59 Sneaky Scams Millennials Fall For—And How to Outsmart Them Before It’s Too Late
Scammers asked for me to transmit a few thousand dollars as down payment using a real-looking online web portal, which I didn’t question. When the real contractor showed up on the agreed-to first day, we realized what had happened. Turns out he’s an older guy and not super computer savvy, preferring to communicate by phone and receive payments by check in-person.
Moral of the story is that you’re only as safe as the other party’s cybersecurity practices. I’ve since insisted that I pay contractors by handing them a check in-person, whenever possible.
It was awhile ago but I remember lots of my fellow millennials getting super wrapped up in KONY 2012.
I fell for a scam where someone offered me a job on Upside, posed as a legit publishing company, stole one of the employees LinkedIn profiles, had me on Whatsapp with their “team” and then sent me a fraudulent check to deposit for my equipment costs. 😭.
I feel so embarrassed about this but I fell for a scam pretending to be talent acquisition at a company following up about an application I submitted.
In my defense the job title was absolutely something I would have applied to and was kind of niche.
That’s what I get for spamming out my resume ….
Spent $25 on a tshirt scam. Little TikTok add got me. Never bought anything off TikTok again.
Products that go on sale a lot go on sale for a reason. Either because their MSRP is jacked up to crazy margins to begin with, or the quality is s**t and they have too much stock as a result due to poor sales.
Quality well built products may go for a modest discount from time to time, but unless it’s a cyclical product like electronics or cars that they are trying to clear out end of season models for next model year, it’s probably junk.
Most of the time you’re better off buying the higher quality item that may cost more but actually lasts rather than hunting for the best deals.
Got tricked with a PayPal session token scam.
Looked like a 30% off deal for an item that doesn’t really ever go on sale from a retailer with a bunch of astroturfed reviews. Used PayPal because they’re generally a trusted payment source for non traditional vendors.
Boy was I freaking out until I figured out they nabbed my session token. Hadn’t even thought about a session token since the Linus media scam a few years back.
Aside from a few rip off businesses, this is the first hard core scam I’ve fallen for and I’m 30.
PayPal didn’t want to cooperate until Amex got involved. Then suddenly everything was smooth sailing.
Daily vitamins. You probably don’t need them unless a doctor tells you otherwise, especially in the US where a lot of our foods are already fortified with extra vitamins. .
Got a family friend who is currently falling for a scam. She borrowed money from several people to give like 40k to her “real estate contact” to get in on a “sure thing” investment that will leave her with millions of dollars over the course of a weekend. Of course that was several weeks ago and she isn’t yet a millionaire. Not sure when she realizes she’s being taken for all she’s worth. She’s been quite depressed and comes from a well off family both of which are leaving her extra vulnerable but still… I thought she was smarter than that. The thought of millions of dollars that changes your life overnight is too strong a pull for some people to think clearly.
Credit card points?
For every millienial flying first class for three dollars, there are a thousand wracking up credit card debt carrying a balance.
I ordered something from an Instagram ad during Thanksgiving sales. I was under the impression Instagram doesn’t promote scams in their ads (since that would in time greatly decrease people’s trust in their ads which would then hurt their ad revenue) but was sorely mistaken.
I never received the product and the vendor’s website went down 2 days later, nobody replied to my email, and I started seeing other complaints online of people ordering from them and never receiving anything and nobody ever replying to their emails.
Basically these guys made a fake website where they promoted a few popular products at good, but not too good to be true prices, put up a bunch of ads on Instagram, then just collected the money and took down the website.
It took me a few months to finally get my money back after MasterCard finished their investigation. The craziest thing was the scammer actually replied to my bank dispute! They tried to argue that they did send me the product 🤦🏻♀️ Obviously they weren’t able to provide any kind of shipping proof so MasterCard denied their “appeal”. But this just goes to show how unafraid these scammers are of getting caught / having to suffer consequences for their actions.
