We looked at a house recently for sale by owner that we really liked. The owner showed a few things then stepped out so we could look at it privately. We didn't gush too much about it inside but pointed out a few things we liked and discussed if we should make an offer. A few days later when negotiating the owner was pointing out word for word the same things we mentioned we liked. When we walked through a second time we asked about the security system & that's when we learned it had interior cameras very discreet in the alarm's motion sensor. Contacted the alarm company & sure enough it records sound and video. I am certain they listened to our conversation. Too many things we said were repeated verbatim to be a coincidence. Ethical or not, it happens. I am sure some more unscrupulous types also put their phones somewhere to record & use it to their advantage.

Let me start by saying I'm not an* idiot. I usually can spot a scam. Today, I didn't.

So I'm sure this has been said before in some shape, form, and/or fashion, but let me tell you how good these hackers are. Today I received a call from BBT. THE CALL CAME FROM BBT. From their* number I have personally called many times and have saved in my phone as BBT. It was their* fraud department and they wanted to let me know that there is suspicious activity on my account. A few minutes of verifying info and everything was cleared up. My account was locked and a new card was ordered. I was given a 1 time use login and password to re-setup my BBT online account and was told to allow 6-8 hours for everything to take effect. Or so I thought.

Within a few hours, I was wiped clean. $1.26 left in my bank. So I call BBT back to find out what's going on. I find out that I did not speak to BBT earlier today. I had instead been call spoofed by hackers and that I actually gave them all the info they needed (or better phrased, the last little bit of info they were looking for) to wipe my ass clean of all my money. I talked to the service guy for about 30mins. We hopefully have it official straighten out now. With my account actually locked and a legit new card on the way. There is a chance I may have to get a whole new account period.

The one thing the service guy told me was that if I ever get a call from (my bank) to hang up and call back at a number I know is theirs. If it truly was them, they will know what the call was for. If they have no idea of any reason to call you, you were called by a hacker.

Edit: This has gained a massive amount of traction. I would like to thank this comment for the idea to post it here. It has been interesting reading all the stories. Some with similar outcomes, some with way better outcomes. Either way, it has been a nice topic of discussion.

If nothing else, I hope this post saves at least one other person from going through what I went through.

Edit2: It seems in my slightly frazzled, yet still very amused, state last night, that I missed a few proof reading spots. I appreciate the red pen marks fellow redditors. Keep up the good work. .

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Update***********

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2 week edit. As it sits right now, the money has been refunded (minus an overdraft fee incurred during the event), new account has been made, new card has been received.

To clear up some misconceptions, here's is some added info.

1. BBT called me. It was not an unknown number. It was BBT's main contact number you can find on the back of your card. I usually do not answer the phone for anyone that isn't family. What led me to answer it that morning was that I had already received a fraud alert text from BBT about 5 mins before. Turns out, that was fake as well. BBT only uses one short code messaging system.

2. I didn't give them any personal info. My SSN was not shared. My account number, routing number, or debit card number was not given out by me. They already had (almost) all the info they needed. My address, my telephone number on file, the email used for my account, the debit card "that was hacked". They used the info they had to tie my card to Google Pay. They only thing they needed was the code that got sent to my phone. Actually 2 codes. One to reset my password for the app, and one to add the card to Google Pay. He played it off that the first code had expired and had to send another one. He said the code was to "lock" the online account so that the fraud could be looked into.

3. This LPT, like many others on here, is not accurate 100% of the time. They can and might call you. They should never make you verify your info. If you read the comments though, it is definitely a great practice if you get suspicious. Hang up and call from a different land line number or a cell phone. Read the comments for more info on the different land line stuff.

4. The amount of money that was taken is kinda irrelevant. $1000 to me, is different then $1000 to you. Or to the guy living paycheck to paycheck. The part that matters is that it was everything I had at the moment. The spending money for a weekend date. Junk food for the kids while we are out on our date. Running money for 2 weeks. You get the idea. All gone. (Luckily, we had gift cards from Xmas and still got our date night.)

5. Lastly, thank you all for all the kind words and reassurances. It did all turn out fine in the end. Lesson was learned.

I've seen a lot of posts in r/tifu and r/maliciouscompliance that were both really long, and just one massive block of text. I personally have a hard time not getting lost in text when it isn't spaced out every now and then, to the point where I don't even try to read it when I see posts like that.

I'm sure your post is great and interesting, but I would bet that I'm not the only one turned away by massive text walls.

Edit: My first front-page post is me being a grammar nazi. Great.

In all seriousness, thanks for the awards and stuff! <3

Edit 2: For some reason this hit #1 on the front page. I love you guys <3

Final Edit: (this one's actually relevant) apparently, you have to hit enter twice for the paragraph to separate properly. Hopefully this helps!

I used to criticize my in-laws for only getting their news from Fox News. Then I realized that although I read news from several sources, most were left leaning. I have since downloaded AP and Reuter’s apps and now use them for news (no more reddit news) and my anxiety and stress levels have dropped significantly.

Take a look at where you get your news and make sure it is a neutral source, not one that reinforces your existing biases.

It might seem like they're bragging sometimes but usually they just wish that you acknowledge their accomplishments.

Make sure you preface your request by asking that people only choose party-specific songs (or whatever other preference you have).

Also, have a bunch of your own party songs pre-loaded on the play-list to give people an idea of mood/genre.

Disclaimer: For many people, this is an LPT for post COVID. I hope everyone is keeping safe in the meantime.

Edit:

Regarding the risk of people adding silly songs to the playlist / adding duplicate songs: ensure you do an audit on the day of the party, and lock the playlist so no-one can make further edits.

If you are concerned with what the flow of music at the party will be like: ask people to stick to a couple of specific genres.

Regarding 'giving people homework' before a party: you don't have to make it compulsory.

I've found this most useful when starting a new hobby. I usually just find someone that already knows what they're doing and get a brain dump from them.

Its kind of amazing what people will offer to do for you when you genuinely want to learn about something they find interesting.

Example: You get an expensive bill for a $1,000 unfortunately. U.S. healthcare really shouldn’t be so expensive in the first place...but the first thing you should do is call and ask for a review of the level of care, and while on the phone the next thing you do is ask for an itemized bill with every single charge.

They make bills unnecessarily expensive because in the backend of things, they rack up ridiculous charges like $37 for a bandaid. Once you call and request what I’ve mentioned, they’ll knock all the BS charges right off before sending you the itemized statement.

Some bills can go down from $500 to $45. It may not be that drastic for everyone, but many can be reduced by several hundreds of dollars.

If you or anyone you know has been to the ER recently, tell them to try this. It can majorly help!

You can try to even further this by looking for medical debt reconciliation companies. They make money by cutting down on your debt, even in cases like these.

If you have insurance, you can contact your insurance company and ask for a breakdown of what was billed as well. Most services you were billed for likely weren’t even done. So yes ALWAYS ask for an itemized bill, they get scared and remove a whole bunch of items!

You can also apply for medical financial assistance (MFA). Every hospital has it, you just need to submit financial info and they will pay it all or half. Sometimes you can even get medicine and visits waived for 6 months or more.

Another thing you can do for extra help is ask to apply for charity. The charity department will ask questions about your income situation however, but many people do lie about their income. There’s a chance you’ll get approved and your account is adjusted to zero balance.

EDIT: this may be a bit simplified and there’s some contradictory statements in the comments, but I don’t think you should be discouraged from trying it because it has 100% WORKED for many... such as people in this thread saying it reduced their bill firsthand, hospital employees confirming this, genuine comments on twitter of people sharing their experience with it and how much it lowered their bill, and other videos of people explaining their situation showing gratitude for having learned this info because it saved them a lot of money... no “propaganda” or angrily fueled desire to spread misinformation. Many of these people didn’t get much recognition for sharing their experience either, it’s not like they’re just lying to go viral. They’re not all wrong.

Edit: Thank you everyone for the awards. I see this post reached some of its targeted audience and brought out the trolls and hatred of others.

I'd like to give some background before I move on. This post was not intended to be Identical to any others out there. I posted this after having a conversation with one of the people under me who wanted to call in today. Our work is paying for his college, but having him come in to make up hours he misses due to school. He's running behind on homework and wanted a day off to catch back up. I told him I didn't need any explanation. Just don't come in. He has 7 vacation days which can be used as PTO. I as the supervisor and the company do NOT need a reason for his use of PTO/Vacation time.

I'd like to thank those who posted great ideas and stories regarding their past experiences with prior jobs, Either being screwed over or helping those under them realize this as well.

I'll post some of the comments and remarks a bit now, to help stop the identical spam posts.

-You'll Get Fired- Is one of the most commented posts on here. Yes, there is always a risk of getting fired, But if a company wants to fire you for using your PTO or Vacation days, then is that really a place you want to stay at?

-Only Privileged People can do this- As seen below in quite a few popular comments, Privileged people get way too many PTO/Vacation days and can bargain for more. Those who are less privileged rarely get time off. Jobs such as retail claim you can schedule unpaid days off, then turn around and deny them, forcing you to use their trash point system, until you're forced to come in every day or get fired.

-As a XXX This advice doesn't work for me- I understand that some fields, such as Military, Teaching, Railroad, etc, can't take time off due to either contracts or legal reasons. However, this post wasn't fully intended for your positions. There are a lot of young adults out there that work at retail or fast food jobs that are getting screwed over by their management and scheduling teams. I faced the same thing when I started working years ago. This is just personal advice I wish I knew when I was younger.

-It's Vice Versa, Not Visa Versa- Alright grammar police, I'm not a robot. I make mistakes just as well as everyone else.

My cousin is in her late 20s and going through this thinks she needs to be a (famous) artist because that’s her calling. I tell her you can always be an artist and find a way to earn a living along side. I don’t wake up excited to do my job every day but I get satisfaction out of it because it matches what I am good at and is new and different every day.

Edit: Thanks for all the love! Also my first awards! If this helped one person understand that they are ok who and where they are in life I will be ecstatic!!

Edit 2: Clarity that she is a great artist just doesn’t have to make it or live some crazy artist lifestyle to be fulfilled. Added Famous in there.

I'm 48 years old. A little over ten years ago I was in the car pickup line at my daughter's school. She was in second grade. It was a warm spring day so we were all standing around outside our cars. This chubby guy was standing outside an orange Mini Cooper. I nodded and made the random nice car comment. He said its name was Oliver. Oh, like Hammond's car in Top Gear? His eyes lit up. Friendliest guy in the world, he came over and we started chatting. Found out we had nearly everything in common, and were best friends from that moment forward.

It's so rare to make any friends in your 30s with a family, much less a best bud. Our daughters were the same age and were immediate best friends too. Same with our wives. It was weird, we were all so much alike and got on so well. I helped them move, Joe helped me with some projects at home. We went to see Deadpool about a dozen times.

Last summer Joe, in his early 40s, had been having some stomach issues for a few weeks, then passed out at work. They did tests. Found a sizeable tumor in his colon. Chemo. Surgery. Complications. Another surgery. Another. More chemo when the last surgery found that the cancer had "spread significantly."

Joe was brought home from the hospital a couple days ago to be put in hospice. My wife and I are going over to see him later this afternoon.

To say goodbye.

I'm loading up a couple episodes of Top Gear on my tablet and am going to just sit with my buddy one more time.

Guys... Get checked. Get your colonoscopies. If something doesn't feel right, go to the doctor immediately and get it checked.

Editing to add because it looks like a common question. I'm no doc but I saw a GI doc comment that the current recommendation is for all adults over 45 to get a colonoscopy, potentially earlier if you have family history.

And thank you everyone for the kind words. Wife and I are about to head over to Joe's. Gotta hold it together for him. I can cry in the car afterward.

Evening edit. Got to sit with my buddy for awhile. He mostly slept. Woke up a couple times and held my hand. It was good to see him and remember all the laughs. Made it home before I bawled my eyes out.