Article created by: Austėja Akavickaitė
Whether we're traveling or just browsing the internet, scams are everywhere around us. Granted, some of them are less sophisticated than others but we people can be really gullible.
To show everyone what happens when we let our guard down, plenty of Reddit users have shared stories about falling for schemes so obvious, they are still embarrassed to admit it.
From grandma's no candy policy to a lucrative job opportunity, here are some of the most memorable ones Bored Panda discovered across various posts all over the platform.
#1
When i was like 14 (maybe?), i saved up all of my money all year from my paper route to get people nice gifts at Christmas.When i went to the mall, there was a man there who was "deaf."
He handed me a keychain with a note that read "i am a deaf person, and am unemployed. Will you please buy this keychain for $5?"
Being naive, i pulled out my wallet with like $500 cash. The guy was so happy that i wanted to help him that he taught me a secret handshake. When i sat down, i noticed my wallet was gone.
Literally 8 months of savings gone to some scam artist in exchange for a 25 cent keychain.
I wish i could say that i didnt cry.
Image credits: MoralMiscreant
#2
I got duped into paying close to 100 thousand dollars to some people who told me that if I took a bunch of chemistry classes, along with some random philosophy and literature classes thrown in there, I would almost be guaranteed a high-paying job. All I had to do was pay the money and pass the classes. They said I could take out a loan for the 100k and would easily pay that off with my fat paychecks.Turns out almost no such jobs exist. Fortunately, I was able to get some good scholarships and owe a fraction of that. In any even I was scammed out of four years of my life and still owe a few thousand dollars to a lender. The scammers laughed all the way to their Cancun vacations and luxurious homes with my scholarship and loan money. I'll never see that money again.
Image credits: anylchemist
#3
My former best friend and his dad cheated me out of my money to invest in their company. When I asked for a contract, his dad said, "Between true friends, words aren't necessary."When they started making money, I asked for my money back, and they said they didn't owe me a thing.
Image credits: texan-wanderer
#4
When I was little my Grandma would take me thr dentist for my regular cleanings. After the fluoride she would tell me now you're not allowed to have candy for a month because of the fluoride. She would get the dentist to agree with her.I believed this for a couple years until I mentioned how it's not fun having to wait a month to eat candy because of the dentist to my friends at school. I knew something wasn't right when I realized noone knew what I was talking about.
I went home and told her I knew the no candy after the dentist wasn't true. Her response was "well I'm suprised I got away with that for as long as I did".
Image credits: AnchorofHope
#5
I was working at a supermarket and this guy came in, purchased a soda for like a dollar and some change and then gave me a $100. I was like 17. Obviously this guy is gonna get ~$97 back with the $100 he gave me. So when I’m dolling out his change, he starts requesting all these denominations, confusing the hell out of me. He also had a guy with him talking to people behind him to distract them. I have no idea how much money I ended up giving him when the transaction was completed, but it turned out he swindled me out of about $200. This is what is known as a flim flam scam. I never felt so stupid in my life. A few months later, my sister was working with me, and as I was coming in to start work, I saw the men that screwed me leaving, and they got her too. She was devastated and felt the same way I did.
Image credits: anonymous_trash
#6
My older sisters told me eggs grew on trees. I vehemently disagreed. They made me plant an egg yolk. I came back later to check, and a stem had grown. Later, leaves showed up. I started to believe. I came back again and they had put plastic Easter eggs filled with candy on the tree.
Image credits: squirrellywolf
#7
I was at this bizarre fair type of thing, and I fell for going into the tent which housed the "180 pound man eating chicken." I knew it was going to be cheesy and a likely waste of $2, but I had to go see it anyway.It was a regular man who picked up a plate of fried chicken and started eating it when paying customers came in. I wasn't even mad.
Image credits: lobsterandi
#8
I got pulled into an Amway meeting. When I was in college I was working as a waiter at a Pizza Hut, and a customer came in and struck up a conversation. Eventually he pitched me on a possible new job. He described it as "kind of like an internship."The first red flag should have been he wouldn't give me any specifics other than something about "running a business." Next he gave me a date/address of where to meet and he told me to dress in a suit. That also seemed weird since we were meeting at 7pm. Who interviews at 7pm?
Anyway I get there, and about a hundred other people are there. I was getting a weird vibe and I should have run at that point, but I was desperate for something other than waiting tables. After an hour of parading different motivational speakers they finally announced they sold Amway to achieve their goals. I then went home older, wise, and destined to serve pizza for many more months.
Image credits: Link-to-the-Pastiche
#9
A year ago (I’m 17 now) I wanted to get into the stock market and met someone online through a mutual online friend who was old enough to open a broker. I did all the research and, at the height of corona, I invested 3k, all my savings, into a stock that eventually multiplied. Guy took my money and the profits and both ended up blocking me :/
Image credits: philgravy0
#10
Shipping companies online. This could probably classify as much as a TIFU as a scam, but moved back from Ireland to Canada. Company never provided a proper packing list (first tip off) and then went "bankrupt" several days after picking up everything from my home. PC gaming rig with 2 monitors, PS3, games for both, book, rpg and comic collections, entire music and movie library, autographs, ticket stubs and set lists from concerts, clothes, cameras, figurines like Clouds bike from FF7 Advent Children movie, etc. Only stuff they didn't get, which wasn't much, was what I packed up to take with me on the flight home.
Image credits: Tarik_Torgaddon_
#11
My mom was so close to falling for the 'soldier' scam.She started talking to some army guy through a dating site and very quickly he got romantic and almost in love over messages. She started to really fall for him.
Then he asked if she could buy phone credit for his daughter as he couldn't use his money abroad whilst he was stationed... She had no money and told him so and he got a bit weird over it. She googled this situation as something didnt sit right and discovered the popular scam of Nigerian men using photos of soldier's, setting up profiles and getting older women to part with cash. They start off small like phone credit and it escalates to life savings and all worldly possessions.
When we looked over his messages after finding out, it all seemed so obvious. The messages were a bit disconnected and seemed scripted. She realised he wasn't really answering her questions or responding to specific thing she had said.
It seems silly now as people are so aware of these type of scams but at the time it really wasn't that obvious.
Image credits: xxxtubsxxx
#12
I gave half my nights tip money to a woman who said her car broke down and she had to go pick her kids up from daycare. I believed her because she was standing in front of a car getting towed. I told someone about it later and they described her to a T and said "yea that's Kimbo, you just bought her a weeks worth of crack". I've met like six people since then that she's done the same thing to.
Image credits: justsomethoughts8
#13
Back on the early 2000s I fell for the Russian Bride Scam... to a degree. I didn't send money but I did believe for a short while, a few weeks, that I was being contacted by a Russian hottie in the Ukraine or Estonia or somewhere and that she was interested in me. What killed it was that she asked me to wire a few bucks so she could pay for time at an internet cafe. I copied and and pasted text from her email into Google an quickly discovered it was the first step in a larger scam where they escalate what they ask for over time eventually asking for a few thousand dollars to purchase a plane ticket to come visit the US. It was early 2000's back when the internet was a bit more "Wild West" even before Facebook was a thing. What kind of hurt my feelings about it all was that I realized that my online presence must have reeked loneliness.
Image credits: anonymous
#14
Was headed to a concert in CLE and found a parking garage. Dude was standing out front and said 20 dollars. Garage was right across from the venue so I agreed, payed him his 20 and he turned and sprinted down the street. Dude didn't work for the parking garage...I couldn't even get mad, just shook my head in awe of the chillness that the dude used to take my 20...
Image credits: theshook
#15
I fell for the white van speaker scam around 2005 ish. I was leaving Wal-Mart with some groceries when a guy in a van approached me. He said he just installed a fairly expensive stereo in a client's house nearby but the buyer did not want an extra set of speakers and subwoofer. He said he would sell them to me for half of their value, something like 500 bucks. I told him I didn't have that kinda cash and would he take 200, which is all I had on me. He acted like he couldn't go that low but ultimately I ended up with them. Yeah, they lasted about a week and sounded horrible. Ended up being some super cheap Chinese speakers that sold for like 40 bucks.
Image credits: FartBoxDestroyer33
#16
I was in Nicaragua. A group of 7-year old boys asked me for money because they were "starving". I gave them what I could. That same day I saw them all smoking cigarettes.
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Image credits: JasonReed234
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