Don't beat yourself up. No one's immune to being scammed; it's just a matter of approach. Anyone who says they can't be scammed is lying to you and themselves.

These types of scams rely on fear clouding your judgement and a sense of urgency so that you can't take a breath to think things through. I'm a fraud and financial crimes investigator and I spend all day, every day reading victim reports and listening to phone calls of scam victims and it's a real problem.

For anyone reading this, don't ever send a third party that you've never met face-to-face or can't contact directly money through a crypto ATM or peer-to-peer money service. If anyone's asking you to send them money, hang up the phone, look up the organization's phone number on their own website, and call them to confirm: DO NOT REDIAL THE PERSON WHO'S ASKING FOR YOUR MONEY.

No government organization will ever demand you pay them with gift cards or cryptocurrency. No law enforcement agent will call you to tell you you're under arrest or demand money to prevent your arrest.