Ah internet financial scams. I'm sure that all of us at one point or the other have had to deal with the super shady message in our inbox that tells an epic story about a Nigerian prince, or the great aunt that recently left her entire inheritance to…that's right…you.
To be honest, I get these a ton just because of how much the site has grown over the past two years. I easily get at least one ridiculous scam attempt a week in my Facebook inbox, sometimes more.
Typically I just ignore them or report it as spam just like I'm sure all of you do.
Then came my favorite one of all time. It's freaking awesome because it skips all the fluffy scam stuff and gets straight to the point! It's not lost on me that they were trying to avoid wasting my time haha.
I shared this on the M$M Facebook page the other day, and the response was really really good. Several readers asked me if I would turn the conversation into a post, so…here we are.
Pro tip: Read the following exchange by replacing “50,0000” with “fifty super-thousand“. It makes it so so much better. 🙂
Behold, the fifty super-thousand dollar request:
If you were wondering – 50,000 naria is about $158 US dollars. I'm still not sure if they wanted 50,000 or 500,000, but I don't think we'll really ever know.
Please don't fall for financial scams
Sorry to switch gears from funny to serious, but please don't ever ever ever fall for something like this. There is no reason that you should give any type of personal or financial information out over the internet.
Now to be honest, I'm not even sure I can count the above attempt as a scam. There's a real possibility it was just someone who actually DID steal 50,0000 from their step mon and was tripping because, well, nobody wants to live under a bridge.
But sometimes these scams can be way more complex and they can actually come off as real people or entities.
According to a survey by CNN Money, 8 out of 10 consumers have been presented with fraud, and 11% of those people actually lost a “significant amount of money”. The financial fraud industry steals an estimated $50 billion per year!
Specifically, the IRS phone call scams that are starting to become more prevalent now concern me the most. I literally received a call and voicemail recently by someone “from the IRS” claiming that I owed money and was going to jail (or something).
Even though I knew I paid my taxes for last year and have my accountant game on lockdown, I felt a twinge of worry for a half-second before I realized it was bogus.
From experience, I can tell you that the IRS communicates through snail mail. Banks, government entities, or anyone else that's legit are not going to ask for personal information via phone or email.
Check out these statements about communication and tax scams by the IRS:
“In recent years, thousands of people have lost millions of dollars and their personal information to tax scams and fake IRS communication. Scammers use the regular mail, telephone, fax or email to set up their victims. This page looks at the different scams affecting individuals, businesses, and tax professionals and what do if you if you spot a tax scam.
The IRS doesn't initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages or social media channels to request personal or financial information. In addition, IRS does not threaten taxpayers with lawsuits, imprisonment or other enforcement action. Recognizing these telltale signs of a phishing or tax scam could save you from becoming a victim.” – via IRS Tax Scams/Consumer Reports
Here's a great rule of thumb for scams:
If it even feels even slightly suspicious, don't trust it.
Now, back to the fun stuff.
About Millennial Money Man
Bobby Hoyt is a former band director who paid off $40,000 of student loan debt in 18 months on his teaching salary and then left his job to run Millennial Money Man full-time. He helps other Millennials earn more through side hustles, save more through budgeting tools and apps, and pay off debt. He is a personal finance expert who has been seen on Forbes, Reuters, MarketWatch, CNBC, International Business Times, Business Insider, US News, Yahoo Finance, and many other personal finance and entrepreneurship media outlets.
Comments
Apathy Ends
The IRS scammers are getting really good, my boss got a similar call you did and divulged the tax agency she used in the first conversation. When they called back and were using people’s names that actually worked at the firm (assuming they pulled them off their website or linked in.
She realized her mistake pretty quickly, but I always worry about how my grandma would handle a call like that.
Great info from the IRS – Thanks!
Millennial Money Man
Yeah from what I was reading – 34% of scam victims are elderly. So messed up.
Danielle @ The Pennies We Saved
Haha! This is fantastic! That poor step mon will never see that $50,0000! Financial scams are soooo common, it’s sad that people actually fall for them.
An old colleague of mine fell for one of those “send me money and you’ll get more in return” scams, a few years back. At first, I thought she was pulling my leg, but nope…she LOST a whopping $1,300! I was shocked that someone I actually worked with made such a stupid decision. She never saw that money again.
Millennial Money Man
Dang how does that even happen?? I can’t imagine sending someone money like that.
Danielle @ The Pennies We Saved
Her story was quite bizzare and almost unbelievable to anyone who is reading this. Her husband was away (military) and she lost a ton of money due to gambling. She was simply trying to make her money back :/ Instead, she lost more. I normally don’t call people dumb…but……
Marriage Over Money
By day I was a fraud investigator for a large financial firm. Before that I was a branch manager seeing this stuff up close and very personal. Seeing the damage and working with the victims was the hardest. I always wondered how could this have happened. But apparently, it’s not always age or socioeconomic status that makes you a soft target. Did you hear about the city official who used city resources to give to the scammers?? That was the worst.
Millennial Money Man
Haha no I hadn’t heard of that one!!! That’s crazy.
Mrs. Picky Pincher
Ohhh that’s gold. I don’t remember his name, but there’s a dude who makes videos of his interactions with spam emails. They are amazing. For myself, I don’t get many of these, but they usually get flagged and deleted.
I’d also add that you shouldn’t open emails from people you don’t recognize, or emails from people you don’t know with attachments.
Millennial Money Man
Ha yeah I’ve seen those videos! Love them.
Stan
Check out ebolamonkeyman.com for a laugh. He takes scamming the scammers to a higher level.
Millennial Money Man
Hehe ok will do
Hannah
I work at a credit union, and I had a member once who had been contacted by a “woman” in an African country (I can’t remember which one off the top of my head), who was supposedly being held hostage in a prison and needed the member to wire her a bunch of money. He did it. After the first wire, this “woman” kept contacting him, and asking for more money for various things. We kept trying to tell him that this was a scam, but he was convinced that it was not. He told us that they had gotten married (how, I have no idea, since she was in a prison overseas, but whatever), and that if he could just get her out of prison, that she would be coming to the US to live with him. He ended up going broke. I still don’t know if he realizes that this whole thing was a scam or not. He was completely fooled.
Millennial Money Man
Whaaaaaaaaaaat. I’m with you – how the heck did they get married overseas like that? These people…
Bruce McGrew
To be honest, I’m afraid that more people fall prey to these scams than will admit to it. Here’s why I think that: I’m a tech director in a public school district and over the last 18 years I’d say I’ve averaged 1 question per month from my teachers that were wanting to know if something they received via email was “legit”. The answer is always no. Yikes…
Millennial Money Man
Haha yeah I remember that being an issue when I was a teacher as well.
Stan
For a while I was bored and replied to the nigerian scammers. I replied under Will-Lingly Zwallows to scam the scammers. They always asked for personal information, an address and a phone number. The personal information was easily made up, the address was 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and the phone number was to the FBI. One of the scammers called the number asking for Will-Lingly Zwallows and they actually told him to stop calling there. Their scam is to get you to buy a Western Union money order so I went to the store and got an application and used that number and fake information. To draw it out I told them the computer was down at the store but it should be working anytime soon and keep trying back. One I told that I couldn’t figure out Western Union and he needed to send me a token amount through Western Union and i’d return it with the amount he wanted. Needless to say I came out $10 ahead. After cashing the money order I sent the scammer a note from another email address informing him that Will-Lingly was killed in a firey car-train accident while leaving the Western Union station with his money order. He wasn’t happy. But now for some reason my email address hasn’t gotten any requests from Nigerians since. Maybe there’s a do-not-email’ list among the thieves?
Dave @ Married With Money
Dude the sad thing is a lot of these work. I remember an older relative of mine who got a phone call from somebody claiming to be my brother and saying he needed a thousand dollars ASAP because he was in an accident.
The types of people who’d prey on the elderly or anybody who may not know better… Ugh. So sad.
Millennial Money Man
Yeah that’s such a bummer. I don’t think I know anyone that’s fallen for one of these before, but I doubt they’d admit it if they had!
Lance @ My Strategic Dollar
Good stuff, Bobby! I Died laughing at your responses.
A friend of mine was scammed like this over Tinder. This guys messaged her and spend weeks chatting. Obviously he was attempting to build a relationship. After a few weeks, he asked for $1,000.
He was in the military and wanted the $1,000 to pay for a house maid to help his kids in the U.S since he wasn’t able to come back when originally planned.
He went through this elaborate effort to get to know my friend. After doing some research, she found out this was a scam that had been going on for a while.
It’s crazy to think these types of scams exist, but they are everywhere.
Millennial Money Man
Dang that’s nuts! Gotta stay off Tinder haha
ThinkingAhead
A quick note about the IRS phone calls… there were news articles a few weeks ago about the IarS starting to use private debt collection agencies, and the private agencies would be allowed to call people.
Talk about making things confusing. Now, you won’t know which calls are legitimate and which are fake.
Millennial Money Man
Yeah that’s lame if it’s the case. I’d need to see a letter in the mail before giving out any info.
Tobez
One time, I wrote my name and phone number on piece of paper and put it in a jar at an amusement park to enter to win $50,000. Two weeks later, I received a phone call saying I had won. I had about $200 after moving to Dallas, TX for an internship and paying my first months rent without receiving a paycheck yet, so at the time, I almost needed for this to be true — I actually cried when I received the news. I drove 3 hours east to Tyler, TX. Upon arriving I found out that the fine print said I had won $50,000, a BMW, or a chance at a discounted time share. I would guess it is almost impossible to win the first two, so naturally, having used up all my luck to get my name drawn from the hat, I won a chance to buy a discounted time share. A lady introduced herself and took the time to drive me around and show me everything I would receive with this >$1000 offer, even after I told her I had less than $200 to my name. I left their dejected because I’d spent 25% of my remaining funds on gas. The story has provided my friends and me with quite a few laughs since that day.
Millennial Money Man
This is a bummer 🙁
Ledger319
A few years back, when I was finishing up grad school, I got a call from one of those IRS scammers. They were very pushy, said that I owed thousands in fees from not filing my taxes properly and told me that if I didn’t cooperate, I would go to jail and get all these additional hefty fines. They demanded my social security number over and over and tried to keep me on the phone as long as possible. I finally just hung up and blocked the number. They called quite a few people at the university I was attending and the school had already sent out an email warning us, so I knew it was fake. But it was still really unsettling, they knew a lot of my personal information already, like my most recent home address (which I had just moved out of thankfully).
Millennial Money Man
I get a lot of those calls unfortunately. Ever since I started working online the amount has probably quadrupled
Stan
You know they are scammer so give them fake information. Let them try to use it.
The Savvy Couple
Bobby, I freaking love that you went with it! It’s actually a lot of fun to do this when these type of things happen.
When I was 15 selling my dirt bike I got an offer on craigslist for thousands over the asking price. I was super stoked! Luckily my parents knew better. It was a scam in which the check would bounce and we would be left paying off the rest. Can’t remember the whole situation but it was kinda scary. A good lesson to always have your guard up.
Thanks for sharing!
Millennial Money Man
No problem!
FullTimeFinance
You know for most people I feel more shame on em for getting taken advantage of… but you know there is a whole portion of the population, especially elderly with things like dementia where this is really truly sad. Someone with a capable mind should know better, but there is a special place in he// for someone who takes advantage of the mentally diabled (not that it justifies scamming anyone. Just I truly worry about the mentally ill amongst us.). Scammers are everywhere, pay attention and do some investigation before acting. Usually A quick google will answer if something is a scam.
Millennial Money Man
Yeah I agree – most people should know better. It’s unfortunate that elderly people are preyed on by these fools
John
My widowed aunt sent my dad (her brother) an email she had gotten stating she had won a prize in the Canadian lottery (she lives in US) and she just needed to pay the acceptance fee to get it. She asked him if he thought it was legit.
“Did you enter the Canadian lottery?”
“No”
“Then do you think you won a prize in the Canadian lottery?”
“I suppose not.”
Thankfully she asked someone about it.
Millennial Money Man
Haha yeah thank goodness!
Sherry
It is getting so that if my own mother needed money from me, I’d ask for 2 forms of ID and a notorized statement!
Savvysmomma
This story would be funny, had it not worked. My husband got a call from his mom because his grandmother told her that he had called late one night, saying he was in jail and needed bail after a bar fight. (Not eve remotely typical behavior). He had said his nose was broken and that was why he sounded different on the phone. The scammer got tidbits of info from social media (friend names, vacation info, etc) so it all sounded legit to her. In the end, she sent nearly $2k in prepaid Visa card numbers to the guy(s) because he kept calling saying he needed money for the lawyer, etc. We didn’t have any idea until his mom found out and told us.
A few days later, we found out the OTHER grandmother had been called and told that he was stopped coming back from a trip to Mexico with a college buddy and they wouldn’t let him leave without paying a $2500 bribe to the authorities. That grandma is pretty sassy, so she told him he’d have to figure it out himself and hung up on the caller. She immediately called us and griped about it, so we knew she was fine. 🙂
Mike @ Ninja Budgeter
Fifty super thousand….lol.
Linda
I got this one a few days ago. Local and just crazy! I can’t imagine being home and the police all of sudden surrounding my house.
A Hamburg Township resident (victim) began receiving phone calls from a person who identified himself as a deputy from a county in the State of Washington. This person (scammer) stated that the victim had an outstanding warrant in Washington and that he needed to pay $1500.00 to clear it up. The victim had previously resided in Washington and the scammer had a great deal of personal information about the victim. The deputy’s name given by the scammer, as well as other names of officials in Washington given by the scammer, were all real names when the victim checked through various official government websites. Based on all these factors, the victim believed that this was a legitimate phone call and he wired $400.00 (the maximum he could withdraw from his debit card) as instructed by the scammer.
The next day (Tuesday) the victim began receiving more phone calls from the same scammer demanding the remaining balance of $1100.00. The phone calls became more threatening to the point that the victim realized that this was a scam. The victim confronted the scammer and hung up on him several times.
At approximately 1:00pm on Tuesday, Hamburg Township police officers were dispatched to a domestic violence call. The address given was in fact the residence of the victim. As officers were responding they were advised that a female caller (who it was later determined to be part of the scam) was stating that her husband was threatening her with a gun and then they lost contact with the caller.
Livingston County Central Dispatch called back the residence but the victim hung up on them when they identified themselves as he thought it was still part of the original scam. Several officers set up a perimeter around the residence, under the impression that they were responding to a man holding his wife at gunpoint. After approximately 15 minutes, officers were able to get the victim and his wife to exit their home without further incident. Subsequent investigation determined that the false barricaded gunman call (which is also known as “Swatting”) was related to the scam.
The Grounded Engineer
Permanent life insurance was the biggest scam that got me. I paid over $19k over 5 years. The cash value of my policy was only $12k. Talk about a bad investment…