There are a million ways to be scammed out of money. Con men, emails from Nigerian princes, and psychics who claim your aura is cracked (true story). So many creative methods exist, and these Redditors were victims to some of the worst out there.
u/Marx2pp asked: What's the most money you have been scammed out of?
That's so shady.
GiphyLocal mechanic convinced me to take my car to his shop to have him do a brake line for $200. I was going to do it myself, I was just being lazy because it was the middle of winter. I took it to his place and he would not give me my car back unless I paid him a little over $1,000 because he said that it took him 10 hours to bleed the brakes.
The best part was I was being super considerate I let him know to do the other customers cars first because it was just a second vehicle of mine. So he wound up having it a little over a week, broke my hood latch and also I saw him drive it to the grocery store and the parts store a couple times.
How can you do that to your own kid?
Got a total of 1k for Christmas from aunts and uncles. Parent's told me they where just gonna "hold" it for me. That was 2 years ago and turns out they already spent it for a brand new TV.
Hide that mother f**kin remote.
Woooow.
GiphyI invested 4k in my brother's business and he spent it all on personal luxury items. I'm now the proud owner of 3 tosser vehicles that I can't afford to repair because that money went to him and he didn't do it.
Sounds like you had way too much faith in the guy.
Definitely doesn't count as editing.
Paid 1500 dollars to have a novel edited. All she did was complain about the main character "taking the lords name in vain."
Yes, I am an idiot. No I will not be doing that again.
That's not how that works.
Greatest scams in my life.
One is my parents borrowing my life savings of around 100k of our currency (around 1800usd) and when I ask for it they did not say this but heavily imply this "I raised you and if we count all of the money I spent on you food, clothes, education, etc you would owe me money".
Another scam is "Bruh do you have money with you? I left my wallet at <place> promise I'll pay you back later" and the person who borrowed does not pay happens to almost everyone I know.
Good advice from dad.
Giphy$40 to a "friend" to pick me up some herb. Never saw him again. Probably worth the $40.
My dad told me that if you lend money to someone and never see them again, it was money well spent.
Not cool.
$100 we called in an appliance repair business. Guy comes in, gives us his estimate $450, asks for a deposit to order parts, we give him the money he gives us a receipt seems legit. Weeks and weeks turn into months. Keep calling them "parts on the way" "let me check and I'll call you back" blah blah.
We ended up reporting them to consumer affairs we're just glad we didn't give him more than that.
The biggest injustice.
When I was 12, I got scammed out of 3.1 million neopoints. I never recovered from that.
I got scammed out of a similar amount. I had a mini pet? I think it was called. It's like a pet for your neopet. It was an Egyptian cat called something along the lines of Kadotie. I had bought it for a couple thousand neopoints in like 2003 and when I logged in 10 or so years later it was worth millions. I put it on the marketplace and got bombarded with aggressive offers.
I should have just sold it for cash but I traded it for some item that market research made me believe it was valuable but it was really just some garbage item. It was like a multiple person conspiracy scam. Organized neopet crime. I feel stupid about the whole thing
That's awful.
Giphy$135
On a long road trip, my car suddenly needed a new battery. A small local garage in a town off the highway charged me $135 to replace it.
When I eventually got home and took it to my own service center, it turned out to have been a used battery with only minimal life left in it instead of a new one, as purported.
Sounds phishy.
$4000 worth of virtual items on Roblox. Yeah I know. Not really scammed but I got phished. Took me 10 years to accumulate those items but yeah really bummed out about that.
Catfished
GiphyI was extorted for over 7k.
These guys set up a fake profile on the dating website "Plenty Of Fish". They messaged me disguised as an attractive girl. We exchanged messages and phone numbers, and eventually started trading nudes.
A day after the pic trading I got a call from a man asking me why I was sending nude pics to his 16 yo daughter. Said he was calling the police. He was very convincing.
Having a lot to lose, I was scared to death and panicked. I pictured being arrested, registering as a sex offender, losing my job, and the respect of family and friends.
So the guy starts saying he won't call the cops if I pay him. Right then and there I should have realized something was up, but I was so panicked and scared I paid him. Over 7 thousand dollars...
I eventually realized it was a hoax when I read about similar things happening to other people. But too late the damage was done. Still makes me angry to think about. Given the chance, I would probably kill them.
A good way to make money, I guess.
There use to be a girl in my fashion class that would ask for like a dollar or 2 everyday in my sophomore year of high school. At first I gave it to her because I thought she was getting snack but I found out she was just asking and would never use the money.
To top it off she would go into my bag and tried to prove I had money one day but lucky I left my wallet at home. I would assume it was a good $100 dollars.
Scam dentist.
The mother of my 6 year old twin boys had just left me. Boys need to go to the dentist for a cleaning. She doesn't have a job yet, but she takes them to a very exclusive dentist in town who recommends all sorts of things for their teeth and has him send me the bill.
I pay almost $1000 to this dentist over 6 months for things that just didn't make sense when I thought about how soon their baby teeth would be gone. Behind her back, I took the boys to another dentist for a second opinion. The guy almost choked when when he saw the bill I brought. Was visibly angry after looking into the boys mouths.
None of it was necessary and some of it actually exposed more of their teeth to future problems.
I told her all of this and said she could pay if she wanted to make our kids' teeth worse. She didn't believe it, at least at first, but didn't push to keep going to the scammer.
Trojans are VERY strong.
GiphyWasn't a scam per say but I downloaded something I shouldn't have ( a torrent game) last week which had a hidden Trojan virus and all my accounts got hacked. Someone got into my amazon account and tried to order a £1149 laptop with my student bank account.
Luckily it didn't go through though. Thank f**k.
