r/Scams

At my work, we receive a call almost daily at various times that starts with almost the exact same lines from the moment you say "hello, this is 'businesses name." Sometimes it's a man and sometimes it's a woman, normally they have accents. Their spill is normally
"Hi, I'm calling about balances on the credit cards in your merchant account. Can I speak with the person in charge of merchant services?"
"Sorry, that person is not here. I can take a message."
"That's okay, maybe you can help me instead."
That's as far as it goes because they get hung up on. At this point the moment anyone says merchant its ended. Caller ID used to say Merchant Services, then it started saying a big city in the state, but now it just has a phone number and nothing else.

There is no 'merchant account' that I know of. There is no person or department involved. They never know the name of anyone who runs the business, their bank, or accountants. And if an employee were to be naive and try giving them information, there is nothing to give as only the owner(s) have access to the bank account and cards.

So what is the play? Hoping an employee or manager or even the owner(s) falls for it and gives them access?

Moved into a new home at the beginning of the year, and over the past few months I've been receiving mail addressed to someone I've never heard of. The address is mine, but the name isn't anyone who has ever lived here. I even contacted the previous owner, and they don't recognize the name either.

I've been writing "Not at this address" on the envelopes and putting them back in the outgoing mail.

Could this just be a USPS error, or is it a potential scam or identity fraud? I've heard of people using someone else's address to establish residency or open accounts, but I'm not sure how common that actually is.

Our neighborhood has locked community mailboxes, so no one could realistically be collecting the mail.

Has anyone experienced this? Did it turn out to be anything, and is there anything else I should be do besides returning the mail?

Someone used my email to create a Walmart account and make an order. It was not sent to my home address and does not appear to have my credit card information. I did not click any links in the email, but it looks like it came directly from Walmart. I tried to go to Walmart website directly to change the password to the account associated with my email, but they also have a phone number tied to it that I do not have access to. I have forwarded the emails to onlineabuse @ walmart . com the request to delete the accounts. Is there anything else I can do? What is the point of this? Should I be looking out for anything else?

Editing to clarify - I did try to reset the password since I didn’t create the account but it has a phone number associated that isn’t mine so I’m unable to reset the password

https://preview.redd.it/4gd938h6rfbh1.jpg?width=739&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5433dbf8c6621a58ad5fc19526355981d93061a

Got an email from a friend of mine that is in my contacts; it was the stupid fake-email-invite scam. I was distracted, though, and absentmindedly clicked the "View the Card" link in the pic above, then half a second later after it opened into a tab on my Firefox browser, panicked as I realized it must be a scam and closed the tab. I didn't see what appeared in the tab since I closed it so fast, and so I didn't enter any of my info into anything on the page; I don't see anything downloaded on my Mac (am currently running my Sophos antivirus program just in case). Not sure what else to do...all help appreciated!

Location: Oregon
Found out that I'm a victim of jumping title. In short, person A sold this car to person B which is signed on title.
Person B sold the car to person C but person C did not transfer the car under his name.
Person C sold the car to me with the title that has the name of person A signed as a seller and seller B as a buyer. And person C also gave me the bill of sale that has person B signature on it.
DMV denied the title transfer because I don't have the up to date Title that has person B sign as a seller and me as a buyer. DMV told me that the up to date Title is a Tennessee title, not Oregon Title. Now the seller(personC) blocked my number. I can no longer contact him. After checking the VIN, this car has never been reported stolen. What can I do in this case? I spent all my savings on this car.

They are called Anthem Tax Services out of Oxnard, CA. First off, I was not allowed to speak to an actual tax attorney. Instead I was passed around between different representatives who claimed they couldn’t get the govt off my back until a payment plan was worked out.

This was a scare tactic that convinced me to shell out 2k. A month later, they said they needed another 2k to “keep my case open”. I went on a federal tax site and there was zero evidence that they did anything to help.

As a precaution, I looked into my tax account and there was no evidence they lifted a finger. I feel like such a sucker, but I was desperate and those are the people they prey upon. There are plenty of other scam tax companies. I recommend staying away from anything like this company.

I should have gotten a real lawyer to begin with. Ended up solving the problem myself. I did ask for my money back, but they refused.

Remember: Anthem Tax Services. Oxnard CA.

(The post is throwing an error so I'll keep this as short as possible)

An 84 yr old Australian friend is being scammed and it's been going on for 4 years, which I just found out.

It's a "You've won a prize but need to keep paying us money" type scam over Facebook messenger and they've rinsed him of 1000s and he still believes the money is coming.

He's not family so I can't take his phone and do the necessary blocking nor will he allow me to speak to his family in Australia about it. We're in Thailand but I think the scammers are elsewhere in the world by the looks of the times they're sending him messages.

I've explained, showed him proof that the images they're sending are fake and showed him how the scam works but he'll believe me for a minute and then suddenly start talking about how he's going to spend the money when it gets here.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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This has been going on for over a YEAR. My dad (who just turned 83) has taken out loans to send a scammer over $140,000. We thought he stopped talking to her.

I just found out he’s talking to her again, on telegram. Is there any way I can get into his account to block her?

He thinks he’s going to make half a million dollars in an “investment” .

Please we need help, if there are any tips to be able to get into his telegram account (from a different phone).

Hello guys, I just received a message from Samsung with a verification code (I mean its labelled SAMSUNG on iPhon's Message app):

<#> Account: 713443 is your Samsung account verification code.

*CODE*

While I never made any Samsung account with my phone number; how is it possible ? Is it a fake scamming message, or did people use my phone number for their account ?
Some weird hint : I just saw that I've received the same message from the same provider in 2024, the "account" number is different but the verification code is the exact same which gives me a huge scamming guess but I'd rather get the opinion of people who know better

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I just got an automated call from Bank of America telling me that there was an 'unauthorized transaction' through Apple for $200 and to tap some numbers to either confirm or deny or whatever - tbh I wasn't completely listening at that point because I haven't had an open BofA account, either savings or checking for about 3 years now, so that's not even a red flag it's a big honking 'SCAM' buzzer to me. But I do know that my Apple pay info might still be linked to my old account. Obv I need to unlink that now. My question is, is that where the scammers are looking or is it just a general phishing thing where they guess it ahead of time and whatever I tap will direct them to some data they shouldn't have?

For about the past year I have been getting regular calls claiming to be from the “personal loan” department or similar. They say that I have applied for a loan in various amounts. I know this is a scam. I have my credit frozen so nobody could be applying for loans in my name. The caller never says the company name which is always a dead giveaway. The calls are at least daily if not more frequently. My question isn’t “is this a scam?” it obviously is, but more why is this happening to me and how can I make it stop. I have given them no reason to think I would be a good target and will never fall for their nonsense.

Hello everyone! I recently used Switcher.finance, as I noticed many people recommended it.

Unfortunately, after using it to swap some crypto, they received my crypto but refused to send the crypto that I am supposed to get. After contacting them, they keep saying that they sent it to me but stuck at transit, but it been days.

I also did some digging afterwards, and realised that they operate a massive bot farm, using multiple account to promote their services across social media. This is a massive fraud and scam.

Until this is resolved, please avoid it at all costs. Based on my experience, I believe this is a massive scam. To save you the loss, please do proper research next time.

Hello all, just wanted to write my experience with a betting website that i just got scammed, luckly i sent a small amount of bitcoin as test.

I investigated them (googled) and seemed legit.

I tried to talk with these people but just gave up, i am taking my loss, taking it as a lesson.

Site: BK8

supposedly they are based in Malaysia, Vietnam and somewhere else.

the scam:

you sent X amount, they will take around 24hrs + or -

you check your account balance, nothing

you reach them and ask whats the reason, they will say it will take some time

you reach again and ask, they will say something happened (didnt reach the minimum quota, or delayed in the system, or whatever, yes, they told me those speeches)

they will ask you to deposit more to complete quota or to make visible the transfer

when you tell them you already did, then their "show" will begin, they will ask more money, you explained you already did, they will say they see it but not more money, you asked to return or just any solution, they will ask more money with the same excuse/speech , it is not reaching the minimum quota or whatever and they will keep same speeches over and over...

So be warned, with this website at least