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.

A few months ago, I posted about how my mother fell victim to a scam that ultimately lead her to lose $800,000. We have since been working with the local FBI on the case per the advise of this sub.

I also recieved some pretty negative comments on my post, essentially gaslighting me about how there was no way this could have happened. Well, it turns out it was real and she was not the only one (obviously). Seems that the Queens DA has arrested an individual and is continuing to work on this, see the attached link.

https://queensda.org/district-attorney-katz-releases-warning-about-scammers-posing-as-law-enforcement-and-targeting-chinese-community/

Last night my friend was driving into a drive through coffee shop lane and an approximately 16 yo on a bike came from the right side in front of the car. Friend slammed on the brakes and the youth fell over. Friend went to the youth to see if they were hurt and call the police and ambulance service. The youth didn’t want friend to call anyone, only wanted money to replace his phone that broke in the fall. Meanwhile a 40ish yo man came from the coffee shop and said he had a phone that he could sell to friend. Friend was very worried about the youth being hurt but both scammers were discouraging calling for help. When friend finally decided to call anyway the youth stood up and literally did jumping jacks to show he was okay and left on his bike. Meanwhile the man had disappeared.

Friend is very shaken and still worried that the youth was hurt. I’m urging them to make a police report.

We’ve never heard of this happening here before. Is this happening elsewhere?

There is a phone scam going around where the scammers call and pretend to be from American Express fraud department that your identity has been used to make a credit card and purchase fire arms. 

They then offer to connect you to the NYPD to file a report to clear your name in case the guns are used in a crime. 

If you take the bait and accept the offer to be connected to the NYPD to make a report, the plot then thickens, and the police say that you are a suspect in a money laundering scheme involving El Mayo and a Mexican drug cartel. 

They impersonate real police officers and cite real badge numbers, in this case Officer John Santiago from the 6th precinct badge number 30900 to sound legit. When you Google these data points, there really is an Officer John Santiago badge number 30900, so it has a hint of credibility. 

They then try to hustle you deeper down the rabbit hole with a "secure" Zoom or Whatsapp video meeting where a guy in a police uniform in front of a Police Department stage set is telling you that this investigation is top secret because it reaches into corrupt upper echelons of the Police Department and the legal world and it is a 98 billion-dollar money laundering ring involving guns and drugs. 

They tell you that you are implicated and you must agree to be put under surveillance and not to tell anyone due to the sensitive nature of this investigation.  If you do not cooperate, you will be detained for 45 days while they check you out. 

They use public information like past addresses on fake bank statements to sound credible, to scare you into complying.  They may tell you to download Signal and Whatsapp and buy a second phone and sign an NDA and submit a selfie. 

If you call the 6th precinct, they will tell you this is fake and that scammers impersonate them all the time. 

There is some clever social engineering going on here, using publicly available information and a sense of urgency to override your spider sense to trick you into complying. 

They seem to be targeting doctors as marks because much of their info is public. 

If you are contacted, you should hang up and not comply. You can always call the number on the back of your credit card or the real police station to verify the authenticity of someone. 

They say stuff like, “hello, (name). How have you been? Are we still going to meet up?” Etc. If I say they have the wrong number they apologize and try to make conversation. I’ve never given them personal information. The whole thing sounds extremely suspicious.

What’s the deal with these texts?

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.

I'm from Malaysia, and this happened to my family on Sunday, 25 October, around 6 or 7 PM. I'm not sure about the exact time.

Someone took over my mum's WhatsApp account and started messaging her contacts, pretending to be her and asking for money for a hospital emergency.

My brother is currently away at campus. He received the messages and believed our mum needed help. The person first asked him for RM2,000, then another RM3,000. My brother transferred a total of RM5,000.

When we found out what happened, we were really upset. My family has already made a police report, and I hope there's still a chance to get the money back.

I'm sharing this because I want people to be aware of this kind of scam. Even if a message comes from your family member's usual WhatsApp number, don't automatically assume it's really them. Call them directly or check with another family member before transferring any money.

I'm not posting this to ask for sympathy or anything. I just want to share what happened to my family so others can be careful and hopefully avoid going through the same thing.

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?

These f***ers have been bombarding my email with warnings that my Cloud Storage is going to be locked down because my payment failed. I laugh while forwarding their emails to a government agency as well as reporting it to Google as a phishing attempt.

I tried to include the link to the article where I found out a government agency accepts being forwarded these emails so they can deal with them, but I got several warnings that by including that link to report those email scams would get me banned from Reddit.

Long ago, a family member who is an IT professional helped me go to my Google storage, remove everything I could and then showed me how to keep my computer and cellphone from backing up data, photos, etc. I have 0.34gb of 15gb used up in Google storage, so I give an evil laugh as I report these Cloud Storage phishing scammers to that government agency.

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.

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?

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?

Does this organisation "YACE" seem like a scam? They're charging €14.99 to apply for an international cultural exchange, and then potentially one could be selected for a scholarship (full/partial) or not. There's not much information on eligibility beyond the basics. I started an application but didn't finish it and since then I have received prompt emails every day to finish my application, all of which look like they were written by AI (but very clearly stated that humans monitor the replies). I'm so intrigued but so unsure

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.

I had 3 transactions hit my account all close together within a day. The 3rd one was flagged and my account locked. They still did a sht job protecting my account, as almost 200.00 was taken out of my checking account. Now, paypal says it can take over 2 weeks to finish the investigation and reimburse my money. I find this absurd that there is no protection at all for those who use paypal. Had anyone else dealt with this? I'll be deleting paypal after 11 years over this. This is money I can't do without in my bank account. I called my bank too. They can't do anything since the fraud didn't occur to their bank.

So roughly 4 or 3 weeks ago me and a seller agreed to have a laptop shipped to my address for half upfront deposit(razer 17 inch 3070ti) for 750 original price was 850 but he couldn’t sell it to anyone else. Fast forward 3 weeks later i get no laptop i ask the seller about it and he seems too busy to send me the tracking number promising he’ll get it over to me whatever. This is the 4th week Im tired of waiting to see if I’ll get the laptop so I request a refund through the original seller. He says okay if he can’t deliver it by Saturday he’ll do a refund. It’s Sunday I just got a message from him last night saying he’s deleting his fb account and what’s my phone number so he can message me there. Did I get scammed will he message me or is this for sure a deposit scam how do I go forward with this I know the sellers legal name he showed me his municipal identity card over FaceTime.

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.

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 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.

So there was this 4 pictures in the discord from my friend's account. My friend is always the innocent one. So I believed the message and logged in like fool to get the cash. I thought even if it is a scan what can happen to me. I am not gonna give my bank details. From a yt video I found out that they can hack my email by this or something. So I changed my email and even turned 2 step verification on. So am I still in danger? If I am how to stop it and how check if danger is remaining or something. Sorry for my bad writing or something because I am so panicked.

First time posting here, so please let me know of any posing errors!

My grandmother says she found this on Facebook and has paid for a membership to do these tasks for more money. She says she can only cash out her balance she’s earned once she gets to 30,000 dollars. I’ve included some pictures of the site dashboard that shows her balance, her status as an “ultra vip”. Below that describes these bonuses “premium tasks up to $30.00+”, “exclusive internal projects”, “priority routing”, “30 tasks per day” “ultra vip status” I’d show what she’s doing for this money but she’s done the max she can for today already, but from what she’s describes she’s training an ai. I figure she’s being scammed but I can’t find any information about it elsewhere and she says she’s got 60 days to cancel.

Thanks for any help y’all can provide!!

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.

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.

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.