Just looked at my bank account to realize that a company called "Remitly", which is a money transfer company, has taken $500 from my account, yet I have never heard of them until today.
Debit card has been cancelled, stop payment put into place and I should have my money back within 10 days.
Of course this happens right before we go on vacation this Thursday.
A service called Spy Pet is scraping Discord servers, archiving and tracking users' messages and activity, and then selling access to that data.
Spy Pet scrapes more than 10,000 Discord servers, and besides selling access to anyone with cryptocurrency, it offers the data for training AI models or to assist law enforcement agencies, according to its website.
Spy Pet claims to be tracking more than 14,000 servers, 600 million users, and includes a database of more than 3 billion messages.
4 major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the #coronavirus pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of #medical#misinformation collectively gained >$118M between 2020 & 2022, enabling the orgs to deepen their #influence in statehouses, courtrooms & communities across the country, a Washington Post analysis of tax records shows.
I really don't like how all these phone #scammers from #India have primed me to suspect everyone with an #indian accent of being a scammer. It feels racist to think about, and I know the vast majority of indians aren't engaging in this sort of organized crime, and it's their government's fault for enabling it.
Hopefully international pressure can get the Indian government to do something about the level of organized crime in their country.
Reading about #scammers always depresses me. I know there are far greater problems in the world, but I wish the people who put so much effort into scamming others would redirect those efforts into doing something positive for society.
If you notice a new account on your instance has a seemingly "real" name attached to their account, it might seem strange at first, but do yourself and Fedi a favor and google that name.
There's some here that are scammers trying to impersonate famous people from somewhat niche entertainment media. Just this morning there was an account registered on a small instance with the name of a professional wrestler.
Thankfully this person had the misfortune of grabbing my attention (wrestling fan) immediately in my timeline and I notified the admin of the potential scam and we were able to mitigate any real harm.
You may not be so fortunate as this in the future.
Some even go so far as to attempt to impersonate lesser known athletes from other professional sports and try to get gullible fans of the team or sport to give them money.
Be safe out there and do your due diligence. It just might save you, your users, or other Fedi users from getting scammed out of their hard earned money.
Thanks for coming to my FED talk. PLEASE boost for reach. This is important.
«But the factor that predicts whether someone is connable […] [is] their desperation. The kid selling drugs on the corner, the mom desperately DMing her high-school friends to sell them leggings, the cousin who insists that you get in on their shitcoin – they're all doing it because the system is rigged against them, and getting worse every day.» @pluralistic on why the #scammers are the #MLM-scammees. A must-read. https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week
Secret Recording Shows NRA Treasurer Plotting to Conceal Extravagant Expenses Involving Wayne LaPierre
Audio obtained by The Trace and ProPublica reveals, in real time, the gun lobbying group enacting a plan that would conceal payments for fancy hotels, limousines and other luxury expenses connected to its longtime CEO for a decade.
I’m trying to sell my tv on #facebook#marketplace and had the same step by step experience as in the article. It’s interesting that last year I sold a pair of speakers and never encountered a single scammer. Now the place is rife with #scammers
An Ottawa woman is warning people who are selling their vehicle to be wary of scammers who try to lure sellers into purchasing vehicle history reports through fraudulent websites in order to obtain their credit card information.Ellen Thompson says she was encouraged by the large number of responses to an ad she posted on AutoTrader to sell her son's 2011 Honda CR-Z.
"The first day I was inundated with interested people and I thought 'Oh, this is crazy,'" says Thompson. "I couldn't even keep up to the interest."
Thompson had already paid for a vehicle history report for the pending sale, but she estimates nine out of every 10 text messages she received from potential buyers led to the same request for a vehicle history report from a different company.
Started to collect art #scammers on #Twitter in a list a while back in order to spot them easier.
I used to bother reporting them but eventually gave up since they rarely if ever get banned. Checking the list its up to 184. Unfortunately I can't share the list in an easy way, as the site lacks exporting tools and making a private list public, the users will immediately block, removing them.
Since joining mastodon last year I've only come across one scammer here. #artscam#scambots#scam
I hate to say it, but there's a long running #donation#scam campaign regarding #lgbtq people in the #kakuma camp in #Kenya. I was contacted privately in the typical fashion (just "hi") by @ mawa@mastodon.world. Don't fall for it. If you want to help with the real dire situation, the attached reddit link has information and true donation links.
If you encounter #scammers, please #report them. And please #boost this for more awareness. https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/wacwlw/regarding_kakuma_camp/
A New Tool Helps Artists Thwart AI—With a Middle Finger.
Kudurru, the new tool from the creator of Have I Been Trained?, can help artists block web scrapers and even “poison” the scraping by sending back the wrong image. #scams#scam#scammers#spam#cybersecurity#data #artists#creators#scraping
GENEVA (29 August 2023) – Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly engaged by organised criminal gangs into online criminality in Southeast Asia - from romance-investment scams and crypto fraud to illegal gambling - a report issued today by the UN Human Rights Office shows.
I really fail to understand why scamming websites can't be shut down and shutdown quickly. Wilko is being used for the latest one now, so take care. I hope Karma does it's thing to #scammers,# fraudsters etc. Glad I didn't order the air-fryer! #Mastodon#Fediverse
So my car got smashed into while it was parked, and the front was totalled (the folks responsible did leave their info). Then the fucking tow driver didn't take it to the body shop as he was supposed to. Instead he took it to a storage facility in fucking Pacifica so he could charge me storage fees. Do not ever, EVER use John's Towing (my insurance company chose them, and they will be getting an earful). #SF#BayArea#scammers
The last two weeks I have noticed an uptake in scammers using 800 numbers, as such I have now blocked ALL inbound 800 numbers coming into my telephone switch.
Hundreds of thousands trafficked to work as online scammers in SE Asia, says UN report (www.ohchr.org)
GENEVA (29 August 2023) – Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly engaged by organised criminal gangs into online criminality in Southeast Asia - from romance-investment scams and crypto fraud to illegal gambling - a report issued today by the UN Human Rights Office shows.