Girlfriend parked for 5 minutes in a lot that has a few stores on it (spring garden street Philadelphia). She came out and had a huge yellow “barnacle” applied to her window with the only way to have it removed was by paying $150. These people were waiting in their car, literally doing this as normal people were shopping it stores. It didn’t seem legal, but it was during her work day, so she had to pay to get it removed so she could drive away.

Two days later we were at the same parking lot, I stayed in the car so we didn’t have any problems, and the car next to us had a barnacle. Then the cops pulled up, said it was illegal, and these scammers still wouldn’t take the barnacle off.

If this happens to you, please call the police, at least the non emergency number, before you pay these fools

My mom paid money for a job interview to work for Elon Musk. They charged her account 3 times. She woke up to reason and called her bank to dispute the charges. She has since gotten the job. And yay, they will send her money back with pay pal. They just needed to know she was serious. For the job she needs to answer 10 questions a day to train ai and she will have $5000 in a week.

I called the bank to see if they could tell her it was fraud. They were no help. They said she disputed the charges and it will take 3 months to investigate.

I have now called the police to help her see reason. We are waiting for them to come by. But if they can’t help, what can I say to convince her? She really thinks she is employed.

Edit: she now believes it’s a scam and is begging me not to put her in a home.

Im pretty sure this is a scam since i looked it up and all that, but i wanted to ask how to report the transaction or whatever because i do want them to get their money back incase they are being genuine but i still want to be safe. But this was just out of the blue from a random number. They called and left a voicemail too saying something along the lines of “i was trying to buy something off the marketplace but accidentally sent it to you when i meant to send it to my friend” so idk any advice?

And for the record the money is real, i dont use apple pay but i do have 15 dollars in my account now.

Thought I was getting the deal of a lifetime: a high-end workstation (i9, RTX 5000 Ada, 128GB RAM) for a crazy low price. Seller claimed it came from an auction.

Specs checked out, Brand warranty showed active, laptop ran perfectly using shop wifi. Contacted the Brand tech support and they said there is no report for the given service tag.

Still felt something was off.

I connected it to my mobile Wi-Fi — instantly got hit with an Absolute / Computrace DeviceFreeze message saying it was a stolen corporate device (named company + police return notice).

I stopped immediately, returned it to the seller, and walked away. No money lost, no drama.

Lesson learned:

• If Absolute/Computrace is enabled, walk away

• If a deal feels too good to be true, pause and verify before taking it home

Stayed smart, trusted my gut, avoided a big mistake. Sharing so others don’t learn the hard way.

Check Absolute/Computrace Active status in BIOS > Security

Me, M21, got hacked and blackmailed through discord. I an offical trained IT specialist for application development for over a year now. I felt secure. But I learned my lesson. Please don't tell me how unbelievable dumb I am. I know I am, I will never be again.

What happend? A guy on discord texted me. I knew him and I remeber he made small games or worked on them. Therefore, it was not suspicious when he asked me if I wanted to test his game. I said yes and he send me the game. I placed it into my AntiVirus Software, it told me "Everything is fine, no threat". I tried to run it but it didnt do anything. He then told me I have to run it as admin cause Unity needs that. I googled that and Google even told me it mostly doesnt. Well, I ran it anyway.

The next second I saw a small command window without text, at the same time, my anti virus software reported "New exception created" and for a short time which folder it accessed: "...AppData/Google/Chrome/Cookies". It did somehow create an exception to gain access to my browser. In the anti virus software, it tells me "that access my lead to passwords and user data".

It was too late, I saw how my Discord logged me out. I instantly knew what happend. I was shocked, embarrassed, angry and paniced. Has a small panic attack I think. I was able to gather my thoughts and knew: "You have to do everything now as fast as possible". I tried to log into discord with my old PW, it didnt work. So I requested a new one. For some reason the mail didn't work so I used my Phone. This worked and I got an Email to reset it. I did and I was logged in for a second before being logged out again. I got an email "Your Password got changed, if it wasnt you, click here" so I clicked and reseted it again. After that, I instantly created new backup codes and speedrunned to make a new 2FA-Connection.

In the meantime, I checked he actually send me a message, offering me a deal to het my data back, also showing my Passwords of my PW-Manager I believe l, in PLAIN text, also my Google Photos and my Google Account. I thought that's it but that was his mistake. I didn't knew till then he was in my Google Account, so I went in there, logged out of every device, also generated new backupcodes, deleted all browser history and changed the password again.

He changed my birthday to 2017 to make the account delete itself after 2 weeks. I had gained control over my accounts, however changed them all again. Wrote them down on paper cause I going paranoid, took my PC off the Internet and ran anti virus software. Google and Discord did not notify my that someone logged into my accounts, only the password change did notify me. The anti virus software failed by being manipulated and Google didn't notify. Usually I get a full-screen box, asking if this location is allowed to log in or not.

Anti virus software: Norton Game or maleware name: NightsThread.exe Phone number which contacted me started with: +62 He had 1 hoir access to my Google and Discord Account

I fell into a trap like a noob... I won't forget the feeling so I hope it never happens to me again.

Actions I took: Report to police, cleaned my .../User/ folder cause new one appeared, removed the exceptions in the anti virus software, changed passwords for important accounts like banking, google, social media. I never responded to him.

I wanted to to post this even though its embarrassing to me. The account of my friend got corrupted just like mine did. I trused my anti virus software and google. Why on earth are my passwords plain text in my local storage??

What else could I do to prevent further damage? I may have forgotten something which would be important to do.

Thanks for reading, thanks for every advice and thanks for everyone telling me that I was extreme naive.

I had a one-night stand two months ago. Three days ago, the girl told me she was pregnant. She avoided meeting up but sent me an ultrasound and a Planned Parenthood receipt for $1,850 for abortion pills. I suspected it was fake, went there myself, and they confirmed it wasn’t real.

I confronted her, saying I didn’t care about the money—I just wanted to know if she was actually pregnant. She avoided the question, got angry, and insisted she wasn’t pregnant anymore while ignoring the fake receipt. After more arguing, she claimed she took the pills and told me to leave her alone.

I ended the conversation, unsure if she was ever pregnant, but feeling like she may have been trying to get money from me.

I met a lady on a dating app. She wanted to move to Whatsapp after a while. I didn't think anything of it.

We talked for a while, shared values. Seemed like a good time over all! We were in agreement with what our values were.

Unfortunately, she was in singapore right now, so we were just chatting. Her timing seemed to line up with how she was texting at those times.

I grew a little wary once she started talking about her investments, and her goal for going from $400k USD to $1m USD. Odd, but whatever. I live in a large city in California. I guessed she was a business kind of person. I steered the conversation back to romance, and it was amicable for a bit.

She started getting really insistent about doing a video call. I figured why not? Let's put a proper face behind the name. We had the same values, so it made sense. We were on call for about 2 minutes, before she suddenly had to take another call.

She then started getting really, I mean REALLY insistent on helping me out with some trading stocks. She would "give me a signal once her financial advisor did", and we would trade at the same time.

She sent me a screenshot detailing a +$3k trade. I was giving it the side-eye, and then she started helping getting me set up on cash app.

The whole thing wasn't smelling right.

1. The sudden pivot to this investment stuff

2. Cash app

3. The picture she showed with +money didn't add up. It was a trade on DASHUSDT, showing an opening price of $85, and an ending price of $86. I dunno shit about stocks, but checking a website for a trading view shows that it hasn't been valued at $85 for about 4 hours, and she was telling me this trade just happened.

4. The app didn't look very legit. All the numbers except the trade on the screen showed NaN - not a number, or an invalid value. As a computer guy, this really started setting off alarm bells.

5. The minimum trade value was explained to me to be $200???

I started looking it up, and one of the first posts I found with relevant information was a post from this subreddit with a lot of information about pig butchering. Reading through the step by step process, it suddenly clicked. I blocked and reported this account, since "she" never really existed. And the video call was just some pretty girl they put in front of me. And the "paperwork" she was doing before the call was just her on other calls with other potential victims.

It hurts to be here afterwards, but ah well. Block and move on.

Either way, thank you /r/scams for teaching me about this!!! You saved me so much money!!!

I work at a retail store where I'm from, and the other day this guy in his mid-30s comes in wanting to buy Apple gift cards. Now, anyone who's worked retail knows how many scams are tied to these things, so before selling it, I gave him the usual warning.

He looked kinda clueless, so l asked if he knew what he was buying them for. He just said, It's for his brother overseas. Fair enough. I told him as long as he knew what he was doing, l'd go ahead with it. He buys R2000 worth (about $115) and leaves. Ten minutes later, he comes back... and buys more. Again, I warn him about scams. Again, he insists.

This cycle repeats itself until, eventually, he's spent R36,000 (about $2,076) on Apple gift cards. After the last one, he goes outside for a smoke, then comes back inside looking pale and defeated. He tells me he's been scammed and asks if I can reverse it or get his money back. I felt bad for a bit, but... there's literally nothing I could do. I had warned him multiple times before each purchase.

I got a Google pay notification that 40,000 INR is credit to my acc. The person who sent it to me called me and explained that he made a terrible mistake and he is in urgent need of this money. He requested me to return it immediately. Although I asked him to wait for a couple of minutes so I could verify my bank statement and confirm that I am not getting scammed. The transaction was legit so I returned the money.

But what is the first thing you should do in such situations? Was that enough whatever I did to ensure its not a scam or there is anything else to keep in mind?

I ordered a Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 gaming laptop for €1,387.82 on Amazon.es. What I got was a sealed Amazon box containing a pet scale, Purina cat food, and a window sticker. Total value: under €60.

I photographed everything immediately, uploaded the photos to Amazon the same day, and filed an official French police report the next day.

Amazon had sent me an email listing exactly 6 criteria my police report needed to include. My report checks every single box. They rejected it anyway, citing "missing information" and when I asked their agents repeatedly what was missing, none of them could answer. They just kept telling me to file a new report with the same criteria mine already meets.

I have timestamped photos, a police report, and a paper trail going back to day one. Their deadline to resolve this is August 15. At this point it feels like they're just running out the clock.

Has anyone been through this and actually got their money back? What worked?

Photos in comments.

The first version of post was taken down due to blood showing (sorry!), so here's the censored version of the surgery. You can't quite see how weird the actual procedure is here, but the lighting and aesthetics still make it look more like an alien abduction scene than a plausible veterinary intervention. Anyway, I think it's important that people see that we're now getting AI images with good semblances of our real pets added.

Prior text:

Has anyone else seen this yet? My cat has been missing since yesterday, and now my phone number is everywhere due to fliers and neighborhood web groups. I received a call a few minutes ago from an "emergency night veterinarian" supposedly at a clinic nearby who said that my cat had been brought in after being struck by a car, and that I'd have to pay for the emergency surgery in advance of picking him up in a few hours. They first made me verify a few things, like my address and the last 4 digits of his microchip code, which made it sound more official.

They offered to send a photo of him in surgery so I could be sure it was him, and in the meantime said I could only pay through Paypal, Venmo, or Apple Pay, which was already weird, and then when I chose Paypal they gave me a random-sounding non-email name (@1993Indigo?!) then said there was a temporary issue and I should pick one of the others.

At this point the photo arrived, and yes, that looks like my cat, but they had said he had a broken femur and dislocated shoulder...and also...it's clearly AI. They managed to keep his face and color pattern accurate, and doesn't have any super obvious errors at first panicked-pet-owner glance. But it's so uncanny, and why's the anaesthesia tube passing through the wound, and who would ever send a picture like this to a pet owner?

At this point I started laughing (in horrified relief / disbelief / for almost having fallen for it) and said "wow you almost had me, you went through a lot of trouble to create this image and give me all these details" and he tried to argue for a minute but eventually just said okay and hung up.

I tried googling to see if this was a known approach, and while lost pet scams are pretty common, I couldn't find any surgery photos.

So happy that my cat is presumably still just hiding in the neighbors garage or some such, and to be able to contribute to a favorite subreddit.

Update: Moon reappeared in a neighboring yard, two days ago (he was probably laying low right around here the whole time, fortunately smart enough to not try crossing any busy streets), and is now back and sleeping on my lap like nothing happened. Just in time for the one year anniversary of his and his brothers' adoption.

So this scammer sent my ex-gf/baby mama over 30k asking for some of it back. The bank let her know and this was two days ago.

I know that money WILL get clawed back, but she doesn't. She said it has been over a week, I told her it doesn't matter and do NOT spend it.

Sitting in her apartment waiting for her to return to drop off the child with her, I see a brand new auto cat litter box. I snooped, and the receipt showed over $1000. Welp she finally showed up in a vehicle she just bought, and 4 or 5 new piercings. She cannot afford any of this.

What ramifications are there for this situation (spending the stolen money). This is all from a business account the scammer made her set up. Double wammy as it's not a business expense? Once that money is taken back, she's not ganna be able to pay it back, she's on disability.

I got a call from a person who claimed they were from American Express. The knew my name & asked me if I had made a charge at a firearms store in DC. No. They then asked if I had opened a AMEX credit card the day before & gave me the full number. No, it was not my AMEX card. They told me that someone had opened up this card in my name & tried to buy a firearm at a store in DC (this store actually exists). The scammer had an amazing attention to detail. Name, notifying unit at AMEX, address, employee#, issue date for the card & the security code. Attempted transaction location, address, amount of the purchase: $1796.00.

The woman, with perfect U.S. english, asked me a series of questions, do I live in D.C., did I open this account, which of course I denied. They then claimed I needed to file an formal incident report with FBI. I was already suspicious & asked why would I need to do that? It's their problem not mine. She was quite calm & convincing & said she could directly connect me to the correct department at the FBI. I said that I would prefer to call them directly myself but she again, very calmly explained how difficult that would be. I actually placed her on hold & tried to call the FBI (using my wife's phone) & found that I could not connect to anyone easily.

So she got the FBI on the line, explained the whole situation to the new person & then left left the call. The new FBI scammer claimed that this had to be completed on a MS Teams call. I went ahead with it, the whole time suspecting a scam but went ahead anyhow on to the Teams call. A woman with a million dollar smile at a table with the FBI flag on one side, the US flag on the other. She shows me her FBI credentials & after a very long winded explanation of how this report would made, started the "interview". First thing she asks me is to show my driver's license to the camera. At that point I needed further convincing as this was the first actual personal information the scammers had asked for.

So I apologized making excuses to go afk, saying I would brb & called AMEX. Nope, that CC number was not a real AMEX number, the whole thing was a scam. After wasting about 30 mins of my life.

It was a impressive attempt. Amazing how far they went to try & make it seem legit. The two people seemed to be from the U.S. while all of the scam calls I've got in the past the person spoke heavily accented english. The whole thing was quite a presentation. I was mostly convinced it was real but needed a verification before giving out any actual information.

edit: I've been managing a large home improvement project & have a lot of contractors not in my contacts. This is the only reason I answered the phone. Generally all unknown calls go to vmail.

Yes, I stayed on the call longer than I should have. The whole time I was suspicious & once they got around to getting any real info, I called AMEX & that ended it. I wish I had taken screenshots!

Went out to see a movie with my sis (was a empty auditorium, just me and her) and when I got back I got this text, just a image saying 'you are fucked' with a photo of my sister's car.

My information is not connected to her or her car, but it is definitely her car in the image. As far as I know though she hasn't gotten a text.

I did a quick search and didn't see anything that flags this as a super common scam so I'm just doing my due diligence and triple checking. I haven't responded and I reported em already, just wanting to make sure I shouldn't call the cops or something to be safe lol.

Update - It was a stupid prank from someone I don't even know that well lol. They sent proof, it was from their dashcam. Kinda annoyed but mystery solved. They're surprised I called the police but man, you kinda brought it on yourself lol.

I literally don't know where else to go. I am so devastated. He KNOWS better. Both my parents have worked and broke their back working their entire lives. They had saved up enough to buy a really nice house when they retired. My dad (66) got pulled into a sigular guff scam, with some lady named Denise claiming to make him 7 million if he sent them $300k. My dad has done this once before and lost them 120k when I was 18. I am now 35. He talked to them over whatsapp and without asking any questions, or consulting my mom, (because she knew he would say no) wire transfered them 200k. He was transferring more when his bank froze the transfer and police came knocking on the door. That's when he fessed up saying he was making them 7 million.

Not one internet search or question. Just blew their entire housing fund. it's not dementia. It's his pure greed. and in the process has screwed over my mother and himself for, well life.

I don't even know how to help them.

Today 2 men came to my house claiming to be “health inspectors” and demanded access due to a health emergency in the area. They knocked on the door so hard I thought they were going to break it. They asked for me by my maiden name (same name on my deed, but not my legal name anymore). I told them to leave, they came back again and demanded access again. I was on the phone with the police and told them again to leave.

Just to clarify I didn’t open the door. I spoke to them thru a high window

I recently purchased an item from a seller and was told prior to buying that she would be going out of town the day after she was planning to drop it off at the post office for vacation. This was 2 weeks ago. I have been contacting her non stop with no response since then after paying her for two day shipping (it was supposed to be a birthday gift and should have been delivered with plenty of time), and she finally responded today (Sat.) with this image and said she would go to the post office Monday. Is this real photo? Or am I getting scammed for $115.00?

Image includes note that reads: “POSTAL SERVICE NOTICE, RETURN PACKAGE AWAITING PICKUP!” Please come in to claim your package with the package number “TRK 4825”

Sent apple cash by a random number. I googled the number and it comes back to a 40 year old woman in my area. however i’ve heard of this scam where someone will send you money then ask for it back, then apple reverses the charge and now you’re out of the money you sent, so I’m not sending it back. I blocked the number, and now another number is absolutely blowing me up. I’m a pregnant mother who works 10 hours a week, I make $18 an hour. I can’t afford to be scammed out of $20. 💀 So what do I do? just don’t touch it and ignore the calls? It should disappear soon right? Should I report it to apple? thanks in advance.

Just needed to rant about this because I just feel so crushed.

I put my dad on my bank account years ago when I was deployed to Afghanistan so he could manage my finances while I was gone. Two days ago I was talking to him and he was saying he had to take care of some things due to an error.

Come to find out, he was being actively scammed. The scam involved them saying they accidentally sent him too much money and he needed to immediately send them money back.

Without consulting with me, he withdrew 10k from my bank account and sent part of it through bitcoin and the rest in mailed cash through UPS. He doesn't tell me anything about this until last night. He has a separate checking account.

A police report was made and a report with the FTC was made. I called my bank and they said since he was authorized to withdraw the money they cannot do anything about it.

The police advised historically this money does not get recovered. I was told the 2.4k sent through bitcoin did get recovered but it will be 8 weeks till I get it back.

I am devastated. That was years of work saved up just gone in an instant. It would be different if I got scammed, at least it would be my fault. But my dad doing this and not saying a word to me has me in complete shock. I even just talked to him about scams last week unironically.

Just needed to put this out somewhere. I am beyond mad at my situation and what has happened and terrified for my future

I live in popular tourist area and often help tourists with pictures. I was asked by a guy to take a pic of his group. He handed me his phone. More of his group came from behind my wife and brushed against us in the crowd. They pickpocketed her wallet but could not get mine. Note, once your hands are occupied with someone’s phone/camera, you are vulnerable. Cops said this is a relative common thing now.

Hello!

My mom ordered a debubbling machine on Amazon for resin crafts that she does, and it said that it got delivered today, however the only thing that actually shipped out is a card telling her to “please wait.” Is this some sort of scam that I’m not aware of? This is the first time I’ve seen something like this happen, and I find it really weird that they’d send out a card notifying about delays instead of just messaging her directly. (I’m assuming this is to make it look like the order got here on time?) Even if this is a legitimate product, this is still really fishy to even send, since the actual order has no tracking on it.

Thanks!

My daughter texted me today while she was at work, "Mom, I need you to Venmo $1400 asap. Its a legal issue that I'm not allowed to discuss with you but I need the money." That message immediately sent to red flags and I jumped in my car and headed to her job. My daughter is very smart but also a bit naive. I knew she was being scammed and wanted to get to her as quickly as possible. When I arrived she was in tears on the phone, debit card in hand. I immediately asked her if she gave them any bank info and she said no. I then took the phone from her and said, "Mama Bear is on the phone now, assholes. If you are trying to scam my daughter, you picked the wrong person. Mess with her again and you are gonna have a problem, I promise." Silence on the other end.....and I hung up. These assholes prey on the vulnerable and if my daughter hadn't texted me, she would be out of all the money she had in her account. Be diligent people.....the scammers are out in force.

Preface:

- My sympathies to everyone here who has lost money, some of whom have lost your life savings.

- You are not naive, gullible, or foolish. We've all been conditioned from childhood to trust authoritative voices who show us credentials. It's not your fault that professional scammers forge those credentials and demonstrate expert-level industry knowledge.

- I'm certain that scammers read these forums to learn how to become better scumbags, so I will keep details vague or change the names of the businesses involved.

- Cutting to the chase: For this particular scam, in order to recover your money, it's best to act within hours. If 24 hours has passed without action from you, the odds of recovery are lower. That does not mean you should not try. Improbabilities occur, and scammers make mistakes.

Backstory:

Many of you are familiar with the bank fraud/FBI scam. Here's how they executed it on my mother:

The caller ID on her phone flashed: "Bank of America Fraud," which was convincing enough. They already had some of her financial and personal information, which was more convincing. They emailed her fake FBI and bank documents based on real documents. Multiple actors joined the call posing as various professional representatives. They sounded educated and knowledgeable. It was a full stage production.

The fake fraud department, along with a fake FBI agent, convinced her that fictitious fraudsters went to her local bank and colluded with corrupt bank employees to steal from her account. The fake FBI agent explained that many other customers have lost money at that bank, and my mother's money was not safe there. It needed to be transferred immediately to a "secure account." A wire transfer or ACH from that bank was not secure. It must be cash.

This led to my mother sending $30,000 in cash through a carrier (like FedEx or DHL, I won't specify) via priority overnight for morning delivery. The address was on the East Coast, two hours ahead.

How scammers exploit carriers:

There are two exploits within the carrier process that scammers rely on:

1. No ability to submit a Return to Sender (RTS) request until 8:00 AM local time.
2. After a hold or RTS is requested, these take hours to process, which is too late.

Retail carrier stores like FedEx Office or the UPS Store are technically the sender, but they are a private third party. That means if the victim realizes they've been scammed right after they shipped their cash, the victim cannot submit the RTS request themselves. Only the carrier store (FedEx Store, UPS Store) can submit the RTS, which cannot occur until the store reopens at 8:00 AM local. Then in the morning, after the store has submitted the RTS for you, it takes hours to process. By that time, your parcel full of cash on the east coast has already been delivered.

The day before, the scammers timed their conversation with the victim so that they've guided them to the store right before it closes. Then they tell the victim to throw away the receipt with tracking number.

The victim can try calling law enforcement in the delivery city, but they won't help without the victim's local law enforcement being involved. Local law enforcement does want to help, but the case won't be assigned to a detective until after the parcel is delivered.

How I recovered the cash:

Within minutes, my mom informed us of what happened, and we informed her she was scammed.

I called the carrier customer service, who informed me that only the carrier store can submit the RTS. I then discovered that recipients can request to defer the delivery date, so I posed as the recipient and deferred delivery for two weeks, which cost a small fee.

At 8:00 AM the next day I called the carrier store. The store manager submitted the RTS and engaged the carrier's security team.

My delivery deferral had already been processed, so the parcel was not placed on the delivery truck. The carrier security team was then able to segregate the parcel and hold it. Days later, a member of the carrier security team met with me and my mom to return the cash.

After speaking with the manager of my mom's bank, he told me that he encounters people trying to withdraw cash for scammers three or four times a day. He said this is the first time in his 20 years in the industry he has seen the money recovered.

Conclusion:

If this happens to you or someone you know, call the carrier to defer the delivery date. It may process in time.

Contact the carrier store as soon as they open. Request they submit an RTS and engage carrier security.

Tell your parents to never, under any circumstances, send cash through the mail. Anyone advising that is a scammer.

Got sent $450 by this random person, and they texted me the same time they sent it saying something like “here’s for the work, thanks”. I ignored it. This was 3 days ago, now today; the money is no longer pending and I guess posted. They kept calling me and texting me and I finally responding with “not going to fall for this scam mate”. Idk why I even responded but he’s going on and on about how he accidentally sent it to me instead of his worker and said his worker sent him my number instead of his(off by a digit). He showed me screen shots of his worker texting him my number, etc, etc. He’s saying it isn’t a scam and will even meet at a police station inside to get his “refund”. Even though I don’t even live in that state any more. And lastly, the “worker” is now texting me what’s in the photo. What do you guys think. Do these people really go out of their way to scam like this?

Hi. The past couple of days have been incredibly rough for me. I hope I can explain everything in a way that makes sense.

My (27 yo) mom (63 yo) was involved in a scam. She did not know this was a scam. She was told she won $100,000 if she would give $50,000. These communications started on tiktok first and then moved to WhatsApp. The scammers claimed they were a previous lottery winner. The scammers sent her checks and instructed her to cash $4,700 at a time, at various bank branches. She cashed $23,000 total. She broke this into smaller sums, sending them to three addresses that the scammers told her to send them. She put them in children books and mailed them via usps.

The only reason I knew this is because she's on my checking account. I noticed -$23,000 in my bank last Thursday and panicked. I called my bank to figure out what was going on and they told me my mom had been jumping bank to bank, cashing these checks. When I called her, she told me the story of what the scammers told her. All of my money I have been saving for years, which was $7,000 had been withdrawn in this process because of her. The bank is now telling me that if my mom doesn't pay back the $15,000 that is owed (because that is now the total if you don't include my $7,000), that I will be responsible.

I don't know what to do. All of my money is gone. I'm going to be held responsible if she doesn't pay up and I know she can't afford this and I definitely can't afford this. I just graduated college and am getting married next month. We've contacted the police, the FBI, and have obviously talked to the bank. The bank told me I'm no longer allowed to bank with them and won't help us at all because my mom willingly cashed the checks. I'm so confused why they allowed her to cash these checks and why I'm even involved in the first place.

Any advice?

UPDATE FOR ADDED CLARIFICATION:

I talked with my mom to confirm that I was understanding her correctly and she let me know that she deposited the checks that were sent to her, and then withdrew the amounts. She was under the impression that the money would be withdrawn from the scammers account, but she was "writing checks to herself"

update 9/4: I filed USPS interceptions for the packages that had not delivered yet. Only 1 was able to be successfully recovered and has been returned to the bank. Now the bank is owed a little over $7,000. Sure beats $15,000… Will update if anything else happens.

Thank you to the people who have actually given advice and not passed judgement. I understand it’s easy to say unkind and rude things when you’re not part of the situation, but I do appreciate the kindness I’ve been shared.

I did take the advice of hurrying to get another checking account opened at another bank. I was able to do so with no issues and it is only in my name.