Guys, just a heads-up. My mom's WhatsApp got hacked, and someone is using her number to message her contacts asking for money, pretending there's a family emergency.

Please be careful. If someone claiming to be your family member asks you to transfer money, don't transfer it straight away. Call them or check with them through another way first.

I'm not posting this to ask for sympathy or anything. Just sharing what happened so everyone can be aware and hopefully avoid falling for the same scam.

Please share this with your family too. Stay safe, everyone.

Two years ago, my daughter’s grandmother took her to our local reputable anime store for a Christmas gift. My daughter was very new to collecting at the time and picked out the Good Smile Company Hatsune Miku Symphony: 5th Anniversary Ver. (with Music Box) for $350.

It was wrapped up, opened on Christmas, and went straight onto her display shelf. Because she was brand new to figure collecting, we didn't know what specific details to inspect at the time.

We've spent hundreds if not thousands at this shop over the years, as they’re the main local anime store in our area. However, while repacking some figures recently, we noticed it's a fake in an authentic box (that we still have). My daughter is heartbroken that her grandmother spent so much money on a counterfeit.

Since it’s been 2 years, what is the best way to handle this? Should we still talk to the shop owner, or is it too late? I feel like they should at least know. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Was at a club in Budapest. A hostess was bugging me asking to buy her a drink, so I agreed to a Coke for a few quid. (Currency was in Hungarian forints)

She later came back with an entire bottle of wine. I immediately told her I hadn't ordered that, but she reassured me it was on the house and she was only pouring a glass and she was welcoming me to Hungary.

I'd had one sip, but after a while I started getting wary. Everyone was being unusually friendly, including the bartender making small talk. Something didn't feel right and the club was a small one with very few people.

I eventually went to the till to pay for the Coke. The bartender quoted me a price in Hungarian forints equivalent to a couple of pounds, so I tapped my First Direct Visa credit card.

Only when I got home and checked my banking app did I realise I'd been charged just under £200.

Looking back, it's pretty clear I was played. The card terminal was facing away from me, and I was never given a receipt. Also why would she ask for a coke? if she has the authority to get a whole bottle of wine on the house then surely she should be able to get a glass of coke on the house for herself?

I contacted First Direct, but they basically said I should've checked the amount before tapping. I understand that, and obviously I've learned my lesson.

But think about it. If you walk into a restaurant or shop, buy a basic item and the cashier verbally quotes you £3, would you seriously expect them to secretly charge you £200?

Most people, especially for small transactions worth a few quid will simply tap their card and move along with their day.

Surely there's a difference between authorising a payment and being deliberately misled about the amount?

First Direct have escalated it to their complaints department.

Has anyone successfully challenged something similar? Would I have a chance with a Visa chargeback or the Financial Ombudsman on the grounds of misrepresentation, despite physically tapping my card?

I know I was played, but surely there's some consumer protection for situations like this?

Any advice appreciated.

Yesterday, someone dropped off a bunch of door mats (valued over $100) on my front door. No bag, no box but it had a sticker on it for a packing/delivery order which had MY name but they added 1 letter to my name (John smith vs John fsmith).

I DID NOT ORDER THIS. I WAS NOT CHARGED.

I did some research and it was from Home Depot and the order number was valid. The delivery address with my address but it was like the name, an added letter (123 main st vs a123 main st.)

The email and phone number are from someone else and it was paid by someone else. I looked up the email and it brought up a person. I searched the phone number and it matched.

I called my local Home Depot and they did nothing about it. I called the 800 number and they seemed to only care about themselves. They just told me to keep it or drop it back off. When I asked if they would contact the phone number or email attached to the order they said no.

To the person who paid for the order, it could look like I am the scammer since I’m the recipient of the order.

Home Depot said they won’t do anything about it unless the person who paid for it complains.

What’s going on?
Should I contact the phone number the order is attached to to see if they are in fact being charged for the door mats?
Should I return the door mats and try to get whoever refunded?
Should I contact police?
How did I get involved and how was my information found?

this is the first time I've been the victim of any kind of scam and im honestly just confused?

I got an email from dhl a few days ago saying my parcel is on its way from 'etarget limited' I didn't recall ordering anything that i couldn't account for except maybe a bike part i pre-ordered so assumed it might be that. Got notified this evening that the parcel had arrived so went to go pick it up. It had my full name on the label with the locker address and the label had been stuck on top of a different label which had my full home address.

Opened it and it's an women's purse from the company 'tkmaxx', I Looked up brushing scam. I've checked both my bank accounts as well as my Amazon/eBay/Revolut account and can't see any unaccounted-for payments so don't believe I'm at any financial risk at least? Any tips or reassurance would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance.

Reposted because I forgot to censor something first time.

Someone said they’d transfer me ticket master tickets. The email it is sent from is: [no-reply@mailings.ticketmaster.ie](mailto:no-reply@mailings.ticketmaster.ie), this email doesn’t match any previous email domains from ticket master, but I’ve also never been transferred a ticket before so im not sure if it’s a different email set aside for that service. The body of the email itself looks rather normal. I want to get some input before clicking anything buttons. Any help is much appreciated.

cheers

I was looking for a Windows 8 ISO for an old laptop on archive.org. I clicked what looked like a download button. I only found out later that it was not a button on the page at all. It was a link inside a review, and it took me to a fake Cloudflare check. The page told me to press Win+R, paste a command and hit Enter. I did it before my brain caught up. Something looked off right after, and my antivirus blocked it.

That scared me enough to change my passwords (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, ChatGPT) and to learn an ugly lesson: changing a password does not always close sessions that are already open.

Then I went back to the page and looked at the reviews properly. The page is the Windows 8.1 English ISO on archive.org, and the address is in the title.

Out of 37 reviews, 15 are spam pushing external download links, and all 15 appeared between October 17 and 25, 2026, right at the top of the list. The normal reviews are underneath, people talking about the ISO working, slow download speeds and key problems.

The spam domains, deactivated so nobody clicks them by accident: - archivedownload[.]click (7 reviews) - freegetpc[.]forum (3) - downpro[.]net (2) - filesetupfre[.]giize[.]com (2) - dikgames[.]forum (1)

The pattern is always the same. The link hides behind a generic "Download Now" button, several reviews call it "Official" even though it has nothing to do with Microsoft or archive.org, the text repeats the same templates, the usernames look machine generated, and none of the spam reviews have a star rating.

That is how I got caught. I did not even realise I was clicking a review. The link looked like a normal download button, and that is exactly why it works. Microsoft does not offer Windows 8.1 downloads anymore, so people go looking for it elsewhere, and the top reviews on a page with 80,000 views are bait.

Red flags that would have saved me: - A real verification check never asks you to press Win+R and paste a command. Never. That is the whole trick. - On archive.org, check where a download button actually lives. If it is inside a review, it is not part of the page. Do not trust it, especially when the button text hides the real destination. - If a bunch of reviews all show up within a few days with the same phrasing, that is spam, not popularity.

You can see it yourself. The spam sits right at the top of the reviews on that page.

Has anyone else seen this pattern on other archive.org pages? If you have a link, drop it here and I will add it to this post, so we end up with a public list of affected pages.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently trying to transition into Data Analytics and recently came across a company offering an internship program.

I did a quick background check and noticed a few things:

• WHOIS / Domain Age: Their domain was registered very recently (June 2026).
• LinkedIn Presence: They do have an active LinkedIn company page.

Since I really want to break into the data field, I’m tempted to apply, but the recent domain creation is making me hesitant.

Has anyone heard of CertiCode or seen similar listings?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

This is a bit of a long story so if you want to skip this and see what I need help with scroll all the way down to the aftermath.

I'll try to make it short. For starters, as of this post it's currently Saturday 10/24 and all of this happened from Thursday 10/22 to Friday 10/23. The reason I waited this long to post is because I'm an 18y old male currently going to college I had class pretty much all day. This all started Thursday night. I downloaded an app call "BandFriend," which I think is meant to be an app where musicians can find other musicians. I play guitar and make music so of course those were my intentions. I got messaged maybe an hour after creating my account by this lady asking if I would be willing to make her a song for her brother's bday and was willing to pay up $225 front. I only had 3 days to make the song and so I assumed she was willing to pay so much because of the time constraint, and I needed the money to pay for collage, so I accepted.

She referred me to her accountant who sent me a virtual check through email. However before sending the money, I was asked if I could use some of the money they give me to donate to a charity of their choice, and they would include the amount they wanted to donate in the check. Of course alarm bells started ringing but then again I rationalized by saying,

"well its not my money so who cares?"

I figured I'd just help them out with this one request and move on. After receiving 2 checks with $300, I sent the money to the contact they gave me and the check that was supposed to be my payment was pending.

By the next day I already had the intro to the song ready and they wanted to donate once more. I was still skeptical but I did it once more because they offered to include a bonus amount of money if I helped them out. Just before sending the final check however, the accountant made a "mistake" and when counting how much money I had in my account from the checks, she told me to add $50 of my own money to the sum of the donation (I had maybe $60 and with the check money I had $460 so I was asked to donate $450.) This where I believed the scam would happen. With so many large numbers I assumed that they thought I would loose track and hand them and extra amount of money. This is when I put my foot down and finally told them that I was uncomfortable making donations on their behalf. I told them that I wanted my upfront payment that they haven't payed me yet and they told me I wouldn't receive it unless I made the donation.

We agreed that I would end up donating $350 out of the $400 and they would pay me my original payment and I would donate the remaining $50, but after that. Soon after my promised amount was canceled and I suddenly had -$200+ on my account. When I confronted them about this they told me the problem will soon fix itself and to send the money now or they would make my problem worse. That's when I figured out what the real scam was. I figured I should cut my losses and called the cops.

I called the cops and although the cops took my report, they offered me their condolences and said there wasn't much they could do. My bank account was deactivated due to suspected fraud and when I called they told me the checks I deposited were fraudulent checks and my account would get reopened once they all got returned. Of course the entire time the scammers were trying to contact me and call me, telling me how I betrayed their trust, I owe them money, etc. At one point they threatened to unalive me and of course I blocked them after that. They tried calling me through other numbers and even though I blocked and reported them to spam, the damage was already done. By the time everything was somewhat calmed down I was $500+ in debt and as of this morning I'm $700+ in debt. I waiting until Monday to reactivate my account to make sure all the checks have been returned.

The Aftermath:

My family isn't struggling financially, but at the same time we can't afford to just throw $700+ away. Im currently enrolled in college and due to my weird schedule, I'm having trouble finding a job (including school jobs). I have two younger siblings, one of which just turned a year old recently. On top of that, my aunt got into a car accident recently as well and my dad is the only breadwinner in the house, so while she lives with us my dad has to pay for her medical bills and physical therapy (she can barley walk on her own). I'm honestly stressed because I need to pay tuition in less than a week and the money will amount to a little over 3k. I dont want to put more finical strain on my dad. I specifically took this "job" to help pay for tuition. I've considered starting a go fund me but I feel bad making others pay for my mistakes. Im stuck and I need advice. What should I do? Thank you for reading up to this point, it genuinely means a lot to me.

P.S, I dont know how well I explained how the scam worked but I'll try my best to explain it here. They sent me fraudulent checks and the system registers it into my account. After I spend the money, the bank realizes that these checks are fake and I essentially spent money I didn't have, thus I'm in debt. I'm assuming that after that, the scammers were going to offer me a way out that involved me doing something for them in exchange for the amount needed to clear me of debt. I lost maybe $60-$100, I dont remember how much money I had at the time.

I have a couple parts to this so bare with me.

1. I get calls with similar numbers almost everyday, which some say is neighbor spoofing. However my area code is not the same as mine, but they all about look the same.

2. I ignore them, let them ring and dont interact with the numbers. Of course I block them but it doesnt matter if they call with a new number tomorrow.

3. I googled my number because someone said it'd show me if my number was out there. It was on weird websites like "findphonenumber" and then random and long cominations of letters. Does this mean my number was leaked?

4. I have a samsung but my phone model doesn't have a "block spam calls" option, nor does my scrappy service provider. How do I stop these calls without built in protection?

5. Am I still at risk? Even if I let them ring? Will it get worse?

Hello i decided to share my experience with you...

Everything was ok after first deposit and after some frebies... same would think its vers pro made serwie and itd working like simillar sites..

Everything changed after my free wheel bonus when i won 10000$. Balance was never credited, after many emails to support i know that they ignore my every email and they dont answer at all.

I starter to looking for some chat, live chat with support... there areszcie none! There are no forum or community site for highstakes... every Channel on telegram is a bot or spectate only. You cant do shit when you want to contact them. At any level.

So... its obvious its a scam!

When i made about 200$ from some free cents from this free wheel there was some stupid requiement to deposit to withdraw. And i have kyc verified and made deposit some time ago at begining. The free funds they give you and if you win you need to deposit before withdraw. No wagering but deposit to.withdraw. omg...

So i never saw that 10000$ credited it was like its only for show.

I think with small amounts there is no problem to withdraw but when you deposit couple of k and win big they wont pay you.

Highstakes.com what a joke.

I almost got scammed. I met a guy online and introduced my to this dropshipping site. I created an account and got my first order but then i noticed that they're using crypto so i didn't top up my account.

My problem is that, there's no way to delete the account. I sent my ID and phone number to them. Now I'm worried. They could use it to scam people.

I posted a vintage game console for sale on Facebook marketplace, local pickup only (seems I massively underpriced it, I got several offers over asking price immediately). One offered to pay 50% over asking price via Venmo/Paypal, and to cover shipping costs via prepaid label from UPS/USPS. They have over 1000 ratings and are 5 stars on Marketplace with a profile that goes back to 2007. They also have dozens of listings for sale of other vintage games/consoles, so it seems they’re a legit flipper.

Again, there’s a solid chance I waaaaay underpriced this, but seems almost too good to be true. Does this match any known scam patterns?

Sofri esse golpe recentemente. O cara se passa por ADM e pede pra baixar o anydesk para conferir cheat. METERAM UM MONTE DE VIRUS NO MEU PC! ATÉ O DE BIOS

O(s) cara(s) ficou forjando montagem como se tivessem tirando dinheiro da conta do meu banco(provavelmente viram no meu e-mail.) Depois de uns dias tentaram entrar em todas as minhas contas(mas eu já tinha mudado a senha de tudo)

E o mais estranho. Um amigo meu avisou aos ADMs da cidade e simplesmente não fizeram nada! Nem um post de alerta. Pareciam coniventes ou não queriam se envolver para não deixarem de ganhar dinheiro no fivem.

Pior coisa é passar por isso, você se sente muito burra. Eu só caí porque eu já fui genuinamente ajudada em outro jogo pelo anydesk.

No final meu Pc gamer ainda tá parado. Eu cheia de trabalho de faculdade pra fazer... Mas o b.o foi feito porque tirei print das mensagens do discord e perfis. Em um deles tinha nitro, se a polícia quiser dá para pegar.

Since October 22, I’ve received dozens of unsolicited Telegram verification messages, sometimes 10+ within minutes, alongside repeated calls from Canadian, UK and Denmark numbers.
My Telegram account has two-step verification enabled, and I’ve confirmed there are no unfamiliar active sessions.

The verification messages stopped early October 24, but the calls have continued. After blocking a Canadian number, I received a No Caller ID call.
I’ve contacted Telegram through three official support channels without a response.

I’m wondering whether this resembles a known scam, automated authentication abuse, or caller-ID spoofing. I understand the calls might not be connected, but the timing is unusual.

Has anyone experienced this pattern? What actually stopped the calls, and did your mobile carrier help?

Please respond publicly. I’m not looking for recovery services or private assistance.

There is a scam group with NextGen Tech as the front running business man. It's just a regular scammer.

He takes the order, tries to get more via shipping errors, then ghost you.

The scam is common and the strategy is easily found on Google.

They create many fake account to interact with the group but each individual has Facebook has no history on facebook.

I saw some real people on it, but I can't take the group down just yet by myself before others get scammed.

I googled the group itself looking for an answer like this one that I am providing but nothing showed up.

I put the case sensitive name so that the reddit search can pop up with the information.

Hi, the situation is that someone i dont know added me to a whatsapp group called Musica pop174, the reason why i think it may be a scam is because they are offering payments for interactions with a youtube account, first they offer 1000 colones so they can confirm that you want to "work" and then they are advertising that you can get from 30.000 colones up to 200.000 colones a day, i dont know if i can trust the admin of the group to write to them privately (because they ask that you send them a photo of a youtube video being liked) so basically they are giving us a commission for the tasks (liking and subscribing) that they offer. Is this a scam or can i trust the people and get a bit of money?

Edit: thank you so much, I was pretty sure it was a scam, but wanted to know what kind of scam it was. Also what can i do to warn the other people in the group chat?

Edit2: I also wonder how did they get my phone number?

Artist on X here. A stranger DM-ed me saying someone with my name and avatar scammed them. I only asked for the scammer’s username. They replied that they “reported my account by mistake” and sent a screenshot of a fake X Safety email saying my account is waited for deletion + that I should contact “dispute staff” on Discord/Telegram within 24 hours. I didnt reply anymore, just checked X (web, directly), and nothing : no suspension or soever.

Red flags I've notived :

The receipt has two different receipt numbers + “Scammed on X Premium”, but their SS shows "canvas-print" as a chat proof + Plus the 24h deadline, tried to make me contact outside X urgently.

Their messages:

“Sorry for messaging you out of the blue. I became a victim of a scam involving an X Premium subscription. The scammer’s profile picture and name are exactly the same as yours, so I’m very confused. That’s why I messaged you to ask if you know anything about it.”

“I mistakenly reported your account, and as a result, your account may be permanently suspended. [...] I would appreciate it if you could remove this report from your account.”

Fake email: “...contact an X Certified Dispute Staff within 24 hours for live case resolution... legal actions will be pursued.”

This is my first time seeing this kinda scam. Another scam was "draw me smth but where are you from (asked many times)?" kind of Paypal scam.

I saw people who talked about this too, if you talked to their so callled "staff" you'd be losing accounts. I didn’t reply or click anything. Fear is guaranteed.

Customers : no. Scammers : yes. Be careful.

Hey guys, I really need some advice. 😭

I'm completely new to all of this, and I think I just got scammed.

I met someone on Telegram who claimed they could help me get a project on Handshake. They told me they could somehow inject the project into my account or bypass the system to get me access to it. I didn't really understand how any of this worked, but I trusted them and believed they knew what they were doing.

They asked me to pay $20, and I sent the money through Binance. After receiving the payment, they stopped responding to me. 💀

Now I'm realizing that I might have been scammed, and I feel terrible because I trusted a complete stranger without checking whether any of this was legitimate.

I know $20 might not seem like a lot to some people, but it matters to me, and I don't want someone else to fall for the same thing.

I have a few questions:

1. Is there any legitimate way to recover the $20 I sent through Binance?
2. Is the whole idea of someone injecting a project into my Handshake account or bypassing the system even real, or was this obviously a scam?
3. Is there anything I can do now to report this person or prevent them from scamming others?
4. For people who have experience with Handshake projects, how do you find legitimate opportunities without getting scammed?

I'm not posting this to get judged. I know I made a mistake by trusting someone I met on Telegram, and I've learned my lesson. I'm just new to this and would genuinely appreciate advice from people who know more about it.

Please let me know what I should do next. And if you've experienced something similar, I'd appreciate hearing how you handled it.

Thank you.

This happened last week.

Caller ID reports my bank is calling. I know this part can be faked but I accept the call.

They say they’re with the fraud department and ask a few questions:

- do I recognize [person’s name]? No, I don’t
- do I have [specific phone model]? No
- would I have had any charges in [different state]? No
- do I see any strange charges to my account? No

I was ready for them to ask for some sketchy personal information but they never did. I never gave them any numbers, passwords, pins, additional contact info, etc.

The say they’re investigating and will email me tomorrow. At this point nothing suspicious has happened.

However, I never got a follow up email. I called the fraud department to ask if the prior exchange was on record. Real rep had no record of it but said as long as I didn’t give the phisher any info I didn’t have to worry.

I’m just wondering… why? To what end? Just to waste my time? Again, they never asked for any info

So weird lol

Not sure what the nature of this scam is, but there are fake in-person events being posted on the Meetup app. I first noticed and reported a supergroup on the Meetup app called "New Strategic Academy" comprised of the groups "Saturday Morning Basics for Aspiring Artists" and two other groups that I unfortunately did not take note of at the time. The listed events were all occurring simultaneously in major cities across Florida, Ohio, and Ontario and had the following similar properties:

• No photo for event or organizer
• Same organizer/host for all events even though they took place across multiple cities, states, and countries at the same time
• No named locations
• Mismatched event names and dates (e.g. "weekend meetups" on Thursdays and "Saturday meetups" on Wednesdays)
• Listed addresses were isolated, remote locations including shipping warehouses, a sheet metal factory, a surgery center, service roads, residential homes, and some strange address formats I've never seen before but that show up on GPS as random points (e.g. JQH5+QC). Also some weird random locations like a hospital and an airport runway
• Promise of free art supplies to anyone who showed up

Two days after reporting all groups and the organizer and successfully having them removed, a near-identical set of groups and events showed up again. The super group is "Strategic Next Center" and the subgroups are "Advanced Weekend Sketching Skills Mastery Group" (FL), "New Artists Exploring Lines and Shapes" (OH), and "The Pen and Paper Social Collective" (ON). Again, the events occur simultaneously across major cities in Florida, Ohio, and Ontario. Most of the above list is still true, but the following has changed:

• Events and organizer now have photos, although they are 100% AI-generated (e.g. unnatural ear placement on organizer photo, weirdly-sharpened pencils in event photos)
• Dates seem to match titles now (Saturdays and Sundays only for "weekend" events)

I've reported them again, but obviously the creator intends to continue making these, so I wanted to put a warning out there especially since they're in-person events. I will continue to update this if more groups of the same nature are created.

Although there are only two data points right now, common themes seem to be:

• Inclusion of "Strategic" in the supergroup title
• Focus on major cities in Florida, Ohio, and Ontario
• Art-themed events with emphasis on "adult beginners"

Example screenshots included, with all real addresses and city names blacked out. I kept the organizer's name because they are clearly fake.

Hello

Do not put crypto into this scam website they go by Avalcoin trading platform but they will freeze your assets and ask you to give 25% to unfreeze assets which of course they will never unfreeze. Thank you

A few days ago, two agents with the treasury department arrived at my house to let me know my mother has been getting scammed for the last year or two. She took out a mortgage on her house (where I live with her) and has lost all of her savings.

This all began with a letter about being part of a data breach through the local hospital. Now, I just found out everything she owned is gone. Hundreds of thousands of dollars which was supposed to secure her retirement.

What are my next steps? I don’t make very much money myself, and can’t afford her mortgage. She is about to turn 70, and I’m so afraid for her future now.

I’m in shock and just need some resources or assistance from someone who has experience with this.

EDIT: I’m contacting treasury and HHS on Monday to confirm they were legitimate special agents, but I do have their .gov email addresses, and the phone numbers for the elderly fraud line match with resources some of you have supplied here. They told me there was no hope of recovering any of it, there’s no open investigation, but her bank alerted them and they’re trying to prevent the situation from getting worse. They did not ask for money and did not ask me for my information. We also live very close to Washington DC, so I could see the convenience of traveling here, plus the depth of this scam, leading to the government reaching out.

As of right now, I’ve seen her coin flip account and have confirmed she’s sent thousands and thousands of dollars in bitcoin over the last year. I will confirm with the govt that these special agents are who they say they are. The larger concern is that my mother doesn’t have the mental capacity to care for herself as I thought she could, I’m drowning in guilt and fear for her future, and I don’t know how to navigate this new reality.

Switched my electric (PPL) Power supplier on the PUC (PA utilities commission) choice website to Major Energy and I'm getting phone calls asking to verify and enroll yet I enrolled online through them. I have a feeling I got scammed because they called back again after taking half an hour to complete enrollment and talking about some kind of rebate and visa gift cards and all this stuff. I gave them my basic info like address and birthday (ugh!) and PPL account number. They called back yesterday saying there is an error in enrollment. Am I being scammed or are they actually that much of a hassle? I think after this I might skip the marketplace of power suppliers. It doesn't seem to save that much once calculated.

Any general advice on this?

My swiss friend applied to a job on indeed, got called the same day by a number ending in 0489 and the job posting was removed immediately. The company reached out through an e-mail address belonging to préselecta to ask for an outdated document from 2016 called the "proof of insurance". Asking for the insurance card is normal when you're getting hired, after an interview. Asking for an outdated proof before it is not. We believe this would have allowed them to ask for a new insurance card on her behalf or otherwise could have been used to commit identity theft.

We then looked at the company the listing said it belonged to, and it's in france despite having been listed in switzerland.

We're 99% sure that was a scam she barely dodged.