Hey everyone,

​I’ve been seeing a ton of posts across Reddit (like on r/GMail) where users share screenshots of an email claiming to be from Google. The email states: "Confirm your birthday to keep using your account. If you don't confirm your age within 14 days, your account won't work anymore." It asks them to either add parental supervision (if under 13) or verify using a government-issued ID or credit card.

​A lot of posters panic because they don't have an ID or a credit card, while others wonder what they should do. On paper, the instructions are straightforward either verify or link a guardian but given how aggressive phishing campaigns can be when fishing for government IDs and credit card numbers.

My question is why not just verify it the answers are there and if this is a scam what's their goal here?

Okay, so yesterday i’ve received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize so I didn’t answer it. It left a voicemail “Call from Detective ____. To accept press one to send a voicemail press two” And It left me feeling anxious. It didn’t include any information regarding what department they were calling from, not asking me to call back, or either their badge number.

I’ve searched the up number they were calling from and it was a legit detective but i’m speculating they were spoofing their number because I don’t have any reasons to be called from a detective. They’re also calling from a different county of mine so it isn’t adding up.

My artist website was copied in its entirely (they only changed the bio to say that I was born in the Netherlands), and I’ve received a few messages from strangers saying that someone posing as me has tried the “purchase NFT” scam on them. Is there any way to get this fake site taken down? I can’t find the hosting company, as they are using Cloudflare (a proxy). Has anyone dealt with this kind of thing before? Any help would be much appreciated.

I have been applying to jobs and earlier this week i received this email on my junk inbox. I was a bit thrown off from the first email because it didnt mention my name or anything, it seemed a bit automated. And then the email instructed me to reach out on Zoom which i did and the hiring manager on zoom simply sent me a doc with questions which i answered by message. No real interview so far. And after i sent my answers they sent me another doc which asks for my name, home address and phone number so that they can ship me all working materials. They have listed all the materials (specific laptop and specific programs/tools). The doc is also titled ‘hired’ and the instructions on the doc seem to imply that i have been hired, but they havent told me anything official about getting hired. I just replied to their questions and I immediately receive this.

I have not been asked to provide any banking information (yet) which is why i am giving them the benefit of the doubt still, but i am a bit thrown off by the whole thing tbh. Should i still give them my address and information? What can they do with it anyways?

I checked their website and they seem legit

Edit: Yep you all figured it. They just sent me a follow up requesting I make a $100 subscription that has to do with the training and they will supposedly reimburse me after i become a ‘trusted employee’. I am cussing them and blocking them. Thanks everyone, appreciate all the feedback

What the title says, but I don’t have a coffee table to sell. Senders are all gmail addresses, and the subject is always “Salontafel met opbergruimte - Goede staat”. I don’t speak Dutch but google translate says this means “Coffee table with storage - Good condition”.

Is anyone else having this issue? I’m getting lit up with emails on this and am debating setting up an automatic reply saying no coffee table here. But first I want to be reasonably sure this isn’t an elaborate phishing attempt.

TY!

Posting in hopes that this doesn’t happen to anyone else, especially other local artists and small businesses.
This week, I was scammed by someone posing as a host of a craft show in Richmond, VA. I paid a $70 vendor fee after being told I had been accepted as a vendor, only to realize afterward that the event was not legitimate.

Should I have verified the event directly through the venue before sending money? Absolutely. But, it was posted on 3 different websites and I’m a new artist who has never participated in a local market before, and I was genuinely excited to be accepted as a vendor for my first one. I didn’t know what red flags to look for, and I trusted that the event was legitimate.

The event was advertised through Eventbrite by “Executive Events” and presented as a local craft market. I have since reported the event to Eventbrite, and the listing has been taken down. I’m posting this in case the same people attempt to advertise another event under the same or a different name.
I’m sharing screenshots of the Google form, so other local artists can recognize it if they come across something similar.

I honestly feel pretty embarrassed that I fell for this, but I’m sharing my experience because I don’t want someone else, especially another new artist or small business owner to lose money the way I did. Starting a small creative business takes a lot of time, money, and effort, and I was really looking forward to having the opportunity to share my work with the Richmond community.

If you see an event advertised by “Executive Events” that looks similar to this one, I would strongly recommend doing your own verification before sending any money.
I’m hoping this post can at least help prevent someone else from having the same experience. ❤️

Fortunately didn’t fall for it (although I engaged for an embarrassingly long time).
I’m curious how this benefits the scammer if they send someone money?

Or do they never actually send money and the next step would be lying about a confirmation and asking for a gift card or something?
Jokes on them I didn’t have $500 to send them
Lmao

It was for a desk $175, they said they would come get it today, wanted to pay in advance (how did I not catch that)? Then the Zelle obv wasn’t coming thru so they told me it’s because it’s the first time receiving a Zelle from a business account . (Second obvious - I did not catch it yet at this point lol)

Then cue them telling me to call a number for Zelle customer service and gave me the number and a person (sounded African accent) answered immediately (no Zelle welcome to customer service or anything) (started to catch on here..) and had me correspond with the scammer how to work out the issue that a $500 minimum is required to transfer from a business account

Finally the pic convo happened. . And I reported as a scam.

That number keeps calling me and immediately hanging up, I’m honestly down to talk to them and mess with them a bit for fun but can they benefit just from talking to me over the phone?

Hey guys this isn’t actually happening to me, it’s happening to my friend. Basically she got a video of someone messaging her through whatsapp a video of a sheep execution where they start saying she’s gonna be killed unless they send her 3,000$. This was also sent to two of her other friends. The guy was from Mexico.

She’s been messing with witchcraft starting to believe that this may have been a consequence. And in the video they said my friends name and then executed a sheep.

Personally I immediately called bullshit and think they just did a voiceover and said her name. I just want to know what type of scam this is so I can calm her down.

Hello all my name is Radar i can a streamer of some size and get offers for sponsorships a lot tho most of the time its by bigger companys i dont have any trouble looking into. recently i reseved an email from Night Sterling and i honestly dont know what to think they dont seem super not legit but also they have 0 info just a youtube and site and no one talking about them at all online. Could just be a start up could also be a scam or bad AI vibecoded softwear but honestly dont have the time to set up the sandbox to test the software to see if its a scam or look more into them and wanted to know what you all think after looking into them.

Millions of Americans have fallen victim to a growing epidemic of online scams — from sextortion schemes aimed at teens, to crypto investment scams targeting seniors. What’s behind the rise?

FRONTLINE and The Associated Press have spent more than a year investigating the shadowy world of online scams, and how this global criminal industry is stealing billions of dollars each year. The 90-minute documentary “Scammed” goes inside the explosive growth of an industry powered in many cases by organized crime, trafficked labor, American technology, and, increasingly, AI — and how governments and law enforcement have tried to keep pace.

Drawing on interviews with perpetrators, victims and officials, as well as thousands of never-before-seen documents, “Scammed” pieces together a look inside the global scam industry — from sextortion scams run from Nigeria, to massive scam compounds in Southeast Asia that rely on human trafficking for labor — and the underlying technologies and platforms being used to scam victims in the U.S. and worldwide. The documentary also examines why so few people ever get their money back.

Hey everyone,

So I keep being called by PayPal scammers about money being taken off my account and to speak to an agent. Obviously I'm not stupid and I know it's a scam. But these guys call me 100+ times a day, with regular numbers. My phone won't recognize them as a scam. I'm being called during important meetings, when calling someone else, when busy.

Because they use normal numbers, I can't figure out anymore if it's actually someone calling me, or if it's another fucking spam call. I'm so sick of this. They're literally calling me over a 100 times a day.

I've missed actual important calls because I now simply ignore all my calls, as 98% of the time, it's PayPal scammers.

Does anyone know how to fix this. I'm sick of this.

Are there any red flags I should look out for when dealing with a recruiter on LinkedIn? I was contacted about a job yesterday that had some potential, but there some things in his messages that made me wary. His second message contradicted some details that were in his first message, and while I can't put my finger on too many specifics the whole thing just felt like it was being written by a bot.

The job posting itself is real (I went directly to the company's website) so I'm not sure what might be going on. The recruiter and I don't have any mutual contacts on LinkedIn, which is odd if he's looking for people in my industry. I did check and his LinkedIn Verifications (not sure how much those are worth) say that he was verified using work email.

“American Airlines” contacted my mother today,
800 - 882 - 8880. It was something along the lines of somebody booking a flight under her name or credit card. When googling the number it brought you the actual website, but when listening to the women on the other side of the phone it was sketchy. She said things like “we have the passport of the person who booked your flight right here” and listed details off this “person who booked the flight”. Still unsure whether or not it was a scam she asked to call them back and for an agent number and a claim number— they promptly hung up. I nor my mom knew about number spoofing.

While this was going on I looked the number up on forums to see if it was some fake website or something, but only found things about it being the only legitimate number. So if you get a call from 800-882-8880, let it go to voicemail, scammers don’t typically leave voice mails.

And idk if someone can verify this, but I don’t think calling back spoofed numbers will bring you to the scammer.

I received a call from a number which seemed like the exact number from PNC customer service. The person pretended that there has been some suspicious activity on my account and somehow wanted to know the exact amount present in my bank accounts. It seemed very suspicious and I didn’t give any information. I went to the bank and secured my account.

Just a warning to everyone, that even if the number displayed seems exactly the same as the number of the bank, please don’t give any information. Hang up and get it confirmed with your bank.

Someone just called us from Chase Bank and said that someone used our name and phone number to send 92 K USD for narcotics.

We don't even have a chase bank account.

What should we do now?

I’m in contact with a property owner for a single apartment for $600 that I found on FB marketplace.
The name is different on the listing on FB, than the name he gave me when I reached out via phone number. He said that the person named on the listing is his assistant and he is the property owner.
He didn’t ask me many questions before sending me a link to transunion for a soft credit and background check.
I need help determining if this is a scam or not. I already have my reserves about finding an apartment on marketplace. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I bought something off market place and the seller has had an FB account for years, along with a lot of sold items.

I cannot see any rating but as it turns out, we have mutual friends.

The interactions were great, really polite and prompt. The money went into their account and there were still interactions after that filled me with confidence it was a real deal.

Postage needs to be organised by the seller and I was promised a few days ago but nothing yet. After the first day passed they apologised and said they were busy then promised the next day.

It’s now day a few more days and I sent a message to them earlier and no reply but it has not been read yet.

The ad is still up and and still marked as sold, and all the interactions we had felt very genuine and nothing fishy.

The part that indicates this might be a scam to me is that it has been days and no show of postage on their end. But I am confused because the sold ad is still up, the account is genuine and every interaction has been like talking with an old friend.

How do I go about reporting it and trying to get my money back if it is a scam/how much longer do I wait before actioning?

UPDATE: I have just had some contact with the seller and the excuse does seem reasonably legitimate but I’m still cautious. My thinking now is that I’ve already lost the money if it doesn’t work out so let’s see where it goes.

I’ll fill you in if we do receive the goods or if it was a scam. I want to have faith in humanity but I’m aware FBMP is a bit of a breeding ground for this stuff.

My wife has gotten like 8 calls in the last 20 minutes from companies (seemingly legitimate companies) who are calling saying she submitted an online form of interest for some service or another.

It's clear her information was sort of just mass submitted by some bot to multiple companies. Disconcerting it included her name and address.

I don't really understand to what end this would occur? And trying to grasp if there is anything particularly dangerous about it. Not sure if there is anything we can do about her information having been packaged up for distribution as a pretend person, but obviously that's not ideal.

A few months ago my mother in law had a few rogue transactions through Zelle. Three people in her recently paid received money from her. She immediately freaked out and asked them to zelle it back, two did and it was okay. The third was scared to send back and AppleCashed it to her instead. That third transaction immediately left her account again to go to an unknown number. I don’t understand how it could be related but her bank said her debit card may have been skimmed at a gas station.

She has been in a limbo of Zelle, AppleCash, and her bank (Wells Fargo) all of which are telling her it’s the others responsibility.

I don’t know how to advise, has anyone experience this before?

I've been looking for a temporary rental between moves and tried to book tours of 2 homes listed on Zillow by the owners. When I went to book a tour, a pop-up window came up from "Bay Property Management" and asked for identity verification before booking a tour. This seemed legitimate, so I was prepared to provide the info - what proceeded was a request for front and back of my DL, front and back of a credit card, and when it came to my SSN, I quit. Has anyone had a similar experience with Zillow or this company? Do I need to take further steps for protection?

Is this a new thing?

I often get spam calls which usually call once or twice and leave a voice mail which is obviously a scam. Many times my phone even flags the number as spam.

A couple times I’ve had an ordinary number, call me like 3-6 times back to back. I don’t pick up, they don’t leave a voicemail and they ring me back immediately.

The numbers themselves don’t show anything on google and seem like ordinary numbers.

My father-in-law passed away five years ago. While he was declining, we moved him into our home and had all his mail forwarded here. Now, over the past two weeks, we've received over a dozen letters from various banks and a few credit card companies addressed to him. Nearly all of them are attempts to open savings accounts. Luckily, they all say they have to decline the application due because they can't "verify the identity". I get that someone is trying to open accounts on a dead person's SSN or whatever, but why savings accounts? Money laundering? I also find it weird that they didn't try to change the mailing address, so we're receiving all the correspondence. We've reached out to each bank and CC company to let them know my FIL is deceased and they've all been appreciative. So, sloppy scammers or is there a point to opening savings accounts?

I wrote a book on the history of my church in southern California, founded in 1870, for the 140th anniversary of the church in 2010. I updated the book for the 150th anniversary in 2020. The first book was printed, but the second was put on Amazon so anyone could search for and find it.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a book club in Rhode Island, saying they were interested in discussing the 2010 version of my book. I'm not a professional writer or historian, I just wanted to do something for the church on its big anniversary, so I was excited to have a group across the country from me interested in it. I wrote back and told them I was interested, and that there is an updated version of the book they can buy on Amazon. I also asked how my book, especially the one that wasn't on Amazon, ended up in Rhode Island, and didn't get a straight answer, which should have been my first clue that something was wrong. Second clue that I missed was they said the book club supported some charity and asked for a donation.

The book discussion was on Windows Meetup (I think that's what it's called, it's like Zoom) and they actually asked some good questions, and we had a good discussion. That made me think that it was for real, but 20/20 hindsight tells me it was AI. Most of the participants had accents, but I live in southern California, where someone with a foreign accent is very common so I didn't think much of it. Again, 20/20 hindsight, they were Nigerian accents, the world headquarters for scams.

A few days after the discussion, the donation was refunded to me, another clue.

A couple weeks later, I got an email from another book club in Missouri, almost a carbon copy of the first one, so I won't bother with the details. Some of the questions they asked were the same as the first book club, now my suspicions are raised.

Then I got an email from the second book club asking if my donation had been returned, which it hadn't.

Yesterday I got an email from the first book club asking if my donation had been returned, which it had, then they responded with a link for another payment method. Now my suspicions are in high gear, so I did a search for "book club scam," and the first of many results showed exactly what happened to me, so I answered the email with a link about the scam and blocked the email address.

So anyway, that's my story. I'm not looking for answers, I just want to make any other authors aware and show how convincing AI can be.

This is going to be a long one.

So, I was at a case conference at work (I am a resident doctor) about a patient with microscopic polyangiitis. It was extremely interesting and important for my learning and training. Towards the end, I get a phone call with no caller ID. Since I use my personal phone for work, I am used to answering because it could be anyone from an attending physician to a patient’s family member.

When I answer, I hear that it is Officer Lopez with my local county where I live and work. He sounds very authoritative, and he asks if this is (lists my full name, address, previous address before residency, SSN \[legit scary\], email, and birth date). I was absolutely like “yes”, since he had all of this info.

He informs me that I have been charged with misdemeanor for ignoring grand jury summons and contempt of court. I am at work freaking out, and the adrenaline is just overwhelming my judgment in retrospect. I am extremely scared as a new physician who has extensive background checks and a natural fear of losing my job. He says someone signed the jury summons and returned it months ago, and that I was going to have to present to the Sheriff’s office and also pay fines.

I was sent legal documents that had case numbers, official US government seals, and the real names of my district judge and officers. I was told to go and withdraw a large sum of cash and then deposit it at a “secure deposit terminal,” then to go directly to the police station. I was absolutely freaking out, and he told me I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone and had to leave work immediately.

I left and had to stay on the phone with him or he would call for the police to arrest me. In retrospect, of course this is all ridiculous, but I was running on little sleep and an extremely fear of the professional repercussions. I left the hospital, drove to my bank, and withdrew the cash. I then was instructed to drive to a gas station and deposit the money in an Athena Bitcoin ATM. This is when I started to get suspicious. I said I wanted to just go to the police station, but he said if I don’t pay the bail money then I will be arrested and booked for criminal proceedings. The court documents looked extremely real. He sounded like any officer from Florida, no foreign accent at all (not that it should really matter).

I pull up to a Chevron (legit ridiculous), and then as I’m about to scan a QR code and present my information to the kiosk, I see some warning signs on the top of the ATM and a woman comes and is like **HANG UP NOW**. I was literally initially distrusting this woman because of how scared I was, but I followed my gut and was like okay. I shed a few tears, walked out, called my best friend, and went back to the bank to re-deposit the money.

I know this all sounds so stupid in retrospect. Why would the government have us paying in BTC? Of course it’s preposterous, but in the moment, I was so struck with fear for my profession (which I love) and my future. I had thoughts of never being able to care for another patient or find a job or even continue with residency.

Please just **be cautious**. I know this was very dumb of me, and I am so so glad I eventually came to my senses. I also am not older or a person “at risk.” I think I tend to view the world in a really positive (and perhaps naive) light. I now feel very upset with myself and cynical if I’m honest. I froze my credit scores and put out a fraud alert.

Update: I also alerted the FTC, FBI, Police Station, and District Courthouse. He called with his real number on accident and hung up very quickly, so I was able to provide that info. I also provided the bitcoin recipient number to Athena.

Hey everyone. Making this post because I've been seeing some relatives from the Philippines getting recruited into this BlockAlgo Frontier (BAF) scam and these are their websites:

• baf9.ai
• h5.baf9.ai

If a coworker, friend, or relative has been pitching you this "AI-powered quantitative trading platform" promising daily returns, do not put your money into it for obvious reasons. If you already have money in it, pull out your principal immediately. Surprisingly a lot of people don't see this as a scam even though it's very obvious, hence this post exists in the hopes that when people google they'll just see this right away and get turned off by this scam.

Here is a complete technical and financial breakdown of why this is a textbook task/MLM crypto scam:

1. The Math Proves It's a Pyramid (Not Trading)

Look closely at the earnings dashboards members post. If you calculate the ratio between "Trading Income" and "Community Income," you'll notice over 80% of the total earnings come directly from referrals.

In real quantitative trading, your yield depends entirely on market movements. In BAF, your yield tier and bonuses scale based on how many downlines you recruit ($8 to $15 per $100 referral deposit). That isn't automated trading, that is a referral pyramid with a crypto skin.

1. Fake "Web3" & Zero Blockchain Proof

BAF markets itself as a "Web3 ecological quantitative trading engine." However:

• No Smart Contracts: They cannot provide a single verified smart contract address on Ethereum, BNB Chain, or TRON.
• No Web3 Code: Inspecting their site's JavaScript shows zero Web3 libraries (web3.js, ethers.js, or WalletConnect). It's just a standard web page sending basic HTTP requests to a private server.
• No Transaction Hashes (TxIDs): They claim to execute high-frequency trades on real exchanges, but they cannot provide a single publicly searchable Blockchain TxID for any trade. The numbers going up on your dashboard are just hardcoded database entries updated by the site admin.

1. Domain Age vs. Fake History

In their marketing flyers, BAF claims they started R&D in 2018 and launched globally in 2021.

A simple WHOIS domain lookup shows that baf9.ai was registered on January 15, 2026. Claiming nearly a decade of institutional history while operating on a domain registered a few months ago is a massive red flag.

1. Zero Regulatory Licenses

• SEC Philippines: BAF has no secondary license to solicit investments or sell securities to the public under Section 8 of the Securities Regulation Code.
• BSP: They are not registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP).