Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

The Biggest Scams People Somehow Still Believe Aren't A Scam

Hold onto your money friends!

No matter how often you warn them, people will usually never fully listen.

The amount of time I've seen people waste in line for scratch offs alone, tells you all you need to know.

But it's time to wise up.

Don't let yourself be swindled.


Redditor wa8808 wanted to discuss all the ways we're being bamboozled by asking how to spot the signs:

"What's a scam that people think isn't a scam?"

It's always good to know how to the scammers.

BBB

Wall Street Friends GIF by Imagine DragonsGiphy

"That the Better Business Bureau is part of the government and doesn't have any power to resolve fraud and other issues, rather than what it is. Which is a private marketing firm."

boofaceleemz

Ingredients

"Supplements or drinks that remove 'toxins' from your body. Your body already does that."

urbexcemetery

"Especially the ones with stuff like activated charcoal, which can mess with your ability to absorb a myriad of actual prescription medicines."

smollest_snek

"My relatives got super into MLM cleanses that remove toxins. They kept pushing really hard for me to try them."

"I looked up the ingredients and 1/3 were known carcinogens. The best part is they kept saying how I was full of toxins. To give you context, at that point I was drinking filtered water, growing almost all my food in my organic permaculture food forest, avoiding driving and cities when possible, etc. They were doing: alcohol, cigarettes, fast food, prescription painkillers recreationally, etc."

BaylisAscaris

Playing with coins...

"The auction websites where items apparently sell for WAY under market value. Like a PS5 going for $5. The thing is, you do actually pay $5 for a PS5 if you win, that's not the scam."

"The scam is that you have to pay for bids. You'll buy a set of bids for say $50. Then you'll just never win a bidding war or it'll take way more bids than you thought it would."

"I'm sure the websites themselves have fake users that are guaranteed to win, as well, so it's just farming bids, which is farming your money."

"If you get hooked, just like any other type of gambling, they will ring you for thousands and thousands of dollars in bids, while you 'win' nowhere near that value of the bids."

Patsfan618

Gauge it...

"High end speaker cables. To be able to afford to put silver in them, they make the gauge really small. Wire gauge is the biggest decider of how much signal gets to the speaker (resistance in ohms) and how different the signal is from the original (distortion). The truth is that going from 22 gauge (what a lot of snake oil cable companies use) to 16 gauge."

"Which isn't even that thick, but definitely enough for most in home cable runs) is going to have waaaaay more of an effect on resistance, and as a result distortion, than going from a really conductive (copper) to a slightly more really conductive (silver) material inside the cables."

clyspe

Make you money

Curb Your Enthusiasm Bingo GIF by Jason ClarkeGiphy

"Those bingo games that supposedly 'make you money.' When I worked at Taco Bell, two of my managers would always play those kind of games. In order to win you have to pay for currency to use in order to play bingo… they were paying $20 to win $5."

GuideSad2361

I'll never stop playing Bingo! Scam or not.

Pay it Forward

Schitts Creek Do Not Want GIF by CBCGiphy

"Send me 50 bucks and I will send you a list of all the scams out there."

Good_Swordfish_3736

"Sorry, I can't send money now, because the bank needs 500 dollars to unlock the 500,000 dollars I inherited. If you send me 500 dollars, I can pay you!"

Batavijf

Look Up Doc

"Vision Insurance. It is an eye doctor coupon you pay for in advance to get your one discount to use each year to bring inflated prices back to normal."

shazwazzle

"So random trick we do at the eye doctor. We tell them we don’t have insurance, they then give you store discounts. Then I just submit the receipt for reimbursement to my insurance."

"My daughters contacts and appointment this year I was only out of pocket $17 after I got the insurance check. Only catch is you have to be able to pay the cost up front, and wait 4-6 weeks for reimbursement. If I would have used my insurance in the store my total was like $120 after insurance. Super weird."

Awkward-Train1584

Used Data

"Any guarantee or purchase that ends with 'unlimited.'"

"As Scotty would say in Star Trek 'you canna break the laws of physics.'"

karo_scene

"Found this one out with my unlimited 4G turns out when I used over 2TB of data I got an angry message to knock it off. (To be fair I was using my phone as a hotspot for like 5 people for a month long while we were on vacation... lol)."

CMDR-Serenitie

Fortune

"Plenty of these 'super investment guru' ads in the Internet (if not all)."

GabThePretto"

"I have here the key to that treasure chest, inside is a vast fortune, but I could open it myself, but instead I'm going to sell the key to you for but a pittance."

"This scam hasn't changed since the dawn of money, yet people fall for it in every epoch dressed up in a different dollar store Halloween costume."

McCheeseTruther

"When the gold rush hit, the vast majority of people digging for gold didn’t make the money. The people selling the shovels did."

HeyYoPaul

Love Search

Sad Talk To Me GIF by SpongeBob SquarePantsGiphy

"Those 'courses' that are meant to teach sad lonely dudes to pick up women."

anxiousjellybean

Beware the scam. They're everywhere!

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Andy Ogles; Bad Bunny
Heather Diehl/Getty Images; Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

MAGA Rep. Dragged After Claiming Bad Bunny's Halftime Show Depicted 'Gay Pornography'

Tennessee Republican Representative Andy Ogles was widely mocked after he claimed Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show was "pure smut" that depicted "gay pornography"—even going so far as to write a letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee demanding "a formal congressional inquiry" into the "indecent broadcast."

The rapper, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, delivered a largely Spanish-language show that has been hailed as a "love letter to Puerto Rico" and that drew from his latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year just a week ago.

Keep ReadingShow less
Chris Brown (left) and Bad Bunny (right) are pictured separately amid online backlash and praise following Bad Bunny’s record-breaking Super Bowl halftime performance.
Marc Piasecki/WireImage; Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

Chris Brown Slammed After Appearing To Throw Bizarre Shade At Bad Bunny's Halftime Show

Bad Bunny’s record-breaking halftime show pulled in over 135 million viewers—fans, stans, casual watchers, and yes, professional haters who tune in just to be mad. Which brings me to the loudest one in the room: Chris Brown.

Brown took to social media to offer an unsolicited—and frankly bizarre—reaction to the Puerto Rico-inspired performance, posting a cryptic message that immediately rubbed people the wrong way.

Keep ReadingShow less
Todd Richards; Big Air Snowboarder Seungeun Yu
@btoddrichards/Instagram; Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images

NBC Broadcaster Speaks Out After He's Caught On Hot Mic Trashing Men's Snowboarding Competition At Olympics

Well, we've officially got our first hot mic oopsie of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics!

Broadcaster Todd Richards took to Instagram Sunday to apologize for comments he made during the men's big air snowboarding event that he didn't realize were being broadcast.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amber Glenn; Donald Trump
Andy Cheung/Getty Images; Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Olympic Figure Skater Reveals 'Scary Amount' Of Threats She Got After Her Criticism Of Trump

Amber Glenn, the first openly queer woman to represent the U.S. in figure skating, spoke out in an Instagram post about the torrent of threats she's received after criticizing President Donald Trump's treatment of the LGBTQ+ community.

Glenn had voiced criticism of the Trump administration earlier in the week during a pre-Olympics press conference, describing the period as especially difficult for herself and others in the LGBTQ+ community. Her comments were among several political statements made by U.S. athletes in the run-up to the Winter Games in Milan, Italy.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rick Scott
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

MAGA Senator Slammed After Saying U.S. Olympians Critical Of Trump Should Be 'Stripped Of Their Olympic Uniform'

Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott was slammed after sharing a video criticizing U.S. Olympians who are conflicted about representing the United States amid President Donald Trump's controversial policies.

Scott spoke out after multiple Olympians made headlines for criticizing the Trump administration amid its nationwide immigration crackdown.

Keep ReadingShow less