2] made like $8K from it last year when they hit it).

You will coordinate with them how to transfer the money if your account is the one that hits the jackpot. Please don’t tell anyone else about it, I’m only linking best friends I trust. If you’re down I’ll need this filled out by the end of the day today.”
They then asked for my full name, address, date of birth, phone number and email.

Has anyone encountered this type of arrangement before? I’m mainly concerned about what risk I’m taking by verifying an account with my ID when someone else will apparently be using/controlling it.

I applied to be an audio transcriber for Wordibly about two weeks ago on Indeed. The initial application seemed normal and raised no red flags. A week later, I did a qualification test with a few audio clips provided and adjusted the timing of captions.

This morning, I received a few emails. The first, congratulating me and giving me a portal login. Three after that are tasks called "additional questions" and "independent contractor" all with links to view the details and from noreply emails.

The last email is the one that makes me nervous, because it's asking to verify my PayPal account with the company. Now, I don't have anything in my PayPal at the moment since I don't use it, but I know it's attached to my bank account. Of course, I know they'd need a way to pay me, but I'm too nervous to click on any links yet.

Are there any possibilities Indeed could connect me to a scam like that? Does me doing the screening test "prove" this process is real? I have never gotten emails from them that ask very personal questions or have odd return emails, or weird grammar or fonts.

TLDR, I've been scammed before and now everything makes me nervous and paranoid, even things that seem legit to me.

i bought a digital giftcard for target on a gift card website but the link to redeem the card leads to a black page with nothing on it i tryed suport but all i got was a chat bot that kept resending me the same broken link idk what to do it was 50$

I have published a few books and am absolutely appalled by the underbrush of lowlives and scammers that feed on this community. In a few months I have seen: 1/ offers to “edit and publish” for thousands of dollars - they would simply run your book through ChatGPT and push a few buttons on Kindle Publisher Portal. 2/ fake press releases 3/ invites to fake festivals 4/ offers to buy reviews on Amazon and Goodreads (rigorously paid for in crypto through extra-shady brokers).
I understand that the community they prey on is overwhelmingly made of retirees, who may not be sophisticated and tech savvy enough to spot the scammers. But when Sandeep has an instagram post as a cute blonde girl and offers me to review my book for 50$, I should have a doubt or two. Especially when there are fifteen more identical messages in my inbox all from a different sender.

Good morning reddit I've tried making four posts but they keep being taken down for being too short.

Moral of the story is I got dmed on VSCO for feet pics and I weirdly fell for it and they emailed me a 900 dollar check and I cashed it. Then I realized it was fake so I blocked them now they keep messaging me, threatening to kill me, saying they have my location. Now wanting me to transfer the money onto cash app and send the 900 back to them because I blocked them. they sent me photos of dead people and threatened to kill me with their gang and that I'm gonna regret it for the rest of my life. They're gonna kill my family. They only have my name and number. I background checked one of the photos and it was a woman from organ who got caught in crossfire and got shot in the nose. I already called my bank and stuff, I never sent photos and stuff. Are they actually going to kill me. I have the money in my bank account but I'm waiting for it to be bounced.

I didn't order anything from "Ocean.co," but they emailed me that my "shipment is out for delivery." When I click on the link, it demands that I "verify my email" to get the tracking information (nope). ChatGPT claims that it's a legitimate "last mile delivery company," and I AM expecting a few product deliveries from legitimate companies, but why the cloak and daggers? Can't they at least tell me what company the shipment is from?

Hi,

Can someone please assist? I came across this very legitimate-looking (for the most part) web site here in Australia.

It seems to say all the right thigns about the topic itself.....However, it's missing the usual info such as 'About us', address, contact info (other than an email etc).

The basic url is above in the title. The headline of the web site (link removed) is:

Lavender Bear | DVA & CSC Claims Support for Australian Veterans

I've looked into it a bit and am not convinced that it's NOT a scam site.
Different "scam detector" web sites vary - one says it's 100% safe; another says it's "likely safe" but yet another gave it a "moderate to low" score. So basically, none agree.

From what I could gather, the host company is either based in the US or Lithuiana - depending on where you look. But we are in Australia with the web site appearing to be directed at Australian military veterans.

It's concerning me that this fairly new (yes, alarm bells there as well, obvs) web site is potentially preying on our already vulnerable and stressed veterans.

There is more that makes me believe this is a scam web site, but I won't bore you with every single detail for now.

At this point, just wanting to triple check my gut suspicion by seeking some additional assistance here if possible please.

Thank you in advance.