This was years ago, but I was driving around listening to music with my windows down and a couple guys in a van pulled up next to me and asked if I wanted a deal on stereo equipment. Being the naive idiot I was I followed them into a parking lot.

They claimed to be home stereo installers and had accidentally received two premium stereos for a customer order instead of one. They wanted to get rid of the second one for beer money and asked for like $200. They had a magazine that showed the stereo was worth several thousand and I thought I might make a quick buck by reselling it to a pawn shop or online.

I didn’t have $200 but I had overdraft protection so I thought I would pull that money out anyway and pay it back once I had sold the stereo. The guy at the pawnshop was the one who told me I got scammed and I have never felt more embarrassed.

My mom (boomer) has been scammed twice, and it’s not been a simple issue of naivety or even stupidity…it’s been that, and a bit of greed, thinking more about what she’d get out of the deal, than how much sense the whole thing made, in each case. The underlying thing that attracted the scammers in each case, were her Facebook posts about going on multiple vacations and cruises.

The first one was the scam about an inheritance in probate, in Nigeria. She just had to send the money for the courts to get past probate, and then she’d be able to claim the inheritance left by her mysterious relative. Now, the maternal side of my family is Polish and Romanian, and the paternal side is British and German. I just don’t know who she may have thought bounced over to Nigeria and keeled over.

The second scam was the Exxon executive, who woke up in a hospital bed after a car accident, missing his wallet. The hospital was holding him captive in his hospital room until he could pay his bill, which somehow she could help with, by sending Amazon gift cards. The greed part comes in with him apparently having his phone, and being able to send her pics of his cars, properties, and bank statements. The stupid part comes in from about a thousand different directions and 4 dimensions…I mean, she even met his “daughter” in a video call, and adoption was discussed (the mother was apparently long dead). My mom spent a full career as a RN - in hospitals (in the US) - where they don’t incarcerate people until the bills are paid. Additionally, one would think that since any Tom, Dick, or Harry, missing their wallet, but with their phone, would be able to get ahold of someone - anyone, who might be able to contact a financial institution or work colleague, to secure proof of funds availability, replacement credit cards, or access to their finances. An executive with Exxon should definitely be able to show at least enough bling to pop themselves out of “hospital jail,” one would think. Finally, Amazon gift cards?

With my sister going through their correspondence, we found the name he gave my mom to be one letter off the correct spelling of the Exxon executive in the photo of himself that he sent her. The location of his grand home, on Google Earth anyway, appears to be the pool maintenance shed at a motel in TX.

Me: “Mom! It’s a scam.”

Mom: “No! I love him, and he loves me! I’m flying out to meet him, and help him out of the hospital. His daughter is picking me up from the airport.”

Me: “Wait. You said you were thinking about adopting his daughter when you got married - to this guy you’ve never met in person. The daughter is an adult?!”

Mom: “No. She’s 16 and has her driver’s license.”

Me: “So wait…she lives in his house with no adult supervision, since her father is hospital-bound. She has access to the car, but somehow can’t help with transportation, banking access, or the replacement credit card/replacement ID situation?”

Mom: “You’re so negative. You just don’t want to understand.”

Me: 🙄😒🫤

Once I was at the train station as a young college freshman (maybe 1000$ to my name) there was this old guy looked like a grandpa and he told me that he didn’t have any money he lost his wallet and he needs to get some money to take the train and then take a cab back home. He looked so genuine and he really looked like he needed help. But of course the amount he needed was a bit much for me, he asked for 50$. He said that he will pay me back so I gave him my information for a transfer and he promised that he’ll pay me back and he was so thankful and I gave him cash. And of course he never paid me back and later I realized that it’s like a common scam in train stations that some people say they really need money to get somewhere but it’s just a scam.

A few days later at the same train station some lady told me that she had no money and she needed to Take a train to go see her children and this time I was smarter and I told her “no problem Come with me, and I’ll buy you a ticket” and then she was like “no no I need money I need money” so I told her I can’t help her. And then I saw her again the next day and a few more times and apparently she’s like a very common scammer in that area.

50$ for an important life lesson is a good bargain I think.

I needed a place to live and applied for a place. Guy called me up and wanted to sign a lease without seeing the place and send me a virus link to click. I kept asking to meet him there and he kept telling me to click the virus link.

I didn’t, but unfortunately I had sent him the info you would apply for a lease for. No financial info fortunately. Had to lock my credit report. I get 10,000 scam calls a day.

I was homeless at the time and I took this really hard.

One I fell for: last minute, I needed to take a cat on a flight. I was googling what I needed to do for the airline and ended up with a scam number. The issue was I didn’t even have to click through to the site, I’d like to think I’d have caught on. But the number was bolded in the suggested results without having to click through toanywhere. I was in a panic getting ready for the flight, so I wasn’t on my game.

Immediately after I gave the person my credit card info over the phone, like literally the minute I hung up, I realized that it was so obviously a scam. Called my credit card company and had them block the charge and change the card number. Definitely not the pain in the ass I needed right before a trip, but it made me more cautious for the future and luckily I didn’t lose any money.

My sister fell for one I couldn’t believe. A kid was washing windows on the side of the road, she said she didn’t have any cash and he said, “That’s okay I have cash app, I’ll type in my name.” She handed her phone over and he cash apped himself $2000. No recourse since cash app isn’t a real bank transfer. Expensive lesson to learn.

Knew somebody who lost 70k buying a car on ebay.

When I was very young (probably too much to be on the internet) I got onw of those viruses that lock your pc and ask for a payment because the pc is seized by the authority or some shit. Of course I believed it so I mustered the courage to tell my parent. Was very relieved when they told me it was a scam and 3 seconds of googling tols me how to remove the virus (it was just an autostart program).

When I changed electricity operator I got called telling from the operator I switched to and gave my bank coordinates to change the contract. Took a while to figure out maybe it was not them. How they found out I just switched to that particular operator they were impersonating is outiside of my understanding.

My grandma got a call saying it was “one of her child” she made the mistake to tell them the name of her child so they pretended to be one. She might have been old, but she was smart enough to hung up and call my uncle and of course he had no accident, but coincidentallt it was the only day in the week he was not with her. Did they know? Who knows

I once locked myself out of my apartment. It was not locked-locked, just the key was inside. In full panic mode (because my dog was inside and it was late at night) I googled for a locksmith. You can already see the mistakes I made here. I called them, a guy came over with a lot of tools. He showed me the upcoming cost, I had to agree with it on the spot, but it was what he said on the phone. Then he started his work and, unable to open the bolt with sandpaper (why sandpaper I don’t know), began loudly rattling on the door to loosen it somehow. My neighbors were probably really annoyed by this and my dog scared. This went on for 15-20 minutes and it finally worked (don’t remember if it was only from the rattling or something else). It turns out this was unnecessary, more on that later.

We sat down to do the payment and this is the scam part: it suddenly cost 4-5 times the amount he told me on the phone! I was confused but made my next mistake: I paid it because I suddenly had the feeling this is a criminal organization and I would be in trouble with them.

Next day I checked valid prices and it was way overpaid. I tried to ask my bank to get my money back but it was a kind of payment that wouldn’t allow this. I even called the guy back and asked for my money, he laughed at me. I went to the local consumer protection agency, they could not help me. The „invoice“ he gave me was not valid, it had no real company, no sales tax ID. Nothing I could do here. He did actually help me get inside my apartment but it was way too expensive and the guy was not even good at what he was doing.

Multiple mistakes:

• I panicked
• I did not check if I might be able to do it on my own
• I googled
• I did not check if the invoice is valid (I’m no lawyer but it looked sketchy)

Later I learned how to easily break into my apartment in a similar situation using a simple wire. I don’t know why this asshole made it so complicated and loud.

I have since been very paranoid about forgetting my keys.

Pro tip: When you move into a new place, take some time to check for locksmiths and other services in your local area that are legit and save those in your phone book. If something happens you know where to go and don’t have to ask Google.

Was travelling with some friends in Istanbul. They were pretty inexperienced abroad, so I figured out public transit there, told them what tickets to buy, and we all walked to the ticket machine. There was a big line/crowd, and a guy up front was taking cash and giving people tickets, which he got by scanning a card at the machine. I went first hoping to show my friends what to do - bought my ticket for like €5 or so and ignored the scammer. They all gave the scammer guy like €20 for him to scan his pass and buy them a €5 ticket. Their reasons were “he seemed official” and “I knew it was a scam, but I figured it was just easier to go along with it”.

I did fall for a taxi scam in Peru though and ended up staying at a hotel run by some mafia types. They were cool, though, so it turned out OK - just cost me a little extra money for an interesting story.

I was at a family gathering and my grandfather was in the middle of something. He asked for my help and turns out “Apple support” on the phone was trying to get him to pay some overdue bills with giftcards.

I joked around a bit with the guy and he started to threaten me, ha.

I used to work with a bloke who got scammed in the car park for a house sound system.

He’s a smart bloke runs a company of his own now too but he was at the shop on the weekend buying whatever.

Two guys approached him in a truck and said our boss ordered one sound system but got two and we got told to get rid of it but have to get to the job for install in 15 minutes. If you’re interested its yours for 500 dollars or whatever.

My mate jumped at it bought it all and went on his way.

Turns out the speakers were just speaker boxes no actual stuff inside no cables doe the stereo etc.

As he told us the story we couldn’t believe he fell for it, but there’s a sucker every minute as they say.

My best friend used to work at a local fast food chain, and there was one week when we were both on vacation with our other friends. He was a Lead and the manager was also away during this timeframe.

We find out that some employee ended up falling for a phone scam, someone called the restaurant stating that they were the manager and needed money to cover some business costs. So this scammer tells the employee to buy gift cards and read out the numbers on the phone and such.

This dumbass ACTUALLY does this, while using the restaurant funds. He goes to Walmart with cash from the drawers, buys the gift cards worth like 5000 bucks, and gives them all to the scammer on the phone.

It wasn’t until after the full transaction completed that the dumbass employee decided to call my friend asking if what he did was okay, and my friend was like “FUCK NO, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT, ARE YOU INSANE?”

And yeah, pretty sure that dude was fired and they just had to deal with being short 5000 dollars.

I used to buy pokemon cards as a kid

Not a scam but scumbag behaviour.:

My grandmother was offered a expensive credit line by the bank very insistently on the phone after they solved other of her problems. She obviously fell for it and had to pay a shit ton of interests.

They are verbose and pushy towards elderly people because they know they are prone to accept thing they do not need/want.

A believed a guy who said he just got out of jail and needed $10 for a bus ride home. I was 17. Found an ATM, gave him the cash, saw him walking around the mall with his girlfriend 20 minutes later.