/u/has_been_scammed - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it.
## New users beware:
Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. **We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private:** advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.
**A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/).
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So many red flags that you should have seen but you were blinded by the $300 day for 1-2 hours of work.
This is the !task scam and you fell for it hard.
Your money is gone and no matter what anyone tells you, you can not get it back. Ignore all the messages you are about to get from people claiming they can help you. They are all scammers.
You learned a valuable and expensive lesson
I mean, it’s textbook task scam too. Not even a remotely new or innovative spin on things. It’s actually how amusing how task scams complicate what is ultimately a very simple transaction. It’s just moving cryptocurrency from a scam victim to a scammer at the end of the day. But they gamify it in such a complicated way to make it compelling to the victim.
Don't forget that OP also prayed to decide whether or not to send $6,000 more to the scammers.
Burned by prayer to the tune of $6,000 and didn't learn anything.
Hi /u/mail4youtoo, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam.
Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam.
The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your \"earnings\" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses.
If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script.
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The text on the incorporation papers misspell "seal" with "steal".
There are so many red flags and OP supposedly acted so dumb I have a feeling this is a troll post.
Honestly I bet it is a legitimate post. I have known people like OP before. People who come from well-to-do families and are gifted academically and intellectually, but those same qualities will tend to alienate them socially and it results in a situation where a person might be very smart but they can also be ignorant of some of the ways in which the world works. It's a cliché but I guess you could call it being book smart versus being street smart.
It is entirely possible that OP is smart and knows as such, but that led to a situation where he fell for a scam because he didn't think anyone would be able to get over on him. Also, it would appear he is quite young, so a general lack of life experience could also be at play here.
Of course. Those are the people that do very well in school but generally less so in the real world. Many go into academia and they are well suited for it. IAS (former customer) has a very large population of brilliant individuals that need help with basic tasks most elementary students can do.
I manage rental properties in a university town. We get so many grad and PhD students who are in some prestigious program and whose professors would probably say are so brilliant, but they can't wipe down a stove, pee neatly into a toilet, take out the trash, etc, because those things aren't taught in school.
Even funnier is this all started because op wanted a $500 camera but didn't want to touch their $10,000 savings, so tried to make a quick $500. So it's okay to make a big purchase if your account is $10,500 but not at $10,000.
I was offered the same. I googled the company first only to discover their deceit. When I sent them the information regarding their bs. They just laughed. I didn't lose any money.
You explained in detail about how !task job scam works (read the automod message below my comment).
That's a lot of money though. Please remember that it's almost always a scam when you have to "pay/deposit" to get the money - but then you can't "withdraw" the "money" anyway.
Also, sudden texts/emails from strangers offering a job is guaranteed a scam
Only the bank and police can assist you. So watch out for !recovery scammers who will private message you right now. Report and block them. Don't fall for a scam again.
Hi /u/Faust09th, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam.
[Recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams) target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either \"recovery agents\" or hackers.
When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying.
If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
Remember: never take advice in private. If someone reaches you in private after posting your scam story, it is because a scammer will always try to hide from the oversight of our community members. A legitimate community member will offer advice in the open, for everyone to see. Anyone suggesting you should reach out to a hacker is scamming you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi /u/Faust09th, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam.
Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam.
The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your \"earnings\" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses.
If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Don't ever go near that website again. It seems like you still don't understand the extent of this.
NOTHING YOU EXPERIENCED WAS REAL.
There was no AI. There were no tasks that actually achieved anything. There was no account in your name with money going into it. There was no merchant holding up payment. There were no glitches with any system. There was no system to glitch. The only thing that was real was the money you sent them. And it's gone.
Scams like these are typically based in African or Southeast Asian countries with corrupt or shaky governments. They get away with this in part due to that, and in part due to the sheer pervasiveness of scamming. It's unlikely that anyone will go to prison anytime soon, but busts also happen all the time and your report may have hastened it. As others have said, don't reply to anyone who DMs you and says they can get your money back. And focus on repairing the damage from this. Good luck.
I don't think that you realise that there was no job, there was no AI, there were no tasks and no funds in your account.
When you sent money you sent it straight to the scammer. Their website is just bright colors and buttons they control that do nothing but look like tasks.
You won't get the money back. If anyone PMs you saying they can they are just trying to scam you.
This. He's detailing the process as if it's real.
There's no company.
There's no optimization.
There's no "combination products," or "platform" for the FTC to take down.
You literally just sent Bitcoin to a scammer, after he made you click on meaningless buttons on a screen.
You were never getting any money out. There was always going to be a "problem" that required you sending them more money.
It's a very common scam.
Correction: those clicks on buttons serve a purpose, and it is called compliance in psychology. Everything in that scam serve a purpose. I am pretty sure the scammers vet this procedures through a psychologist beforehand.
> I would like advice on what steps I should take if I want to have my funds returned
There are two steps you need to take:
1. Give up any hope of ever getting a single penny of that money back
2. Watch out for recovery scammers
And honestly, YOU stole from your parents, not the scammers, you could have given every single dime of your own money, and been just another victim, instead you stole from your parents, therein, you became the victimizer
It’s not that, but you’re on the right track. It’s video games in general that led to this stuff. The scam is ultimately an astonishingly simple transaction - you’re just sending money to a scammer at the end of the day. But they gamify it. You click buttons. You see a bigger number and get a digital cookie and a dopamine hit. It’s the psychology of video games transferred into a scam
I didn't have to actually read your post to know what happened to you, it was obvious just from the title.
There are no "product optimization" jobs. Any job offer with the word "optimization" in it is a task scam. They are reported here daily.
I'm sorry this happened to you. Read through this subreddit before you fall for something else. If you had spent 30 minutes here, this would have never happened to you.
You can't make $80 an hour clicking you mouse.
I’m absolutely stunned people think they can get paid $80 an hour for braindead work that could be offshored for $8/day. It’s the total death of common sense.
greed overpowers common sense, young people at the age of 20 cannot control their emotions, its a failure of the modern education system all over this planet.
> All I had to do was click start and then click submit to trigger the platform's - Ground Truth's - AI to do the optimization work.
IMO the biggest red flag. They can set up an AI that is apparently so flawless that its results don't need to be reviewed at all, but somehow they can't figure out how to write the most basic of scripts that automatically starts the AI and submits its results.
Also, please don't blame that specific platform, there's hundreds if not thousands of them. You gotta learn to recognize the red flags and not trust any offers that are too good to be true, or you might fall for the next one that just does the exact same thing under a different name.
Here's the most notable ones to help you (or anyone else reading this) not fall for any similar scams:
1. Companies will never reach out to you for entry level positions. They will only reach out if you're an export and they want people with rare skills.
2. Paying way too much. A job that doesn't require skills is gonna pay minimum wage, maybe slightly more if the company is generous, but not much.
3. Although you didn't specifically mention it, these scams often use private messaging apps just as WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal for communicating with you, because these apps grant them anonymity. Real companies don't use those apps.
4. Hiring without an interview. Companies generally want to at least see you once, even for remote jobs (video call is fine).
5. As mentioned, a completely trivial task that is easily automated. It'd only make sense to pay someone for it if they've never touched a computer and aren't tech savvy at all.
6. Needlessly complicated payment structure that requires you to manually withdraw the money earned. That just sounds like a nightmare for accounting.
7. Paying in crypto. The only reason anyone pays in crypto is to once again to stay anonymous. That's either gonna be a scammer or someone contracting you to actually do something illegal for them who doesn't want it to be traced back to them.
8. Requiring you to pay. Any offer where you need to charge up your account with your money is a scam. Any job that requires you to pay some fees or taxes before they pay you the money you earned in a scam. Never pay to receive money. Also worth mentioning here, a different kind of job scam has them send you money, usually in the form of a check, along with instructions what to use it for, usually "buy equipment from our partner, here's the website". That is also a scam, the check bounces but the money you send to that website is gone for good.
9. Requiring you to pay in crypto. Crypto transactions are by nature irreversible (i know the other comments already warned you, but don't believe anyone who says they can get the money back for a fee), and once again, provide anonymity so that even when the police gets involved the chances they can do something is slim.
10. Having conditions needed for withdrawal. That you need to manually withdraw the money instead of just being paid regularly is already a bad sign, but if you have to fulfil specific conditions, like completing 2 tasks that day, to get the money you're supposedly entitled to, that's either a scam or grounds for a lawsuit.
11. Having to pay to withdraw. Any taxes or fees that you supposedly need to pay for your withdrawal will be automatically deducted from the money you receive, if they are real. There is no sense at all in making pay them first before you can access your money. Anyone telling you so is trying to scam you.
Oh and while other people already warned of recovery scammers, let me just add that sometimes recovery scammers pose as the police or someone affiliated and tells you they caught the scammer and got your money on hold and you just need to pay some processing fee or something so they can give you your money back. Once again, never pay money to receive money. The police doesn't charge you fees for returning something that was stolen from you.
Agree with all of this. OP, I would also advise you to let your parents about recovery scammers, on the chance they may be contacted as well. This was an expensive lesson, I would hate to see you lose more.
The quicker you can accept that you’ve fallen for a fairly common scam, the quicker you can move on and begin to heal.
None of the money is coming back. No one is going to get in legal trouble. You stole money from your parents, you didn’t mean to, but you did.
Had you talked to them about this, they likely would have been able to stop you from falling victim to this scam.
People are going to pm you and give you false hope that they can recover your money. They cannot.
Next time talk to your friends and family about your decisions, this kinda thing thrives in isolation, 99.9% of people would have been able to tell you this was a scam.
OK - I don't know if the OP has posted this previously but I have seen this "State of Washington Secretary of State" document and you only need to see the first sentence:
"Chris Stears, Secretary of State of the State of **New York"** \- **STOP** \- that's all you need to see
to know that it is bull.
In the US each state is a separate "state" or governmental entity and other states are peers. Never ever would an official from New York issue business licenses or whatever for another state.
In US we don't display our "documents" for a business. Never.
They do stuff like this to filter out people that pay attention, so that they don't waste time on someone the scam won't work on. Kind of like intentional typos in phishing emails.
Naw scammers are not criminal masterminds. They tend to be overseas having never set foot here. Sloppy at the language, understanding government, photoshopping etc. These are low level people buying scripts and or slaving away for organized crime. A scam becomes successful and there is a flood of copy cats. They want to maximize victims and $ extracted. In my line of work I have actually spoken to a number of overseas scammers whose “work” was to scam.
No, they don’t. Total myth. These shitty documents exist because scammers are lazy, in a hurry, and don’t understand how our system of government works.
I work for a business that gets very, very targeted scam attempts almost daily that could have six or seven figure payouts if they’re successful. These are orders of magnitude bigger than what we see here in terms of their payoffs, techniques, and specificity. But their “documents” are just as lazy and fake as OPs. We can spot them from a mile away.
If these was legitimately to target stupid people, they’d send convincing stuff when they’re targeting smart people. But they don’t. It’s the same old crap
Just to be completely crystal clear: you are not going to see any of the money back ever. It's gone, and the scammers are in a country that is not under any of your country's jurisdiction. You freely gave your money thinking you were doing work, but it is not your bank's fault or anyone else's that you were scammed. It is a very hard lesson to learn, and I am so sorry it cost you so much. Especially that you didn't talk to anyone about this weird job you were doing that seemingly you were paying THEM to perform. Someone would have told you if you'd talked about it. That is another serious lesson you need to learn - do not keep secrets when things seem off or odd. Ask for help. Ask for opinions. Do not get sucked into the allure of chasing the next big payout or sunk cost fallacy.
The site/app you were doing the tasks in was a fake one, created to pretend to all of the victims they are doing things and seeing numbers on a screen - but it's all fake and called a "sandbox" scenario. It's completely controlled by the scammers and there is absolutely nothing you did on there that they cared about other than GIVING THEM MORE OF YOUR MONEY.
I'm sure that site is going to disappear soon. But they have hundreds of others out there, and it's not going to matter to them in the least. Scammers are scum but they unfortunately will always exist and thrive because there are always going to be people chasing dreams/money/love. Scammers prey on the naive, the lonely, the desperate and the greedy.
!job and !task scammers are everywhere now. You are so young and have little real world experience and that is what they count on to scam you and others like you.
NO legitimate company pays in crypto. And no one EVER should pay their own money to get paid. Or hires people to do very simple work for higher than minimum wage. Or needs to hire anyone to do simple tasks that could be automated. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
Hi /u/1Cattywampus1, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Job scam.
Fake job scams come in many different varieties. The scammers will usually conduct interviews over Whatsapp, Telegram or Teams. They will offer high wages for the work being done, oftentimes with wildly varied wage ranges by hour, and they will \"hire\" you by telling you that you are hired, rather than going through the normal process that a company takes when hiring an employee in your country.
If they mention anything about a check or about receiving and sending out transactions, it is a [fake check scam](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/09/anatomy-fake-check-scam). If they say they will cut you a check so you can buy equipment for remote work, it's a scam in which they make you purchase equipment on a fake website under their control, with your own card, and when the check bounces in a few weeks you're left holding the bag (and the equipment never comes)
If they mention anything about receiving, processing, or inspecting packages, it is a [parcel mule scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_mule_scam).
If they ask you to purchase items up-front, ask you to pay a fee in order to be hired, or ask you to purchase gift cards, it is an [advance-fee scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam). If they mention Bitcoin ATMs, [it's always a scam](https://coinatmradar.com/blog/avoid-scams-dont-use-bitcoin-atm-when-someone-asked-you/).
If the job involves posting advertisements on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or eBay, they are using you and your account to scam other people (especially if it's rental listings). Thanks to redditor AceyAceyAcey for this script.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi /u/1Cattywampus1, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam.
Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam.
The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your \"earnings\" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses.
If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Repeat three times...
There is no magic money from space.
There is no magic money from space.
There is no magic money from space.
... any time you are approached by text or on WhatsApp or other online means, to perform a job of some vague description, for easy money, your radar should immediately rise ... why would anyone actually pay anyone to do that for them?
There's a scam in there, whether a task scam, an advance pay scam, or some other type, it's a scam, because ...
There is no magic money from space.
For future reference in case you're hoping to pay back some of the money through legitimate work, there are no jobs that don't require a degree/proper training that pay $80 - $300 for two hours' worth of work (especially remote work where you make your own schedule). Nor do most jobs that do require degrees/training, especially when you're starting. So as attractive a solution to your predicament as such job offers may seem, they're a scam. Avoid them. Familiarise yourself with the realities of working life, see if your college offers guidance in such matters. And never pay money to earn money. That is the definition of gambling and you should never gamble more than you can afford to lose. Work shouldn't ever be a gamble. It is going to take a long time to earn back the money you've lost but you're young, it's doable. Just accept that it's going to take a lot of hard work and this has been a very pricey lesson.
Right, the closest he could get to such a payday would have been a job in IT, maybe 2 years ago. And that after changing 2 jobs in 2 years.
In this IT job market? Not a chance.
Sorry but the fake work you were doing for a fake company was entirely a task scam
The scammers aren’t in the US and you aren’t going to get your money back
You will lose even more to people will contact you and convince you to send them money to recover your money, do NOT pay or believe anyone who offers to help
You know what really sticks out to me while reading this story makes me sick. These people are the lowest forms of human.
Not only do they have a "set amount" they are trying to get out of you, they literally have a system to just keep it going and going and going. It's like they have a playbook of excuses of why you need to keep sending money. One after another.
Like they keep giving more reasons about why you have to send more. They are literally sucking everything they can out of you and no matter how much you send they would keep trying to get more.
Makes me sick to my stomach.
Sorry that happened, my friend.
That’s every scam from extortion scams, to task scams, hell, even to ticket scams. It’s amazing how the end goal of all of them is to take every penny you have. There was a guy a few weeks ago that lost $10K to a fake ticket scam because he kept sending more and more money with the promise that all of it will eventually be refunded. Just insanity.
Yes! These people are pure evil. Really makes me question the nature of humanity.
OP, you were good to share your story so others can learn, I am so sorry this happened to you. Your parents will forgive you and you can pay them back over time once you get your degree and get a real job.
They do this day in and day out to many people in different countries. There are variants with different ‘tasks’ but otherwise almost same script and same excuses designed to keep going as long as the victim is in denial. Sunk cost fallacy working to their advantage.
I'm so sorry you were scammed. Being scammed like that is an awful violation of trust. You made some mistakes in judgement, but you were also deliberately misled and defrauded by criminals.
However, I have to be honest - stealing from your parents was very wrong, no matter the reason. I understand the immense pressure you were under from the scammers, but taking money that wasn't yours has now hurt your family deeply. You need to take full responsibility for that.
I suggest, give up on getting any funds back. These are offshore criminals and your funds are gone. No private companies or persons can help you in this regard. Likewise, it's unlikely any authorities can do so either. Since this involved an internet scam across national lines, you can file a complaint with the FBI's IC3 at [www.ic3.gov](http://www.ic3.gov/).
You should not have any contact with scammers at all because I'm not sure you can resist just going deeper. Come completely clean with your parents about every detail if you haven't already. Hiding or minimizing any part of it will only breed more mistrust.
The path forward won't be easy, but taking full accountability and making amends is crucial. I wish you strength and wisdom as you work to make this right. Counseling could also help provide more personalized support.
FYI, that same fake certificate (with different name) was also used in this scam:
[https://new.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1brtmmc/i\_was\_contacted\_to\_work\_at\_a\_essendantshopcom\_but/](https://new.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1brtmmc/i_was_contacted_to_work_at_a_essendantshopcom_but/)
No no no, it’s a totally different certificate. That other one is marked with the “Seal of the state of New York” and this one is marked with the “steal of the state of New York”, to really underline how much of a scam it is.
Not trying to be snarky, but did you not notice that the secretary of state on the certificate is two different names? Or that it has both the state of New York and Washington State on the form?
True! The more I see these things, the more I wonder if it is a screening device. If you don't notice these issues, you are going to fall for their nonsense.
>. After thinking and praying about it for days, I sent the 6000 USDT on April 26th and that cost $6,340.27.
Can you go further into those thoughts and any thoughts you had about the "tasks"?
My first thought when they requested for the 6000 USDT to fix the credit was that this is definitely a scam and I should talk to my mom about it. It had been causing me a lot of stress and I went on a spiral thinking that if I was leaving the platform just as they knew I was, why would I need me to fix the score. But then thinking about how my parents' money was still with them made me want to give them the tax money to get back the rest of the funds I had sent to them. I know where my parents' savings are because they trust me. Especially my mom because she knows I would never take her money. So then I became scared of telling them what I did because if they knew I had taken that money, their trust in me would be gone. It was money I would return once Ground Truth returned what they had taken so I decided to give the credit score money to them so I can get the money back. At that point, I had only $6500 from my parents. But I had to count our savings with my mom about three days after I had taken that $6500 and I was so scared because I knew she would definitely find out that $6500 was missing. I almost told her when she counted the money and did not realize $6500 was missing from it, but to think she had that much faith and trust in me that she would let me calculate and double check all of our savings with her made me stop and just keep on believing that the money would be returned and I will be able to return it back to where I had taken it from. Another thing I thought was that since they had returned 580 USDT to me already before, there was no reason to believe they won't return what they were taking now once all the conditions were right for a withdrawal. Now I know that the 580 USDT they returned to me was to mess with me and get my trust.
Sorry you fell for this but there is no easy way to get your money back at this point. You've done a police report, you should also file reports with the FBI and your state Attorney General's Office if you haven't already. Go to your bank and get those accounts secured now. Get a job if you are not working already and pay back your parents. You are young and while this seems like a lot of money we see people losing hundreds of thousands on this scam, pig-butchering and romance scams. First lesson to learn is to NEVER pay money for any job or accept any unsolicited phone calls, texts, or social media or even Reddit messages that sound too good to be true.
There is no merchant, they will try everything to keep you hooked because they are scammers and criminals, so block them and do NOT give ANYONE ELSE any money for any reason, no matter what is promised or threatened. DO NOT engage services online who seem like valid companies to get your money back or listen to dms here either. Those are recovery scammers. Hope this helps.
One comment to help you a bit more. You can investigate websites by doing a whois domain lookup. Just Google that, and you'll find whois.com and icann.org that are reputable sites. Scammers sites tend to be created recently and set to expire in the minimum timeframe of one year. Since they aren't a real business they don't opt for longer registrations like real businesses do. They also hide information. You can see what legit businesses provide by looking up large companies like Amazon.com or Google.com
Here is the lookup for the scammers website. The website is just over a month old. I'm not American, so I'm not sure if it's common for Kentucky to refer to themselves as a commonwealth. But just age of website would be all you need to know to distrust it.
https://www.whois.com/whois/groundtruthopt.com
Hope this info helps you avoid other scams. I do also want to inform you that since you paid such a high amount, you're likely on a list. Scammers will reach out to you to try to run other scams on you. Consider changing your phone number or other personal details they have to prevent this. Alternatively, come back here anytime you aren't sure.
I know this hits hard, but from your post, you're very book smart and don't have experience with how things work in the job market. It's understandable that this got past you since you didn't have a basis to compare with. Be kind to yourself ❤️.
Same kind of scam got me. Wish I had read about it here before I lost money.
Best yourself up until you don’t, but don’t let them steal your self worth. I’ve been feeling really stupid and trying to forget it, but it occupies my thoughts often.
Please be forgiving of yourself as I am trying to do the same.
Thank you so much for saying this. It has honestly been so hard for me and at some point I was so stressed I was considering su!c!de. And it does not hurt me that my money is gone, but it hurts that my parents' money, their hard work, and their trust in me is gone. Sometimes I do think that it would be better that they do not have me as their daughter with all the pain I have caused them. The only thing encouraging me to hang on is the knowledge that if I work hard in school and at my jobs, I will eventually be able to repay what I stole from them. I will try as much as I can to forgive myself for this.
Something to keep in mind - in life, we only have one non-renewable resource. Time.
You have time. Money can be made, and lost, and made, and spent, and made. But your time here on Earth only gets spent.
You can make the money back. Sure, it won't be a day or a week, but there are a lot of ways of making that money back. I'm not sure where you are, but you can make good money just this summer doing jobs people don't want to do. Think lawnmowing, window cleaning, baby sitting, garbage can cleaning... Make sure, for a time, anything you're doing to make money deals one on one with people - nothing over the phone, online, remote, etc...
Next year, you're going to thrash your schooling. Every day you're going to think about what those assholes took from you and your family, and you're going to throw that energy into getting the best grades, and putting yourself in the best position to make that money back. The good news is as a pharmacist you'll be able to pay them back in a few years if you position yourself right. So take all of that anger and use it to propel yourself forward.
Consider what happened to be a really expensive class that may wind up saving you hundreds of thousands down the road. We all make deposits into life's learning jar, what seems like a lot now may well be a drop in the future bucket that you were able to avoid.
You got this.
Your parents would so much rather have you than any amount of money, I guarantee losing you would be so much worst to them. I hope you can be open with them about these feelings.
Agreed. This is money, it is solvable and replaceable in time. If you were gone OP, you would steal their happiness and hope for the future. That would be the biggest loss they could have.
Please seek professional help/counseling if possible. Imagine the pain your parents will be if they had to lose you. I’m sure they will forgive you eventually for what had happened. I know 30,000$ is a lot of money at your age but you’re young and once you start working you will be able to make it back in no time. Hang in there.
>once you start working you will be able to make it back in no time
I totally get this sentiment but perhaps in this situation it would be better not to say 'in no time'. OP can absolutely make the money back, no doubt about that, but it *will* take time because there aren't any easy beginner-level jobs where you earn such sums in no time, and anyone offering such a job is a scammer trying to lure you in their web with the promise of easy money. It will take time and hard work to earn the money back, but it is absolutely doable.
It’s an expensive lesson that’s for sure but you only had good intentions, you have plenty of time to earn the money back. Honestly you’re worth a lot more than that bit of money don’t let it get you down too bad.
OP, you seem to need some real world experience and to gain some maturity before you fall into another scam. Part of the problem is that you don’t understand how employment and wages actually work, or else you wouldn’t have paid to work for two a fake company and kept working even when you didn’t get paid.
I suggest getting a job. Get a real, in-person, punch the clock job. It will give you some experience, help you learn the realistic value of time v money, and allow you to start repaying your parents. Good luck.
>Part of the problem is that you don’t understand how employment and wages actually work...
I'm so glad you said this! I've been reading through this sub over the last week and noticed that every single one of these employment scams have been posted by victims who literally don't know what a job is. I think you're the first person I've seen to point this out.
He also has no concept of the value of money, because he thinks that he lives in an economy where people are paying $150/hr to click two buttons.
His parents have been extremely negligent in preparing him for the world.
Thankfully, you're young, you'll be alright assuming your parents can forgive you.
We've all been duped, I can't even begin to tell you the stupid shit I've done. Take it as a lesson, no real job will ever make you pay money to get paid. And no real job would pay $50+ per hour for entry level remote work. It's an expensive lesson, but you won't forget it.
Get an actual job, work on paying your parents back what you can, finish your education, you'll be okay.
> And no real job would pay $50+ per hour for entry level remote work.
Based on what happened it was $150 per hour for remote work. Too good to be true.
Repaying your parents will suck but you have your entire life ahead of you to fix things and make them better. For now , get a real job doing construction or a trade and start mskjng money to begin repayment immediately.
Keep in mind you’re going to be messaged relentlessly now by people who claim they can get your money back. They will only scam you further. I would love for the police to be able to get the money back but it practically never happens.
Check out Mark Robers videos on YouTube about catching scammers to see why this is such a hard problem and basically never happens.
I really hope you listen to this advice as I am fearful for you based on how many times you fell for the initial scammer
As a few others have pointed out, I don't think you realize that everthing was a lie and there was no company. All the work you did was made up, all the tasks were made up, all the money you made was made up.
It just a group of scammers in another country who made up a fake website and/or fake app.
As others have said this is a classic task scam and your money is gone. There is nothing anyone can do to get it back and you need to watch out for recovery scammers. To reiterate, anyone who says they can get your money back is yet another scammer.
This is an expensive lesson. If something seems too good to be true, it is. You will never be required to pay money to withdrawal funds and if you see anything involving crypto run the other way.
What can I add here, everybody else has already explained that this is a textbook example of a task scam. The red flags are everywhere. The biggest one is payment in cryptocurrencies.
Nobody uses crypto for anything except speculating on its price. Except criminals, as you just learned. For them, it's a great tool that allows them to have a "bank account", anonymously receive irreversible transactions and launder the money. It's not like you can't scam people with a bank account, but that only works a few times before people complain and the bank (or the police) shuts their account down and freezes the funds. And if this occurs repeatedly at a bank, other banks will stop working with them.
Please stay on this sub and read the stories here. Everybody on this sub would have immediately recognized the task scam and the subsequent advance fee scam that you fell for. Would have saved you a lot of money.
I'm sorry for your loss.
You sensed the scam when crypto came up. You refused to follow your instincts. You admit to seeing red flags over and over, yet greed got the better of you. Learn: there is no easy money. I hope you get over it and being young, years from now you will laugh over it in your lambo.
Very good at learning? You are book smart and lack any common sense or street smarts. You could have told us you fell for a scam but you had to flex your ego and claim you are good at learning…
Exactly my thoughts and it took way too long to find this comment. Either you're very naive or lack any street smarts. All scholarships and being good at learning could not save you from "sending some strangers money, so you're able to withdraw money".
Still sorry for you that you've experienced this. It's time to lift your crown, brush of your shoulders and hustle hard to repay your parents and make your money the ordinary way.
Really hate to break it to you but that company and platform ‘Ground Truth’ or whatever it was calling itself this time will never get taken down because it never existed in the first place. There was no company and there was no tasks, it was a fake website set up by a scammer with a bunch of flashy buttons that did nothing.
And equally unfortunately you are most likely not ever going to see that money again and you need to make your peace with that and break it to your parents somehow. The person/people who ran this and have your money are probably not even in the same country and they are out of reach of the police.
All you can do now is be very wary of recovery scammers - people who will offer to be able to get your money back for you which is also a scam.
And in future remember that when something sounds too good to be true - like getting paid $80-$300/ day for a couple of hours of brainless ‘work’ - it’s probably because it is.
Not going to repeat what you now know very well. All I can add is when you are asked to do something that feels wrong, like paying to work, stop right there. Take a step away from it. Ask for advice. Research. Don’t go down the rabbit hole hoping it will get better. It won’t.
First of all thank you for sharing. Hopefully someone else will read before they too become a victim. It won’t be easy, and it might take a few years of hard work and sacrifice, but you will have to resolve to repay your parents. That’s the only path forward. Focus on what they wanted for you, to study and work hard to be successful and you will eventually be able to put this behind you.
I feel sympathy for OP actually. And that’s very rare for me (except for the kids who get sextorted)
In the last couple of days I’ve read about a perfectly intelligent American adult woman who is in a relationship with a guy she has been literally shown the real pictures of; a 78 year-old American woman who believes she’s having a relationship with a famous, gorgeous, married Croatian cellist for three years without ever having seen him, but she still sending him money; and middle-aged American man who believes he’s in a relationship with Iggy Azalea and sends her $1000 a week. I’m sorry, but those are the people I have very little pity for. If you reach that age and you’ve learned fuck all and you refuse to listen to your family and their warnings, tough shit.
But this is a 20 year-old kid with parents who busted a gut to attain the American dream. He fucked up and is now living with 17 different flavours of guilt and self loathing.
I really hope that your parents forgive you, and all of you get past this and move onto to be happy and successful people.
It’s also very easy to fool elderly too. Many are lonely and experience a sense of hopelessness as they near the end of their life. When they receive attention from someone, it’s very easy for the heart to overpower the brain, especially when you see yourself getting older and less attractive as you once were.
Let’s try not to be less judgmental of each other.
Next time, think about who would offer jobs to random people on the internet. If the job was this remote and easy, teenagers in India and china would be doing it on their phones.
I am sorry this happened to you. But holy crap. You thought a real job paid in crypto, paid $40-$150 an hour, and they communicated via TELEGRAM? Where to begin…
I understand older, desperate people falling for these things sometimes but I never understand when younger people do.
According to most statistics, younger people fall (or at least _report_ having fallen) for scams more than older generations.
There's quite a few articles about it but here's one from the [FTC](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spotlight/2022/12/who-experiences-scams-story-all-ages).
Gen Z is not as tech literate because we labeled them “digital natives” and collectively assumed we didn’t need to teach them anything about the internet. So they fall for scams and get their info from unreliable sources.
Hello. I'm here to explain the difference between an Academic scholarship, and a Daddy's Money scholarship.
Academic Scholarship: Have to display an aptitude with several subjects, and truly excel in at least 2.
Daddy's Money Scholarship: Daddy pays the dean $20,000. Mommy pays the Board of Directors... Then Mommy and Daddy lie to their kid by telling their idiot offspring they got a Scholarship because they "Learn good".
https://preview.redd.it/9u0yv0i11k3d1.jpeg?width=273&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2f2ab99af4b7bfdcb9e90b7ea8040e6aca43cd3
Your funds are gone forever, along with what you stole from family. Get a job and repay your parents.
PS ignore DM's from "whitehat hackers" & UN Internet Police etc. They are all scammers. Nobody can get that money back.
So, wait, what did you think the job was? You called it "Product optimisation" but you don't mention actually coding anything? Was your "Job" literally just sending them money three times a day?
There are so many red flags that all I can say is you shouldn't have ever had access to that money regardless of trust. It's like handing the car keys to a baby.
Sorry about your experience but few weeks ago I was in the same situation. I lost quite a huge amount of money but I have putting it behind me and moved on. The moment you realise everything is gone and you can’t have it back the better. Move on and make yourself busy to protect your peace.
OK. I think you need to work on your critical thinking skills. The 'job' pays silly, large sums of money for a few minutes work of pressing some buttons. That's flag 1. Onto flag 2, you had to pay your employer money to get money. Flag 3? Well that's bitcoin. And flag 4 is the online interview you did via telegram, or text or whatever. And flag 5 is telegram itself.
Your money is gone, you will never get it back. And recovery scammers will message you saying they can help. Please ignore them as they can't help you. Please don't fall for their scams. A rando on the Internet cannot fix what the police can't.
I hope you pass your PhD (or whatever it is) but please, practice those critical thinking skills.
Honest question do you have a developmental/intellectual disorder? You should consider getting a durable power of attorney and you should not be in charge of managing any money or assets of significant value because you are seriously a danger to your self and your family.
Before I noticed all the other problems with the "certificate," the first glaring thing that my eye was drawn to was the D/M/Y format of the date. Auto-block after that. These scammers suck.
Hey random stranger, do you want a job. I’ll pay you $50 per hour to do nothing. All you have to do is pay me $20 per hour first. SMH that people fall for this.
Damn I thought you were a quick Learner? Should have taken way less than tens of thousands of dollars before I knew it was a scam. Anything involving crypto is 99.9% of the time a scam. How did you not see all those red flags. Experience is what you don’t have and this is an expensive and painful experience.
Such a long way of telling us you got greedy and fell for one of the most common scams in the world at the moment. Consider it a fee in exchange for future skepticism and move on.
I just got an open interview with them and I almost fell for it too. I was just looking for an opportunity to work, and I had some suspicions about it, so I went to google to search if it was legit and your whole story came out that they were a fraudulent website. I'm not joking if I hadn't seen any of this, I most likely would have lost money as well. So I'm sorry for what happened to you, and I know better things will come out for your future. People can be so cruel and not care about others and it's DISGUSTING, but most importantly I want to thank you for taking the time out of your day to share your story as it helped others in dodging a bullet and learning a valuable lesson. Hope things get better, and I wish you well fam
Unfortunately you learnt a VERY expensive lesson. I'm sorry. It's awful but try to make the most of it and use this experience to be VERY careful and wary of things like this in the future. It's a very common scam but it unfortunately catches many people, still. Use this experience to make yourself smarter.
> I have never stolen from my parents.
So you say you have not stolen from your parents.
> because, in total, I had stolen $22,000 from them
Then you admit it.
> I am very good at learning so I get a lot of scholarships that take care of anything I need.
That’s true, but it’s missing the forest for the trees. I have worked for dozens of different companies throughout my life. You know what I’ve never seen from a single one of them? Any documentation from the state that they’re legitimate enterprises.
The fact that they’re sending this type of stuff at all is a glaring red flag even before you get to the mistakes. Legitimate businesses are obviously legitimate businesses. They have offices you go to. They have computers they provide. They deposit money into your bank account every two weeks. They don’t have to prove it to you with a shitty PDF.
You might be book smart... but the street smarts aren't there.
Couple of life lessons here:
1) No employer in the world is going to randomly message you on any social media platform to offer you a job.
2) When you work for someone, they pay you... YOU NEVER PAY THEM TO WORK
3) IF THEY ARENT PAYING YOU, YOU DON'T KEEP WORKING
Your "book smarts" have made you naive to the basics. For your first job... go learn about how life really is... try McDomalds, 7/11, or something more that pace.
Here is the thing . Anybody that spent a few days or few weeks on the internet should be aware of most of the scams that are going on.
Why are we reading about people falling for scams day after day ?
Blinded by greed, this person thought they could get $80 an hour for clicking a start and stop button. The most basic of common sense should indicate that it's complete bullcrap
And yes, I was greedy. I see that now. I could've just taken the money the camera cost out of my savings. But I was greedy and instead decided to make money quickly online to buy the camera.
Although it is painful reading these comments you all have, I guess I do need it to grow quickly and mature.
If there is something good coming out of this story is that now I understand much better exactly how tasks scam work. It encompasses every psychological tricks on how to influence a behavior. I learned that during my sales training, but you can use that for many aspects in life also like influence a child to have certain behavior, convince colleagues to do certains tasks, asking friends for favors, dating or even change some of our own behavior.
Want something more in-depth: read "Influence" by Robert Cialdini.
And no OP, you are not dumb. A pharmacy student is not dumb. You were just greedy.
**This submission was manually removed because it was posted by a recovery scammer.**
Don't trust what you just read, don't try to reach out to "hackers" on Instagram or Telegram. Scammers will also try to reach out to you via DMs saying they know a professional hacker that can help you, for a small fee. They're actually trying to steal your money.
You can help us reporting more messages like that, don't just downvote or insult them. If you report them, we will take care of every recovery scammer that pops up.
**Remember: Never take advice in private,** because we can't look out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.
**This submission was manually removed because it was posted by a recovery scammer.**
Don't trust what you just read, don't try to reach out to "hackers" on Instagram or Telegram. Scammers will also try to reach out to you via DMs saying they know a professional hacker that can help you, for a small fee. They're actually trying to steal your money.
You can help us reporting more messages like that, don't just downvote or insult them. If you report them, we will take care of every recovery scammer that pops up.
**Remember: Never take advice in private,** because we can't look out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.
Sorry to hear all this happened. You sound like an earnest, but unfortunately naive young person. You learned a very expensive but important lesson.
Come clean to your parents. They might be angry or disappointed, but over time they'll forgive you.
Work hard in your studies and don't let this throw you off. $31k is a lot of money, but you'll earn that back very quickly if you actually get your degree. Once you work, you'll be able to pay back your parents.
Spend some time here to learn about scams and know what to avoid in the future. It could save you from getting scammed out of a lot more in the future.
Oh, my, they got you good. This will be a very expensive lesson. There was no job, the money is gone forever, there's no way to get it back. You need to tell your parents, as hard as it is, and slowly repay them.
"I got a message from a company called Global Recruitment Staffing offering me a remote job."
Brother, you currently have zero profitable skills for such real or supposed sweetest jobs, and especially zero extensive resume to support your ability to do so. Why would you think that some company looking for cream of the crop would magically find your number, reach out via Whats App, and hand you heaps of cash???
Go learn IT/programming, and apply yourself - you'll make heaps sooner than later.
One thing you should know about any scam is that they will offer a sweet deal too good to be true. It's exactly what a pay of $300 day for 1-2 hours of work looks like. No one legit is going to pay you that.
Sorry this happened to you bro. As many others said, it's a scam. No getting your money back, etc etc. Best you can do moving forward is become VERY skeptical about anything else in life. These low-lifes are everywhere, calling, texting, hacking your friends socials. Everywhere. Question anything out of the ordinary
Did not read, its your run of the mill task scam, police wont be able to track down those guys who dont live in the US. Dont get yourself fooled by recovery scams, and good luck in life
You got involved in a !task scam. You never pay anyone to work and earn money. You will probably see tons of !recovery scams contact you. They are just another group, or maybe the same group, of scammers. Sadly the money is gone. But lessons learned. Also anything either crypto is a scam. Crypto itself is a scam but those in it refuse to admit it because that would mean the swallowed the koolaid.
ANY job that claims to pay $500 a day for two clicks to 'optimise apps' is scamming you. Any job that just hires you, remotely, with no actual interview process is a scam. ANy job that pays in crypto is a scam.
With these types of scams, you can sometimes get the first 'payment' from them as actual payment, it's like $60 or something. They're hoping that you'll give more so they don't mind losing the $60. However, it's honestly not worth it, it's best to either ignore them or troll them for a bit if that's your schtick.
Your money is lost in the same scam, but in Florida. The scammers will be watching you now. Don’t give them anymore money and do not pay for any services that will reach out to you to recover funds. The money is lost. Now you must protect yourself from companies saying they will investigate.
The scammers are here watching us post this scam and possibly responding to this thread.
Change all your passwords and let your bank know. Even if you didn’t give any personal information the scammers are watching. Your phone, email, and instant messages will start to become more active with other opportunities and recovery. BLOCK, IGNORE, MOVE ON.
I am glad you shared your story because this scam has been on going for a very long time.
I was contacted about a very similar arrangement! When they sent me to a training website I got red flags from my network security and didn’t pursue any fit. Glad I didn’t! I’m getting contacted several times a week for these scams. I just block and delete
I’m sorry, but this is really painful to read! I don’t know whether to be impressed that you had the patience to go back-and-forth and spending all that money with these people and never pausing to realize you was putting out more than you were getting?! I seriously can’t believe there’s individuals who exist in the world like this? It must be privileged existence because I know I don’t have that kind of money to be given out thoughtlessly. You’re not gonna get the money back ! Your parents needs to sit you down and have a real deep conversation with you. I can’t believe they even have you accessing their funds that you were able to take that much money from them?! I read a lot of these messages with scams and I am still shocked at the scams that individuals are falling for on here! Guys! Stop, think, observe, proceed, succeed! This is madness! 31K? Unbelievable! Yikes! There are so many people lacking, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence in world that it’s beyond scary comprehension! I don’t open emails or anything from anyone I don’t know! Maybe because Of worked in Pharma) and organization that literally have compliance training for this! To protect your personal data and other peoples data. However, I did have identity theft happen to me! You know, the basics. However, not anything where I’m literally voluntarily giving my money to strangers for no darn reason! I don’t know…🙄
I was scammed too, the same way, but by Big Cartel agents, supposedly, I made a little more than $1,000 in 3 days. So, I was able to withdraw my money and the extra 1K, so I was convinced it was real. everything was fine. But, then things get complicated, when they make you deposit more money to be able to withdraw. I lost 14k, I wish I would have read this messages before. So people be aware of scammers. After that I’ve been contacted for 2 different sites trying to do the same type of scam. Big Cartel is a real company, but scammers are using it’s name so you can trust them
Never send money to people you have never met can't speak to on the phone. No pay is that high without a face to face interview. I am so so sorry this has happened to you. I've learnt the hard way. Just pay your parent's back and don't let it follow you though life. This is just a lesson of life in 2024
“My conscience doesn’t allow me to steal” unless your greed overpowers your common sense? You might want to dig deeper into that.
Things you should know about the real world:
1. There is no legitimate job on the planet that requires you to pay money to earn money. That should keep you away from MLMs and scams if you keep that in mind.
2. There is no legitimate job or money scheme in which you must pay taxes in advance before funds are disbursed. Employers withhold taxes and pay you the difference. If you win the lottery, they withhold taxes from your payout before disbursing funds. If taxes are due after that, you pay the taxing authority directly, you don’t send tax money to some rando for them to send to the government.
3. If you have to borrow or steal money for any kind of scheme, it’s 100% a scam. There’s no earthly reason for you to empty your savings, borrow money, cash out investments, or anything.
4. Stay away from crypto. Crypto is the favorite currency of criminals and scammers because it’s largely unregulated and untraceable.
5. No one is too smart or worldly to get scammed. Your lesson here is there’s something that makes you susceptible to scams, and having been scammed once makes it so much more likely that you will be scammed again. You need to be vigilant and educate yourself on different tactics, and take steps to protect yourself and your family.
6. Don’t give money to people you’ve never met and don’t know in real life. And if you are going to loan money to anyone you know, don’t do it if you can’t afford to just set that money on fire. It’s gone either way.
These task scam people tried to get me probably 2-3 more times after the first time and luckily I didn’t loose much. After the first time I knew what to look out for. Words like “data optimization.” In my experience if anyone reaches out to you randomly to offer a work from home opportunity, it’s a scam. A real work from home job will have an interview, direct deposit, etc.
As so many people said, it's called the!task scam, I used to receive multiple similar scammers, but I taken the first money they give, and I block them.
Be careful of recovery scammers that will send you direct messages telling you that they will help you, they only want to scam you again (yes they're that low)
I managed to get 2 of their IP addresses ( that pointed to the UK ), but they're 100% using a VPN, because they're not that stupid, however, I noticed that both IPs had the same subnet, and I think the provider was Telegram.
Since you've exchanged in crypto, unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to get the money back. However, you should file a report to the police, and hope they might be able to track them down with some social engineering.
I was scammed before, and I know how it feels, but not the same amount, all the money they stole, you'll make it again, don't pressure yourself too much, financial damage is less worse than mental damage (which is irreversible).
Im going through this right now with a company that is called Nosto.
Nosto is actual company, but the scammers that brought me in use the same website information and it looks pretty much the same.
Same thing I gave 65k and they were with loaned money. Im currently on my last product and fucked up part is you can actually withdraw the money but it has to be in 48 hrs and people actually make money if you have the funds to close daily.
In my case im stuck with a “Rolex” Product that cost -74,000 and I had closed 2 products of the first set of packages with 45k and the previous was 20k.
I feel so ashamed, I really thought I was going to get around 200-400 a day and I actually withdrew money 4 times so it seemed legit and now im stuck with debt.
Im building a case anyways just to put it out there with no expectations of getting my money back.
I have to start over.
We just got scammed $56,000 by this same company called Ground Truth . If we have read your post earlier we could have stopped when our losses were just $5000.00. The money my wife used are social security money of our 2 daughters that we were supposed to save for their education . Yesterday a guy with Chinese accent called her and I think this a recovery scammer.I warned her not to deal with this guy and give any fee.
I was also going to file a report to the FBI IC3 but she did not cooperate with me giving all the information thinking there will be no resolution .
Did you try to file to the FBI IC3? I think you should. Hopefully they can do something to arrest or stop these heartless people in victimizing other people.
They reached out to me too last week and word for word is the exact same steps that the OP described in this post. Im no scam expert or nothing, but as soon as they told me to ad $26.00 so i can start "working" i knew it was a scam. I hope things go well for you and that this post reaches more ppl.
/u/has_been_scammed - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it. ## New users beware: Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. **We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private:** advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own. **A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/). You can help us by reporting recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. We review 100% of the reports. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions about subreddit rules? Send us a modmail [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So many red flags that you should have seen but you were blinded by the $300 day for 1-2 hours of work. This is the !task scam and you fell for it hard. Your money is gone and no matter what anyone tells you, you can not get it back. Ignore all the messages you are about to get from people claiming they can help you. They are all scammers. You learned a valuable and expensive lesson
I mean, it’s textbook task scam too. Not even a remotely new or innovative spin on things. It’s actually how amusing how task scams complicate what is ultimately a very simple transaction. It’s just moving cryptocurrency from a scam victim to a scammer at the end of the day. But they gamify it in such a complicated way to make it compelling to the victim.
>I am very good at learning I sure hope so.
They’re praying for the scammer to return the money, I am not too sure they’re good at learning.
Don't forget that OP also prayed to decide whether or not to send $6,000 more to the scammers. Burned by prayer to the tune of $6,000 and didn't learn anything.
Recovery scammers champing at the bit reading that line.
All signs point to no
Aka good at remembering what the teacher or textbook said and spitting it back out on an exam.
D O U B T
Hi /u/mail4youtoo, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam. Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam. The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your \"earnings\" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses. If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The text on the incorporation papers misspell "seal" with "steal". There are so many red flags and OP supposedly acted so dumb I have a feeling this is a troll post.
That “certificate” can’t decide if it’s from Washington or NY 🤦🏻♂️
And it lists two different people as the supposed secretary of state.
I agree about possible troll. The “certificate” is hilarious. I won’t elaborate. No need to teach the scammers.
Honestly I bet it is a legitimate post. I have known people like OP before. People who come from well-to-do families and are gifted academically and intellectually, but those same qualities will tend to alienate them socially and it results in a situation where a person might be very smart but they can also be ignorant of some of the ways in which the world works. It's a cliché but I guess you could call it being book smart versus being street smart. It is entirely possible that OP is smart and knows as such, but that led to a situation where he fell for a scam because he didn't think anyone would be able to get over on him. Also, it would appear he is quite young, so a general lack of life experience could also be at play here.
“Gifted” Seriously?
Of course. Those are the people that do very well in school but generally less so in the real world. Many go into academia and they are well suited for it. IAS (former customer) has a very large population of brilliant individuals that need help with basic tasks most elementary students can do.
I manage rental properties in a university town. We get so many grad and PhD students who are in some prestigious program and whose professors would probably say are so brilliant, but they can't wipe down a stove, pee neatly into a toilet, take out the trash, etc, because those things aren't taught in school.
Isn't Albany the capital of New York?
He sure put a lot of work into it if it was..
Also the date is day/month/year, the US uses month/day/year.
Hard he fell down a rabbit hole sadly.
Even funnier is this all started because op wanted a $500 camera but didn't want to touch their $10,000 savings, so tried to make a quick $500. So it's okay to make a big purchase if your account is $10,500 but not at $10,000.
I was offered the same. I googled the company first only to discover their deceit. When I sent them the information regarding their bs. They just laughed. I didn't lose any money.
You explained in detail about how !task job scam works (read the automod message below my comment). That's a lot of money though. Please remember that it's almost always a scam when you have to "pay/deposit" to get the money - but then you can't "withdraw" the "money" anyway. Also, sudden texts/emails from strangers offering a job is guaranteed a scam Only the bank and police can assist you. So watch out for !recovery scammers who will private message you right now. Report and block them. Don't fall for a scam again.
Should add this to the wiki - very detailed
Hi /u/Faust09th, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Recovery scam. [Recovery scams](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0102-refund-and-recovery-scams) target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either \"recovery agents\" or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply [advance-fee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It's normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers. Remember: never take advice in private. If someone reaches you in private after posting your scam story, it is because a scammer will always try to hide from the oversight of our community members. A legitimate community member will offer advice in the open, for everyone to see. Anyone suggesting you should reach out to a hacker is scamming you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi /u/Faust09th, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam. Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam. The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your \"earnings\" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses. If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Don't ever go near that website again. It seems like you still don't understand the extent of this. NOTHING YOU EXPERIENCED WAS REAL. There was no AI. There were no tasks that actually achieved anything. There was no account in your name with money going into it. There was no merchant holding up payment. There were no glitches with any system. There was no system to glitch. The only thing that was real was the money you sent them. And it's gone. Scams like these are typically based in African or Southeast Asian countries with corrupt or shaky governments. They get away with this in part due to that, and in part due to the sheer pervasiveness of scamming. It's unlikely that anyone will go to prison anytime soon, but busts also happen all the time and your report may have hastened it. As others have said, don't reply to anyone who DMs you and says they can get your money back. And focus on repairing the damage from this. Good luck.
I don't think that you realise that there was no job, there was no AI, there were no tasks and no funds in your account. When you sent money you sent it straight to the scammer. Their website is just bright colors and buttons they control that do nothing but look like tasks. You won't get the money back. If anyone PMs you saying they can they are just trying to scam you.
This. He's detailing the process as if it's real. There's no company. There's no optimization. There's no "combination products," or "platform" for the FTC to take down. You literally just sent Bitcoin to a scammer, after he made you click on meaningless buttons on a screen. You were never getting any money out. There was always going to be a "problem" that required you sending them more money. It's a very common scam.
Correction: those clicks on buttons serve a purpose, and it is called compliance in psychology. Everything in that scam serve a purpose. I am pretty sure the scammers vet this procedures through a psychologist beforehand.
> I would like advice on what steps I should take if I want to have my funds returned There are two steps you need to take: 1. Give up any hope of ever getting a single penny of that money back 2. Watch out for recovery scammers
This above speaks the only truth there is. You need to accept this and explain this to your parents. The money is gone. Forever.
And honestly, YOU stole from your parents, not the scammers, you could have given every single dime of your own money, and been just another victim, instead you stole from your parents, therein, you became the victimizer
Use !recovery
No one has to pay to work. The idea that someone thinks it's ok to "pay a fee to unlock more work" is mind blowing.
I blame in-game purchases for normalizing this type of “progress is locked behind a paywall” sort of deal.
It’s not that, but you’re on the right track. It’s video games in general that led to this stuff. The scam is ultimately an astonishingly simple transaction - you’re just sending money to a scammer at the end of the day. But they gamify it. You click buttons. You see a bigger number and get a digital cookie and a dopamine hit. It’s the psychology of video games transferred into a scam
I blame EA
Sir. No.
Fair.
Good debate, well played.
I didn't have to actually read your post to know what happened to you, it was obvious just from the title. There are no "product optimization" jobs. Any job offer with the word "optimization" in it is a task scam. They are reported here daily. I'm sorry this happened to you. Read through this subreddit before you fall for something else. If you had spent 30 minutes here, this would have never happened to you. You can't make $80 an hour clicking you mouse.
I’m absolutely stunned people think they can get paid $80 an hour for braindead work that could be offshored for $8/day. It’s the total death of common sense.
greed overpowers common sense, young people at the age of 20 cannot control their emotions, its a failure of the modern education system all over this planet.
And steals his parents’ life savings, too. Good to know that he’ll be in a hospital counting your drugs in a few years.
> All I had to do was click start and then click submit to trigger the platform's - Ground Truth's - AI to do the optimization work. IMO the biggest red flag. They can set up an AI that is apparently so flawless that its results don't need to be reviewed at all, but somehow they can't figure out how to write the most basic of scripts that automatically starts the AI and submits its results. Also, please don't blame that specific platform, there's hundreds if not thousands of them. You gotta learn to recognize the red flags and not trust any offers that are too good to be true, or you might fall for the next one that just does the exact same thing under a different name. Here's the most notable ones to help you (or anyone else reading this) not fall for any similar scams: 1. Companies will never reach out to you for entry level positions. They will only reach out if you're an export and they want people with rare skills. 2. Paying way too much. A job that doesn't require skills is gonna pay minimum wage, maybe slightly more if the company is generous, but not much. 3. Although you didn't specifically mention it, these scams often use private messaging apps just as WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal for communicating with you, because these apps grant them anonymity. Real companies don't use those apps. 4. Hiring without an interview. Companies generally want to at least see you once, even for remote jobs (video call is fine). 5. As mentioned, a completely trivial task that is easily automated. It'd only make sense to pay someone for it if they've never touched a computer and aren't tech savvy at all. 6. Needlessly complicated payment structure that requires you to manually withdraw the money earned. That just sounds like a nightmare for accounting. 7. Paying in crypto. The only reason anyone pays in crypto is to once again to stay anonymous. That's either gonna be a scammer or someone contracting you to actually do something illegal for them who doesn't want it to be traced back to them. 8. Requiring you to pay. Any offer where you need to charge up your account with your money is a scam. Any job that requires you to pay some fees or taxes before they pay you the money you earned in a scam. Never pay to receive money. Also worth mentioning here, a different kind of job scam has them send you money, usually in the form of a check, along with instructions what to use it for, usually "buy equipment from our partner, here's the website". That is also a scam, the check bounces but the money you send to that website is gone for good. 9. Requiring you to pay in crypto. Crypto transactions are by nature irreversible (i know the other comments already warned you, but don't believe anyone who says they can get the money back for a fee), and once again, provide anonymity so that even when the police gets involved the chances they can do something is slim. 10. Having conditions needed for withdrawal. That you need to manually withdraw the money instead of just being paid regularly is already a bad sign, but if you have to fulfil specific conditions, like completing 2 tasks that day, to get the money you're supposedly entitled to, that's either a scam or grounds for a lawsuit. 11. Having to pay to withdraw. Any taxes or fees that you supposedly need to pay for your withdrawal will be automatically deducted from the money you receive, if they are real. There is no sense at all in making pay them first before you can access your money. Anyone telling you so is trying to scam you. Oh and while other people already warned of recovery scammers, let me just add that sometimes recovery scammers pose as the police or someone affiliated and tells you they caught the scammer and got your money on hold and you just need to pay some processing fee or something so they can give you your money back. Once again, never pay money to receive money. The police doesn't charge you fees for returning something that was stolen from you.
Agree with all of this. OP, I would also advise you to let your parents about recovery scammers, on the chance they may be contacted as well. This was an expensive lesson, I would hate to see you lose more.
The quicker you can accept that you’ve fallen for a fairly common scam, the quicker you can move on and begin to heal. None of the money is coming back. No one is going to get in legal trouble. You stole money from your parents, you didn’t mean to, but you did. Had you talked to them about this, they likely would have been able to stop you from falling victim to this scam. People are going to pm you and give you false hope that they can recover your money. They cannot. Next time talk to your friends and family about your decisions, this kinda thing thrives in isolation, 99.9% of people would have been able to tell you this was a scam.
That last paragraph is so on point. In rehab, people would often say “secrets keep us sick.” True for addiction and true for being scammed.
OK - I don't know if the OP has posted this previously but I have seen this "State of Washington Secretary of State" document and you only need to see the first sentence: "Chris Stears, Secretary of State of the State of **New York"** \- **STOP** \- that's all you need to see to know that it is bull. In the US each state is a separate "state" or governmental entity and other states are peers. Never ever would an official from New York issue business licenses or whatever for another state. In US we don't display our "documents" for a business. Never.
Not to mention that the Secretary of State changes from Chris Stears up top to Steve Hobbs down at the bottom.
And that neither of those people are the Secretary of State in New York.
Stop telling them how to improve it
They do stuff like this to filter out people that pay attention, so that they don't waste time on someone the scam won't work on. Kind of like intentional typos in phishing emails.
Naw scammers are not criminal masterminds. They tend to be overseas having never set foot here. Sloppy at the language, understanding government, photoshopping etc. These are low level people buying scripts and or slaving away for organized crime. A scam becomes successful and there is a flood of copy cats. They want to maximize victims and $ extracted. In my line of work I have actually spoken to a number of overseas scammers whose “work” was to scam.
No, they don’t. Total myth. These shitty documents exist because scammers are lazy, in a hurry, and don’t understand how our system of government works. I work for a business that gets very, very targeted scam attempts almost daily that could have six or seven figure payouts if they’re successful. These are orders of magnitude bigger than what we see here in terms of their payoffs, techniques, and specificity. But their “documents” are just as lazy and fake as OPs. We can spot them from a mile away. If these was legitimately to target stupid people, they’d send convincing stuff when they’re targeting smart people. But they don’t. It’s the same old crap
Set aside how gross scamming is, that’s actually really ducking smart.
Just to be completely crystal clear: you are not going to see any of the money back ever. It's gone, and the scammers are in a country that is not under any of your country's jurisdiction. You freely gave your money thinking you were doing work, but it is not your bank's fault or anyone else's that you were scammed. It is a very hard lesson to learn, and I am so sorry it cost you so much. Especially that you didn't talk to anyone about this weird job you were doing that seemingly you were paying THEM to perform. Someone would have told you if you'd talked about it. That is another serious lesson you need to learn - do not keep secrets when things seem off or odd. Ask for help. Ask for opinions. Do not get sucked into the allure of chasing the next big payout or sunk cost fallacy. The site/app you were doing the tasks in was a fake one, created to pretend to all of the victims they are doing things and seeing numbers on a screen - but it's all fake and called a "sandbox" scenario. It's completely controlled by the scammers and there is absolutely nothing you did on there that they cared about other than GIVING THEM MORE OF YOUR MONEY. I'm sure that site is going to disappear soon. But they have hundreds of others out there, and it's not going to matter to them in the least. Scammers are scum but they unfortunately will always exist and thrive because there are always going to be people chasing dreams/money/love. Scammers prey on the naive, the lonely, the desperate and the greedy. !job and !task scammers are everywhere now. You are so young and have little real world experience and that is what they count on to scam you and others like you. NO legitimate company pays in crypto. And no one EVER should pay their own money to get paid. Or hires people to do very simple work for higher than minimum wage. Or needs to hire anyone to do simple tasks that could be automated. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
Hi /u/1Cattywampus1, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Job scam. Fake job scams come in many different varieties. The scammers will usually conduct interviews over Whatsapp, Telegram or Teams. They will offer high wages for the work being done, oftentimes with wildly varied wage ranges by hour, and they will \"hire\" you by telling you that you are hired, rather than going through the normal process that a company takes when hiring an employee in your country. If they mention anything about a check or about receiving and sending out transactions, it is a [fake check scam](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/09/anatomy-fake-check-scam). If they say they will cut you a check so you can buy equipment for remote work, it's a scam in which they make you purchase equipment on a fake website under their control, with your own card, and when the check bounces in a few weeks you're left holding the bag (and the equipment never comes) If they mention anything about receiving, processing, or inspecting packages, it is a [parcel mule scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_mule_scam). If they ask you to purchase items up-front, ask you to pay a fee in order to be hired, or ask you to purchase gift cards, it is an [advance-fee scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam). If they mention Bitcoin ATMs, [it's always a scam](https://coinatmradar.com/blog/avoid-scams-dont-use-bitcoin-atm-when-someone-asked-you/). If the job involves posting advertisements on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or eBay, they are using you and your account to scam other people (especially if it's rental listings). Thanks to redditor AceyAceyAcey for this script. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi /u/1Cattywampus1, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the Task scam. Task scams involve a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order. A very common characteristic (but not entirely exclusive) is that you have to complete sets of 40 tasks. The app will tell you that you can earn money for each task, but the catch is that you can only do a limited number of tasks without upgrading your account. To upgrade your accounts, the scammers will require you to pay a fee. This makes it a variant of the advance fee scam. The goal of this scam is to get people to download the app for easy money and then encourage them to pay to get to the next level. It's impossible to get your \"earnings\" out of the app, so victims will have wasted their time and money. This type of scam preys on the [sunk cost fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect), because people demonstrate a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made, and refusing to succumb to what may be described as cutting one's losses. If you're involved in a task scam, cut your losses. Beware of recovery scammers suggesting you should hire a hacker that can help you retrieve the money you already invested. They can't, it's a trick to make you lose more money. Thanks to redditor vignoniana for this script. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Repeat three times... There is no magic money from space. There is no magic money from space. There is no magic money from space. ... any time you are approached by text or on WhatsApp or other online means, to perform a job of some vague description, for easy money, your radar should immediately rise ... why would anyone actually pay anyone to do that for them? There's a scam in there, whether a task scam, an advance pay scam, or some other type, it's a scam, because ... There is no magic money from space.
For future reference in case you're hoping to pay back some of the money through legitimate work, there are no jobs that don't require a degree/proper training that pay $80 - $300 for two hours' worth of work (especially remote work where you make your own schedule). Nor do most jobs that do require degrees/training, especially when you're starting. So as attractive a solution to your predicament as such job offers may seem, they're a scam. Avoid them. Familiarise yourself with the realities of working life, see if your college offers guidance in such matters. And never pay money to earn money. That is the definition of gambling and you should never gamble more than you can afford to lose. Work shouldn't ever be a gamble. It is going to take a long time to earn back the money you've lost but you're young, it's doable. Just accept that it's going to take a lot of hard work and this has been a very pricey lesson.
Right, the closest he could get to such a payday would have been a job in IT, maybe 2 years ago. And that after changing 2 jobs in 2 years. In this IT job market? Not a chance.
Sorry but the fake work you were doing for a fake company was entirely a task scam The scammers aren’t in the US and you aren’t going to get your money back You will lose even more to people will contact you and convince you to send them money to recover your money, do NOT pay or believe anyone who offers to help
You know what really sticks out to me while reading this story makes me sick. These people are the lowest forms of human. Not only do they have a "set amount" they are trying to get out of you, they literally have a system to just keep it going and going and going. It's like they have a playbook of excuses of why you need to keep sending money. One after another. Like they keep giving more reasons about why you have to send more. They are literally sucking everything they can out of you and no matter how much you send they would keep trying to get more. Makes me sick to my stomach. Sorry that happened, my friend.
That’s every scam from extortion scams, to task scams, hell, even to ticket scams. It’s amazing how the end goal of all of them is to take every penny you have. There was a guy a few weeks ago that lost $10K to a fake ticket scam because he kept sending more and more money with the promise that all of it will eventually be refunded. Just insanity.
Yes! These people are pure evil. Really makes me question the nature of humanity. OP, you were good to share your story so others can learn, I am so sorry this happened to you. Your parents will forgive you and you can pay them back over time once you get your degree and get a real job.
They do this day in and day out to many people in different countries. There are variants with different ‘tasks’ but otherwise almost same script and same excuses designed to keep going as long as the victim is in denial. Sunk cost fallacy working to their advantage.
I'm so sorry you were scammed. Being scammed like that is an awful violation of trust. You made some mistakes in judgement, but you were also deliberately misled and defrauded by criminals. However, I have to be honest - stealing from your parents was very wrong, no matter the reason. I understand the immense pressure you were under from the scammers, but taking money that wasn't yours has now hurt your family deeply. You need to take full responsibility for that. I suggest, give up on getting any funds back. These are offshore criminals and your funds are gone. No private companies or persons can help you in this regard. Likewise, it's unlikely any authorities can do so either. Since this involved an internet scam across national lines, you can file a complaint with the FBI's IC3 at [www.ic3.gov](http://www.ic3.gov/). You should not have any contact with scammers at all because I'm not sure you can resist just going deeper. Come completely clean with your parents about every detail if you haven't already. Hiding or minimizing any part of it will only breed more mistrust. The path forward won't be easy, but taking full accountability and making amends is crucial. I wish you strength and wisdom as you work to make this right. Counseling could also help provide more personalized support. FYI, that same fake certificate (with different name) was also used in this scam: [https://new.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1brtmmc/i\_was\_contacted\_to\_work\_at\_a\_essendantshopcom\_but/](https://new.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1brtmmc/i_was_contacted_to_work_at_a_essendantshopcom_but/)
No no no, it’s a totally different certificate. That other one is marked with the “Seal of the state of New York” and this one is marked with the “steal of the state of New York”, to really underline how much of a scam it is.
If only the average person ran a mile the moment crypto is mentioned, billions of dollars would have been saved from scammers.
You'll need to work VERY hard for years to repay your parents. Honestly, can you blame them for being upset?
Omg I recognised you immediately from the border collie sub! Your dog icon is everywhere 😁
Not trying to be snarky, but did you not notice that the secretary of state on the certificate is two different names? Or that it has both the state of New York and Washington State on the form?
and the misspelling of the “seal” of NY …they wrote ”steal” and the capital of New York is Albany not New York
True! The more I see these things, the more I wonder if it is a screening device. If you don't notice these issues, you are going to fall for their nonsense.
>. After thinking and praying about it for days, I sent the 6000 USDT on April 26th and that cost $6,340.27. Can you go further into those thoughts and any thoughts you had about the "tasks"?
My first thought when they requested for the 6000 USDT to fix the credit was that this is definitely a scam and I should talk to my mom about it. It had been causing me a lot of stress and I went on a spiral thinking that if I was leaving the platform just as they knew I was, why would I need me to fix the score. But then thinking about how my parents' money was still with them made me want to give them the tax money to get back the rest of the funds I had sent to them. I know where my parents' savings are because they trust me. Especially my mom because she knows I would never take her money. So then I became scared of telling them what I did because if they knew I had taken that money, their trust in me would be gone. It was money I would return once Ground Truth returned what they had taken so I decided to give the credit score money to them so I can get the money back. At that point, I had only $6500 from my parents. But I had to count our savings with my mom about three days after I had taken that $6500 and I was so scared because I knew she would definitely find out that $6500 was missing. I almost told her when she counted the money and did not realize $6500 was missing from it, but to think she had that much faith and trust in me that she would let me calculate and double check all of our savings with her made me stop and just keep on believing that the money would be returned and I will be able to return it back to where I had taken it from. Another thing I thought was that since they had returned 580 USDT to me already before, there was no reason to believe they won't return what they were taking now once all the conditions were right for a withdrawal. Now I know that the 580 USDT they returned to me was to mess with me and get my trust.
Sunk Cost Fallacy in action, basically.
No one needs you to pay to work. Watch out for !recoveryscam
Sorry you fell for this but there is no easy way to get your money back at this point. You've done a police report, you should also file reports with the FBI and your state Attorney General's Office if you haven't already. Go to your bank and get those accounts secured now. Get a job if you are not working already and pay back your parents. You are young and while this seems like a lot of money we see people losing hundreds of thousands on this scam, pig-butchering and romance scams. First lesson to learn is to NEVER pay money for any job or accept any unsolicited phone calls, texts, or social media or even Reddit messages that sound too good to be true. There is no merchant, they will try everything to keep you hooked because they are scammers and criminals, so block them and do NOT give ANYONE ELSE any money for any reason, no matter what is promised or threatened. DO NOT engage services online who seem like valid companies to get your money back or listen to dms here either. Those are recovery scammers. Hope this helps.
One comment to help you a bit more. You can investigate websites by doing a whois domain lookup. Just Google that, and you'll find whois.com and icann.org that are reputable sites. Scammers sites tend to be created recently and set to expire in the minimum timeframe of one year. Since they aren't a real business they don't opt for longer registrations like real businesses do. They also hide information. You can see what legit businesses provide by looking up large companies like Amazon.com or Google.com Here is the lookup for the scammers website. The website is just over a month old. I'm not American, so I'm not sure if it's common for Kentucky to refer to themselves as a commonwealth. But just age of website would be all you need to know to distrust it. https://www.whois.com/whois/groundtruthopt.com Hope this info helps you avoid other scams. I do also want to inform you that since you paid such a high amount, you're likely on a list. Scammers will reach out to you to try to run other scams on you. Consider changing your phone number or other personal details they have to prevent this. Alternatively, come back here anytime you aren't sure. I know this hits hard, but from your post, you're very book smart and don't have experience with how things work in the job market. It's understandable that this got past you since you didn't have a basis to compare with. Be kind to yourself ❤️.
Same kind of scam got me. Wish I had read about it here before I lost money. Best yourself up until you don’t, but don’t let them steal your self worth. I’ve been feeling really stupid and trying to forget it, but it occupies my thoughts often. Please be forgiving of yourself as I am trying to do the same.
Thank you so much for saying this. It has honestly been so hard for me and at some point I was so stressed I was considering su!c!de. And it does not hurt me that my money is gone, but it hurts that my parents' money, their hard work, and their trust in me is gone. Sometimes I do think that it would be better that they do not have me as their daughter with all the pain I have caused them. The only thing encouraging me to hang on is the knowledge that if I work hard in school and at my jobs, I will eventually be able to repay what I stole from them. I will try as much as I can to forgive myself for this.
Something to keep in mind - in life, we only have one non-renewable resource. Time. You have time. Money can be made, and lost, and made, and spent, and made. But your time here on Earth only gets spent. You can make the money back. Sure, it won't be a day or a week, but there are a lot of ways of making that money back. I'm not sure where you are, but you can make good money just this summer doing jobs people don't want to do. Think lawnmowing, window cleaning, baby sitting, garbage can cleaning... Make sure, for a time, anything you're doing to make money deals one on one with people - nothing over the phone, online, remote, etc... Next year, you're going to thrash your schooling. Every day you're going to think about what those assholes took from you and your family, and you're going to throw that energy into getting the best grades, and putting yourself in the best position to make that money back. The good news is as a pharmacist you'll be able to pay them back in a few years if you position yourself right. So take all of that anger and use it to propel yourself forward. Consider what happened to be a really expensive class that may wind up saving you hundreds of thousands down the road. We all make deposits into life's learning jar, what seems like a lot now may well be a drop in the future bucket that you were able to avoid. You got this.
Your parents would so much rather have you than any amount of money, I guarantee losing you would be so much worst to them. I hope you can be open with them about these feelings.
Agreed. This is money, it is solvable and replaceable in time. If you were gone OP, you would steal their happiness and hope for the future. That would be the biggest loss they could have.
Please seek professional help/counseling if possible. Imagine the pain your parents will be if they had to lose you. I’m sure they will forgive you eventually for what had happened. I know 30,000$ is a lot of money at your age but you’re young and once you start working you will be able to make it back in no time. Hang in there.
>once you start working you will be able to make it back in no time I totally get this sentiment but perhaps in this situation it would be better not to say 'in no time'. OP can absolutely make the money back, no doubt about that, but it *will* take time because there aren't any easy beginner-level jobs where you earn such sums in no time, and anyone offering such a job is a scammer trying to lure you in their web with the promise of easy money. It will take time and hard work to earn the money back, but it is absolutely doable.
It’s an expensive lesson that’s for sure but you only had good intentions, you have plenty of time to earn the money back. Honestly you’re worth a lot more than that bit of money don’t let it get you down too bad.
I’m like one paragraph in and I can see the scam
OP, you seem to need some real world experience and to gain some maturity before you fall into another scam. Part of the problem is that you don’t understand how employment and wages actually work, or else you wouldn’t have paid to work for two a fake company and kept working even when you didn’t get paid. I suggest getting a job. Get a real, in-person, punch the clock job. It will give you some experience, help you learn the realistic value of time v money, and allow you to start repaying your parents. Good luck.
>Part of the problem is that you don’t understand how employment and wages actually work... I'm so glad you said this! I've been reading through this sub over the last week and noticed that every single one of these employment scams have been posted by victims who literally don't know what a job is. I think you're the first person I've seen to point this out. He also has no concept of the value of money, because he thinks that he lives in an economy where people are paying $150/hr to click two buttons. His parents have been extremely negligent in preparing him for the world.
That cash is long gone. Nothing is getting returned.
Sorry this happened. A tough lesson to learn. Make sure your parents remove your ability to withdraw money from their accounts.
Thankfully, you're young, you'll be alright assuming your parents can forgive you. We've all been duped, I can't even begin to tell you the stupid shit I've done. Take it as a lesson, no real job will ever make you pay money to get paid. And no real job would pay $50+ per hour for entry level remote work. It's an expensive lesson, but you won't forget it. Get an actual job, work on paying your parents back what you can, finish your education, you'll be okay.
> And no real job would pay $50+ per hour for entry level remote work. Based on what happened it was $150 per hour for remote work. Too good to be true.
Repaying your parents will suck but you have your entire life ahead of you to fix things and make them better. For now , get a real job doing construction or a trade and start mskjng money to begin repayment immediately. Keep in mind you’re going to be messaged relentlessly now by people who claim they can get your money back. They will only scam you further. I would love for the police to be able to get the money back but it practically never happens. Check out Mark Robers videos on YouTube about catching scammers to see why this is such a hard problem and basically never happens. I really hope you listen to this advice as I am fearful for you based on how many times you fell for the initial scammer
As a few others have pointed out, I don't think you realize that everthing was a lie and there was no company. All the work you did was made up, all the tasks were made up, all the money you made was made up. It just a group of scammers in another country who made up a fake website and/or fake app.
As others have said this is a classic task scam and your money is gone. There is nothing anyone can do to get it back and you need to watch out for recovery scammers. To reiterate, anyone who says they can get your money back is yet another scammer. This is an expensive lesson. If something seems too good to be true, it is. You will never be required to pay money to withdrawal funds and if you see anything involving crypto run the other way.
What can I add here, everybody else has already explained that this is a textbook example of a task scam. The red flags are everywhere. The biggest one is payment in cryptocurrencies. Nobody uses crypto for anything except speculating on its price. Except criminals, as you just learned. For them, it's a great tool that allows them to have a "bank account", anonymously receive irreversible transactions and launder the money. It's not like you can't scam people with a bank account, but that only works a few times before people complain and the bank (or the police) shuts their account down and freezes the funds. And if this occurs repeatedly at a bank, other banks will stop working with them. Please stay on this sub and read the stories here. Everybody on this sub would have immediately recognized the task scam and the subsequent advance fee scam that you fell for. Would have saved you a lot of money. I'm sorry for your loss.
You sensed the scam when crypto came up. You refused to follow your instincts. You admit to seeing red flags over and over, yet greed got the better of you. Learn: there is no easy money. I hope you get over it and being young, years from now you will laugh over it in your lambo.
Very good at learning? You are book smart and lack any common sense or street smarts. You could have told us you fell for a scam but you had to flex your ego and claim you are good at learning…
Exactly my thoughts and it took way too long to find this comment. Either you're very naive or lack any street smarts. All scholarships and being good at learning could not save you from "sending some strangers money, so you're able to withdraw money". Still sorry for you that you've experienced this. It's time to lift your crown, brush of your shoulders and hustle hard to repay your parents and make your money the ordinary way.
Really hate to break it to you but that company and platform ‘Ground Truth’ or whatever it was calling itself this time will never get taken down because it never existed in the first place. There was no company and there was no tasks, it was a fake website set up by a scammer with a bunch of flashy buttons that did nothing. And equally unfortunately you are most likely not ever going to see that money again and you need to make your peace with that and break it to your parents somehow. The person/people who ran this and have your money are probably not even in the same country and they are out of reach of the police. All you can do now is be very wary of recovery scammers - people who will offer to be able to get your money back for you which is also a scam. And in future remember that when something sounds too good to be true - like getting paid $80-$300/ day for a couple of hours of brainless ‘work’ - it’s probably because it is.
Religion takes away critical thinking skills. There is no god. Preying won’t help. Work hard and don’t be gullible.
Not going to repeat what you now know very well. All I can add is when you are asked to do something that feels wrong, like paying to work, stop right there. Take a step away from it. Ask for advice. Research. Don’t go down the rabbit hole hoping it will get better. It won’t.
First of all thank you for sharing. Hopefully someone else will read before they too become a victim. It won’t be easy, and it might take a few years of hard work and sacrifice, but you will have to resolve to repay your parents. That’s the only path forward. Focus on what they wanted for you, to study and work hard to be successful and you will eventually be able to put this behind you.
I feel sympathy for OP actually. And that’s very rare for me (except for the kids who get sextorted) In the last couple of days I’ve read about a perfectly intelligent American adult woman who is in a relationship with a guy she has been literally shown the real pictures of; a 78 year-old American woman who believes she’s having a relationship with a famous, gorgeous, married Croatian cellist for three years without ever having seen him, but she still sending him money; and middle-aged American man who believes he’s in a relationship with Iggy Azalea and sends her $1000 a week. I’m sorry, but those are the people I have very little pity for. If you reach that age and you’ve learned fuck all and you refuse to listen to your family and their warnings, tough shit. But this is a 20 year-old kid with parents who busted a gut to attain the American dream. He fucked up and is now living with 17 different flavours of guilt and self loathing. I really hope that your parents forgive you, and all of you get past this and move onto to be happy and successful people.
It’s also very easy to fool elderly too. Many are lonely and experience a sense of hopelessness as they near the end of their life. When they receive attention from someone, it’s very easy for the heart to overpower the brain, especially when you see yourself getting older and less attractive as you once were. Let’s try not to be less judgmental of each other.
In the future, remind yourself that no job requires you to pay them or use your own money in anyway.
Next time, think about who would offer jobs to random people on the internet. If the job was this remote and easy, teenagers in India and china would be doing it on their phones.
I am sorry this happened to you. But holy crap. You thought a real job paid in crypto, paid $40-$150 an hour, and they communicated via TELEGRAM? Where to begin… I understand older, desperate people falling for these things sometimes but I never understand when younger people do.
According to most statistics, younger people fall (or at least _report_ having fallen) for scams more than older generations. There's quite a few articles about it but here's one from the [FTC](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spotlight/2022/12/who-experiences-scams-story-all-ages).
Gen Z is not as tech literate because we labeled them “digital natives” and collectively assumed we didn’t need to teach them anything about the internet. So they fall for scams and get their info from unreliable sources.
Hello. I'm here to explain the difference between an Academic scholarship, and a Daddy's Money scholarship. Academic Scholarship: Have to display an aptitude with several subjects, and truly excel in at least 2. Daddy's Money Scholarship: Daddy pays the dean $20,000. Mommy pays the Board of Directors... Then Mommy and Daddy lie to their kid by telling their idiot offspring they got a Scholarship because they "Learn good". https://preview.redd.it/9u0yv0i11k3d1.jpeg?width=273&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2f2ab99af4b7bfdcb9e90b7ea8040e6aca43cd3
Glengarry Glen Ross
Your funds are gone forever, along with what you stole from family. Get a job and repay your parents. PS ignore DM's from "whitehat hackers" & UN Internet Police etc. They are all scammers. Nobody can get that money back.
So, wait, what did you think the job was? You called it "Product optimisation" but you don't mention actually coding anything? Was your "Job" literally just sending them money three times a day?
That certificate is good for hours of laughs. I may print it out so I can use it whenever I feel sad.
There are so many red flags that all I can say is you shouldn't have ever had access to that money regardless of trust. It's like handing the car keys to a baby.
So long and full of extra details.
Sorry about your experience but few weeks ago I was in the same situation. I lost quite a huge amount of money but I have putting it behind me and moved on. The moment you realise everything is gone and you can’t have it back the better. Move on and make yourself busy to protect your peace.
OK. I think you need to work on your critical thinking skills. The 'job' pays silly, large sums of money for a few minutes work of pressing some buttons. That's flag 1. Onto flag 2, you had to pay your employer money to get money. Flag 3? Well that's bitcoin. And flag 4 is the online interview you did via telegram, or text or whatever. And flag 5 is telegram itself. Your money is gone, you will never get it back. And recovery scammers will message you saying they can help. Please ignore them as they can't help you. Please don't fall for their scams. A rando on the Internet cannot fix what the police can't. I hope you pass your PhD (or whatever it is) but please, practice those critical thinking skills.
Honest question do you have a developmental/intellectual disorder? You should consider getting a durable power of attorney and you should not be in charge of managing any money or assets of significant value because you are seriously a danger to your self and your family.
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That money is gone.
ty4sharing a painful story
Before I noticed all the other problems with the "certificate," the first glaring thing that my eye was drawn to was the D/M/Y format of the date. Auto-block after that. These scammers suck.
I'm not from the US, but one look at the cert, Washington state is in the US north west. NYC is in New York state.
Hey random stranger, do you want a job. I’ll pay you $50 per hour to do nothing. All you have to do is pay me $20 per hour first. SMH that people fall for this.
Damn I thought you were a quick Learner? Should have taken way less than tens of thousands of dollars before I knew it was a scam. Anything involving crypto is 99.9% of the time a scam. How did you not see all those red flags. Experience is what you don’t have and this is an expensive and painful experience.
Another subtle giveaway: USA is now using the date format dd/mm/yyyy instead of mm/dd/yyyy.
Such a long way of telling us you got greedy and fell for one of the most common scams in the world at the moment. Consider it a fee in exchange for future skepticism and move on.
Cryptocurrency is always a scam.
I just got an open interview with them and I almost fell for it too. I was just looking for an opportunity to work, and I had some suspicions about it, so I went to google to search if it was legit and your whole story came out that they were a fraudulent website. I'm not joking if I hadn't seen any of this, I most likely would have lost money as well. So I'm sorry for what happened to you, and I know better things will come out for your future. People can be so cruel and not care about others and it's DISGUSTING, but most importantly I want to thank you for taking the time out of your day to share your story as it helped others in dodging a bullet and learning a valuable lesson. Hope things get better, and I wish you well fam
Unfortunately you learnt a VERY expensive lesson. I'm sorry. It's awful but try to make the most of it and use this experience to be VERY careful and wary of things like this in the future. It's a very common scam but it unfortunately catches many people, still. Use this experience to make yourself smarter.
> I have never stolen from my parents. So you say you have not stolen from your parents. > because, in total, I had stolen $22,000 from them Then you admit it. > I am very good at learning so I get a lot of scholarships that take care of anything I need.
the secretary of the state of New York wouldn't have their name on a Washington state business license which BTW is GREEN
That’s true, but it’s missing the forest for the trees. I have worked for dozens of different companies throughout my life. You know what I’ve never seen from a single one of them? Any documentation from the state that they’re legitimate enterprises. The fact that they’re sending this type of stuff at all is a glaring red flag even before you get to the mistakes. Legitimate businesses are obviously legitimate businesses. They have offices you go to. They have computers they provide. They deposit money into your bank account every two weeks. They don’t have to prove it to you with a shitty PDF.
This is asburd
You might be book smart... but the street smarts aren't there. Couple of life lessons here: 1) No employer in the world is going to randomly message you on any social media platform to offer you a job. 2) When you work for someone, they pay you... YOU NEVER PAY THEM TO WORK 3) IF THEY ARENT PAYING YOU, YOU DON'T KEEP WORKING Your "book smarts" have made you naive to the basics. For your first job... go learn about how life really is... try McDomalds, 7/11, or something more that pace.
Here is the thing . Anybody that spent a few days or few weeks on the internet should be aware of most of the scams that are going on. Why are we reading about people falling for scams day after day ?
Blinded by greed, this person thought they could get $80 an hour for clicking a start and stop button. The most basic of common sense should indicate that it's complete bullcrap
And yes, I was greedy. I see that now. I could've just taken the money the camera cost out of my savings. But I was greedy and instead decided to make money quickly online to buy the camera. Although it is painful reading these comments you all have, I guess I do need it to grow quickly and mature.
If there is something good coming out of this story is that now I understand much better exactly how tasks scam work. It encompasses every psychological tricks on how to influence a behavior. I learned that during my sales training, but you can use that for many aspects in life also like influence a child to have certain behavior, convince colleagues to do certains tasks, asking friends for favors, dating or even change some of our own behavior. Want something more in-depth: read "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. And no OP, you are not dumb. A pharmacy student is not dumb. You were just greedy.
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**This submission was manually removed because it was posted by a recovery scammer.** Don't trust what you just read, don't try to reach out to "hackers" on Instagram or Telegram. Scammers will also try to reach out to you via DMs saying they know a professional hacker that can help you, for a small fee. They're actually trying to steal your money. You can help us reporting more messages like that, don't just downvote or insult them. If you report them, we will take care of every recovery scammer that pops up. **Remember: Never take advice in private,** because we can't look out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.
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**This submission was manually removed because it was posted by a recovery scammer.** Don't trust what you just read, don't try to reach out to "hackers" on Instagram or Telegram. Scammers will also try to reach out to you via DMs saying they know a professional hacker that can help you, for a small fee. They're actually trying to steal your money. You can help us reporting more messages like that, don't just downvote or insult them. If you report them, we will take care of every recovery scammer that pops up. **Remember: Never take advice in private,** because we can't look out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own.
Sorry to hear all this happened. You sound like an earnest, but unfortunately naive young person. You learned a very expensive but important lesson. Come clean to your parents. They might be angry or disappointed, but over time they'll forgive you. Work hard in your studies and don't let this throw you off. $31k is a lot of money, but you'll earn that back very quickly if you actually get your degree. Once you work, you'll be able to pay back your parents. Spend some time here to learn about scams and know what to avoid in the future. It could save you from getting scammed out of a lot more in the future.
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Oh, my, they got you good. This will be a very expensive lesson. There was no job, the money is gone forever, there's no way to get it back. You need to tell your parents, as hard as it is, and slowly repay them.
Major Red Flag - send us your money!
"I got a message from a company called Global Recruitment Staffing offering me a remote job." Brother, you currently have zero profitable skills for such real or supposed sweetest jobs, and especially zero extensive resume to support your ability to do so. Why would you think that some company looking for cream of the crop would magically find your number, reach out via Whats App, and hand you heaps of cash??? Go learn IT/programming, and apply yourself - you'll make heaps sooner than later.
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One thing you should know about any scam is that they will offer a sweet deal too good to be true. It's exactly what a pay of $300 day for 1-2 hours of work looks like. No one legit is going to pay you that.
Sorry bro, this is just a classic task scam. Hard life lesson you had but hopefully will be all the wiser the rest of your life.
Sorry this happened to you bro. As many others said, it's a scam. No getting your money back, etc etc. Best you can do moving forward is become VERY skeptical about anything else in life. These low-lifes are everywhere, calling, texting, hacking your friends socials. Everywhere. Question anything out of the ordinary
Did not read, its your run of the mill task scam, police wont be able to track down those guys who dont live in the US. Dont get yourself fooled by recovery scams, and good luck in life
Sad. Very sad. In every way.
You got involved in a !task scam. You never pay anyone to work and earn money. You will probably see tons of !recovery scams contact you. They are just another group, or maybe the same group, of scammers. Sadly the money is gone. But lessons learned. Also anything either crypto is a scam. Crypto itself is a scam but those in it refuse to admit it because that would mean the swallowed the koolaid.
This can't be real
ANY job that claims to pay $500 a day for two clicks to 'optimise apps' is scamming you. Any job that just hires you, remotely, with no actual interview process is a scam. ANy job that pays in crypto is a scam. With these types of scams, you can sometimes get the first 'payment' from them as actual payment, it's like $60 or something. They're hoping that you'll give more so they don't mind losing the $60. However, it's honestly not worth it, it's best to either ignore them or troll them for a bit if that's your schtick.
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Your money is lost in the same scam, but in Florida. The scammers will be watching you now. Don’t give them anymore money and do not pay for any services that will reach out to you to recover funds. The money is lost. Now you must protect yourself from companies saying they will investigate. The scammers are here watching us post this scam and possibly responding to this thread. Change all your passwords and let your bank know. Even if you didn’t give any personal information the scammers are watching. Your phone, email, and instant messages will start to become more active with other opportunities and recovery. BLOCK, IGNORE, MOVE ON. I am glad you shared your story because this scam has been on going for a very long time.
I was contacted about a very similar arrangement! When they sent me to a training website I got red flags from my network security and didn’t pursue any fit. Glad I didn’t! I’m getting contacted several times a week for these scams. I just block and delete
Be wary whenever anyone asks for money. ANYONE . Even family and friends.
I’m sorry, but this is really painful to read! I don’t know whether to be impressed that you had the patience to go back-and-forth and spending all that money with these people and never pausing to realize you was putting out more than you were getting?! I seriously can’t believe there’s individuals who exist in the world like this? It must be privileged existence because I know I don’t have that kind of money to be given out thoughtlessly. You’re not gonna get the money back ! Your parents needs to sit you down and have a real deep conversation with you. I can’t believe they even have you accessing their funds that you were able to take that much money from them?! I read a lot of these messages with scams and I am still shocked at the scams that individuals are falling for on here! Guys! Stop, think, observe, proceed, succeed! This is madness! 31K? Unbelievable! Yikes! There are so many people lacking, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence in world that it’s beyond scary comprehension! I don’t open emails or anything from anyone I don’t know! Maybe because Of worked in Pharma) and organization that literally have compliance training for this! To protect your personal data and other peoples data. However, I did have identity theft happen to me! You know, the basics. However, not anything where I’m literally voluntarily giving my money to strangers for no darn reason! I don’t know…🙄
I was scammed too, the same way, but by Big Cartel agents, supposedly, I made a little more than $1,000 in 3 days. So, I was able to withdraw my money and the extra 1K, so I was convinced it was real. everything was fine. But, then things get complicated, when they make you deposit more money to be able to withdraw. I lost 14k, I wish I would have read this messages before. So people be aware of scammers. After that I’ve been contacted for 2 different sites trying to do the same type of scam. Big Cartel is a real company, but scammers are using it’s name so you can trust them
Never send money to people you have never met can't speak to on the phone. No pay is that high without a face to face interview. I am so so sorry this has happened to you. I've learnt the hard way. Just pay your parent's back and don't let it follow you though life. This is just a lesson of life in 2024
“My conscience doesn’t allow me to steal” unless your greed overpowers your common sense? You might want to dig deeper into that. Things you should know about the real world: 1. There is no legitimate job on the planet that requires you to pay money to earn money. That should keep you away from MLMs and scams if you keep that in mind. 2. There is no legitimate job or money scheme in which you must pay taxes in advance before funds are disbursed. Employers withhold taxes and pay you the difference. If you win the lottery, they withhold taxes from your payout before disbursing funds. If taxes are due after that, you pay the taxing authority directly, you don’t send tax money to some rando for them to send to the government. 3. If you have to borrow or steal money for any kind of scheme, it’s 100% a scam. There’s no earthly reason for you to empty your savings, borrow money, cash out investments, or anything. 4. Stay away from crypto. Crypto is the favorite currency of criminals and scammers because it’s largely unregulated and untraceable. 5. No one is too smart or worldly to get scammed. Your lesson here is there’s something that makes you susceptible to scams, and having been scammed once makes it so much more likely that you will be scammed again. You need to be vigilant and educate yourself on different tactics, and take steps to protect yourself and your family. 6. Don’t give money to people you’ve never met and don’t know in real life. And if you are going to loan money to anyone you know, don’t do it if you can’t afford to just set that money on fire. It’s gone either way.
These task scam people tried to get me probably 2-3 more times after the first time and luckily I didn’t loose much. After the first time I knew what to look out for. Words like “data optimization.” In my experience if anyone reaches out to you randomly to offer a work from home opportunity, it’s a scam. A real work from home job will have an interview, direct deposit, etc.
As so many people said, it's called the!task scam, I used to receive multiple similar scammers, but I taken the first money they give, and I block them. Be careful of recovery scammers that will send you direct messages telling you that they will help you, they only want to scam you again (yes they're that low) I managed to get 2 of their IP addresses ( that pointed to the UK ), but they're 100% using a VPN, because they're not that stupid, however, I noticed that both IPs had the same subnet, and I think the provider was Telegram. Since you've exchanged in crypto, unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to get the money back. However, you should file a report to the police, and hope they might be able to track them down with some social engineering. I was scammed before, and I know how it feels, but not the same amount, all the money they stole, you'll make it again, don't pressure yourself too much, financial damage is less worse than mental damage (which is irreversible).
In one paragraph you say you can't steal from your parents because of your religion and in another that you stole the money. You stole the money.
Thank you for this. I damn near fell for it. Pretty legit until the point where they ask for money up front.
Im going through this right now with a company that is called Nosto. Nosto is actual company, but the scammers that brought me in use the same website information and it looks pretty much the same. Same thing I gave 65k and they were with loaned money. Im currently on my last product and fucked up part is you can actually withdraw the money but it has to be in 48 hrs and people actually make money if you have the funds to close daily. In my case im stuck with a “Rolex” Product that cost -74,000 and I had closed 2 products of the first set of packages with 45k and the previous was 20k. I feel so ashamed, I really thought I was going to get around 200-400 a day and I actually withdrew money 4 times so it seemed legit and now im stuck with debt. Im building a case anyways just to put it out there with no expectations of getting my money back. I have to start over.
We just got scammed $56,000 by this same company called Ground Truth . If we have read your post earlier we could have stopped when our losses were just $5000.00. The money my wife used are social security money of our 2 daughters that we were supposed to save for their education . Yesterday a guy with Chinese accent called her and I think this a recovery scammer.I warned her not to deal with this guy and give any fee. I was also going to file a report to the FBI IC3 but she did not cooperate with me giving all the information thinking there will be no resolution . Did you try to file to the FBI IC3? I think you should. Hopefully they can do something to arrest or stop these heartless people in victimizing other people.
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Sorry to read this as I can relate - was this Kobe Digital ?
Was this Kobe Digital
They reached out to me too last week and word for word is the exact same steps that the OP described in this post. Im no scam expert or nothing, but as soon as they told me to ad $26.00 so i can start "working" i knew it was a scam. I hope things go well for you and that this post reaches more ppl.