“They’re Too Smart”: 62 Of The Most Obvious Scams That People Still Fall For

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#3

Organic food in the U.S.

The regulations have been so watered down as to be meaningless….

Leading_Preparation6:

Happy to see this. It was my thesis topic and it’s definitely not what people think it is. Buy the “cheaper” version or grow your own because the USDA organic label means next to nothing.

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#7

Tipping and tip workers, tip shame, tip expectations.

THE_Lena:

This! Their income should be paid by their employer not the customer.

#8

Multi level marketing schemes. We have literally so much information now about how they are predatory. It’s disgusting how a lot of them target low income mothers who feel guilty about spending time away from home to work and earn a living.

life-love:

Not gonna lie, I attended one of those pyramid scheme meetings at my friend's insistence and man it was filled with low-income people and the whole thing was clearly targeted at them. Felt really bad seeing how they were being sold dreams of earning a lot of money and stuff. Such a scam.

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#11

Fake, RICH celebrities on Facebook begging for money.

cbostwick94:

The number of times "Vin Diesel" has confessed his love to my mother on Facebook is wild. Man has a LOT of accounts

#12

The Nigerian prince emails.

dude_stfu:

These are intentionally ridiculous / over-the-top / filled with errors. They don’t want to go back and forth with the 99% of people who can sniff out relatively obvious bulls**t. They want that rare, vulnerable 1% who will take the bait and believe it. Phishing is a science.

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#14

Being green.

top 10 corporations produce 90% of the pollution. but it always falls on the citizen to be green! buy an ev you can’t afford!!

if everyone is pissing in the pool besides you, are you making a difference?

and i don’t mean to litter freely, everyone should 110% do their part. BUT. it’s crazy to think/ask citizens to completely change their routine day to day life while you still move on private jets/ motorcades.

for those of you jay don’t know. i drive a diesel F250. a new one with modern emission systems. every 5k ish miles i have to buy DEF(Diesel exhaust fluid) for my emissions right?

it comes in a 2.5 gallon plastic jug. with a plastic nosel thats wrapped in plastic in a cardboard box.. so how f*****g much am i helping?… (this is a required chemical on all diesels 2011? 2010? and newer.

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The Mormon "Church" - check out the r/exmormon subreddit for more details.

It is a real estate and securities hedge fund masquerading as a church in order to maintain tax exemption.

#18

When people say invest in Cryptocurrency.

I'll tell them let me know when you can buy anything in the store or online with it.

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Prosperity Gospel Preachers.

Battarray:

Specifically Joel Osteen and his ilk. They're why we should be taxing performative mega-churches like they live off of.

#22

“Contractors” that show up to your door unsolicited telling you they’ll do work on your house for super cheap. *Especially* those “working in the area.”

Do your homework on anyone working on your house. Make sure they’re licensed, insured, permitted to work in your state etc.

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Healing crystals. If anything, they've become even more popular recently.

Edit: Having said that, I *have* seen them be very effective as tools to effect introspection and discussion about mental health, basically operating as a fun, dialectical abstraction of psychological concepts that might be too complicated or daunting to address directly. But it's a slippery slope to letting this abstraction become a real, significant part of how you live your life.

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#31

Timeshares.

googlyevileye:

When my dad was young, he bought a time share. How he didn't realize signing a contract for 99 years isn't scammy is beyond me, but he also has put in his social security number into pop-ups trying to get out of said timeshare.

#32

These Facebook posts imitating real companies saying you’d win whatever they’re offering, despite the page being created hours ago and the only post being said giveaway. The comments are always tragic to read.

#33

Homeopathy.

Carliebeans:

Right?! My Dad has a friend with serious health issues. He’s under the care of traditional western medicine which has saved his life, and he also has his homeopathic ‘potions’. Guess what he credits for his health?

#34

VPNs. While there are situations where they are useful, those reasons do not always match the reasons the marketing material suggest. They are not a magical security and privacy unicorn that saves you from every possible security threat.

pipipupumees:

There's only 3 reasons anyone should use a VPN: if you want to access services or websites that are unavailable in your country; torrenting in specific countries (if you don't know what that is then I guarantee you don't have to worry about this); or if you need to connect to a remote network (in this case your VPN would either be provided by the company you work at or you'd set up a VPN yourself on your own machine. Again, if you don't know what this means then you don't need to worry about this). VPNs don't provide any meaningful privacy, if anything they just make you less private because now the VPN company has all your data.

#35

Going to university.

Not a total scam, but way overpriced for what it is. While tuition has skyrocketed, all the money has gone to more administrative jobs. Very little to the actual education of students.

#36

Ticketmaster.

GrumpyCoo:

Ticketmaster is one of the primary reasons I stopped going to concerts...

#37

Payday loans. The interest rates are atrocious. They prey on the poor.

#38

Buying new iPhones. They’re extremely overpriced.

#39

Dental insurance. It barely covers anything.

#40

"Don’t forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. Don't forget Deadline today!!! It can be used in court cases in litigation against you. Everything you've ever posted becomes public from today Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry”.

#41

Literally anything related to the slimy Kenneth Copeland Ministries. That guy is one of the biggest con artists, if not THE biggest, to ever exist in this country.

#42

Copper bracelets.

Quirky_Alt_Nerd:

Nothing upsets me more than making jewelry with copper and seeing people in the same market making the same thing but adding, “healing properties” or “natural healing remedy” to their website/shop/jewelry listings. It’s predatory behavior and I guarantee 99% of them don’t believe it themselves.

#43

People that fall for the post office "$2 to unlock your package" text messages.

Nuts4WrestlingButts:

Sweet old Vietnamese lady at work showed me she got one of those and it took a half hour to convince her that, no, customs does not have your package.

#44

The amount of people who put their trust in apps like Snapchat believing them to be 100% secure and private and that everything they send on there, yes EVERYTHING, isn't stored in some server somewhere with their verified details attached to it all.... because.... Snapchat saves everything you send on there and there are countless examples of that information being retrieved and leaked online.

It's also incredibly easy to install work around which don't notify the person of images being screenshotted, so another reason to not blindly assume it's some super secure social media platform.

#45

Friendships with military colonel’s stuck overseas, looking for companionship, which turns into needing money.

#46

The kids playing violin at Walmart.

#47

How about the scam I fell for :( The fraud department of my bank calling me, alerting me to fraudulent charges happening on my card. I’ve had my identity stolen before, so I wasn’t surprised snd was just grateful they found the charges early on. I googled the number and it was the same # as my bank.

They had identifying info about me that not just anyone would have and asked me verifying questions after that my bank asks me any time I have called them before. It was so, so believable and I was already in a stressed mental state prior to the call. When I called my bank directly the next day, even the employee told me it was legitimate. It wasn’t until I called again that an employee dug into their logs of texts/calls to me that they determined it was fake. Luckily, I was only out about 1.5 hours of my time in total with talking to the scammer, changing card and bank numbers, updating accounts, etc and didn’t lose a dime.

Main lesson I learned: If your bank calls you for ANY reason, hang up and call them directly. Don’t be dumb like me.

Edited to add: When they were sending me texts to verify things / help me add the card alerts to my phone, the confirmation texts came from a number that I’ve gotten legitimate texts from my bank before. They’re too smart!!

#48

Scammers claiming to be from Verizon Fraud Protection were so convincing, they almost had me taken in.

Right up until they asked for my monthly payment (which would *immediately* be returned to my account after the transaction was completed) to be send to a Venmo recipient named Esteban Martinez.

#49

I’m surprised people still fall for fake job offer scams.

#50

The wealth is going to "trickle down".

#51

Sending a cashiers check that’s for too much money to pay for something/reserve something and then asking for $ to be sent back (the original check subsequently bounces a few days later). So coming on Craigslist/Facebook/next door and people keep falling for it.

#53

Anything that involves free money.

#54

The biggest scam is one we all just accept and take anyway. Like commercials on paid subscriptions, and sites that we can only use if we sign away all indemnity.

#55

Alkaline Water

It's does nothing. It's just bad tasting water.

Nothing marketing claims is true.

#56

Internet service providers advertising 'up to' certain speeds. I'm paying for 'up to' 100mbps but getting 15 on a good day. It's like paying for a full tank of gas but only getting a quarter.

#58

I think the over-commercialization of health trends is a major scam.

#59

I just experienced this the other day - check engine light. How is it that with the electronics in today’s cars, that the car cannot just tell me what the code is and what it needs? And dealers charging $100+ to plug in a reader to get the code? That task takes 5 minutes or less. It should be mandated that anytime a CEL light comes on, the infotainment system tells you exactly what the problem is. Turns out on my car, the problem was the radiator flaps were not opening and closing properly. Luckily it was still under warranty.

#61

Jake Paul / Logan Paul fights.

#62

Once fell for a fake tech support scam and lost $200.