Millennials are known for many different things. They are the generation that loves traveling and avocado toast, and grew up experiencing life pre- and post-digital technology and social media.
They are also known to fall victim to many scams, and very unfortunately so. Recently, people got candid on Reddit and admitted to being duped into engaging in rage bait, joining a multilevel-marketing scheme, and ruining their lives on online sports betting, to name a few.
Are you a millennial who has fallen for any of these scams? We’d like to hear from you in the comments below.
#1
Ordering Uber eats. Literally double++ for cold fast food.
Image source: EngineerDirector, Mak
#2
Online sports betting. I’ve seen it destroy a handful of couples in their 30s and 40s.
Image source: kdani17, Amit Lahav
#3
Nostalgia.
yup. sell me that album/game/movie again.
remaster the album, remake the game as a remaster, and toss the entire cutting room floor into the movie.
f**k it.
just start making stuff that looks like it came from back then and we’ll still eat it up.
Image source: cobra_mist
#4
I feel like we (myself included) fall for rage bait easily. We are decent at spotting scams, phishing, and AI, but rage bait is something we can’t resist.
Image source: Ok-Abbreviations9936, fxquadro
#5
Maybe not an out and out scam per se, but monthly subscriptions. Hell I went through a car wash yesterday with my son to get the cheapest wash ($10!) and 3 employees were there trying to hard sell me on a monthly pass.
Image source: Logical-Ad3341, Nikita Kachanovsky
#6
Apparently random QR codes. It’s becoming a common scam where a nefarious person will place a QR code on parking meters or something random and people scan it.
And we’re still very bad with phishing attacks. Oh hey sorry I sent you this random email with this super intersting sounding link….
Image source: Alpine_Exchange_36, Albert Hu
#7
I work for a bank and can confirm there are a ton of large-scale financial scams that are active. Some common ones are:
Convincing customers that their computer is compromised, need to pay to clean/unlock it
Posing as their bank to phish for financial account info
Hacking email posing as a known correspondent to change a billing address/account for a payment
Contacting customers saying they owe money to the IRS/DMV/Town of Residence and are at risk of arrest.
Image source: Jmish87, Christina @ wocintechchat.com
#8
Health Insurance that doesn’t actually cover anything.
Image source: Death0fRats, Scott Graham
#9
According to my friend who works in the fraud department at a large bank, crypto/bitcoin/nfc scams are very popular. People give up their whole life savings to people who promise them that they will be the next billionaire, and never see a single cent ever again.
Image source: thr0ughtheghost, Nick Chong
#10
Influencer culture. Buying s****y, poor quality products from social media that you regret buying as soon as it arrives.
And also those guru MLM type “courses” teaching you how to start your own 6-figure drop shipping business or how to turn your side hustle into a booming business, etc.
Image source: nico-72
#11
People falling for people’s go fund me’s and videos of people asking for money to be sent to their venmo/cashapp.
Image source: redefine_bravery, Anna Shvets
#12
Ugh, apparently a lot of people are falling for ChatGPT and generative AI being the answer to all their questions — and I mean ALL THEIR QUESTIONS. I refuse.
Image source: Quiet_Stomach_7897, Berke Citak
#13
My pal got his identity stolen after he thought he found a discount site for a brand that almost never does sales. Poor guy was just trying to get his fiancé a surprise gift.
Image source: jedispaghetti420, Oladimeji Ajegbile
#14
A lot of these comments aren’t scams, just trends people don’t like (labubu, funko pops, etc). ACTUAL scams millennials are falling for include:
* **MLMs/pyramid schemes** – I thought we knew better but so many of my peers are into “wellness” MLMs, it’s embarrassing
* **crypto** – crypto is, at best, a bad investment vehicle, and often just an outright rug pull scam
* **following investment gurus** – people are spending money on scam courses from these “influencers” claiming they’ll become multi millionaire investors
* **sports betting** – this one is iffy as to whether it’s a scam or just it’s own thing as gambling a*******n, but the number of millennials blowing THOUSANDS of dollars on sports betting is insane. Apps have made gambling frighteningly easy and I really think there’s a gambling a*******n epidemic happening.
* **micro transactions** – similar to above, this might fall under gambling a*******n, but millennials seem REALLY easy to suck into apps like Monopoly Go where you’re essentially just spending money ($1-$2 at a time, but it really adds up) to make lights and colors flash on their phone screen. Those “games” are designed to psychologically manipulate you into spending money without thinking, hence why I think it counts as a scam.
* **tiktok shop, shein, temu, fast fashion in general** – these shopping platforms are so obviously scammy that I can’t understand why anyone uses them. Yes, they’re cheap. Yes, sometimes you get the thing you paid for. But a lot of the time you’re getting something completely different than what was shown in the product photos. Even if you get an item you can use/wear, the quality is so poor it’s going to fall apart pretty fast and need to be replaced and end up costing more in the long run…..plus they’re made with questionable materials that can be hazardous. Fast fashion is definitely the thing I’m becoming a grump old person about. The late, great author Terry Pratchett explained it best with the Sam Vimes boots theory: “A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and *would still have wet feet*.”.
Image source: maroontiefling
#15
I’ve noticed that we’re prone to having mental health weaponized against us. I’ve heard ppl talking about how buying c**p like Funkos, Lububu dolls etc, helps them heal their inner child that was neglected. Some marketer or influencer convinced them that buying=mental health.
Image source: Massive-Ride204, Antoni Shkraba Studio
#16
AI videos on Facebook advertisements
I’ve got my father on strict instructions to run any/all online purchases past me after he ordered some “crystal/mineral coffee cups”. The advertisements showed lovely quartz crystal coffee mugs with pink and purple colors and he thought cool!
Never showed up, BBB rating for the company is a F and the comments for the video are loaded with complaints about never receiving their cups.
I took one 1-2 second glance at the advertisement and immediately knew it was AI.
Another situation was my cousin loved putting his face and likeness on silly facebook reels, things like him and his buddys doing the night at the roxbury head bobbing.
Then a few months after he stopped doing it my uncle got a video of my “cousin” facetiming him from a unknown number explaining that he hit a women in a car accident and that a lawyer witnessed the crash and agreed to represent him but he needed 4000$ immediately to secure the lawyer.
Now I never seen the actual facetime video but my uncle (who’s 71) swears up and down that it looked EXACTLY like my cousin, he said the only indication that it was fake was my cousins voice was flat and monotone but my uncle thought he was in shock from the “crash”
So he sent 4000$ to this person, only for my cousin to walk in the front door less then an hour later, confused as all hell as to why his dad was raging at him for causing a crash.
Image source: NorthernCanadaEh
#17
Fake job postings. Everyone is so d**n desperate.
Image source: Itchy-Philosophy556, cottonbro studio
#18
Ugh please don’t make fun of me but I fell for a fake joann fabrics website, put my credit card in and everything and the only thing that tipped me off was the email they sent me confirming my order had a bunch of errors in it. I ended up canceling my credit card and ordering a new one smh.
Image source: Late-Payment1594
#19
Online coaches and courses!!
Image source: zoopzoopzop
#20
I’m embarrassed to admit that I felt for one of those blackmail scams on IG where you send a racy picture to someone you think you’re hitting it off with and they threaten to send it to everyone if you don’t pay. No one ever did (not that I know of) but it scared me enough that I haven’t been back fully on IG since, this was almost 3 years ago.
Image source: thejaytheory
#21
My elder dog walked off one afternoon after I forgot to close my fence gate. We spent hours looking for him, also posted it on Ring and Nextdoor apps. Someone responded on one of the posts with a recommendation for a local pet recovery team that used a drone and linked the Facebook business page. Page seemed legit, so I contacted them. They had a fee of $130, I expected some sort of fee anyway so I Zelle’d them the cash. 5 min later neighbor shows up with my dog. Contacted the business and requested money back since they never came out and my dog came back. Assured me they would send it…and after multiple messages a week later they are leaving me on read. F*****g taking advantage of people in their desperate times, hope they have a special place in hell reserved for them.
Image source: BasicBesic
#22
“Toxins” in your body, and associated grifty products to detox you.
Image source: x_tacocat_x
#23
I was in downtown Tulsa. I needed to pay for parking. There was a sign with a website, saying to download the app, something like park tulsa. I googled it. I clicked one of the top links, which was word for word what the sign had said. i sleepily entered my payment info and clicked submit. Thats when i realized my error. I had clicked on a sponsored link and purchased a subscription to some chinese scam site.
Image source: RoughCute7016
#24
Lots of our fellow generational cohort tried selling MLM products – Lularoe, Beach Body, DoTerra, HerbaLife, Monat, Pure Romance, Rodan + Fields, Scentsy, Young Living, Younique, Beauty Counter…
Image source: ExactPanda, Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz
#25
Lonely friends falling for romance scams. Crypto schemes. Getting buried in buy now pay later debt. Signing up for student loans. Had a buddy fall for a blackmail scam from an email saying they had photos of him jerking off they’d send to everyone on his contact list.
Engaging with bots online.
Image source: SavingsEconomy
#26
Funko Pops
Who the hell needs or wants a $30 plastic doll of Homelander?
Image source: TheOriginalBigDave
#27
The Labubu craze seems to fit this. I personally haven’t fallen for it but I have a colleague whose preteen daughter has been begging for them so she (the colleague) said she’s been up beyond midnight multiple nights on different devices looking for them or whatever the scheme is.
Image source: SesameSeed13, Dushawn Jovic
#28
I’ll add one because I have recently seen it pop up in some subreddits I frequent…
The whole Steve Jobs “do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” platitude is making the rounds again. Not a scam per se, but this single thing pushed thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of eager college bound student to pursue worthless degrees in areas of ‘passion’ rather than going into pragmatic well paying careers where they may also excel at but not necessarily ‘love’.
Image source: d_rek
#29
I fell for a clone of the .gov passport application website not long ago! I was so pissed I had to cancel my credit card but I gave them all of my info and my baby’s info. Its because I’m used to opening up the browser with google search default and typing into google not the url directly. So pissed about it still.
Image source: Dimwit00
#30
My firend tried to tell me you can pay a company to “get your information off the internet”. I laughed and asked if there was a company that can get just my pee out of the ocean.
Image source: nounanvowel
#31
Red light therapy.
Image source: Dr_TattyWaffles
#32
I’ll admit to getting scammed, but to be fair to myself, it was a surprisingly sophisticated man-in-the-middle attack.
In short, I needed a contractor and contacted one I was recommended to me on a small neighborhood listserv. (This recommendation probably came from the scammers, who I’ve since learned target neighborhood listserv and Facebook groups like that one.) The contractor and his email account were real, but his email had been compromised by the scammers. I was receiving emails both from him and the scammers, who were probably using generative AI to mimic his writing style.
Scammers asked for me to transmit a few thousand dollars as down payment using a real-looking online web portal, which I didn’t question. When the real contractor showed up on the agreed-to first day, we realized what had happened. Turns out he’s an older guy and not super computer savvy, preferring to communicate by phone and receive payments by check in-person.
Moral of the story is that you’re only as safe as the other party’s cybersecurity practices. I’ve since insisted that I pay contractors by handing them a check in-person, whenever possible.
Image source: DblePlusUngood
#33
Probably dietary supplements like AG1 greens or AMRA colostrum.
Image source: ksiad1014
#34
Bought a book on Amazon that was self-published AI slop instead of the book i was trying to buy.
Image source: lengthandhonor
#35
Homeaglow. it advertises “house cleaning for $19.99” but what they don’t tell you is all they do is recruit a local house cleaner in your area and they are going to charge you hundreds of dollars to do the actual work. on top of that, you go to cancel because of the unexpected charge and they charge you a $40.00 cancellation fee. so you end up paying $60 for nothing.
Image source: Echterspieler
#36
Bunnies jumping on trampoline AI videos 😒.
Image source: fireanthead
#37
There’s a popular one right now. I first heard of it on the Crime Junkies podcast, but then it actually happened to me! Funny how that works. Here it goes:
A man calls your cell and tells you he is with such and such police department and you have an outstanding warrant. It’s fairly elaborate and convincing, and because of the shock value of hearing you having a warrant, it immediately gives you panic and alters your rationality. That person will give you the option to venmo the department to remove the warrant. If it happens to you, tell the person that you will wait to be served in person by a process server….or just f**k with the guy. Up to you.
Image source: BirdLawOnly
#38
I don’t know if it was a scam but I recently bought an abandoned storage unit that appeared to be full of monitors thinking someone’s reseller store went under. Boxes were all nice 4k new stuff. Some high end curved gaming monitors etc. Been having some decent side hustle success selling older computer stuff I’ve gotten my hands on and figured why not try grabbing some bulk?
All broken. Every single thing I’ve opened so far. Physically damaged. Some dumping ground for RMAs? Don’t know. Items were repacked into their original boxes so clearly a return. Some of them have “liquidation sale” tape on them from CDW.
Only out a few hundred and hours of my labor moving it but d**n I’m disappointed. Now I have a literal mountain of e-trash to deal with. Feels bad man.
Image source: therealtaddymason
#39
I got scammed trying to buy DMT online recently. I also got sold fake coke in Vegas once lol. Guess I’m just a mark 😅.
Image source: trippleknot
#40
Air fryer. It’s just a convection oven re-named and you millennials bought them up like it was faraday cages on Y2K!
Image source: GnSnwb
#41
I fell for a scam where someone offered me a job on Upside, posed as a legit publishing company, stole one of the employees LinkedIn profiles, had me on Whatsapp with their “team” and then sent me a fraudulent check to deposit for my equipment costs. 😭.
Image source: BeatnikBun
#42
Products that go on sale a lot go on sale for a reason. Either because their MSRP is jacked up to crazy margins to begin with, or the quality is s**t and they have too much stock as a result due to poor sales.
Quality well built products may go for a modest discount from time to time, but unless it’s a cyclical product like electronics or cars that they are trying to clear out end of season models for next model year, it’s probably junk.
Most of the time you’re better off buying the higher quality item that may cost more but actually lasts rather than hunting for the best deals.
Image source: clingbat
#43
I ordered something from an Instagram ad during Thanksgiving sales. I was under the impression Instagram doesn’t promote scams in their ads (since that would in time greatly decrease people’s trust in their ads which would then hurt their ad revenue) but was sorely mistaken.
I never received the product and the vendor’s website went down 2 days later, nobody replied to my email, and I started seeing other complaints online of people ordering from them and never receiving anything and nobody ever replying to their emails.
Basically these guys made a fake website where they promoted a few popular products at good, but not too good to be true prices, put up a bunch of ads on Instagram, then just collected the money and took down the website.
It took me a few months to finally get my money back after MasterCard finished their investigation. The craziest thing was the scammer actually replied to my bank dispute! They tried to argue that they did send me the product 🤦🏻♀️ Obviously they weren’t able to provide any kind of shipping proof so MasterCard denied their “appeal”. But this just goes to show how unafraid these scammers are of getting caught / having to suffer consequences for their actions.
Lesson learned: never order anything off of social media ads.
Image source: Savor_Serendipity
#44
I bought a boombox off a guy on the street and it didn’t work. They know where to get us.
Image source: inquireunique
#45
It was awhile ago but I remember lots of my fellow millennials getting super wrapped up in KONY 2012.
Image source: matt314159
#46
Ive recently tried going back to concerts and I don’t know if it’s that I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast since, or if it’s covid, or anything else, but I can’t score concert tickets for the life of me anymore. Even if im willing to fork up the money, like I’ve tried getting two tickets to see Oasis and im sure both were scams. One was through ticket master so im hoping i’ll at least get my money back for that one.
Also not sure if i’ll be getting my Coheed & Cambria or Steven Wilson tickets. This kills me as im finally able to afford these concerts. 🫤.
Image source: darkwoodframe
#47
I feel so embarrassed about this but I fell for a scam pretending to be talent acquisition at a company following up about an application I submitted.
In my defense the job title was absolutely something I would have applied to and was kind of niche.
That’s what I get for spamming out my resume ….
Image source: hrnigntmare
#48
My ex-husband fell for the PayPal/Zelle scam, sent 2k to scammers before he realized it.
Image source: FearlessBookworm3
#49
Spent $25 on a tshirt scam. Little TikTok add got me. Never bought anything off TikTok again.
Image source: Kati-love-less
#50
I fell for a AAA offer for a free emergency kit for my car 😭😭😭.
Image source: Individual-Welder294
#51
Got tricked with a PayPal session token scam.
Looked like a 30% off deal for an item that doesn’t really ever go on sale from a retailer with a bunch of astroturfed reviews. Used PayPal because they’re generally a trusted payment source for non traditional vendors.
Boy was I freaking out until I figured out they nabbed my session token. Hadn’t even thought about a session token since the Linus media scam a few years back.
Aside from a few rip off businesses, this is the first hard core scam I’ve fallen for and I’m 30.
PayPal didn’t want to cooperate until Amex got involved. Then suddenly everything was smooth sailing.
Image source: 3dprintedthingies
#52
Got a family friend who is currently falling for a scam. She borrowed money from several people to give like 40k to her “real estate contact” to get in on a “sure thing” investment that will leave her with millions of dollars over the course of a weekend. Of course that was several weeks ago and she isn’t yet a millionaire. Not sure when she realizes she’s being taken for all she’s worth. She’s been quite depressed and comes from a well off family both of which are leaving her extra vulnerable but still… I thought she was smarter than that. The thought of millions of dollars that changes your life overnight is too strong a pull for some people to think clearly.
Image source: Projektdoom
#53
I didnt fall for it but I know someone who is “buying gold”.
Image source: FloridaGirlMary
#54
I am unfortunately a victim of bluegreen vacation 🥲.
Image source: Budgiesyrup
#55
Credit card points?
For every millienial flying first class for three dollars, there are a thousand wracking up credit card debt carrying a balance.
Image source: Blinktoe
#56
Saw an ad that said, people born between this time period might be entitled to money. My interest was piqued, so I clicked. Got 3 phone calls in a matter of minutes.
Image source: Jaded_Houseplant
#57
The investment/success gurus always confuse me as to how so many people fall for them. If their ‘bestselling’ book or course is on how to be successful, then what success have they actually achieved?
Image source: Carma56
#58
Anything bought used from a boomer. D**n near everything from a car, ATV, truck or boat I have had boomers tell me they are perfect only to find something that they Mickey moused together, then sell it. Everything I buy from millennials have a digital repair trail and the everything I buy from the silent generation has been babied.
Image source: JasErnest218
#59
Daily vitamins. You probably don’t need them unless a doctor tells you otherwise, especially in the US where a lot of our foods are already fortified with extra vitamins. .
Image source: Orion14159
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