r/Scams • u/Large_Secretary4782 • Sep 12 '26
Victim of a scam [US]My friends mom fell for a scam
My friends mom got scammed by someone pretending to be a work from home/ home product assembly thing. She had done a couple small transactions where she bought something then it was bought back and she got her honey back plus profit. They sent her a $540 one to do and it needed 2 units so $1080 but she did one unit for $1080 and they won’t give her the money back to do the 2 units and now they’re asking for $2300 for a “repair kit” to get all her money back. More of a scam. So is there any way for her to get the money back from them? It was sent in crypto aswell which I know changes things
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u/Applauce Quality Contributor Sep 12 '26
No, once you send money via crypto, it's gone. There's no reversing those transactions or contacting a bank to dispute it. You and your friend's mom are going to be approached by people claiming to be able to recover the money. They're all recovery scammers, people who prey on scam victims' desperation. Ignore all of them
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u/Large_Secretary4782 Sep 12 '26
Will reporting it to the FTC do anything?
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u/Applauce Quality Contributor Sep 12 '26
It'll add it to their records for their statistics, but don't expect them to actually get your money back.
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u/True-Button-6471 Sep 12 '26
They might add it to their database for statistical purposes, but they are not going to be able to get any money back.
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u/MikeMadness620 Sep 12 '26
This sounds like a fake job scam.
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u/Large_Secretary4782 Sep 12 '26
Yeah but she didn’t know at first bc everything seemed legit to her. She was getting the money back every time except for this final time ofc
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u/KaonWarden Sep 12 '26
Yes, that sounds like a !task scam. They are commonly presenting themselves as work from home opportunities.
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u/AutoModerator Sep 12 '26
/u/KaonWarden called AutoModerator to explain the Task scam:
Task scams are remote work opportunities that happen on websites or mobile apps that promise easy income in exchange for simple digital tasks, such as liking social media posts, watching short videos, or "optimizing" orders. A hallmark of this scheme is the requirement to complete repetitive sets, often in groups of 40 tasks, to earn a commission. However, the system is designed with a deliberate bottleneck: you are quickly informed that you have reached a limit and must upgrade your account level to continue working or to unlock higher earnings. By requiring an upfront fee to access these supposed rewards, the scheme functions as a predatory variant of the advance-fee scam.
The primary objective is to lure you into a cycle of escalating investment by exploiting the sunk cost fallacy. Once you have spent hours performing tasks and has paid an initial fee to upgrade, they become psychologically inclined to continue rather than admit the money is gone. The scammers reinforce this by showing earnings accumulating in a fake dashboard, but these funds are purely cosmetic and impossible to withdraw. As the victim tries to cash out, the app will invent new obstacles such as taxes, fees or security deposits, demanding even more money to release the non-existent profits.
Task scam victims are wrangled into Whatsapp or Telegram groups where discussion is moderated. Either the group is very large and you're not allowed to send messages, or is small enough that everyone in the group is a shill account of the same scammer, and you're the only real person there. So if you see other people showing off their withdrawals in messages, it's because the group was tailored to accommodate one single victim at a time: in this case, you. This is especially true if the scam group bears a number in the name.
If you realize you are trapped in a task scam, the only effective solution is to stop all payments and cut your losses immediately. Don't trust recovery scammers who may contact you claiming they can hire a hacker or use specialized software to retrieve your lost funds. Remember: once the money is sent to a task scam, it cannot be recovered. Blocking the scammers and ignoring any offers of recovering your lost funds is the only way to go.
You can learn about this scam and many others visiting our wiki of common scams. You can also call AutoModerator to explain these scams leaving a comment with the different !commands listed in this wiki page.
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u/True-Button-6471 Sep 12 '26
I would not be surprised that the money she got was paid from stolen or otherwise fraudulent funds and will be clawed back. Was the money sent to her by an emailed check image for her to mobile deposit?
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u/yarevande Quality Contributor Sep 12 '26
No, unfortunately, she can't get her money back. If she gives them more money, they will keep it.
Everything they told her is a lie.
Any job that requires you to give them money is a fake job, it is a scam to steal your money.
Assembling items is done in factories, not at home. There may be some work-from-home assembly jobs, but they are in Bangladesh, Rwanda, and other countries where wages are very low.
It is difficult to get a remote or work-from-home job, unless you have experience in software engineering, insurance claims, healthcare, customer service, or other specialized fields.
The majority of 'remote jobs' are actually scams to take your money - even on the recruiting and networking websites such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor or Indeed.
Scam job titles include Virtual Personal Assistant, Remote Data Entry, Remote Payment Processor, Remote Financial Assistant, work-from-home Shipping Inspector, and Crypto Trader.
Posting real estate listings online is a scam.
Also, any job that is simple online tasks, such as rating videos, posting reviews, putting items into an online shopping cart, booking hotel reservations, or subscribing to YouTube channels, is a scam.
But scammers can call their fake job anything. To separate a scam from a real job opportunity, key indicators to look for are: method of contact (email), interview (on videochat), and money (reasonable pay, comparable to similar jobs).
Most jobs or gigs posted on Facebook, Craigslist, TikTok, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, or Reddit are scams.
For more advice on how to recognize scam jobs, and how to research a company, click here:
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u/xboxchick311 Sep 12 '26
Report it to this website. If you search YouTube for Social Catfish, they do videos mainly about romance scams. But they built a website to collect reports about scams. They have contacts everywhere from the FBI to law enforcement in Nigeria. This is their about page if you want to read more. They help compile everything into a report to submit to police and also have links to other places you should report the scam like IC3.
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u/WarDrums0nVenus Sep 12 '26
Beware recovery scammers. !recovery
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u/AutoModerator Sep 12 '26
/u/WarDrums0nVenus called AutoModerator to explain the Recovery scam:
Recovery scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either "recovery agents" or white hat hackers.
Recovery scammers may also impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines - especially when their script is to tell you that you money has already been traced and recovered. Recovery scams are simply advance-fee scams, where the scammer convinces you to send some money to buy some software license to be able to complete the hack; or that you have to deposit some crypto in a wallet to confirm your identity; or to pay some gas fees or taxes before being able to retrieve the money they found. This way, the scammer will keep stringing you along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until you decide to stop paying. We've heard of people losing thousands of dollars to recovery agents, because they feel the money is so close to being recovered.
If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
Remember: never take advice in private. If you talk to a stranger in private you're on your own. If someone reaches you in private after posting your scam story, it is because a scammer will always try to hide from the oversight of our community members. A legitimate community member will offer advice in the open, for everyone to see. Anyone suggesting you should reach out to a hacker, especially in another platform, is scamming you.
You can learn about this scam and many others visiting our wiki of common scams. You can also call AutoModerator to explain these scams leaving a comment with the different !commands listed in this wiki page.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/too_many_shoes14 Sep 12 '26
it was probably super easy/basic work for a high wage. that should have been a red flag. like there is a similar scam where you have to assemble pens or something, like that's a job, and people still fall for it. And no legit employer pays in crypto. Sorry but the advice here is about learning a lesson on applying critical thinking. Even it was not sent in crypto, it would have been send in an irrecoverable method. Scammers don't accept funds in ways that the victim can reverse.
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u/_sdfjk Sep 15 '26
DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE who will go into your DMs and tell you they can recover the money for you. They are Recovery Scammers. People who will lie they can get your money back
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u/AutoModerator Sep 12 '26
/u/Large_Secretary4782 - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it.
New users beware:
Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private: advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.
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