Of course, this raises a hundred red flags, but I was wondering, assuming:   I don't have Western Union account, and would need to make one for this transfer He does not personally ask me for my personal details/I do not give them on his request. (This does not include, for example, a website he sets up for the transfer asking me for my details) He does not personally ask me to send any money back/I do not attempt to send it back on his request. (This does not include, for example, him sending me an official looking email posing as the bank, asking for me to pay mystery fees)   What are the ways this scam could still go wrong?  (I talk in first person hypothetically, this is happening to a friend of mine)  EDIT: This is a similar but different question to the duplicate proposed.  That question asks: If one is sent money as part of a scam, then asked to send it back, how would a scam play out?  I instead ask: If one is sent money as part of a scam, but is not asked for the money back (nor for any personal details) by the sender, how would a scam play out?  Albeit, this isn't reflected heavily in the answers.
74751
Possible Australianism - netbank = a website + app by which an Aussie can do their banking, including transferring money to other people.  A while ago, I ended up with $1000 transferred into my account, which in the description looked like a netbank transfer, not like a cheque, cash deposit etc, and which looked like it had already cleared and landed in my account. Usually when something is still working through the bank's system it displays as 'pending', but did not in this case.  I received a phone call from someone, saying that they had accidentally typed in the wrong account number, and wanting me to send them the same amount of money back via netbank.   Surely bank account numbers have a checksum, which make it relatively difficult for a typo to result in a payment going to the wrong person? What are likely sources of them being able to find my phone number to call me? Obviously, the bank either being hacked, or giving it out in response to a query from this person (but surely the bank is unlikely to tell me my own mobile number if I claim to have forgotten it?). Presumably either my phone, or the phone of someone I have sent money to/received money from could be compromised. Has anyone heard of any instances of this happening?  I then went to my bank, explained the situation and said that I did want to refund the money through the officially sanctioned methodology. After the laughter died down, the bank told me to ask the person to fill out a form, then they would get me to fill out a form that would authorize undoing that exact payment.  I rang up the person to tell them this, and over the course of about a week received an increasingly elaborate story about how that wasn't working, they needed the money immediately, there was a fee to fill out that form and they couldn't afford to pay it etc.  After that, I never heard back from them again. I check my netbank for several weeks after, expecting the money to magically disappear, but it did not. This was probably a year ago, and I'm pretty vague with money so may not have noticed if it disappeared more recently. How were they expecting to benefit?  Were they hoping to get the transfer from me, and undo the transfer to me, to leave them $1k up? If so, how can an internet banking transfer be 'undone' once it has already shown as 'received'. Or was this to do with money laundering? The account they requested me to send money to was the same as the one that the money appeared to come from. This was a scam, right?
46599
I have someone that wants to bless me with a large amount of money. I am working on a project. But I see some red flags they want to send me cash in a package. They have been trying to send it for 3 weeks.   But they said I had to pay for it when it comes. So much is going on I do not know what to think or feel. It's coming out of Africa. I ask them did I have to pay the money back they said no its a gift. But I am feeling something my family says its a scam I do not know what to do.   I ask them to put the money on my pay pal account but for the amount, they can not do it. I do not know what to do. And I need it for the project I am working on
58199
A company asked me to provide the first six digits of my credit card, along with the last four, to identify a credit charge to my account.  I'm wondering - that's ten of sixteen digits. How secure is it to give away this information? Given that the formula to generate a credit card number is well-known, am I opening myself to any potential issues by disclosing this information?  This is for a Dropbox charge. I have an account with them that I can't access through conventional means (as it was a contractor account for an old workplace) and so they've required me to send this information so that they can verify my identity along with the charge. While it makes sense, I don't remember any companies asking for the first six before (which identifies the carrier and the type of card you have).
117997
This is the email that was sent to me i'm wondering if this is a scam  can funds in your account be accessed with your holder name bank name email address associated with your account and phone number     During the work you use bitcoins for working with customers.   It is necessary for customers. Use the services of our partners at a lower price, you can only for business purposes.   Services and goods which you will buy for customers through bitcoins for low price:         Web Design;   MySQL Database;   Set up VoIP number;   Database Servers;   Stock exchange services;   Hosting;   Virtual private servers.         To  start  working  with  Bitcoin, you need to fill up your wallet. We   will provide you money via Zelle system.      To do this, we need to know:      Your Holder name:   Your Bank name:   Your Email address associated with account:   Your phone number:        There is no fee to receive bitcoins, and many wallets let you control how large a fee to pay when spending.   Most wallets have reasonable default fees, and higher fees can encourage faster confirmation of your transactions.   After receiving electronic transfer, you will have to fill up your Bitcoin wallet.      We will send you 2-3 transactions through Zelle.   Have you ever used electronic transfer (Zelle)?   Do you have online banking active?   Do you have business bank account?
99490
This is the first time i’ve properly been involved with a sugar daddy and he wants me to pay $50 for the USD to AUD conversion rate on pay pal. is this a scam and should i just block him? i don’t want to get conned into anything
45420
There are absolutely loads of payment gateways out there, and I'd like a comprehensive list of them. There's already a question asking for the "best" ones,  and another asking for ones suitable for a charity .  Would such a question be on topic? And would it need to be CW? The obvious way to do it is to have one CW answer and edit all other answers into it. I don't know whether the question itself should be CW, or just the main answer.
100244
My Bank of America checks contain my routing &amp; account number, which I've used in the past to make purchases online, among other things. Anyone whom I pay with a check has this information. It seems like this account info is even more sensitive than my credit card #, since with Visa I am protected with a Zero Liability policy, but I do not know that to be the case for my checking account.  I may be naive, but there's a lot of people I've paid with checks whom I would never give my credit card (e.g. people I've bought from on Craigslist). I'm now wondering if it's irrational to do this.
35346
I read somewhere that 'funds parking' in your bank account during last minute is considered as  'mild deception' by consular officers which may lead to a denial.  Please explain why 'funds parking' in your bank account is considered a mild deception?. I see no reason why there is something wrong with this. People are free to do whatever they want with their bank account (e.g could even borrow funds from family) for travel.  I believe visa officers are always looking for several reasons to just deny you a visa.
79665
I've just seen a user profile page which contains the following text:     Donations are welcome via Paypal. Paypal account is the same as my email address.   There's no context to suggest this has anything to do with supporting the user's favourite cause - it's a direct request for money.  Is this acceptable?
27957
Motivation: I once had one surplus card on my hand, and knew the robbers would come soon. So I gave it to someone for free, to avoid losing more cards when they hit. I was surprised by how badly this was received. Two of the three other players (the hosts of the game) acted upset, like I had tried to cheat. I had to take the card back, get robbed the next turn and 'giving cards away for free' was banned immediately. (Oh, how I hate mid-game additions to the rules. But that's beside the point.)  So now the question: Is this really illegal in Settlers of Catan? Is it generally considered underhanded in any way? If so, why?   My reasoning was like this:        Consider players A and B.   A wants to give B a sheep.   A trades a sheep and one rock to B, in exchange for wheat.   A trades the received wheat for the (formerly his) rock.   A and B now both have the same resources they had in the beginning, only the sheep has moved from A to B.
64838
I have been "hired" by Nissan Motor as a key account specialist.  My first assignment is to cash two checks that I have received. Both were written by a customer who has already received the engines. The total is $2500. I am to cash the checks, get the money, take out my bonus and any other related expenses and deposit into a Bitcoin ATM. Then make copy of receipt and electronically send to my "manager".  I contacted a lawyer, was told to talk to the Department of Labor, who said they will not get involved, as this is between me and my employer. Any advice?
7486
Someone is offering to pay me in a sort of sugar daddy/sugar baby arrangement. They want to make online deposits to me, and they're asking me for my online banking username and password. Is that information alone enough for them to be able to take my money out of my account, or am I safe?
59617
Recently a friend of mine invited me to hear about “an interesting chance to simply earn money.” Basically we and other invited people drove to a meeting room where a speaker told us about a growing startup where you could invest money in a field where similar investments had an ROI of apparently 1000 times the investment in 6 years. Afterwards there was coffee and small talk together, during which they also indoctrinated people saying, they should avoid talking to people talking bad about the investment (or saying it is scam) because you can't gain money from them and they just want to destroy your business.  You earn money if you invest money and if you refer friends who invest money up to multiple levels. The more you invest yourself the greater percentage you earn for your referrals.  Since I had already seen other ponzi-/MLM-schemes and I am from the field it is based in, I recognized that there is no real product and it is a ponzi-/MLM-scheme. Later I found its name on the official scam warning list of multiple countries.  From what I understand, my friend has already invested multiple months or years worth of income; and is earning an amount of money through referrals that would mean scamming other people directly or indirectly through referrals for possibly several $100,000's per month to earn an additional bonus. He also wants to use his position as a respected member of multiple local youth groups and other community groups to get their members as referrals or in his words “…to give them the opportunity to also simply earn money.”  I tried to convince him that it is just a ponzi scam with my knowledge in this field but he answered with the indoctrinated speech “You don’t need to know the details if it makes you rich or use it. You also don't know how every detail of a smartphone works?”/“My sponsor already earned $x with this” or “If you don't believe in this, just stop talking about it to me and other people or do you want to ruin me, my business and my investments?.” So basically this means I can either make his investment worthless/let him lose everything (he also quit his job) or let him scam other people and motivate them to scam other people.  At the moment you can only withdraw small amounts of money out of it because the company invented some reason but you will be able to withdraw all of it “soon” (=most likely never).  What is the best way to resolve this situation (best meaning with lowest loss of money for everybody)?  Edit: The founders are known names in Ponzi schemes or convicted for crimes like fraudulent bankruptcy and many of their claims are technically impossible or proven to not exist with very high probability according to sites about ponzi schemes. But of course they say "Every bigger company has their scandals".  You can't trade the bought virtual coins outside the company and the only product you can buy can be bought anywhere else for less than 10% of the price without the logo.  When I met other friends they mentioned that they got invitations for the same meeting. I just stated to them that I already went to one and told them the name of the company (which was not stated on the invitation) and that I will not invest in it because there are official warnings that this is a scam.
4230
This post originates from a discussion at .  I applied for a UK Standard Visitor visa for attending a competition, with my father funding the visit. They refused my visa saying: There is no evidence of the source of these funds. You have provided electricity bills but no evidence of your father's employment or income.  However, when I submitted the visa application I didn't find any article about explaining unusual transactions or the occupation of the person funding my travel.  Are these hidden requirements or buried somewhere where I didn't look?
25867
This is a really weird situation. A guy contacted me regarding a business I have. He offered far in excess of my stated fees and even told me he could help me financially if I needed it, which I do. He said he was a doctor. Before he even showed up, he gave me his bank account and routing number and full name, which I used to pay some utility bills. All the payments went through. He also sent me $2500 through PayPal, and I received an email that I had received the payment, though it's been 24 hours and it still hasn't shown up in my "recent activity" in my account. But at the time when I met him, I had no reason to doubt the whole thing was real.   So we met, and through conversation he seemed totally legit. Halfway through our session, he abruptly left — he claimed he was being called in to the hospital. He had already received some, but not all, of the services we had agreed to. He said he would come back in a few hours. Oh yeah, and since the PayPal funds hadn't gone through yet, and I needed cash to pay rent, he said his "financial advisor" would be wiring me $800 a couple hours later. Well, I never heard back from him and never got a call about a wire transfer. In retrospect it all seems very obviously a scam, except for the fact that he gave me a bank account number that actually worked as far as paying some bills!  My question is, assuming the PayPal payment never goes through — I never got an email saying that it was cancelled, but it isn't showing up in my payments either. I'm planning on calling PayPal if it hasn't gone through by tomorrow. But assuming that payment doesn't go through, how can I use the bank account info to get the payment he promised me as far as the services I provided? Other than paying all my utilities in advance? You'd think with an account number and routing number and full name, I would be able to withdraw money somehow, but I really have no idea how. And since it isn't under my name, I can't make a payment on my student loans. I wouldn't take more than he owed me, but it would really be nice to at least get that, even if I didn't get the $2500 he had promised me.   You always hear about not letting people see your account number and stuff like that, but it seems impossible to do anything with this info even though I have it! If scamming people with their bank account number is so easy, how do scammers do it? So I'm wondering two things:   What legal way can I take what I am owed from this guy? What illegal way do people use this info if they had it? I don't want to get in trouble, but I'm just curious because you always hear how easy it is.   (Oh, and I never actually saw his ID so I don't know that the name &amp; bank info he gave me was actually his, he could have stolen it from someone, though he really didn't seem like a hacker — he was a middle aged black man who was very smart-sounding, polite, soft spoken, and he seemed to have a lot of knowledge that a real doctor would have. I have a college degree and am very skeptical in general and careful about not being scammed and I've never had an experience even close to this, and the whole time I kept thinking "is this guy for real?" but since the utility stuff had gone through, it seemed legit. And nothing he did sent up a red flag like he might be a criminal or something. But later I googled the name and couldn't find a doctor by that name, at least not in the state he said he lives in. And since he said he would be contacting me last night, and he never did, it seems obvious that he planned the whole thing, but it just makes no sense to me.)
100268
Lately, I have been tied up with my moving soon, among others. I got a reply from my ad for moving sale at craigslist, the author of which claims to be currently living on the other side of Atlantic ocean:     Hi, Thanks for your response. I'm going on a vacation to London but I   will instruct my assistant to prepare and mail your payment which I'm   sure you will get in about 4 - 6 business days. I'll add $20 extra for   the delay. I'll pay by M O or cashier check so send me your info (i.e   full name, mailing address and your phone number) so payment can be   mailed out immediately. I will also make arrangement for pick-up which   will be after you must have received and cashed the payment. Awaiting   your info. Thanks   I have seen similar scams before, but they send checks instead of money order or cashier check. I later learned that checks are not guaranteed for the payment, but cashier checks and money orders are, since they are made when the payer pays first to the finance institutes that issue cashier checks and money orders. So how can the quoted scam that promises to send me cashier check or money order work, I wonder?  Thanks!
45329
I have a small landscaping business and I advertised through Facebook.   Some guy reached out to me via text message, asking me to do a job for him.  He asked for a quote  for installing sod in his front yard and I replied with $3,175. He agreed  to  that price.  He then asked me to assist him with with the ex-owner of the house. I asked him, what needs to be done? He said that he owes the ex-owner $10,000  and that the ex-owner  has no way of receiving it.  For he only has a credit card to pay with he has to do it as a transaction he will will send me $12,100. Once the money clears I have to Zelle or PayPal the ex-owner   the $10,000 and keep $2,000 as down payment for the job and $100 for a tip.    I thought that this was some kind  of joke so I agreed.  He asked if I could manually process his card.  I said no but I can invoice you.  So I did and to my surprise, he actually paid. I think that I’m being scammed.  What should  I do?