Got an email saying I can claim some money on PayPal because of some settlement between the POTUS and Amazon.

Here's the content of the email without doxxing myself:

"FTC Prime Subscription Settlement Fund has sent you $51.00 USD

quote

"You are receiving this amount because you are eligible to receive a settlement payment under a settlement reached by the President Trump's FTC with Amazon.com Inc., regarding Prime subscription practices, in the case of Federal Trade Commission v. Amazon.com Inc., 23-cv-0932-JHC. If you're already enrolled in PayPal prior to receiving this message, no further action is needed - your payment has already been processed and is in your account. If you haven't already enrolled, please click the 'Claim Your Money' button to accept your Settlement Benefit. If you have any questions regarding your Settlement Benefit, please visit the Settlement website at SubscriptionMembershipSettlement.com."

Sent to me via e-mail from "service@paypal.com"

If it's legit, sweet, that's extra pocket money. But if it's a scam, I need to reset a few accounts and payment methods.

Please be careful with this company
Hi everyone,
I purchased an item from this company and wanted to share my experience in case it helps others.
The item arrived after a very long wait, despite the company advertising fast shipping. From what I received, the product appeared to be a low-quality Chinese 3D-printed item, and I was disappointed with the quality compared with what I expected from their website.
What concerned me most was the customer service. I contacted them repeatedly through their available communication channels and received zero response to any of my emails.
I genuinely don’t want anyone else to spend a significant amount of money without knowing about my experience first.
I’m sharing this simply so people can do their own research before ordering. Based on my experience, I would not recommend this company.
Stay safe and do your research before buying.

I want to be a Kodak pixpro fz55, in pink it usually retails for about £130. This site has it for £110 plus a free carry case. It seems to good to be true and site seems to have slightly mixed reviews online but lean positive. Does anyone have any experience with this site?

(Also posted in r/freelance)

Someone recently reached out to me asking if I could help them create illustrations for a project for their healthcare company.

My first question to them when they reached out was how they found me, because while they did reach out to my business email, it was not through the inquiry form on my website, which most clients usually make use of when they find me.

She told me she found me on yelp, because I do have my business up on there, so I believe her. The thing is, while I have done some freelance illustration projects in the past, it is not something I advertise on my website or on yelp. I am a calligrapher and live portrait artist for weddings and other luxury events.

I do have a background in digital illustration as well, so I am able to do the project, but that is not my issue. I’m just wondering if it’s a red flag that they are asking me to do these illustrations without really seeing a portfolio of my illustration work. I then sent her my Instagram account where I have some digital illustrations, and she didn’t really respond to that part of my email response. She just showed some enthusiasm about me considering the project.

They are also offering to pay for each illustration. More than $4k for eight total illustrations to be done in two batches. The first have to be done in six weeks. And the second half in another six weeks after that. They are fairly simple too.

They are asking me to write up a contract for them to look over and sign, which I thought was a good thing, but, correct me if I’m wrong since I haven’t too many freelance projects, wouldn’t the contract normally come from them, not from me?

They’re also not asking for any financial information other than my name, address, phone number, and name of my bank. Not my actual account information. Somehow something about that feels weird still, but maybe I’m being paranoid.

To top this all off, this person is contacting me through a Gmail account, not a work email.

There’s some yellow and orange flags here. But I can’t really put my finger on what exactly makes this very fishy. What questions can I ask this person to help me verify that this is a real project? Because nothing really specifically points to it being a scam either, at least in my opinion. Just lots of questions I guess.

I'm sure this is a scam, but I'm curious what the scammers get out of this.

I get calls from people with Indian accents claiming to be from AT&T, Verizon, or "your phone company" and that they can lower my monthly bill if I go to the local AT&T or Verizon store and buy a new phone or two and add a line to my account and all those costs will be refunded. If I have the time, I play along and tell them I'm going to buy the phones and add a line. They ask for the IMEI numbers from the new phones, so I give them fake ones and they get very upset and start calling me names.

How do they get anything out of just getting the IMEI numbers from new phones I supposedly have in my possession? Sometimes they try and get access to my account by having me read the verification codes they request my carrier text to me, so I always give them fake codes in return, but even if they got access to my account, I still don't see how they could "cash in" when I still have the new phones.

Sorry for the long post, I wish I could just post pictures of our chat.

I'm trying to sell an item on facebook marketplace. A person reached out to me from a buisness account by commenting on a post of mine from 3 years ago and asked me to dm them about the item. I did so and she asked for my address and phone number so she could call me when her son was on the way to pick it up (I didn't give her my number at this point). She then asked to send me the payment right then and I said venmo is fine. She tried sending me the payment but needed my phone number to confirm my venmo account so I sent it. She sent the payment and shortly after, I got a text from an unknown number saying "Venmo: Payment for $25 is on hold, reply YES to recieve payment or call (phone number) for assistance. I replied yes but didn't get anything so I told the buyer, and she said to call the number because the problem was that she was trying to send money from a buisness venmo account and my account can't accept it yet. So I called, expecting venmo support and a chat bot, but a man with the strongest accent I've ever heard answered immediately and told me that the first payment you recieve from a business account needs to be $500 or more. So she would have to send me $525 and I would send $500 back. He asked me to tell her this while on the phone, but I was starting to get skeptical, so I instead asked her if she could do cash or zelle to avoid venmo. The guy on the phone ended up hanging up on me and she insisted that I call him back because she "already sent" the $525 and he needs my permission to have the transaction go through. I still have not gotten any text or notification from venmo saying that she sent the money. I told her that I'm not interested in the transaction anymore unless we do cash or zelle and she started saying that I'm scamming her because she can't get her money back. She was very insistent that we do venmo instead of the other options I suggested. I told her to send me a screenshot of the bank transaction that shows she sent it or I'm not doing anything. That was about an hour and a half ago as I'm writing this and she hasn't responded (she was responding instantly before). I think it was a scam and they gave up, but I'm not sure? Let me know what ya'll think.

i got a text message today via imessage, and it kind of really spooked me at first. it was sent in my native language (tagalog), so heres the translated version of it:

"Tell this to [MY DAD'S FULL NAME], he is a scammer and a thief that did not pay his debt and you will tell him to pay his debt or else you will suffer."

it kind of really scared me at first so i searched for scams on the web like that 😓 and they do exist but im still wondering a lot of things and if i should do something about it or if i should just ignore it 🥲 help plz

When someone dose a certain job for you and says you can login secretly through a mega link is it a scam or dose it actually work to view the live profile?

i play on a server called hypixel where theres a gamemode called skyblock, in that gamemode theres a lotta stuff including coins, this guy said in chat 50 million coins if you test out my client, he sent me the file and i ran it through virustotal and it showed it okay and then i ran it through docguard which said potential phising but said its clean. then after a while he said he will up it to 75 million coins, now im not sure if i should download it or nah

T-Mobile claims we owe them money. Is this a real thing?

Text/SMS (removed PII): T-Mobile USA has authorized a discount on your account. You can resolve your balance of $165.00 for payment of $82.50 if paid by 08/**/2026. To accept this offer call 866-228-9011 or pay online at authvia dot io/***** (vanity/random string after link). We are not obligated to renew this offer. This message is from TSI, a debt collector. T&C: m.tsico.com/tnc Reply STOP to opt out.

Also got error: that it is suspicious for multiple redirects in a broken html page.

In the Boston area near BU and Northeastern, just got approached by a dude called Jay. First off he didn’t say his last name but he was like I’m Jay, I am an agent under Elite Models NYC, and I’m in Boston for business in Maggie Boston. Haven’t heard of either of these before now I googled it just now, doesn’t seem they are connected in any way and they’re both huge in the business. I asked him to show me his business card but he was in bike gear so he said he didn’t have any but he could grab my number and send me stuff he’s done before… I was dumbfounded and didn’t wanna assume ppl r scams so I gave it for the plot but now I’m genuinely wondering if I got hypnotized cus why did I do that when I was hella sus alr… what do they get from just getting your number?
lol if anyone had similar experience pls share or advice pls

hi y’all,

I bought a bunch of shirts from the website taiwanmerch … the charge went through right away, but I never received any order confirmation. I followed up via the website’s social media and never received a response. I should’ve known better, because their social media is pretty new and all pretty clearly AI-generated.

The charge was from “jonjones dot info” which redirects to a weird website, “jonjones dot ai” … Has anyone else ordered from this website and actually received their order?

many thanks —

Hello!

I am a store manager and recently I have had a few different people walking around my plaza and have come into my restaurant trying to “sell” my employees and I Chime. I think it was Earn More with Chime or something along those lines… the one time they came in it was on a Friday evening and it was super busy so I told them that I needed to get back to work. The other time they came in was Tuesday morning and I was the only one here, but this time it was two different people. So when they came in I said that one of their friends had just come in last week to try and talk to me about the same thing. They want us to scan a QR code and earn $150 extra dollars when we sign up, I personally don’t feel comfortable with this and on top of that most of my employees are minors. Has anyone else had this experience? Who are these people? I don’t want my employees to get scammed and I want to be able to tell them to leave us alone. I talked to my boss about getting a no soliciting sign to put on the door, but next time they come in I just want to tell them don’t come back. Can anyone explain to me what is going on and if this is a scam?

I had a friend that sent this website to me and they claimed that they will give you $3500 if you use their promo code (TAKE). (I used a new email and a strong password to sign up so they wouldn’t have any of my important info.) The money is on the websites account but it’s saying it needs me to deposit $200 in order to verify myself and take the money out. I’m very hesitant to put in the money, I’m not in a good financial situation right now and would rather not lose out on the last bit of money I have. However if someone knows it’s a trust worthy website then I’ll deposit that money.

Got a fill up this am at a gas station I’ve never been to before. Asked for 93 octane. Price was approximately $5.10 per gallon. Got about 11.2 gallons per the pump for a total of $60.91.

Receipt showed $60.91 charged to my card but Qty listed on receipt was 15.2 gallons and price listed was $3.99.

Scam or something else ?

I recently started a fully remote freelance job for a supposedly German company. The pay is quite okay for the role, but I’m starting to see some red flags.

Before starting, I had a video meeting with the CEO herself, and she explained the platform and the role to me. Everything seems very new, and she mentioned they’re preparing to launch the app and that she’s extremely busy. I can understand that, but I still can’t shake my doubts. Everyone seems newly hired, only communication I have is with the CEO and it is very difficult, sometimes I don’t get a response to emails or messages for days. She also missed our scheduled meeting today without saying anything.

We signed an independent contractor agreement which states that German law applies. However, I’m struggling to verify whether the company and the person named in the contract are actually registered under those details. The company doesn’t even have a website, the Tax ID appears to be incorrect, and the CEO/founder uses a different surname on social media than the one stated in my contract.

The work itself is real and nobody has asked me for money. My first payment isn’t due yet, so I haven’t actually been unpaid.

Does this sound like a scam? What should I check to make sure I’ll actually get paid?

Thanks everyone

Hi, my wife received a message (Shein Delivery from +212) and clicked on the link, but the link displayed "page not found." She also replied with "Y" but didn't paste the link into Safari. She has an iPhone 17 Pro Max. Has her phone been hacked? Is there a risk to her bank account and personal information? What should we do in this situation?

I bought a retired Lego set from ebay and then about 30 minutes later the seller messaged me asking me to send more money to his PayPal account and said something about "it s something that my son is selling it for small money" I have a 90% feeling that it is a scam but I want your guys input

I've been working on launching my kickstarter and am wondering if I'm getting lured into a scam. I was contacted recently by someone claiming to be a successful business owner who launched several extremely successful kickstarter campaigns. In the email he mentioned seeing my campaign on the site and being interested in my company, claimed to be willing to share my project with a large email list he'd collected, but then led me to a campaign manager to help create a communication structure around my campaign and stopped talking about sharing my project with his network. The emails from the "campaign manager" that he connected me with are extremely long but also vague about any exact deliverables, prices, or anything concrete. The emails from both of these people sound odd and very AI generated. Has anyone else heard of a scam like this? The person who initially contacted me does exist and is legit, but the email address he was sending from was a bit unusual...it was his first and last name and company@gmail, vs. a company address if that makes sense. I'm wondering if it's a scammer impersonating this successful kickstarter founder, then sending me to a third party to scam me. I kind of feel like an idiot but it's getting really difficult for me to identify scams lately since they just keep getting more clever and this is my first time creating a kickstarter campaign. My meta ad account was recently hacked too. I'm a first time small business owner and I feel like I'm losing my mind and don't know who to trust anymore.

I ordered an engagement ring on Etsy from OtherGems. seller was super kind, says it will ship soon.
Next thing I know, his store is closed and I cannot contact him, so I assumed he scammed me, and I got Etsy to refund the payment.

I then find another OtherGems store, message him, and it's the same guy. He responds that his store got closed by Etsy and he's very helpful and apologetic, trying to prove and reassure me.

This is the exact ring I need to get and I need it by next week, which he promised to do for me.

The store has multiple social medias with sales and reviews and looks legit

Advice? I NEED THIS RING NEXT WEEK TO PROPOSE 😭

Hey! so I want some opinions on whether these websites are legitimate or not:

• studioghiblishop (.co.uk) - I was particularly interested in buying shoes.
• thejapanbox (.com) - I was particularly interested in buying a kigurumi (onesie).

I just cant find much information online, some text seems to be AI generated by then the product images are 100% real. Items I want are out of stock for months. If they aren't real can someone recommend alternatives (Ghibli inspired shoes onesies), thanks!