Got a call from a 559 area code claiming to be US Bank. Red flag #1, but I answered anyway.

The caller asked if I used Zelle and claimed there were two suspicious pending transactions—$2,000 and $1,000—to a "Jennifer" I’d never heard of. When I said they weren't mine, he started asking if I had traveled or connected to public Wi-Fi recently to make it sound official. He assured me the funds were on hold and gave me a fake "case number" and "cancellation number," then transferred me to their "returns department."

Red flag #2: While on the phone, I logged into my banking app and saw zero pending or active Zelle transactions. When I brought this up, he quickly claimed that was "a good thing" because it meant the money hadn't officially left my account yet.

Red flag #3: The next guy instructed me to open my bank app, go to Zelle, and enter the "cancellation number" as the recipient's phone number/email to cancel it. When I questioned why I had to add a recipient to cancel a charge, he insisted it was standard procedure.

At that point, I told him I was right next to a physical branch (I wasn't) and was heading inside to deal with it in person. He started rambling, but I hung up, called the official 1-800 number on the back of my card, and confirmed it was 100% a scam.

These scammers are getting sneaky. Rule of thumb: If your bank supposedly calls you, hang up immediately and call them back using the official number on your card or app.

EDIT: thanks for confirming my suspicions everyone! Seller has been blocked and ignored.

Sent a text to somebody from Craigslist who is trying to sell their PS5 for lower price than average. It’s my first time buying from an online marketplace and some of the behavior is just… weird?

Firstly, not accepting cash and only wanting to use direct transfer apps. Secondly, not removing or changing their local listing after going to a new location and then offering to ship it before being payed?

Idk, like I said I don’t buy used stuff from people online so this all seems highly skeptical to me. Thanks in advance all.

I keep seeing stories on Facebook about college students or desperate people who give scammers their bank info, let them deposit fake checks, and then lose money when the checks bounce.

I understand that many are genuine victims, especially students desperate for money. But how do banks know they weren’t in on the scam?
If someone willingly gives out their banking info and allows someone to withdraw or transfer money from a suspicious check, what separates a naive victim from someone pretending to be one?

Couldn’t someone use this as an inside job and simply claim they got scammed afterward? How do investigators tell the difference?

I listed a pasta machine on marketplace and a buyer commented on the listing, not messaging me.

"Hi! My sister Sherry is interested and would be able to pick it up as soon as possible. Feel free to call or text her at number. Thank you!"

I texted:

"Hi is this Sherry? I was told you were interested in buying a pasta maker in grand rapids"

She responded:

"Hi! Yes please. What’s the condition of the item? How long have you owned it for? What’s your price? I’d love to buy it right now. Where are you located?"

I gave a park near my house and answered the other questions and she responded with:

"What day & time works for you? Can’t meet now i have breast cancer but my husband can pick it up anywhere.What’s the actually address to pick up or meet?"

I'm like 70% shure its a scam but I would like a second opinion

[US]

Somebody claiming to be an investigator with the county Sheriff’s Office called my work, asking for me by name. I pick up, he gives me a number to call with an extension (edit: it was the same number he called my shop with, and the caller ID said SAFE FENCE) and when I press, says he “can’t tell me details of the case” upon asking if I should be concerned he said “well we’ll get that squared away”, but also said i’m not going to jail lol. He said I had to get in my car and go to the local sheriffs office to get some report with all of this information, and that “nobody will have to know about it” (i.e, make it go away lol), I cannot go there, but am actually within walking distance to my towns PD. He said “oh I can just fax it” and then told me he’d tell me what was going on on the way(?)

He eventually did tell me what was going on (also something I absolutely did not do lmao, he claimed to know this and even actually said he determined there was no illegal activity or something on my part via his investigation)

I, naively, prepared to go, talked to my coworkers about it and they seemed sketched out. Told me to ask for a badge number (he had given me his name at this point, but I don’t remember it) and I did, though he gave me a number he immediately got belligerent and tensions very quickly turned into argument and yelling, this ended with him saying “we’re just gonna do this the official way, they’ll come serve you in person and you’ll see the uniforms.” When escalated further because I wouldn’t give him my “legal name as it appears on my drivers license” immediately so he could “verify it’s me to send me the report” (even though he already told me what it was about.) he claimed there was a warrant also, even though he said I was in the clear (I guess? Idk. I left confused) and that they’d come serve me, arrest me, take me to jail and I could make my case in trial. He hung up after.

Now, I absolutely did not do what they claimed lol. I’m a tattoo artist, he claimed there was a “report made about a month ago that I tattooed the private area of a 17 year old girl” (absolutely not, I am extremely serious about my paperwork and making sure someone has a physical ID. Straight up this is laughable) Also I haven’t tattooed a girl in her “private area” in my career lol, he claimed to know this and told me he found out it was her “sex offender boyfriend and she chose to blame me when her mom found out”

Now, i’m a pretty anxious person. I’ve had a really rough few years and I suffer from OCD, which turns this kinda stuff up to 10 in my head. My anxiety got the best of me here. I guess my confusion comes in to like

Why tell me to go to the sheriffs office or police office? What are they going to gain from this? It’s not like they asked for money, but there are a ton of obvious red flags here that scream “fake! Scam!”, but I was wondering if anybody else has had a similar experience

EDIT (again): I called my local sheriff’s office and barely even started talking before they told me I was being scammed lol, I didn’t have a chance to inquire about a badge number or anything, but I did say that he shared details about a case with me. Am I still anxious? Yes. Because he told me they’d probably come to me within the week or a few days and I am mentally ill lol

So i got 2 emails from [[support@infochecker.com](mailto:support@infochecker.com)](mailto:[support@infochecker.com](mailto:support@infochecker.com)) one saying “Hi there, Welcome to Infochecker.com. We have received your payment. Below is your credentials to login and use Infochecker.com.” and the credentials had my email. and the other email said “your trial has started successfully Thank you for your order. You will find your
payment details below:” and apparently the website is a legit online reverse phone lookup website, but i have never even used this website. I went to my transactions and i wasnt charged anything but i locked my cards. I went to their actual website and clicked cancel subscription just in case any accounts were actually created but im genuinely confused how they got ahold of my email and the payment apparently went through? and around that time, i also got a message to my number saying Hello, one of your loved ones is looking for you. with an infochecker link attached to it. im so confused. How would they have even gotten my card info

OK, I am going to try to explain this. It totally has to be fraud, but damn if I can figure it all out. Kinda scary really. I am going to try to keep this as clear as possible, but it is kinda weird. I have this prepaid card from Spendwell, its the Dollars General generic prepaid card. I have it so I can use it for stuff online I am not super comfortable with.

I don't keep much on it. My balance was something like $117 dollars. I get a report from Spendwell like maybe once a month just giving me my balance. Just got one and my balance is like 12 bucks. That don't jive with what I know my balance was and the report. I log onto my Spendwell account and yep, balance is about twelve bucks. I have one legit charge and then 5 or more charges I did not make. Seems reasonable enough, I think we all have a card number compromised every not and then.

Here is where it totally gets weird. They all were from Paypal and all with vendors my WIFE makes charges to with a different card. This card has never been associated with her or my paypal accounts. The amounts were bogus and did not match actual amounts paid to paypal. The bogus transactions did not show up on Paypal. I have every alert possible activated on the card my wife uses. Any purchase that hits that card for any amount I get a text and an email. I don't care what she buys, I just keep an eye on it for charges that make no sense. The transactions of course do not show up on her paypal account. She has never had access to this card or its number and her name is not on it. I just keep it for little stuff online. The card has never been used except for my here and there online purchases.

So, clearly fraud. I would not wish on any of you the ordeal of a phone conversation I had with Spendwell customer support. I am not sure I actually if they are going to fix it, but its $112 bucks, I got the prepaid card to limit my exposure. I need to find a prepaid card from a real card company.

So the two questions are 1) how did they know she was making paypal purchases, and 2) far more perplexing, how could they possibly steal her paypal purchases from where ever, and THEN put charges on my Spendwell card?? Her name is not on it. She has zero idea what the number is. She could not have possibly used it anywhere including paypal. So how the hell did they steal information about her paypal purchase then make charges a card she didn't even know existed till I asked the to look at her Paypal stuff. How did they connect her paypal account to my dinky little prepaid card??

Edit: She thinks the compromise was with her Spectrum email. She gets notices of each purchase she makes on Paypal there. The charges on my prepaid card are the companies she spends money with (mostly international), her emails always show the companies, BUT her paypal details show who actually made the charge, and none of them use the actual name that shows up on the billing. They are are operating under various business names that do not match what the surface level paypal charges say. The charge may say AMV, but the business name is totally different (and legit).

She thinks the breach was with her email. Not sure that makes sense. I spent a career in IT and they would have to had compromised her email and then searched for transactions. AI could do that. Ugh. Still does not explain how her purchased could show up on my dinky prepaid card she had no knowledge of. They never tried to hit the real card. The implications suck. Compromised emails, AI searching for transactions, then AI searching for associations with other accounts - which would mean they have a comprehensive data set from somewhere. And hitting poorly managed prepaid cards. Thoughts?? I don't give a shit about the $112, the question is how did it happen.

I need some advice because this situation is giving me red flags.

A guy named Leo messaged me asking if I was Martin’s friend. He asked if Martin had told me about Upwork, and when I said no, he explained that Upwork is a freelancing platform and that he was working with a team.

He told me he was trying to grow his team and needed more Upwork accounts. He offered to pay me if I created an account and shared it with him. He also said this would be a long-term partnership, not a one-time payment.

When I asked him whether he was a client or a freelancer, he said no. Then he told me not to create the account myself and asked me to send him my full legal name, date of birth, legal address, and a photo.

I have NOT sent him any of my personal information or photos. I stopped to think about it because the whole thing seemed suspicious.

Why would someone need other people's identities to create Upwork accounts? What could they potentially do with those accounts? Could this be related to scams, fake profiles, money laundering, or something else?

Has anyone encountered this before? I'd appreciate advice from people familiar with Upwork or online job scams.

They used paypal, so I was gonna pay, but they sent me an invoice instead, and it was coming from an unknown company called Softech Communications. What made it worse was that item I ordered was misspelt, so it started to increase my suspicions even further. I looked back at the "example" they sent me, and I'm pretty sure they just traced an AI Image and presented it as art (Doesn't help too that they had a preview overlay that I often see in traced artwork). I feel bad as they seemed to be the first (at least I think) person to actually interact with me and not be a bot. If you have any explanations as to what just happen, if I can cancel the invoice, and know what to look out for in the future, please let me know.

I am 25f, I live with my boyfriend but today he’s working and I had the day off so I’m home alone.

About 15 minutes ago a young Asian male rung my doorbell. He told me he was looking for this “Chinese girl”, and he showed me pictures. The pictures looked like they were off google, some sort of Chinese model or influencer. Very polished photos. He asked if I had seen her, I said no. Then he claimed he found her laptop. Which was weird because if you know what she looks like, and know it’s her stuff, how do you not know how to find her? He even told me what her “name” was.

He told me, if you find her call me. He gave me a card with her name, his number, and his name.

I know it was dumb for me to answer the door, but initially I didn’t think much, he looked like a young college student. I thought maybe he’s a neighbor who needed something. But now the interaction had made me feel weird. I told my boyfriend and he freaked out and said I shouldn’t have answered the door and to keep the doors locked and not leave until he’s home.

I did call the non emergency line and told them everything, they said they will send an officer to my community to look around and see if they see him.

Is this some sort of scam? I’m thinking maybe he’s baiting me to call the number and it will get me to send money or something. Which is a safer scenario bc I’m obviously not going to call lol. My bigger worry is he’s staking the apartment, and now he sees that a young female (me) lives there, or seeing if we have anything valuable in the house. Or, he’s a stalker looking for a girl who doesn’t want to be found.

Hi everyone, I encountered a potential scam link on social media. It was advertised as a link to join a gaming group for duo matchmaking, but it looks like a phishing setup.

When clicking it, instead of joining a normal gaming room, it prompts me to download an unauthorized Android APK called "心Mo" (V3.14.97), claiming to be an "officially authorized app" for gaming. The login page also keeps failing.

I suspect hackers are using gaming duo invitations as bait to deploy malware or steal accounts. Has anyone seen this "心Mo" app before or experienced similar gaming duo link scams? Thanks!

I recently got a message from an artist I follow saying my account had scammed theirs. They and their friends have mass-reported my account and said if I did not remove the reports, my account would be permanently suspended. They then sent me a Discord ID "oliversupport_" and told me to contact them for support. Because I have not experienced anything like this before, I did not know what to expect.

I interacted with the scammer and the other person on Discord. I gave them access to my Twitter account, and now it's gone.

i conversed with the scammer, and then they asked for my personal information, which immediately rang alarms in my brain.

Are there any other consequences besides loosing my account? 😰

I received a call from from a caller with a very "English is not my first language" accent. They identified themselves as the fraud research division for TD Bank, NY Branch. They went on to say that I'd had a card issued on Sept 3 that was attempting to be used for a $7435 purchase at gunbroker.com. They had my telephone number and home address. They were were persistent on me speaking with the NY Police Dept to file a police report and could connect me directly to their investigator. Something felt very off and I told him I would contact. I called the number back and it went to a "You have reached the voicemail for 'the telephone number here'" What is the angle?

I was in the process of taking an 500$ Art commission and the commissioner wanted to use Skrill. The problem was first that an email was sent that apparently 800$ is needed to make a business account which I still don’t know if it’s true on Skrill. So he would need to send 300$ to make it 800. He did that after I promised to send it back to him. Then I got a second email which says that I now needed to refund 300$ back to him so that I would be even. I haven’t sent the 300$ back to him cause I got unsure and as I’m writing this it feels like a scam. Do you think it is?

The skrill email adress is also different in these emails compared to the ones I got from creating my account.

I logged onto a YouTube video and there was a qr code waiting for the roadster to day. While waiting I scanned the code and clicked on it. The first screen was a puzzle to prove your not a bot, second screen was a white button you have to click to participate. Then took me to a screen to don't various forms of bitcoin etc. I immediately saw it was a scam, closed out, deleted history, downloaded and ran malware bytes, bitdefender free, and google play protect. I then shut my phone off and restarted.

What is the possibility that my phone downloaded a virus? This is literally the first time I ever did anything this dumb, luckily i didn't send any money, but now I am afraid to log into any apps etc for fear that I may have malware. Thoughts?

They are a scam. The photo of their building is fake. They blocked my number when I said I wanted to go there and see a car they have for sale. I'm guessing they only want to deal with people who won't check them out in person. They look very legitimate but beware!

I have to believe only the names are changed to protect the guilty.

Got this unsolicited email from a person with (a woman's name) a few days ago, with several follow-ups:
--
"I recently viewed your profile and was impressed by your background and experience. I’d love to connect and exchange thoughts, insights, and experiences regarding our careers.

Looking forward to staying in touch and learning from one another.

Best regards,
xxxx."

--

This has been followed up twice, first:

"Following up on my previous email again—I hope this one reaches you! Please let me know when you have a moment if you’ve seen it."

And then today:

"I’m following up on my previous email—it may have just gotten buried in your inbox. If you see it, please feel free to send a brief response."

--

It all smells funny, and I'd wager that others have seen the same template used in their mailbox.

MAJOR UPDATE:

It was never fraud.
We called Best Buy. The support person (very illegally) gave me the name and number of the person who are the order. I was surprised, but it helped us solve the mystery.

It was my fiancé's friend. His name was the name the support person gave me. Well, not exactly.

My fiancé has known this man as a singular name for over 20 years. A nickname.

Best Buy lady says a full name, even gives us a phone number, because the address the guy listed was OUR address.

We google google google the number and the name, found some hits on white pages based in oklahoma. I read the address of one.

Then it hits my fiancé.

"Repeat that home address one more time."

IT WAS THE GUY, BUT HE USED HIS GUBMENT NAME THAT MY FIANCÉ DIDNT REMEMBER!!!!

THEY WERE WEDDING GIFTS!!!

TWO NEW SWITCH 2S!!!!!!!!

Hi, just found 2 random Best Buy packages on my porch. Addressed to me but with a shortening of my name that I only use on my Google account. It had my name and full address.

What do I need to do? I never ordered these. It's more than $1000 of merchandise. I have no record of a purchase in my email or on my credit cards. I have no Best Buy account, and even if I did, it would have been addressed to my full legal name and not my shortened name that I only use for my Google account.

Google is saying I'm not obligated to return which is kinda neat, because truthfully who even knows if it was actually from best buy (sender address says "Best Buy Returns" not just "Best Buy") but I just want to know what to do considering I am uninterested in being roped into a fraud ring against my will.

UPDATE: WAS NOT A SCAM!!! It was a legitimate email from my bank, I called my bank this morning and they told me reporting the activity suspended my account, and they were able to get me back in. Also told me that the “suspicious activity” was likely Amazon, the rep told me that linked accounts like Amazon, PayPal, Venmo etc. will periodically have to re-authenticate bank information, which will trigger the “suspicious activity” alert. Certainly a stressful 12 hours for me but glad that it was all legitimate and I didn’t get my info stolen!

ORIGINAL POST: I got an email tonight from my bank (at least i thought) saying suspicious activity was detected with my account and a link to report it. I clicked the link, there wasn’t anything to enter information or anything, just a “report activity” button. I clicked that, but now I can’t sign into my account. I tried to do the reset password option but I didn’t get an email. I’m now panicking because I may have just somehow gotten my bank account hacked and idk what to do. My bank doesn’t have any after hours customer support so I can’t do anything tonight, but I’m at work right now and I’m stressed the fuck out because it’s my livelihood we’re talking about here.

Is it possible to get hacked like that even though I didn’t enter any information?? Maybe it’s possible my bank automatically locked my account because of the activity or something but idk, like I didn’t enter any information at all but maybe they were able to get something somehow just from my opening the link. Am I gonna lose all my money? I’m so stressed right now.

My wife got a call from a brooks callan, and supposedly she owes them money. The amount is about 1500 and they say theyre a medical group or something. They said they have been sending us letters in the mail but we've gotten nothing. They even told her her SSN. The thing is, she has only been in the hospital once like 15 years ago for a car accident but had never recieve anything about making payments. I called the number that called her and the machine put me through to talk to someone but after a minute of waiting it just kept ringing and i hanged up. Does anyone know of said company or is this a possible scam? Considering they have her SSN im worried.

Hi everyone! I'd like to ask for advice about a recruitment process that I'm unsure about.

I applied for a remote administrative position through a job platform and received an interview invitation the following day. However, the recruiter used an email domain that differed from the company I applied to. They sent me a Calendly link to schedule a short interview, followed by a confirmation email with Google Meet details.

When I checked the original job listing again, it was no longer available.

I'm not sure whether the listing was simply removed or whether the different email domain is a warning sign. I haven't been able to independently verify the recruiter's connection to the company.

Has anyone encountered this domain or a similar recruitment process? What should I verify before proceeding?

I'd appreciate any advice. Thank you!

I can't tell if this is a scam because it sounds like it's in reverse. My mother has received a call from a local number multiple times per day on multiple days. The guy leaves a voicemail saying he has an email from her and that he wants to give her his credit card number. My mother is retired and this person appears to work for a local land development company from what i googled. My mother has never contacted this person, nor is she expecting payment for anything.

Usually people are asking FOR your credit card number, not trying to give it to you. Is this a scam I don't know about? Could someone have spoofed my mothers email and is asking for something from this person?

About a few weeks ago, I got a text from someone claiming to be from a talent pool agency saying they had an opportunity for me that would pay me 6100 bucks a month. Then someone texted my cell phone, and wanted me to sign up for work...

This kind of screamed scam, but I was desperate for money so I signed up for the web site, and they wanted me to boost apps on an app store of some form. And I did. Where I think it's a scam, the last review you do, you have to deposit money into the account using CashApp because it's a "premium order. You have to do 2 sets of 40 tasks. Usually it's like 60 to 100 dollars to complete one set... it feels like a scam and I might have fallen for it. So fool me once, shame on me.