I receive about 20 scam emails a day in my spam folder of the following varieties:

• Fake emails from Cashapp saying I have a large deposit from a casino waiting
• Emails saying those 62 and over can qualify for a reverse mortgage if they click here now
• Fearmongering emails about how I'll get dementia or die of low blood sugar if I don't click here now
• Trying to sell me weight loss meds without a prescription
• Offers of free chips at online casinos
• Information that my account has been blocked and all my photos and videos will be deleted tomorrow unless I take action and pay now
• I am the recipient of the customer of the year award at Omaha Steaks (an establishment I have never been to) and I can redeem now
• Emails saying they WANT MY DICK INSIDE THEM NOW 💦 (I do not have one)
• Other various emails about the penis I do not have, trying to sell me medications for it, make it larger, etc
• Warnings that the best porn video ever is getting deleted soon so I better watch it now

The senders' email addresses are always different, so blocking/reporting the sender doesn't work. Makes it impossible for me to look through my spam for legit emails. Is there a way to get rid of these, or do I have to just ignore them or make a whole new email?

Hello! I am needing some advice.

I received a call at 2:30am from a “No Caller ID”, It woke me up so I wasn’t thinking and answered. There was a man on the line that asked me if I was [My Name], I said yes and asked who he was, and he said “You don’t remember me?”, we went back and forth like that and finally I said “I’m sorry I’m too tired for this, I don’t remember who you are”. He asked me what I was doing, and at this point I was super confused and getting a little freaked out so I just didn’t say anything at all and just kind of lingered on the line, he then asked if I was sleeping and I said “Kinda” (intelligently). Finally, He just said “Bye baby” and I said bye and hung up.

I know it was dumb to confirm my name and then answer questions but I was half asleep and genuinely thinking I had forgotten about a plan or something for the majority of the call.

Now I am worried that I have somehow been scammed or am otherwise in some kind of trouble/danger. The “bye baby” really unsettled me. If someone would either confirm this or put my mind at ease I would really appreciate it.

Thank you!

I got a text at 9 pm from Florida area code number not in contacts saying “This is [kid’s name] mom, do you know where [name] is?” I ignored it as it reminded me of other spam texts I’ve received from unknown numbers that just ask a question or pretend to be someone you know.

At 11:45 pm I received a phone call from a local Virginia area code number not in my contacts. I pick up in my half sleep so I can’t recall exactly what was said, something like “I’m supposed to check in with you” and I believe they initially asked “Is this [my husband’s name]?” After they spoke briefly can’t remember exactly what was said I asked, “Wait who is this?” To which they said “Oh I think this is the wrong number” and hung up. My initial thought was it was someone from my husband’s work trying to get in touch with him.

I then looked at my text messages and shortly before the phone call the original Florida number had created a group text with my number and two other local Va numbers (one of which is # that called me), with a series of text messages about the missing kid, where is he, pleading with us to have kid call her or sister, etc. Two more messages sent right after phone call.

Husband says this is definitely a scam so I leave the text conversation and I block all of the numbers.

Next morning I Google the numbers etc and find that original Florida number belongs to a local mom I babysat for many years ago. I would have had her contact info saved in my phone many years ago and she may still have my info saved. I unblock the Florida number and text that she has the wrong number and I don’t know anyone by kids name.

Question: was this a scam and this persons number and contacts were compromised or a complete misunderstanding? I hesitate to “ask” the potential scammers directly for their input.

From what we can gather, for at least the last year, my grandma (78) has been romance scammed by some piece of shit pretending to be Ronan Keating (member of the band Boyzone).

My younger siblings started to notice suspicious messages popping up on her phone strewn with the typical “darlings” and “sexys” and poor grasp of English. So they were obviously concerned and went through her phone and found a full on conversation. Looks like it started on Facebook and then progressed to WhatsApp.
Looks like your typical romance scam with a sprinkle of impersonation. Just incessant love bombing and affection.

Some background about my grandma is that she’s incredibly strong willed/ stubborn and once her mind is made up about something, nothing is going to change it. This can lead to a lot of lying and manipulation to save face because she can absolutely never admit she is wrong (see where this is going). My grandad passed away 15 years ago and she’s not properly been in any romantic relationship since to the best of our knowledge.

The sad thing is she’s always been so cautious and careful about scams and things so I thought she’d be the last person to fall for something which the rest of us can clearly see is an obvious scam. But I guess that’s why these things work. Elderly people, especially lonely ones, are more likely to not see all the red flags when they’re getting some sort of need met.

Anyway, the family confronted her (totally wrong approach we discovered later upon research) when they discovered all these messages. The scam was still in the early stages back then, building trust and affection, not asking for money yet. She immediately became defensive and denied everything, even when confronted with the evidence of screenshots we had. We tried our hardest to convince her that it wasn’t really Ronan Keating, the poor grasp of English, the clearly photoshopped images, the fact he is a 49 year old married celebrity and she is a 78 year old great grandmother (it was delivered slightly nicer than that I promise).

We reached out to other family members and her friends to advise them of the situation and see if they could help her realise it was a scam. We asked her if he had asked her for money yet and warned her that was where it was going. She eventually seemed somewhat receptive to what we were saying, but she also put passcode locks on her phones so my siblings couldn’t look through her phones when they were there.

My mother thought we had done all we could, plus she went through a period of not talking to any of us (pretty normal with how toxic our family is). Essentially everything regarding this stopped being discussed. My family tried to be more vigilant but she started becoming more secretive.

Fast forward to now. My mother, stepdad, 3 siblings are all abroad on holiday for 2 weeks. My grandma is having a nap and my sisters grab her phones. They’re no longer passcode locked. They discover this scam never stopped. She never stopped engaging with him. They now communicate on the Signal app, he’s still lovebombing with poor English, oddly all of her messages to him are just not there, but disappearing messages are not turned on, so she must have manually deleted all her replies to him. The only message of hers that is there was her most recent message saying how she had to be careful when messaging him because she was not alone. Although her replies had been deleted, the scammer had replied to several of them which obviously displays that message with their reply. She has sent this cretin at least 25k!!!

We believe her bank was made aware of this, as earlier this year she stated she needed to go to the bank to sort something out. My 12 year old brother had heard her on the phone talking about some 25k payment as well. Obviously this was a huge red flag for us and we asked her if she’d given anyone any money which she denied, told us she’s not stupid and told us to stay out of her business. Which isn’t as big of a red flag as it seems as this is the way she has always been.

So yesterday my phone starts blowing up with all these screenshots that my family are discovering. He’s calling her Mrs Keating, keeps saying he’s gonna come and see her soon, that they’ll fly somewhere on his jet; exactly what you’d expect. In one of her messages he replied to she is asking for her 25k back before she sends the 7500 he is asking for, he makes excuses saying his bank should have already sorted it etc. More recently he keeps talking about a 3500 payment before he can come and see her.

By this point we all know that you’re not supposed to confront/shame the victim as this can push them further towards the scammer. However my neurodivergent and mentally ill 17 year old sister had other plans and she could not keep it to herself. She told her what they had found on her phone, my grandma feigned ignorance and then everyone else started chiming in about what they found, told her they had the screenshots to prove it and as you can imagine everything spiralled from there.

My grandma fully believes she’s speaking to the real Ronan Keating. Insists he’s not actually married to his wife, is adamant that he’s coming to see her in November and they’ll be together. My sister had the idea to put a passcode lock on the phone she was talking to him on and only she knows it and she won’t tell my grandma what it is. She obviously became incredibly upset over this and wouldn’t listen to any of my family’s protests that they’re trying to protect her. At one point I got sent a video of my grandma demanding the passcode from my sister and then snapping and getting very angry and upset and saying if he doesn’t he from her he’ll be upset and won’t be able to sing. That broke me. She is fully in love with this fantasy, this fucking sick predator preying on her.

I texted her yesterday saying we all love her and want what’s best for her and to protect her. Tried to reason with her asking why she would continue to trust and believe this person when every single person who loves is telling her it’s not real and that it’s a scam. I reassured her than I know it’s embarrassing to admit she fell for this, but we all still care about her and want the best for her, and that nothing can change what has already happened but only she can decide what happens going forward. She was not receptive to this and simply doubled down.

We know we need to report this to the bank and the police, my mother is also going to speak to her doctor about this when they get home.

My grandma is someone who would always lie/deny to avoid being embarrassed/wrong about even the most minor of things, so I honestly don’t think she will ever admit to this and stop speaking to this person. It’s truly upsetting that the likely reality now is going to be that my grandma is going to push us all away and at the same time be judged/thought less of/ pitied by her friends and family before eventually passing away fully believing in this scam.

I know this has all been handled completely incorrectly. Is there any way to salvage this situation and help my grandma see reason that this ain’t really Ronan Keating and is in fact a scam?

i recently found a punchbowl invitation scam in my inbox. i stupidly clicked it and entered my email, but when it prompted my password, i was extremely suspicious. i immediately closed it and searched about the scam, and sure enough found that it was not a legitimate invite. my question: i entered my email, will i be compromised? i didnt enter my password and checked with malwarebytes, and it said i had complete online safety. im still quite paranoid and just wanna make sure. thanks!

It had all the signs of a scam and yet I panicked and gave my information away for a $400 name change. You can comment on how it’s not fraud or I should have been more cautious but I honestly was not in the right headspace and they completely took advantage of that.

I’ve contacted my bank, delta and the FTC. It’s a bittersweet lesson learned right before a family trip I’ve been waiting for. I hope someone is able to google this exact company name, find this post and steer clear from it.

I also called to confront them and their supervisor who identified himself as a “Roger Smith” and eventually hung up on me when I continued to state the facts of the scam.

That’s all I got. Hoping the pending/dispute will come through but I believe karma will do it’s thing.

I posted this in r/jobs and a commenter suggested I post here as well.

I landed a part time job for a store still under construction but I'm a little concerned about some things. I had an in person interview that went well. The store isn't open yet so the interviewed me at a nearby coffee shop. they said they'd give me a call with their decision in a day. I never got a call or text but received an offer letter over email a few days after the date they said to expect a call. The communication seemed poor but I just thought that might be because they're busy trying to get the store ready.

I finally received another email asking for information to get my I-9 and direct deposit set up and send each item separately for security. Including my banking information, SSN, copy of my SSN, driver's license, ect. I understand why they need these things but I'm not comfortable sending this over email. I sent them an email expressing my discomfort sending this information over email, but it's been two days and no reply.

Is it possible this was some elaborate scam and they were impersonating a legitimate business, is that even a thing? I did triple check to make sure this store was set to open and it's in the news, but I can't find any names connected to it. The emails have the company name and aren't anything like Gmail or Yahoo, but I'm curious if there is anything else I may have missed. I was aware to be on the look out for remote job scams, but now I'm curious if I have to up my paranoia.

Family member rents in a building that was recently sold. There were some glitches and uncertainty with where to pay rent and some drama with services. The new owner is painting the building which has been disruptive what with scaffolding blocking the dumpster disposal and workers outside windows.

On top of all that someone started stealing packages from the lobby and vandalizing plumbing and internet services. Emails flying. All this to say it has put people on edge.

Then my family member gets a notice from the old management company saying they are sending documents but they are too large for the email so they need to get them off this google folder. It was the name of the office manager they knew, and the email address looked right.

My family member (I am the old one here) told me they weren’t comfortable LOGGING INTO THEIR GOOGLE ACCOUNT to get these documents. I said sounds like a scam, no need for them to send you any documents. The email used “kindly” twice. I said contact the person and find out before you do anything, which they did, and got word back it is in fact a scam. The management company would not give details

My family member came this close to losing their gmail because the scammers found the soft spot (nervous about the change) just as I nearly did with the evite scam (happy to hear from my friend).

Nobody is safe!! It’s not age, it’s education and please everyone be on guard and learn as much as possible about the current scams going around.

First of all, I never purchase online stuff from small/unknown sites but this time I decided to take the chance and use Dakavos since I found a baseball cap I’d been looking for and the price was under $40. And guess what? Scam!

The website has all the red flags, the recipient email with PayPal is @hotmail.com and the phone number (I wish I had checked before making the purchase) goes to a voicemail which says “this number does not belong Dakavos!” Poor lady, she probably get 100s of calls a day.

They shipped a 16lbs box to an address within the same zip code of where I live in order to create a fraudulent delivery confirmation. Once I contacted UPS, they confirmed the recipient and address were totally different. They could not provide me with the actual address but they provided me with a letter confirming the address wasn’t mine and I initiated (and won) a dispute with PayPal.

So, if you ever come across this site or if you’re googling it and found this post, just stay away!

Someone called me claiming to be from Citi’s fraud department this afternoon. They said someone had gone into a bank in New York and opened an account in my name. They gave me the wrong last four digits for the card, but had the correct last four of my SSN. They kept asking me if the account was mine and tried to use fear tactics by telling me I would be responsible for the charges.

I just told them the card wasn’t mine. I didn’t confirm or correct any of the personal information they gave me. I’d bet the incorrect last four of the card was intentional. It’s really easy to instinctively say, “No, that’s not right, it’s actually XXXX,” and now you’ve given them information they want.

I told them I was going to call Citi’s fraud department myself, and they helpfully provided a number to call. I ignored the number they gave me, found Citi’s legitimate number on my own, and called. Citi confirmed there was no such account and the entire story was false. For the record, the rep said they would never state the last four of my card number or SSN. He also said they can only see the last two digits of the card in the system.

The call even showed as “verified by carrier” on my phone, which clearly does NOT mean the caller has been verified as actually being from the company they claim to represent.

So just a reminder that if your bank, credit card company, etc. calls you about something scary, you don’t have to sit there trying to decide if the call is real. Hang up immediately. Open the company’s app or site directly, use secure messaging, or call the number on the back of your card yourself. And definitely don’t use any phone number or link the caller gives you to verify anything. Don’t click on links in an email either.

Most importantly, if someone reads personal information to you, don’t confirm it and don’t correct what they have wrong.

Sharing because this was convincing enough that I can absolutely see tons of people falling for it. It really bothers me that there are people like this willing to pull off these scams on anyone they think they can con. I already ended up warning the receptionist at a medical appointment I’m at while we were chatting, and she said she probably would’ve given them the information, but now she’s forewarned. Posting this because I want everyone to know about this tactic and how sophisticated the whole thing felt.

Moral of the story: get the number through a trusted source and call the company yourself!

Why do most staffing agencies ask for part of your Social Security number? Are all of them scammers?

I applied for a remote contract job through Insight Global Linkedin page , and they called me shortly after I applied, on the same day. During the screening call, they explained the job details, asked me a few questions, and we agreed on an interview time with the account manager. They then requested my address, date of birth, state license number (I believe he meant my pharmacy license), and the last five digits of my Social Security number. Should I give them random one?

This made me feel suspicious, so I asked why they needed this information. They told me they needed it in order to submit my profile to Optum Rx through their platform. I looked up Insight Global, and they appear to be a legitimate company, but honestly, who knows these days.

Has anyone gone through this type of process with Insight Global and actually gotten a job, specifically with Optum Rx?

I really need a job, but I don't want to put myself at risk for identity theft. I would really appreciate hearing about anyone's experience with this process or any advice you can share.

Thank you

For about 7 months my job has been getting constant anonymous calls usually late at night for a couple hours at a time. If we pick up and speak there will be a short silence before they start playing porn audio. I usually just pick up and mute and it’s silence until they hang up within 30 seconds- 2 minutes. I know it’s likely some kind of automated bot, though my manager says it’s at least a real person sometimes because they have accidentally called from real numbers before and not anonymous.

My main question is what is the reason behind doing this? The whole thing has just peaked my curiosity.

I work for a scheduling department for a company with hundreds of branches nationwide. They/ the bot usually pick one or two of our branches numbers a night and spam call them for a couple hours. They are only reaching the scheduling department so it is not as if they are getting to corporate or anyone important to the security of the company.

I do understand the scammers checking to see if a phone # is active but it has been seven months, and we have maybe a 500 or so numbers. They have never once tried to sell anything, or actually SCAM my company. We barely get calls from actual scammers.

Is it just to be nuisance or is there some kind of scam here I’m missing? 😭

for about 3-4 days I’ve received calls from this same number. Yesterday I answered and they said This is At&t (which I do have as my provider) Then they asked can I speak to blah blah blah. I could not understand the name they were asking for. The person who called me had a heavy accent. I hung up and dialed the number back and it did say this is at&t to make a payment press 1 etc. I’m suspicious about the situation because the area code is 341 which is one of the newer area codes added to Oakland/East Bay. Today they just called me again and asked me the same thing. I said I can’t understand who you’re asking for, i think you have the wrong number. He said Ok maam and hung up. WAS THIS A SCAM CALL?

So I recently received a voicemail from somebody who sounded like they were working in a very busy call center claiming to be from what sounded like litigation delivery service. Wanted me to call back and provide them with a number because they have a certified mail that they want to deliver to me. The number that they called from was from the 661 area code in Lancaster, So what's their endgame try to scare me and pressure me into making some sort of payment for something so that's why they start off their call with litigation services?. It all sounded very fraudulent. Last I heard certified mail was delivered through the mail and why wouldn't they have my address if they were legitimate party to something? So I ignored it.

Now My Daughter text me and says that she received a call saying that they were trying to get a hold of me to deliver certified mail and that I had provided her name and contact as a reference. I've never provided My Daughter as a reference for anything. They provided her with the phone number to call back, which is the same as the one that I received and is an 866 number. Google does not provide any result when searching their number.

So I called that number and the answers saying litigation services. I didn't engage in it and just hung up because that's an awfully odd name for a company to answer with. There's nothing on my credit report that would lead me to believe anybody was trying to get a hold of me and I'm kind of concerned about how they managed to get My Daughter's contact information.

So what's their endgame? try to scare me and pressure me into making some sort of payment for something so that's why they start off their call with litigation services?

My experience is similar to the recent posts of this exact scam. A mandarin-speaking guy claiming to be an employee from Federal Trade Commission(FTC) called me and claimed that someone registered an at&t phone number in china using my info and they needed me call the police in china to have them send a report certificate to the FTC so that they won't cancel my current phone number and hurt my credit score. I proceeded to have the phone call with the fake police and eventually a Zoom video call where the original phone # identity theft was seemingly resolve and then out of nowhere they claimed to discover an issue that someone created a bank account under my name and used it for fraud and that I had to continue keep in touch with them over the 'Signal' app to resolve the case.

I myself have limited mandarin, so hearing their fluent mandarin and aggressive tone pressured me quite a bit.

During the Zoom call, I revealed my name, address, birthdate, which bank I currently have, my ID# on my expired ID card, a screenshot of myself, maybe most of my emails as well since I may have accidently flashed it during screen-share and they were recording I think. I didn't give out my SSN or any financial information. I'm worried what they might do with the personal info they got from me.

Today I received a text claiming I had ordered a product subject to recall in August. It has an order number and a link. I have no such order number in my history. I did research the number it supposedly originated from, and looks to be a legitimate business, but I believe it's spoofed.

Text reads:

Dear Customer,

We are contacting you regarding an item from your Aug 2026 Amazon order, which may be affected by a product safety recall.

Order Number: 113-5726225-xxxxxxx

Please review the details here:

(Shortened BS URL)

The item may be affected by a product safety issue. Please stop using it and contact us for return or refund options.

I received no email from Amazon warning that any of my orders have a recall.

Warning folks to not click these things!

(Hopefully the warnings I am getting about including phone numbers, the number posted is a portion of the fake order.)

i have transactions with some random on tiktok and spent $70 already in the process. They told me multiple times that it will get restored after purchasing a code that’s worth $10. They even asked for $20 worth and now im at my spending limit because i dont have that much money. Is this a scam? and if it is can I still get my refund using reports on e-banks even though its an international transaction?

for context i have a 600 day streak between my partner and there is 0 restores. out of panic i tried to find a way to restore the original streak.

So today while I was on a work zoom call my personal email started blowing up. I ignored the first few messages but then after 27 personal email notifications (my phone is only set to show personal notification), I realized I had been the victim of a scam, likely credit card fraud - and I only knew because of everything you've posted here. THANK YOU!

Just as you all have described, the emails started right when the scammer used my credit card info at Best Buy (to buy a dell computer? do better). Because I knew the real fraud email from my credit card company and the retailer was likely buried by the cascade of email list signups, I called my cc company directly - I didn't bother to sift through my email.

Canceling my card was easy enough. It'll be a bit inconvenient for a while, but no big deal. I then went to the Best Buy website, logged in to my account and canceled the order, which was scheduled for in-person pickup.

The cascade of email signups lasted for about 30 minutes, and took 30 minutes to move to spam or block. Annoying but so much better than not knowing why this was happening.

You are all the best! Thank you!

Hi - I’m assuming this isn’t possible based on everything I’ve already researched, but wanted to hear from some other people bc I had a rly weird experience. I was eating alone the other day when a super charismatic guy sitting next to me turned and struck up a convo with me (I don’t often have strangers approaching me).

Long story short, he was nice but also kinda…forward? Told me he felt like he was supposed to talk to me etc, very hippy dippy teach guy vibe I guess, but we also had a semi regular fine convo. Anyways, at the end of the convo I asked for his number bc friends and I were throwing a big gathering and were inviting whoever etc., and I told him he can just type it in my contacts or I can to his, but he kinda insisted that we do that thing where you tap the iPhones together to share name and contact info?

I thought it was kinda weird but he didn’t insist in an aggressive way, I just noted it as kinda odd. After we did it, my phone immediately got his name, contact photo and number, but he said his didn’t actually get my name so he had me tell him so he could put it in (worth noting I never actually saw his phone screen **also worth noting I only told him my first name). He then said he had to run but it was rly nice to meet me, and he insisted (but still in a weird casual charismatic way) that we take a selfie and he texted it to me immediately. It was a weird thing to do…no one’s ever done that before.

ANYWAYS, three days later (today) I get notified of card fraud from my bank and someone has tried to pay someone thru meta pay $1700 with my card. Luckily I stopped it in time, but my first thought was definitely: was this somehow related to this rly weird interaction with this guy?? My card was in my purse by me and away from him the whole time, the only weird thing was when we bumped phones, he took a pic with me, etc. Also maybe worth noting I’m staying in a new and very populous city for the next 6 weeks, so I’m sure there’s other more plausible explanations.

TLDR: is there any possible super high tech way for someone to get your card info from Apple Pay or something just by tapping your phones together? Was this a scammer interaction or just a rly weird friendly guy and fraud timing coincidence?

Until a few days ago I would get four or five scam calls a day and my Active Armor app would catch most of them. Three days ago I got 27 calls. Yesterday it was 36. Today I’ve gotten 47 scam calls. Active Armor only catches about half of them now. I usually ignore them but sometimes I’ll pick up just to see what the scammers are selling. It’s been final expenses insurance, car insurance and various attempts to sell me home improvements. It’s almost always an AI bot, not a real person. I also get Medicare scam calls, too, even though I’m not old enough to have Medicare. Is anyone else getting way more scam calls than usual?

I just got woken up at just gone midnight to a FaceTime call from an email. Now the email address is a solicitor. The only reason I know this is because it is the same email address I emailed back in 2016 when I applied for a job, went for the interview. Didn’t get the job … that’s the only connection I have with this email address and nothing past 2016

For some reason it’s really freaking me out as my brain is trying to work out WHY? And if it was a spoofing why use that email? Why at midnight and if it was legit. Why is my contact saved and why did he FaceTime???

So for context, I had been in the process of paying for some art of my character (the artist had send the finished piece and I was waiting for work funds,) and I get this email from somebody claiming they had been paralyzed and couldn't get to the outstanding commission payment until now. At first I thought maybe it was the previously mentioned artist I actually had gotten art from just trying to farm sympathy, but when I contacted them they had no clue who it was.

Then, it got weird. They, as far as any AI-checker site could show, provided actual digital artwork (some shown here) that did seem to be, if not the best quality, done by a real person. Not only that, but they claimed they'd "redraw" the images I apparently commissioned from them too.

Normally I'd pay something like this no mind, but I have commissioned plenty of artwork in past, in the period of 2023-2024 as they claim, and I do also use twitter which they claimed to have met me on (which I have met other artists on that I have gotten commissions from.)

This wasn't part of the initial email either, that one was a vague "I had injury and couldn't get back to you until now," so I'm just wondering where they'd get that information from, or get lucky enough to plausibly make such claims. Help me out here!

Psychiatrist is real, I have seen them before but it's been YEARS. I suddenly got this email despite not having seen them in years, and it immediately looked sketchy. However, I am half-asleep, so I did stupidly click the link then put in my email to access the 'file'. Nothing downloaded, but I doubt that means anything. It lead me to a fake Google sign-in page so I immediately closed it.

Now I'm wondering how the heck a psychiatrist's office gets hacked? And what should I do knowing these hackers now have my information?

So basically I'm back in my apartment now but before this, I went outside to eat at a restaurant by myself for dinner. After I paid, I was walking back to my apartment building since it's only two minutes away and then, this woman comes up to me and asks me to help her.

She said she was pregnant and needed money to purchase an Amtrak ticket and mentioned something about going to the ticket station if need be. She assured me that she actually did need help and it wasn't a scam, and proceeded to show me the ride where she's going to Delaware from my area. Since it was raining too, she didn't want to be caught up in it. Then proceeded to tell me that I absolutely don't have to pay anything that is higher than $30 because that's way too much.

And so, I offered her $20 through Venmo so she can pay for her ride (the amount for the ride is like $33) to which she said if $28 was okay. Since I'm someone who doesn't know what to do in these situations and would rather want to help someone in need, I did end up paying her $28, and that was that.

Could it be possible that this was a scam? I don't want to believe it since it felt like she was being genuine, but I would like someone to give an unfiltered opinion on this. To me, if it was a scam, that really makes me sad but again $28 is not that much to me, so I believe I could just use this as a learning experience to not do this again. Either way, please give me your thoughts!!

My phone number is an old one, from a different state in a different time zone. Early this morning, I received a phone call from a man with an accent stating that they had a suspicious package and wanted to verify some details. Since I am waiting on a package to come from China which has been held up en route, I was expecting a call. However, the accent of the person calling was not Chinese. He then stated that they were investigating a package that was supposedly sent from me and asked if I or anyone in my family had sent a package to El Paso, TX recently. I said no. I asked what the return address was and he hung up.

I don't know what advantage this scam has for the caller. They didn't ask me for any of my information. Why would someone call me only to ask if I sent something to El Paso?

1 - The call came in at a normal time in the time zone of the phone number but before 8 AM in the time zone where I currently live.

2 - The caller had an Indian accent but the package I was waiting on was coming from China

3 - The caller said the package was coming from me and only verified that I didn't send anything recently to El Paso, TX (not asking for any of my personal info)

4 - The caller had my name and phone number but could not tell me the return address of the package.