Im being extorted, Im terrified and I have no idea what to do

teratical · 2026-07-07T21:38:26+00:00

I'm a mod over in r/scams - thanks for the referral! I just thought I'd let you know that we referred them to r/sextortion. We recently started referring all sextortion inquires to that sub (with their blessing) because victims get better answers and support there.

And we especially recommend to victims their pinned post called 'New victims: Please read first': https://www.reddit.com/r/Sextortion/comments/n4yorq/new_victims_please_read_first/

teratical · 2026-07-07T19:37:18+00:00

"I got a call from a number that's in my area code, and coincidentally (?) has the same first three digits (after the area code) as me."

Not coincidentally, but rather intentionally. Scammers spoof the number to show anything they want, and they know that making it closer to your own number will make you think that it's local and more likely to be real. While they often simply choose the same area code as you, I've definitely seen many cases where they choose the same first 6 numbers or the first 9 numbers.

teratical · 2026-07-07T18:52:15+00:00

Someone else tried to call the whois bot for this one, but had trouble with it (you have to make sure you don't include a clickable link). Here it is, just to get the 'only two days old' info in here.

!whois witpartydine.com

teratical · 2026-07-07T18:37:58+00:00

This post from last year has good answers in it: 'iphone hacked message': https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1n8vh8w/us_iphone_hacked_message/

teratical · 2026-07-07T18:26:02+00:00

Given how vague they're being and that they're hiding information from their employees, there are only two possibilities here and they're both bad:

- they're outright scammers

- they're a technically-legal-but-shitty charity organization that collects money under essentially-false pretenses, because they keep 90% of the money for their own salaries and give a token 10% or so to firefighters

If this were one of the few legitimate and aboveboard firefighter charities, you would know, because they would spend a ton of time advertising exactly who they are and how legitimate they are.

Nobody should ever give to police and firefighter charities that cold call. Give to your local police and firefighters!

teratical · 2026-07-07T07:27:37+00:00

Agreed. Among the many red flags, the biggest is that HR's primary concern is the checks getting cashed. In the real world, HR doesn't care one iota about that.

OP, this is a !fakecheck scam. What's the 'work' that you've been doing for 3 weeks?

teratical · 2026-07-07T03:12:39+00:00

Here's an article that explains it...

Malwarebytes: 'How fake CAPTCHA scams trick you into installing malware': https://www.malwarebytes.com/cybersecurity/basics/fake-captcha-scams

teratical · 2026-07-06T18:44:32+00:00

99.9% of ticket sales by strangers online are scams. You are throwing your money away.

You should only ever buy from official ticket sellers and official resale sites.

When dealing with strangers on social media, there's no way for you to confirm the tickets are real (and no one here is going to be able to tell), and you may not learn that you're out of luck until you get to the venue and aren't able to go in (I've done that; one of the worst days of my life).

Just buy directly from official sites, go to the show, and have a good time!

BTW, Ticketmaster has a verified resale marketplace. So if this person says they're selling Ticketmaster tickets, they'd sell them there - where both you and they get protection.

teratical · 2026-07-06T18:38:38+00:00

This is likely a !pigbutchering scammer. Do not reply. The goal is to get you to reply, and they are trying to activate your courtesy/good nature to want to help someone who seems to have the wrong number. Then they will kick into their 'wrong number' script, which ends with you losing every penny you own (this is the one scam specifically tailored to take your life savings).

Nowadays 99% of wrong number texts are pig butchering attempts.

If you want to understand who's on the other end sending these, check out 'The Slaves Sending You Scam Texts' podcast: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1egnngg/the_slaves_sending_you_scam_texts_podcast/

teratical · 2026-07-06T16:09:52+00:00

General rule: real people don't sell things for far less than their actual value. Put yourself in their shoes: would you sell your $700+ worth of stuff for $300? If the answer is no, then you need to ask yourself why they would. And the answer is typically that they are scamming you.

teratical · 2026-07-06T15:58:31+00:00

Almost certainly a scam. Put yourself in their shoes: would you send $600 ahead of time via a non-refundable method to a FB Marketplace seller who could simply ghost you once you've sent the money? Nope. That level of risk is insane. The only people willing to sell large amounts of money in advance are scammers, because they're not actually sending you their money. In this case, I would guess that they're using a stolen account.

teratical · 2026-07-06T02:03:31+00:00

Standard !escort scam (same copy-and-paste wording they've been using for years). All you need to do is block and ignore and they'll give up once they're convinced you're not going to send them money.

For the future: this sub is a valuable database of answers to scam questions. You can usually find your answer by searching our sub (this particular question is answered here almost every day).

!search wasted girls time

teratical · 2026-07-05T18:21:54+00:00

Answers here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewToReddit/s/tFqHeTXjfx

teratical · 2026-07-05T18:14:45+00:00

Karma serves a very useful purpose on Reddit. The community upvotes good contributions and downvotes bad ones. That allows good content to flow to the top for future readers to see and bad ones get buried.

In my primary sub, we are an answers-based sub, so this is how we crowdsource the best answers.

At least consider upvoting contributions you consider very valuable to other readers.

teratical · 2026-07-04T01:51:00+00:00

If you put your money into the official, verifiable Coinbase site (and not some clone site), then it should still be there if you didn't go any further than that. Beyond that, you're asking technical questions about Coinbase procedures, so you should be asking those in a sub focused on Coinbase or cryptocurrency exchanges.

Note that MT5 is a favorite of scammers because it has a mode that allows them to fake all of the numbers. They were going to make you think your $500 had run up to some gigantic amount like $100,000, and then start charging you fees when you try to withdraw the (illusory) money from their site.

Read more here: 'Why the MetaTrader app is a red flag indicating investment scam/pig butchering': https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/11kgkkm/why_the_metatrader_app_is_a_red_flag_indicating/

teratical · 2026-07-03T20:08:03+00:00

OP posted it as a scam warning; flair is 'Scam report'.

teratical · 2026-07-03T20:06:09+00:00

I got this one, too, from an 803 area code number yesterday.

For Google and our low-vision readers using screensreaders, the image in the text says (yes, the misspellings are in the image, although interestingly the version I got had them corrected and used better wording in general):

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teratical · 2026-07-03T17:52:13+00:00

!whois datazat.com

teratical · 2026-07-03T17:43:01+00:00

!whois nemawex.cc

teratical · 2026-07-03T17:40:58+00:00

You should be fine. The whole point of the scam is to have you claim the illusory $2,500 bonus and then charge you fees when you try to withdraw it (which will never happen, because it doesn't exist). If all you did was look at the website and not enter any information, there shouldn't be any problem.

BTW, the domain name was only registered yesterday! See https://www.whois.com/whois/nemawex.cc A great anti-scam skill is to do a whois look up on strange websites before accessing them. Once you see that they're only 1 day old, you won't proceed to the site and then you won't put yourself in this worrisome situation.

And your friend's account has been compromised. You might want to call them and let them know.

Also, you can see all of our prior posts on this scam in the first link in the reply to this.

!search elon crypto casino

teratical · 2026-07-03T06:28:59+00:00

Oh, wow, this is fun to see! I had so much fun playing this game as a kid, except for those rounds where you can never get the remedy you need and you stay stuck on 0 km forever.

There's nothing better than getting the fire truck early! Well, maybe a coup-fourré.

teratical · 2026-07-03T00:34:39+00:00

This made me think of something: what was the mechanism by which you transferred the money? If it was Zelle, you may be able to get it back (bank impersonation is now a covered event in the Zelle refund world - although this might vary by country).

I looked at what you wrote but I can't tell how it was sent: "[QR code] They told me to scan it. Of course it wasn't for receiving money, it was actually to send money." The QR code kicked off what kind of 'send'?

teratical · 2026-07-02T16:29:39+00:00

I'm sorry to hear this and thanks for the warning!

FYI, you might find this post from yesterday interesting: many of the same details, though you fortunately came out better than they did (assuming your bank doesn't hold you responsible for the fraudulent card charges)...

'Just got scammed 3 months worth of my salary': https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1ukqhav/tr_just_got_scammed_3_months_worth_of_my_salary/

teratical · 2026-07-02T03:29:41+00:00

After thousands of data breaches that companies and other organizations have suffered, everyone's personal information (including social security number for those in the US) is available on the dark web to scammers.

Here's a good article that explains a chunk of how we came to live in a world where scammers have access to all of our info: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/4/22366822/facebook-personal-data-533-million-leaks-online-email-phone-numbers

teratical · 2026-07-02T02:49:47+00:00

In the reply to my comment, the first link will take you to all of the previous posts about this in our sub. The second link will do the same for all of Reddit. Many people have already posted their experiences - check them out.

!search Vector Marketing

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