#scam advice

Recently, a user by the name of royaltalonhero contacted me through messages, and I can’t really decide whether this is a scam or not.

There are a few red flags I can spot, but I wanted to be safe and ask just in case. Images of the exchange below.

The user in question has no posts, and is relatively new from what I’ve seen.

Edit:

Wish I could donate to you but I sadly can't. I am trying to save my money so I can go to college.

Years ago, probably, I wrote a journal, that was super messy, but to help people avoid being scammed. Please share these with people you think could fall victim to a scam or are being scammed. 

Now what is a scam?

A scam is quiet simply the process of someone lying to you in order to get money. Mostly in a way they cannot legally be charged or be accounted for, so you are out of your money and can’t do anything about it.

Or google by definition: “ a dishonest scheme; a fraud. “ “swindle”

Let me give you some examples:

E-mail and Phone call scams:

I get plenty of spam E-mails. For Example where they say “You won car/card/etc” despite never participating in anything. Or “your Antivirus is running out/found a virus”. I often get things like “Your package has been sent”, “Congratulation, blabla couldn’t reach you”, “Weight loss 14kg in one month!?” and all the fun stuff. Some people may also get “Your Social Security number has been compromised”, etc. Stuff that is worrisome but actually just a lie. 

These e-mails are all infact scams. None of them would/will deliver on their promise, they are lies. Most phone-calls go the same way. Calling you about for example some expired software or false reports etc.

In the end the scams will end in you sending money as a “fee” so you can get what they promised- but they never do. It is a scam after all.

-Also never! Never ever open links from your e-mail. Especially from paypal or amazon for example, go over the usual way, google, website, log-in, but not over the link in the e-mail. You can check this way if whatever the e-mail is claiming is true, if you don’t find anything, it is a scam! Some scammers are very good at faking these E-mails, so be extra careful.

-Also: check grammar, spelling mistakes and most important the E-mail adress, you’ll often see very very different e-mail addresses than what the actual support e-mail of the websites are. Spelling and wording is often an indicated as well.

-These type of scams can also be on websites/apps in messages claiming to be from support/moderator/admins

Pop-up scams

Ever gone on a website and suddenly a pop-up comes up saying your computer has a virus? To call a specific number? Adds also often contain scams on more dubious websites.

Yep, those are scams. Websites and especially pop-ups cannot diagnose wether or not your computer has a virus. 

So what these scams likely lead to is, that they ask you to download a program similar or even anydesk to gain remote access to your computer.

They’ll pretend with the console that they check and found a virus, they make you pay for the “repair” or and after lock you out of your computer and demand money to unlock it. 

-Similarily the refund and cancelation scams:

E-mail, phone-call or so forth telling you to call the number in order to cancel a service you likely never ordered in the first place, for example an Antivirus software. They’ll also want to connect to your computer, make you open your bank account and with some html fake having send a shit ton of money to you. They then beg you in order to save their job to send back the money minus the refund. However, they infact never send you money. They only made it look like it.

For cancelations, they’ll likely ask for a “cancelation fee”. But it all goes down similarily. You pay the fee, they lock your computer, you pay more.

Packages, and money laundering:

In some cases, you’ll be ask as a result from scams, like cancelation fee or refund scam, to buy for example google play cards from multiple stores and send them to an adress in a package.

They could also ask you to send them the cash in a box/letters instead of cards, but it is still sending it of physically.

You might also be a person that receives packages that they tell you not to open.

Most of the time, they’ll send it to an adress where one of the scammers co-workers can pick it up and then send it to the scammers.

If you are asked to pay with google pay/amazon or any sort of store card, especially asked to put them in a box and send them off? 100% a scam.

Romance Scams

Lots of people are lonely no? You go on a dating app or website and get a match. You talk and flirt and then you hear that the person you like is financially struggling, you may offer to help or they straight up ask for money.

Could be for gas/diapers/groceries whatever. The point where it really becomes obvious that you are being used as a cash grab is when they ask for more. 

You’ll also never see a cent of it back.

On top of that, you’ll either encounter someone who just wants a sugar daddy/momma/piggy bank or a catfish. 

Likely you’ll sent money over paypal as friends and family or any app the scammer wants you to pay with, and poof money is gone forever and you can’t claim it back.

Recruitment/job scams

Okay this is really quick. You NEVER have to pay the job you work for just to work for them. They are meant to pay you, not you them.

If you do fall for it, you’ll likely don’t even get paid or get paid even less than expected. Most of these are super shady businesses, so as an extra advice:

don’t do any job that is illegal or likely very shady.

-Extra advice, always read your contract before signing and get a copy of the signed contract. If you are not fine with the contract, don’t sign.

Business/Artist/Commission Scams

Artists often do commissions, so lets take small business and artists as example.

You commission some and all is great, they took the commission and give you updates, you pay... And weeks go buy, with or without business, eventually you are over deadline and no product in sight.

At this point if you did not have frequent updates or any updates the artist will continue making excuses and more time passes. Eventually when for example paid with paypal, after 6 months you cannot get your money back, the artist blocks you and cuts contact. At that point they sucessfully stole your money.

Now: I do like to mention, that some artists just take upon to much work/might actually have an emergency and so forth. But they will tell you such. Popular Artists, have a query, so it could take a while before they get to you, but you’d certainly see them complete their orders after another. 

Bad businesses do not update you/no proof to the updates/take upon more commissions despite yours not being completed. Read the goddamn reviews. Even more, some may just look awful, could be spiteful customers for whatever reason, however if you see more of such, ask for the customers experience. Some scammers will deliver products to customers while also scamming the other half, to continue to seem like a legitimate functioning business.

Good businesses, keep in touch. Smart business have the time-frame of order completion (not counting delivery) in their T.o.S.

Always read the T.o.S. If you don’t like the T.o.S then don’t buy. Some artists or scammers specifically state that they will not refund or and that you can’t even use what you purchased. If you do they’ll fine you or similar, so while reading these long texts is exhausting, it is to protect yourself from any legal repercussions.

Also remember, do not pay with family and friends, that is essentially “gifting” people money. Actual freelance artist need to send you an invoice, because they also have taxes to pay! Similar to serious businesses, they’ll send you bills with tax(unless it is ruled differently, however at least in Germany such also has be mentioned on the bill)

If an artist/business, gives a lot of excuses, doesn’t update/show proof, perhaps even have an attitute or ask you to pay more, are long over the deadline-, I definitely suggest to cancel your order and get your money refunded. But dang make sure to have read their T.o.S, and make sure that they didn’t update it in order to scam you.

Customer scamming you the business

Ah it also goes the other way around!

The easiest way to protect yourself as a business/artist/freelancer is a clear T.o.S. Alias Terms of Services. Petty customers or scammers will try to find any sort of loophole to scam you out of your money.

But some of the once I know are “Empathy Scams” or “My kid purchased without me knowing”.

With Empathy, they’ll likely say that they “accidently” bought it or forgot they needed the money for bills. They’ll beg you to refund them, while you likely already sent/finished or are in the making of the product. They are specifically going for your empathy. Maybe even throwing in the “my mother died/my kids birthday/christmas etc”, but these are all lies, also often attempts from choosing beggars to get something for free or a discount. Business is business, remember that most business offer “luxury items”, art btw counts as a luxury, it is not a necessity, therefore if you can’t afford don’t buy. Some may also start blaming you when you refuse that it is your fault “kids won’t have gifts/birthday-holiday is ruined/she or kid is crying”, all that to just get a free product and or their money as well. 

In other, you’ll get a message back that they want a refund, because the kid bought the item and hey maybe stole credit card. in these they likely also already received the product from you.

In these scenarios: Your T.o.S is of utmost importance.  

-I’d also limit the amount a single customer can buy from you per month or amount. You don’t want to be stacked with a massive amount of orders just for the customer not even having the money.

I’d also like to mention: Some people might spent a ridiculous high amount of money on your products. Be extra cautios of such, it isn’t necessarily someone who then skips out on/scams you, but rather mentally ill or/and on a high, maybe drunk, or people with a shopping addiction. So limiting how much can be bought/how much can be spent/ as a single customer, can be good for both sides, especially as small business that likely can’t deal or handle large quantities of orders.

Also, don’t immediately use the money you earned, you never know when a customer finds a hole in your T.o.S and files a lawsuit or similar. Businesses also have taxes to pay, so remember to put money aside for taxes and weird emergencies.

Friends sending you links

Sometimes a friend shoots you up with a link to a giveaway, there you type in your account information, and woops your account is gone. But wasn’t it a friend that send the link?

The problem with these types of scams is, that your friends account, that sends you these scam baits has already fallen for the scam. The scammer uses your friends account to lure all the other contacts into the same scam, and with each account stolen, the scammer sends the next messages with the stolen accounts.

I’ve personally had classmates and family fall for such scam, but it luckily was quickly resolved by the support.

If your friend acts suspicious, try to contact them by other means and see if they were the ones sending the message, if not, then you can quickly inform everyone that the account has been hacked/stolen and to not interact with it, until support has dealt with the issue.

Choosing beggers/Street scams

So first, people on the street begging for money, might actually not need it, but just looking for extra cash. Actually some might use the money for drugs instead.

To see wether or not they actually need money, it is better to offer food/drinks instead, you can see at the reaction if they are grateful and it actually helps or if they just wanted money for drugs or similar. 

Some people while shopping, will give you a sob story about how they have little money, maybe even get you to pay for their groceries. You don’t go shopping if you don’t have the money. They are just looking to get more free items this way. 

If someone is maybe short like a few cents, that could be real (happend as a kid to me so often haha)

Don’t give strangers money on the street, don’t pull out your wallet in public, you never know if they are going to snatch and run with it.

Cheap products:

Some MLM (Multi-level marketing), especially sell dirt-cheap and poor quality. 

If you buy from businesses, check reviews, history and legitimacy of the business. Do they deliver what they promise?

Check T.o.S. any sort of contracts for issues as well. 

If anything sold is dangerous for you and everyone, these businesses should then be reported or a law suit be filed against for breach of contract for example.

Businesses just starting out however? Hardly able to prove their legitimacy yet, though if you see poor quality and bad business practices, leave such as a review. If it is dangerous, report.

Some advice:

-“If it is too good to be true, it likely is.” Dunno who said it first though.

-Don’t ever click links, E-mails you weren’t expecting. 

-if you do expect a link or so, please be careful if it is someone you don’t know for long. Some people do disguise normal links as downloads to malicious software, that can steal your data and more. 

-if a friend sends out-of-character messages it is worth to check on them by other means and see if their account is being misused.

-Don’t send strangers on the internet, money. Especially when you need it for yourself.

-Don’t give strangers money. Actually internet or no, just don’t.

-Watch for the “https” the s stands for secure, more likely to be a serious website than the one without. You can mostly see it, that the “lock” is locked. 

-these scammers do not care if you are struggling, don’t interact with them, don’t give them the time of the day. You do not know what they are capable of.

-be suspicious, check wording, spelling, address and claims

-read the fine print (I just recently got out of a contract, because you know I could and wanted too, because it was in the contract, read the contract and the fine print, see if there is anything off)

-VPNs are great to protect yourself and/or your business online. I recommend it.

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