Reelcrazy

Most of the time these money grabs using family members are aimed at the elderly or at least 65 plus. They get overwhelmed and grew up in a time where this treachery didn't exist. It doesn't even cross their mind it isn't real and will do anything to help a son/grandson et cetera. I have seen 30k in cash taken of out of a retirement fund and sent in an envelope with no questions asked. Have also had to console people who knew it was likely a scam but were not 100 percent sure and were beside themselves that a family member could possibly be in trouble. Very confused, very overwhelmed. Educate your elders and be educated yourself. You always have time to slow down make calls and figure out what is going on. Transactions in person Ask to see the item with your name, a sun, moon, and a unicorn on a piece of paper in someone's hand. Not resting on the item. It is way harder to professionally photoshop in a hand and paper in the foreground than a piece of paper sitting on an item or next to it. Look very carefully at the way light hits the hand and paper does it look out of place to your brain? Then it is. Only use payments methods that 100 percent protect you. Unfortunately this is non negotiable anymore. You are not getting a better deal by using a free service. If they are a person that sells items more than once they will have something besides venmo and the cash app. Make sure the item is actually protected under the entity's protection policy. Some items are omitted from purchase protection. If the seller is worried about transaction fees offer to pay them yourself. If the item is such a good deal the transaction fees shouldn't kill you to pay. Once again a short list of details but if simply adhered to unless an account is directly hacked and the scammer actually uses your account directly to take money or buy items you cannot get scammed. You simply have to not make "exceptions" because "someone was just widowed" and they have a brand new boat. They are from Canada and the pictures of the boat are clearly in the florida keys.

Yes this has been around forever. Whenever there is a step that is out of the norm it needs to be questioned. At this point in this day and age I wouldn't send anyone money with out having the item in hand unless I knew them. Only exception is if I was using a service with very good payment protection. You might not get scammed for a couple transactions but you will at some point if you send money with no recourse. Even Paypal is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on scams. They will reimburse you but they eat the cost.

To bad you didn't see this first!