Don't answer, just delete. If you engage they know the number is in use.

Can someone tell me what all these scammers want a six digit number and a phone number (if they don't have it yet) for?

Bored Panda. I am browsing this very thread talking about scam. And at the same you are showing an advert that scams people. Get your act together BP! 1000000286...564e00.jpg

This is kind of funny. Except, a lot of scammers are actually human trafficking victims and would *love* not to be there. That's right, this is a thread of people being mean to someone who has a decent chance of being *an actual slave*. Some good sources on this include bbc.com/news/world-asia-66655047 (reporting on a UN report) theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/24/the-people-targeting-you-with-cyberscams-may-themselves-be-victims-of-slavery (note: opinion), and propublica.org/article/human-traffickers-force-victims-into-cyberscamming (from 2022, still good).

I see attempts at reverse courier scams quite a bit, where the scammer will send a courier to collect an item sold over, e.g. FB marketplace and transfer the money across. All is great until they dispute the sale, claiming you sent them a box of rocks. FB Marketplace, paypal etc. almost automatically take the buyer's side. As they arranged the courier, you will have no paperwork to prove that you actually sent the item concerned. Thus you end up a) without the item, b) without the cash and c) with potentially other liabilities and problems to boot.

I remember getting an email threatening to send my so-called personal videos to the internet. I did not respond and just deleted that email.

I have never seen or experienced most of these scams, thankfully. I never heard of the six number scam so I guess I'm glad I came here and saw that. Well BP is good for something anyway! Yesterday I did get a message from the IRS saying that my package was being held up because they don't have proper delivery instructions or address. Not sure what that scam is either but it made me laugh that the IRS would be contacting me about mail.

Some of these were really nasty. Thing is I don't mean the scammers. Some people make Genuine mistakes, I've messaged people similarly about confusion over a number I've saved incorrectly. They don't have to be immediately nasty, two seconds to ignore or double check in for Kindness. Some of these from the first lines were not even obviously scams and don't appear as scams on professional warning sites. Not everything is a scam

I posted a few things on both Kijiji and Craigslist. I'm not street smart even though I'm almost 60 so I always check with my kids. One of those guys wanted to send me money via something (I can't remember now) and all my children said it was a scam. They had to explain so I would be smarter for the next one. Turned out, I got 6 of almost the same scam stories. So I laughed at them, saying my children are saying you're scam, blocked and reported them, and deleted everything.

I kinda miss the old days of live telemarketing operators you could mess with. Tom Mabe's homicide scene prank is my favorite, but I had my own fun, too. Pretending to be hard of hearing and senile, being super friendly and asking a lot of just on the edge of stupid questions to see how much of their time I could waste, trying to recruit them for my made up cult, etc. :D

The problem with those scams is they are often obvious on purpose. So someone who falls for it is usually kind of oblivious or too trusting, in other words: an easy target to go through with the scam

What's actually disturbing about these scammers is that they successfully scam enough people to stay in business.