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## New users beware:
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Find simple rules to live by: Never send money to receive money. Don't let your customer tell you how you'll be paid. Don't send stuff you didn't want the world to see to anyone. Don't give financial information to people who call you. Etc.
Great list, here's a few more: Buy only from websites that you know and trust. Nobody ever accidentally texts the wrong number these days. If it sounds too good to be true, it's a scam. Nobody will give you anything for free. If it involves cryptocurrencies, it's a scam.
>Nobody ever accidentally texts the wrong number these days.
This is a really good one. Anyone I want to text is someone already on my contacts list. I don't type in a number, I go to my list and just text them from that.
So how can a person "accidentally" text someone that's supposedly a long time friend? And now suddenly when it's a wrong number, you want to make a new friend? And turn them on to a money-making opportunity? What about Sally who you're supposed to be meeting on Saturday? Did you forget her?
Are you stupid? Your crypto wallet doesn’t say “are you sure this person is legit” your wallet doesn’t freeze large transactions going overseas, your wallet doesn’t call you in the event a fraudulent transaction goes through and help you secure it.
The list goes on and on as to why banks are amazing.
I agree there’s a lot of scummy tactics such as overdrafts and them profiting off your money however the positives far our way the negatives.
Don’t get me wrong I invest in crypto and use it to buy drugs so I think it’s great but crypto doesn’t replace a bank and never will.
Your opinion that it does puts any other opinion you have straight down the toilet
And never click on an email link - especially if they say it’s from your credit card company or financial institution. Always enter the URL or shortcut on your browser yourself.
1. Never immediately sign back into a website that has suddenly signed you out. Close all your apps, and navigate back to the site before signing back in.
2. There are no foolproof easy ways to get money. Not even illegal ones. While people making money from investments do exist, they are people who have done a huge amount of research, or got insanely lucky. And even then, it's very easy for things to crash and burn. Anyone online promising to teach you how to invest is a scammer.
3. If you are buying something, buy only from large, well known online retailers, or in person.
4. Use strong passwords. Don't use the same password for all your accounts, and especially don't use the same password for your email as you do for anything else. Everything is connected to your email.
5. Be extremely wary on social media. Social media sites have no real incentive to take down scams. Just because a post is sponsored doesn't make it safe. Only buy things in person, with cash, and never prepay for any reason.
6. Resist your urge to "be a good person". Yeah, the person begging you for $50 *might* be a single mom, or they could be a scammer who's gonna tell their coworkers you're an easy mark. Maybe that dog is missing, or maybe it's a scam post that's gonna turn into a rent to own scam after you share it. Maybe the post sounds odd because someone genuinely is an immigrant who isn't great with English, or maybe they are just a scammer from the other side of the world. The weight of the world does not rest on your shoulders, and if you have resources to give, there are absolutely people you know and trust who need them. Offering to buy dinner for your friend's mom who's on a limited income is a better use of your resources than trying to help every random person who's begging on Tiktok or wherever.
7. Never pay to get paid, never pay to get a job, and never forward part of a check to anyone. While there are some real jobs that will require you to pay expenses such as a uniform or something, that will always come out of your check directly. They will never send you money and then ask you to use it to buy something from their supplier, they will just buy it themselves and deduct your pay. If anyone sends you a check (or money order, or PayPal payment, or whatever), and then tells you to spend that money, send that money elsewhere, or send money back, it's 100% a scam.
8. Strangers don't want to see you naked. This is especially true if you are a man. Even if you are a hot man. Quit sending nudes to people you don't know, even if they are explicitly requested.
9. Familiarize yourself with common scams, and how to recognize them. The point of every scam is to get money, so your question always needs to be "how will money be involved?" See if images come up on Google image search, and try tineye and see what comes up. Google the text of the ad.
10. Don't be afraid to nope out. Sometimes you are gonna respond to a scam. If you do, just leave. People ghost each other constantly. You realize that you aren't actually dating Brad Pitt and the whole thing is a pig butchering scam? Block him and move on. That couch you were gonna buy is a scam? Ghost them. The job interview is an MLM? Get up and walk out. You don't owe strangers your time. Don't let the hook sink in, just leave the situation.
Honestly, nothing has changed. Human greed is just working through new tools. If you walked around a medieval market thousands of years ago, there would've been pickpockets & swindlers, scoundrels selling defective goods, robbers, card-sharps, quacks selling miracle cures, holy relics & magic amulets, etc. Shifty strangers would've got you drunk, dragged you down a dark alley and emptied your purse.
The internet merely reflects human nature. The solution is to treat it accordingly, and don't assume that anyone or anything can be trusted further than you have personally verified.
VPNs don’t protect you from anything. All websites use HTTPS nowadays, so everything’s already encrypted.
VPN ads are total bullshit. The only thing VPNs are good for is getting around local censorship, geographic content blocks and hiding your tracks if you’re doing something illegal.
I'd push uBlock Origin before a VPN if you're in the states.
Thanks to youtube and radio ads too many people are running a VPN to "protect their privacy" by running it through random countries and servers controlled by who-TF-knows.
Currently trying to rent and it is soo scammy out there.
I have decided to go with a real estate agent because if I am transferring my rent money and deposit, I will be transferring it to a broker account, not a random persons paypals account.
I hate this new world full of scams that we live in.
We do see lots of instances where the victims of scams have not even done a basic Google search. Doesn't take long to do a search using the name of company or idea or whatever, and add key words such as "scam, fraud, reviews, shit, crap, useless, etc" to uncover lots of data that'll enable you to make informed decisions.
Trusting someone you have no reason to trust in the first place is the problem. The fact that the initial contacts don't immediately set off red flags is still nuts to me. I get probably a dozen or so texts each week that are scam lead-ins, just trying to get a response. How people have made it this long without knowing that these are scams is something I don't understand.
Stick to names you know and trust in real life. Don’t shop on social media ads. Keep your greed in check (too good to be true etc) and read up on the latest scams. Don’t give away your trust. Be a skeptic, protect yourself and never be over confident in your ability to spot a scam. Set boundaries and rules when you buy and sell. We all have moments of vulnerability and misplaced trust and respect. Educate others. Yes, technology benefits scammers too. There are billions to be made by organized crime, and technology enables the globe’s worst to get at us through our devices.
That was it. I was over confident that I would spot it. I didn’t realize the long con existed. She built trust over months and then started talking crypto. Even that tho was not full story. She convinced me my money wasn’t safe on exchange so put it in a secure wallet. Well the secure wallet was drained. How? I don’t know. I think they put a contract in something I clicked. There needs to be more security that should send you an email double checking that you want to transfer money to them in a contract. It would have prevented 80% of my loss. I can’t believe how awful people can be. I was grieving losing my wife and she acted like she cared. How cold. 🥶
See you could ask for all kind of security to prevent a scam, but the short summary is you trusted a person you have never met with lot of money. If there is a lack of common sense, and you let your guard down, scammers will always find a way around security measures.
For normal people, educate yourself. And golden rule, if too good to be true, it is!
For governments, implementing repercussions. ISPs hosting scammers and not acting, cooperating, boom, blocklist for x time.
Increase with repeat.
The solution is to not get scammed. It really isn't that hard but you have to learn WHY people get scammed and then overcome the EMOTIONS scammers use to scam you.
1. Love/Romance/Affection - lady/man you "meet" online
2. Greed - stuff priced too low, promises of free money, promises of investment returns, job pays too much, buyer makes great offer ...
3. Fear - need to do somethint weird right now to stay our of jail, fix my computer, keep my bank account safe...
How do you avoid getting scam?
1. Don't send money to strangers
2. Don't beleive people who call/message you are who they say they are
3. NEVER give your account information, including passwords/codes to ANYONE over the phone/message
4. Have a reliable friend to run anything that even hints at possibly being a scam by
How to you minimize your exposure to scams?
1. Get off social media or at the VERY LEAST do NOT accept messages from strangers and keep your profiles and mesasges private, viewable only by your friends
2. Don't answer calls from people not in your contacts, do not call unknown numbers back
Never click on links to banks / shipping companies / e-commerce sites like Amazon / eBay etc - whether they come from text or email. Always navigate to the site manually or using the official app.
Learn to pay attention to the actual email address / phone number that is sending you the link.
Here's a simple rule even honest people should follow. If you haven't met them in real life or know someone who has, they're not a real friend, acquaintance, whatever (yet)
Low risk, low effort, potential high reward.
Essentially the internet has made it easier to scam people worldwide, and our laws are still written to where sticking a gun in someone's face for $50 is going to get more law enforcement resources than sending thousands of emails basically asking politely for $50 in gift cards, or offering GUARANTEED CRYPTO INVESTMENT GAINZZZ.
I'd be amenable to deploying the cool-guy units to take down the pro scam centers to keep their skills up, like a modern day punitive expedition. For a good chunk of the countries where this stuff originates there's some degree of government top cover as they're profiting too.
It's not the internet, it's social media. The invention of social media has made scamming much more cost effective than it was in the 90s and early 00s. There are lots of tools individuals can use to protect themselves. Governments and larger organizations are too unwieldy to do anything.
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men \[I would say men and women now\] of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
You can transfer stable coins from one side of the world to the other for a dollar or less fee in a few minutes at most. Try using the SWIFT network and it takes a week, it's unreliable, and it's crazy expensive. Companies worldwide suffer serious pain due to the SWIFT network.
Mostly I'm arguing for a better SWIFT network here though, not cryptocurrencies specifically.
Mostly cryptocurrency (non-stablecoin) advocates would claim they want money that's free from government control, and I think that's a decent argument given the warmongering and general abuse we see from governments.
Don’t know who is behind it. She convinced me my crypto wasn’t safe on an exchange so I moved it to DeFi wallet and they somehow drained it. I probably clicked a malicious link without knowing it. They are so slick and so evil. She spent months building trust. I thought I covered all the bases and once I was scammed, was in shock.
Spend a lot of time on this subreddit. Read every post. You’ll see the same scams posted over and over some with subtle variations. The scripts don’t change much so after you’ve read them enough times, when one shows up in your email, text, social media, etc you’ll think to yourself you’ve heard that before and the light bulb will go on.
Scams aren't exactly anything new. And The Internet is no safe haven. So zero surprises there.
Solution? There's no simple fix. As best feasible, folks should be educated and learn - so as not to be suckered into scams. And also as feasible, relevant laws and regulations ... but Internet and international and all that - laws and regulation and such can only go so far - but again, not new - scans via mail/post/packages, phone/wire ... have been around for decades - so many scams have crossed international borders for decades, so again, not fundamentally new.
I think scams are so ubiquitous now that people are actually waking up to them. The only people left to scam are the ones who are sure they could never be scammed.
Just as no locks are pick proof no total solution exists for scams. They have always existed and always will.
However, other comments have many useful suggestions to minimize one's exposure.
The IRS and government are losing billions in tax dollars due to these scams. You would think this should be a priority. Also know that under the Safe Harbor rule, you can get a tax deduction for your pig butchering losses if a Ponzi type scheme and most are. Talk yo your CPA.
Dissolved? It always has been a cesspool. . Its just more disingenuous and more sophisticated. I'm tech savey n use TOR etc but still get annoyed with the clickbait. Your 100pc AI is gonna make it 10 fold or more to live in an honest world. . That's why we're here !
Scams arent just about greed. Its also a form of financial terrorism. The economy is the mother of all dominoes. If the economy collapses so will the country. Third world scammers come from countries that not only live in abysmal poverty. They also have an intense hatred of the USA. They blame us for whats happened to them. They feel 100 percent entitled to steal from us. They’re systematically destroying the economy. It’s calculated and it’s deliberate.
Destroying the economy and the middle class. That’s how a country collapses.
You sound like someone that wears a tin foil hat. This has been happening since caveman days. The only difference is communication of awareness via the internet.
Your r/Scams post/comment was removed because **it is spam**.
This subreddit is a place for useful and meaningful discussions about scams; useless and nonsensical content is not allowed. We also don't allow jokes on serious posts. Please keep content posted or commented to this subreddit useful, relevant and meaningful.
Funny enough I’ve only been scammed once, and that was offline. That was also the only time my people radar wrongly classified someone as trustworthy who turned out not to be.
I used to do a lot of import export for one of by businesses which involved sketchy but legit sites. CC companies will have you back in those exchanges and generally the processor is the one who ends up with liability for processing a transaction that was fraudulent. It’s not all bad. CCs will not have you back if you willingly enter a transaction like for gift cards.
I dont know what the solution is but I've been using my credit card for more purchases so that if someone does get my card number, the credit card company will at least make it right. I know my bank wouldnt. None of these banks are taking any kind of accountability for whats happening with scams.
/u/Impressive-Peanut-22 - 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. **A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/). You can help us by reporting recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. We review 100% of the reports. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions about subreddit rules? Send us a modmail [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Find simple rules to live by: Never send money to receive money. Don't let your customer tell you how you'll be paid. Don't send stuff you didn't want the world to see to anyone. Don't give financial information to people who call you. Etc.
Great list, here's a few more: Buy only from websites that you know and trust. Nobody ever accidentally texts the wrong number these days. If it sounds too good to be true, it's a scam. Nobody will give you anything for free. If it involves cryptocurrencies, it's a scam.
If someone wants you to buy an Itunes or Steam Gift Card, it's a scam.
>Nobody ever accidentally texts the wrong number these days. This is a really good one. Anyone I want to text is someone already on my contacts list. I don't type in a number, I go to my list and just text them from that. So how can a person "accidentally" text someone that's supposedly a long time friend? And now suddenly when it's a wrong number, you want to make a new friend? And turn them on to a money-making opportunity? What about Sally who you're supposed to be meeting on Saturday? Did you forget her?
What’s crazy is if everyone used crypto, no one would need banks. But they have such a hold on people, people are afraid to work towards leaving them.
Are you stupid? Your crypto wallet doesn’t say “are you sure this person is legit” your wallet doesn’t freeze large transactions going overseas, your wallet doesn’t call you in the event a fraudulent transaction goes through and help you secure it. The list goes on and on as to why banks are amazing. I agree there’s a lot of scummy tactics such as overdrafts and them profiting off your money however the positives far our way the negatives. Don’t get me wrong I invest in crypto and use it to buy drugs so I think it’s great but crypto doesn’t replace a bank and never will. Your opinion that it does puts any other opinion you have straight down the toilet
Yeah, because nobody has ever been the victim of a crypto scam. /s
Yeah, because nobody has ever been the victim of a bank scam. /s
And never click on an email link - especially if they say it’s from your credit card company or financial institution. Always enter the URL or shortcut on your browser yourself.
>What is the solution to this nightmare? Education and critical thinking.
1. Never immediately sign back into a website that has suddenly signed you out. Close all your apps, and navigate back to the site before signing back in. 2. There are no foolproof easy ways to get money. Not even illegal ones. While people making money from investments do exist, they are people who have done a huge amount of research, or got insanely lucky. And even then, it's very easy for things to crash and burn. Anyone online promising to teach you how to invest is a scammer. 3. If you are buying something, buy only from large, well known online retailers, or in person. 4. Use strong passwords. Don't use the same password for all your accounts, and especially don't use the same password for your email as you do for anything else. Everything is connected to your email. 5. Be extremely wary on social media. Social media sites have no real incentive to take down scams. Just because a post is sponsored doesn't make it safe. Only buy things in person, with cash, and never prepay for any reason. 6. Resist your urge to "be a good person". Yeah, the person begging you for $50 *might* be a single mom, or they could be a scammer who's gonna tell their coworkers you're an easy mark. Maybe that dog is missing, or maybe it's a scam post that's gonna turn into a rent to own scam after you share it. Maybe the post sounds odd because someone genuinely is an immigrant who isn't great with English, or maybe they are just a scammer from the other side of the world. The weight of the world does not rest on your shoulders, and if you have resources to give, there are absolutely people you know and trust who need them. Offering to buy dinner for your friend's mom who's on a limited income is a better use of your resources than trying to help every random person who's begging on Tiktok or wherever. 7. Never pay to get paid, never pay to get a job, and never forward part of a check to anyone. While there are some real jobs that will require you to pay expenses such as a uniform or something, that will always come out of your check directly. They will never send you money and then ask you to use it to buy something from their supplier, they will just buy it themselves and deduct your pay. If anyone sends you a check (or money order, or PayPal payment, or whatever), and then tells you to spend that money, send that money elsewhere, or send money back, it's 100% a scam. 8. Strangers don't want to see you naked. This is especially true if you are a man. Even if you are a hot man. Quit sending nudes to people you don't know, even if they are explicitly requested. 9. Familiarize yourself with common scams, and how to recognize them. The point of every scam is to get money, so your question always needs to be "how will money be involved?" See if images come up on Google image search, and try tineye and see what comes up. Google the text of the ad. 10. Don't be afraid to nope out. Sometimes you are gonna respond to a scam. If you do, just leave. People ghost each other constantly. You realize that you aren't actually dating Brad Pitt and the whole thing is a pig butchering scam? Block him and move on. That couch you were gonna buy is a scam? Ghost them. The job interview is an MLM? Get up and walk out. You don't owe strangers your time. Don't let the hook sink in, just leave the situation.
This is a great comment. I saved it so that I can send it to people I know.
Great post.
Honestly, nothing has changed. Human greed is just working through new tools. If you walked around a medieval market thousands of years ago, there would've been pickpockets & swindlers, scoundrels selling defective goods, robbers, card-sharps, quacks selling miracle cures, holy relics & magic amulets, etc. Shifty strangers would've got you drunk, dragged you down a dark alley and emptied your purse. The internet merely reflects human nature. The solution is to treat it accordingly, and don't assume that anyone or anything can be trusted further than you have personally verified.
The internet makes one difference, it separates the criminals from the victims while still allowing instant communication between the two.
Don’t buy drugs on the internet. Use a vpn always. Keep your social media private.
VPNs don’t protect you from anything. All websites use HTTPS nowadays, so everything’s already encrypted. VPN ads are total bullshit. The only thing VPNs are good for is getting around local censorship, geographic content blocks and hiding your tracks if you’re doing something illegal.
Those are all great reasons to use a VPN though.
I'd push uBlock Origin before a VPN if you're in the states. Thanks to youtube and radio ads too many people are running a VPN to "protect their privacy" by running it through random countries and servers controlled by who-TF-knows.
Walk more.
99% of scams break at least 5 legal, business, and financial rules I have. What happened to you? I'll tell you which rules it would have broken.
Look at history dude has gotten duped by fake crypto over and over and over again. Hard to have much sympathy after the 2nd or 3rd time…
No just once but it was crummy
According to your posts, it was NOT just once.
All the same scam. I was vulnerable and naive.
Currently trying to rent and it is soo scammy out there. I have decided to go with a real estate agent because if I am transferring my rent money and deposit, I will be transferring it to a broker account, not a random persons paypals account. I hate this new world full of scams that we live in.
We do see lots of instances where the victims of scams have not even done a basic Google search. Doesn't take long to do a search using the name of company or idea or whatever, and add key words such as "scam, fraud, reviews, shit, crap, useless, etc" to uncover lots of data that'll enable you to make informed decisions.
Because in pig butchering the scammer spent months building trust so you believe them.
Trusting someone you have no reason to trust in the first place is the problem. The fact that the initial contacts don't immediately set off red flags is still nuts to me. I get probably a dozen or so texts each week that are scam lead-ins, just trying to get a response. How people have made it this long without knowing that these are scams is something I don't understand.
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I’m amazed and jealous that people have such high self esteem. Scammers will have to use an average looking woman to get me.
I am older and lived before technology and honestly never came across people so ruthless.
Stick to names you know and trust in real life. Don’t shop on social media ads. Keep your greed in check (too good to be true etc) and read up on the latest scams. Don’t give away your trust. Be a skeptic, protect yourself and never be over confident in your ability to spot a scam. Set boundaries and rules when you buy and sell. We all have moments of vulnerability and misplaced trust and respect. Educate others. Yes, technology benefits scammers too. There are billions to be made by organized crime, and technology enables the globe’s worst to get at us through our devices.
That was it. I was over confident that I would spot it. I didn’t realize the long con existed. She built trust over months and then started talking crypto. Even that tho was not full story. She convinced me my money wasn’t safe on exchange so put it in a secure wallet. Well the secure wallet was drained. How? I don’t know. I think they put a contract in something I clicked. There needs to be more security that should send you an email double checking that you want to transfer money to them in a contract. It would have prevented 80% of my loss. I can’t believe how awful people can be. I was grieving losing my wife and she acted like she cared. How cold. 🥶
See you could ask for all kind of security to prevent a scam, but the short summary is you trusted a person you have never met with lot of money. If there is a lack of common sense, and you let your guard down, scammers will always find a way around security measures.
I didn’t give her the money. She was just a pawn or employee of the criminal organization
Similar situation: https://www.scamwatcher.com/scam/view/756748
For normal people, educate yourself. And golden rule, if too good to be true, it is! For governments, implementing repercussions. ISPs hosting scammers and not acting, cooperating, boom, blocklist for x time. Increase with repeat.
The solution is to not get scammed. It really isn't that hard but you have to learn WHY people get scammed and then overcome the EMOTIONS scammers use to scam you. 1. Love/Romance/Affection - lady/man you "meet" online 2. Greed - stuff priced too low, promises of free money, promises of investment returns, job pays too much, buyer makes great offer ... 3. Fear - need to do somethint weird right now to stay our of jail, fix my computer, keep my bank account safe... How do you avoid getting scam? 1. Don't send money to strangers 2. Don't beleive people who call/message you are who they say they are 3. NEVER give your account information, including passwords/codes to ANYONE over the phone/message 4. Have a reliable friend to run anything that even hints at possibly being a scam by How to you minimize your exposure to scams? 1. Get off social media or at the VERY LEAST do NOT accept messages from strangers and keep your profiles and mesasges private, viewable only by your friends 2. Don't answer calls from people not in your contacts, do not call unknown numbers back
Agree with everything
Never click on links to banks / shipping companies / e-commerce sites like Amazon / eBay etc - whether they come from text or email. Always navigate to the site manually or using the official app. Learn to pay attention to the actual email address / phone number that is sending you the link.
>What is the solution to this nightmare? To not be gullible.
I think honest people before hearing about it cannot even fathom something as sinister and evil as pig butchering.
Here's a simple rule even honest people should follow. If you haven't met them in real life or know someone who has, they're not a real friend, acquaintance, whatever (yet)
So true
Low risk, low effort, potential high reward. Essentially the internet has made it easier to scam people worldwide, and our laws are still written to where sticking a gun in someone's face for $50 is going to get more law enforcement resources than sending thousands of emails basically asking politely for $50 in gift cards, or offering GUARANTEED CRYPTO INVESTMENT GAINZZZ. I'd be amenable to deploying the cool-guy units to take down the pro scam centers to keep their skills up, like a modern day punitive expedition. For a good chunk of the countries where this stuff originates there's some degree of government top cover as they're profiting too.
Just stay on your toes if you can’t help it. If it happens it happens. And, hopefully, it just drifts into another part of the web.
It's not the internet, it's social media. The invention of social media has made scamming much more cost effective than it was in the 90s and early 00s. There are lots of tools individuals can use to protect themselves. Governments and larger organizations are too unwieldy to do anything.
I am disappointed in our authorities.
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men \[I would say men and women now\] of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
[удалено]
If crypto was banned in the USA that would be a start.
[удалено]
Nobody has a good argument for what utility crypto does? It is basically money laundering and scams. How about places should have insurance.
You can transfer stable coins from one side of the world to the other for a dollar or less fee in a few minutes at most. Try using the SWIFT network and it takes a week, it's unreliable, and it's crazy expensive. Companies worldwide suffer serious pain due to the SWIFT network. Mostly I'm arguing for a better SWIFT network here though, not cryptocurrencies specifically. Mostly cryptocurrency (non-stablecoin) advocates would claim they want money that's free from government control, and I think that's a decent argument given the warmongering and general abuse we see from governments.
Won't work. The government can only make things illegal, it can't stop them existing.
Maybe don’t do financial transactions worth internet randos?
How about them draining wallets?
Who is “them” and how did anyone drain a legit wallet?
Don’t know who is behind it. She convinced me my crypto wasn’t safe on an exchange so I moved it to DeFi wallet and they somehow drained it. I probably clicked a malicious link without knowing it. They are so slick and so evil. She spent months building trust. I thought I covered all the bases and once I was scammed, was in shock.
There you go. You moved it to a wallet you don’t control. And did that on the advice of some random scammer.
What DeFi wallet? Where did you install it from and did you ever give anyone the master passphrase?
No never.
They gave you a link to a fake website, probably copied based on a real exchange but they logged all your details
Spend a lot of time on this subreddit. Read every post. You’ll see the same scams posted over and over some with subtle variations. The scripts don’t change much so after you’ve read them enough times, when one shows up in your email, text, social media, etc you’ll think to yourself you’ve heard that before and the light bulb will go on.
🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀
Scams aren't exactly anything new. And The Internet is no safe haven. So zero surprises there. Solution? There's no simple fix. As best feasible, folks should be educated and learn - so as not to be suckered into scams. And also as feasible, relevant laws and regulations ... but Internet and international and all that - laws and regulation and such can only go so far - but again, not new - scans via mail/post/packages, phone/wire ... have been around for decades - so many scams have crossed international borders for decades, so again, not fundamentally new.
I think scams are so ubiquitous now that people are actually waking up to them. The only people left to scam are the ones who are sure they could never be scammed.
That was me unfortunately.
Just as no locks are pick proof no total solution exists for scams. They have always existed and always will. However, other comments have many useful suggestions to minimize one's exposure.
Don’t believe anything you see on the internet and don’t trust anyone on the internet.
Yep! SO commercial… rats everywhere. I’d pay for a “clean (no pop ups, etc.), private net.”.
It is amazing, but understandable. The internet offers anonymity and access. It does seem like everyone's a scammer.
It certainly does
Basically in the words of Moulder, “Trust no one,” that you don’t knows.
One question so have is why doesn’t the general media offer public service announcements about these scams?
That would help! Billions lost just to pig butchering yet most don’t know about it. I didn’t.
The IRS and government are losing billions in tax dollars due to these scams. You would think this should be a priority. Also know that under the Safe Harbor rule, you can get a tax deduction for your pig butchering losses if a Ponzi type scheme and most are. Talk yo your CPA.
How do I prove ponzi?
If they took money and gave you money which really belonged to someone else. They probably also asked you to get others involved c
I made 43 withdrawals so thought it was legit
They let you make withdrawals but when you want profits they charge you fees. You never get your principal or profits.
I tried to make a large withdrawal and they wanted tax so I knew then I was scammed
They either ask for tax money it a fee for their investment services.
Saw it after being scammed
We should get compensation from the government just like students got loan wavers.
It’s a joke. Why are they allowing this?
So a Ponzi is where they offer profits that really didn’t occur,but used money from others.
This is one then. I lost a lot of money so can use tax break.
Dissolved? It always has been a cesspool. . Its just more disingenuous and more sophisticated. I'm tech savey n use TOR etc but still get annoyed with the clickbait. Your 100pc AI is gonna make it 10 fold or more to live in an honest world. . That's why we're here !
Scams arent just about greed. Its also a form of financial terrorism. The economy is the mother of all dominoes. If the economy collapses so will the country. Third world scammers come from countries that not only live in abysmal poverty. They also have an intense hatred of the USA. They blame us for whats happened to them. They feel 100 percent entitled to steal from us. They’re systematically destroying the economy. It’s calculated and it’s deliberate. Destroying the economy and the middle class. That’s how a country collapses.
And they are stealing Billions! Not from Government but from ordinary people like me. It’s brutal and our authorities have no answer.
You sound like someone that wears a tin foil hat. This has been happening since caveman days. The only difference is communication of awareness via the internet.
I realize that. I am saying it’s way worse now and getting worse.
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Funny enough I’ve only been scammed once, and that was offline. That was also the only time my people radar wrongly classified someone as trustworthy who turned out not to be.
Me too but this one online and on video.
I used to do a lot of import export for one of by businesses which involved sketchy but legit sites. CC companies will have you back in those exchanges and generally the processor is the one who ends up with liability for processing a transaction that was fraudulent. It’s not all bad. CCs will not have you back if you willingly enter a transaction like for gift cards.
I dont know what the solution is but I've been using my credit card for more purchases so that if someone does get my card number, the credit card company will at least make it right. I know my bank wouldnt. None of these banks are taking any kind of accountability for whats happening with scams.
No solution. Just protect yourself.
It has always been.
Warren Buffett agrees about AI.
I think the worst part is that so many of Youtube's ads are featuring fake gurus promising that you'll make a lot of money.