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r/Scams

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Brigading won't work here at r/scams.

u/one-eye-deer

MOD

•

Brigading won't work here at r/scams.

Moderator announcement

The thief now wants my iCloud…and is threatening me

u/ekw2667

•

The thief now wants my iCloud…and is threatening me

Help Needed

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I got a check from a bank that I have never used because of an "Account Closure".

u/Tatumsmiley

•

I got a check from a bank that I have never used because of an "Account Closure".

Is this a scam?

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Rules

Be civil

Please ensure that all your posts and comments in this subreddit are civil and use appropriate and respectful language at all times.

Flaming, name-calling, bullying, harassment, or anything else that could break site-wide rules or offend or disturb others is prohibited.

Regardless of whether a scam has been posted here once or a thousand times, remember there is a real person behind the screen. We are a landing page for people new to Reddit, and people in crisis. Be kind, not snarky.

Report recovery scammers

Anyone suggesting contact via DM, or the services of a professional hacker to help recover funds must be reported.

Remember: never take advice in private, because we can't look out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.

No personal information

Sharing personal information is strictly forbidden in this subreddit. Offending posts will be immediately removed.

Please censor any personal information in posts and comments. This includes phone numbers, addresses, photos, and full names.

The exception to this rule is people who present themselves as public figures (ex: celebrities, internet personalities, etc.)

No spam

This subreddit is a place for meaningful and useful discussions about scams. Nonsensical and useless content, advertisements, solicitation, or any other spammy, off-topic or low-effort content is not allowed.

No low effort posts

Off-topic or low-effort posts will be removed. Please ensure that all posts posted to this subreddit are of decent quality and on-topic.

Screenshots without transcripts, links to external articles with no information in the body of your post, link posts to outside websites, memes, jokes, or anything else that isn't useful is not allowed.

Don't post gore - NSFW content must be tagged

Don't upload gore without censoring the photos, regardless of the NSFW tag.

No personal army requests

We are not your personal army. You cannot request members of the sub to mass report accounts, mass text/call phone numbers, or otherwise use our large sub for your own personal gain.

No private message requests

Don't ask for contact via private message. We need to keep the community safe from recovery scammers or bad advice.

Remember: never take advice in private, because we can't look out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.

No scambaiting or revenge

This is a scam identification subreddit. Revenge, scambaiting, interacting with known scammers or anything that encourages wasting scammers' time, etc, on posts and comments, is not encouraged or allowed. Scambaiting can be dangerous and is best left to the professionals.

Additionally, we do not permit referrals to sites or subreddits that promote or encourage scambaiting.

No self promotion

We are not the platform to advertise your business, your Youtube, your social media channels, or other self-serving ventures.

No promoting illegal activities

Do not promote illegal transactions, hacks, scams, recovery services, or other dangerous/illegal items or activities.

No research requests or media requests without moderator approval

Given the nature of our subreddit and the risk of scammers, you cannot post a survey, a call for participants for a news story, or other research/writing opportunities without moderator approval. This is especially the case if you are collecting personal information from sub members for an article or for university/work research. A tag will be added to approved posts.

No scammers

We are not a subreddit to promote your scams.

No begging or crowdfunding links.

We do not permit requests for money, donations, wishlist purchases, etc. in this sub. This includes (but is not limited to) Gofundme campaigns, Bitcoin wallet addresses, or Venmo/Cashapp requests.

Our Community

Welcome to r/Scams, a subreddit for all your scam identification needs!

If you believe you are being scammed, you can post your questions here and have them answered by a community that is knowledgeable about all types of scams. If you are the victim of a scam, you can post here to share your story and to warn others.
We have detailed stickied threads to help you identify some of the scams we see most commonly in this subreddit; please read the stickies before posting!

Posting Guidelines

Posting guidelines:

You should post details in order to receive quick advice. Include details like: what the person sent you, details included in texts/emails/in-person conversation, etc. The more detail, the better. If you post screenshots, you should also copy and paste the text from the screenshot into your post so that the text shows up on Google and other search engines. Make sure you redact all personal information from your screenshots.
Given the nature of this subreddit, you should treat any external links as suspicious, and you should be careful visiting any unfamiliar websites.
External links, such as websites or videos, must be posted as a self post. We only allow images and self posts on this subreddit for safety reasons. If you use the link-only posting feature in this subreddit, it will be removed automatically by the AutoModerator.
Please try to use archive.is, archive.org, unvis.it, or another archive website instead of posting the direct link.
If you are posting an article, please copy and paste a few relevant paragraphs and submit them along with the link in a self post.
If you're posting about another redditor then please report them to Reddit admins at www.reddit.com/report
When commenting, remember to be civil. Jokes on serious posts will be removed and warned. Sarcasm doesn't fly in this sub. Bad advice, even when joking, can be damaging. Stick to commenting for help, or move to another sub.

AutoModerator

You can summon AutoModerator to explain any of the following scams by writing a comment with an exclamation mark (!) in front of the keyword for the scam you want to be explained. If you would like to help expand AutoModerator's knowledge base, message the moderators. Here are the phrases the bot currently looks for:

AutoMod will respond with a list of all current keywords

!advancefee/!advance/!advance-fee - Advance-fee scam
!airdrop- Cryptocurrency airdrop event scam
!blackmail - Blackmail email scam
!brushing - Brushing scam
!calendar - Calendar spam technique
!car - eBay/Amazon car shipment scam
!cartel/!escort - Escort and cartel threat scam
!courier - Courier fraud
!crypto - Fake crypto site scams
!deaththreat - Blackmail email scam/death threat variant
!debt- Debt collection scams
!fakecheck/!fakecheque - Fake check scam
!fakepayment - Fake payment scam
!google/!googlevoice - Google Voice code scam
!influencer - Influencer scams
!instagram - Instagram account takeover scam
!iphone- Find My iphone scams
!mail- mail/shipping scams
!muse/artist - Muse/fake check variant
!mlm - Multi-level marketing schemes
!parcelmule - Parcel mule scam
!pet/puppy - Pet scam
!pigbutchering- Pig butchering scam
!pin/verify/verification - Verification code scam
!ps5 - PS5 tester scam
!recovery - Recovery scams
!refund - Refund scams
!rental - Rental scams
!review - Amazon review scam
!romance - Romance scams
!sextortion/Skype - Sextortion/Skype sex scam
!steam - Steam admin/item verification scam
!sugar - Sugar baby/sugar daddy scams
!task - Task scams
!techsupport - Tech support scams
!tax/!irs/!cra/!hmrc - Tax scams
!underage - Underage girl scam
!wrongnumber/!Mandy - Wrong number/Mandy scam

Flair

People who consistently give good advice will be given the "Quality Contributor" flair. If you think you deserve this flair, please do not hesitate to send a message to the moderators.

Related Subreddits

r/antiMLM 828,135 members

r/legaladvice 2,551,168 members

r/Sextortion 22,460 members

Resources

Site to report scams in the United Kingdom: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

Site to report scams in the United States: https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Site to report scams in Canada: www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/reportincident-signalerincident/index-eng.htm

Site to report scams in Europe: https://www.europol.europa.eu/report-a-crime/report-cybercrime-online

Site to report scams in Australia: https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/report-a-scam

Site to report scams in New Zealand: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Spam-How-to-Report-Scams

FTC scam alerts: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/scam-alerts

Microsoft's anti-scam guide: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/safety/online-privacy/avoid-phone-scams.aspx

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