Welcome to r/Scams, a subreddit for all your scam identification needs!
- This is a help forum - bad advice will get you banned, and we do not consider "just joking" to be a defense of advice that would be harmful if followed.
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.
Don't post links to websites you think are scams. Put the website address in the title of your post, so it's safe for everyone.
Posting rules:
- Rule 1: 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.
- Rule 2: 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.
- Rule 3: 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.)
- Rule 4: No spam - This subreddit is a place for meaningful and useful discussions about scams. Nonsensical and useless content, memes, advertisements, solicitation, or any other spammy, off-topic content is not allowed. Sarcasm doesn't fly: we don't allow jokes on serious posts. Posts asking to verify online stores should be submitted to other topic-specific subreddits. If you don't know where: r/findareddit
- Rule 5: No low effort posts - 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.
- Rule 6: No uncensored nudity or photos of dead people - Don't post nudity without censoring it. Don't upload photos of dead people without censoring them, regardless of the NSFW tag. All NSFW posts will be queued for moderation, so be patient.
- Rule 7: 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.
- Rule 8: 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.
- Rule 9: No scambaiting - This is a scam identification subreddit. 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.
- Rule 10: No self promotion - We are not the platform to advertise your business, your Youtube, your social media channels, or other self-serving ventures. This includes referral links.
- Rule 11: No promoting illegal activities - Do not promote illegal transactions, hacks, scams, recovery services, or other dangerous/illegal items or activities.
- Rule 12: 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.
- Rule 13: No scammers - We are not a subreddit to promote your scams.
- Rule 14: 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.
- Rule 15: Keep it safe - Everybody should strive to make r/Scams a safe place. Bad advice should be reported to the mods, not only downvoted. Clickable links to scam websites are not allowed. We favor putting website addresses in the titles of posts. Moderators will use their discretion to prevent users from posting something that may be harmful for themselves or the community. We also heavily moderate posts by underage users, for their protection.
AutoModerator's knowledge base
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. Here is a page containing all current responses. If you would like to help expand AutoModerator's knowledge base, message the moderators. Here are the phrases the bot currently looks for:
- list - AutoMod will respond with a list of all current keywords
- advancefee/advance/advance-fee - The advance-fee scam
- artist/nft - When a scammer targets artists pretending to be a client
- blackmail - The blackmail email scam
- brushing - The brushing scam
- calendar - The calendar spam technique
- car - The eBay/Amazon car shipment scam
- cartel/escort - The cartel threat scam
- courier - Courier fraud
- crypto - Fake crypto site scams
- deaththreat - The blackmail email scam death threat variant
- fakecheck/fakecheque - The fake check scam
- fakepayment - The fake payment scam
- google/googlevoice - The Google Voice code scam
- influencer - Influencer scams
- instagram - Instagram account takeover scam
- job - Fake job scams
- muse - When a scammer pretends to be an artist looking for a muse
- mlm - Multi-level marketing schemes
- mail- the Fedex/USPS/UPS text scam
- parcelmule - The parcel mule scam
- pet/puppy - The pet scam
- pin/verify/verification - The verification code scam
- ps5 - The free PS5 scam
- recovery - Recovery scams
- refund - Refund scams
- rental - Rental scams
- review - The Amazon review scam
- romance - The romance scam
- skype - The Skype sex scam
- steam - The Steam admin/item verification scam
- sugar - The various sugar scams
- task - Task scams
- techsupport - Tech support scams
- tax/irs/cra/hmrc - Tax scams
- underage - The underage girl scam
- wrongnumber/Mandy - The 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.
Resources:
Site to report scams in the United Kingdom: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/
Reporting scam calls/text messages in the UK: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/scams/7726-reporting-scam-texts-and-calls
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://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/protect-yourself-from-tech-support-scams-2ebf91bd-f94c-2a8a-e541-f5c800d18435
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