I learned about Pump and Dump the hard way. 🤷‍♂️

When I was switching careers I looked into one of the IT schools. They looked nice and promised me a decent job with decent pay. In exchange, I'd need to pay a percentage of my future salary. I said ok, and signed the papers.

Little did I know they offered a course that was available for free and "exams" that were conducted by students that have finished one chapter more. Saw a lot of bullying and left this mess before finishing it without paying a dime.

Got a job that actually lied in between the career I pursued previously and the career that was offered by this "school". In some sense they've helped me, and to this day I'm ashamed that I haven't paid them anything.

I also took an airport taxi that costed me ten times a usual cost.

Pig butchering romance scam on Tinder. Matched with a pretty girl. Our conversation felt genuine. Even had a short video call. But things were feeling a bit too good to be true, but I went on to see where things were going.

Saw through the scam once she started offering helping with cryptocurrency investment, so I didn’t lose anything.

got a phone call that I owed money on some loan that I had taken out like 10 years earlier. they had enough information correct to make me actually believe I might have done it (I'm a former junkie, and did a lot of dumb fucking things to get money, plus decent sized holes in my memory).

I was planning on doing research before sending money, but as soon as I explained exactly how the conversation had gone to a friend of mine, they were like "that's a scam". and as soon as they set it, it was so fucking obvious too.

I'm a lot less inclined to make fun of people who get phished or social engineered

My mother-in-law straight up bought the Nigerian Prince scam hook, line and sinker.

1. Bought a timeshare in Vegas. Never used it. Paid the mortgage and maintenance fees for a few years then said fuckem and just stopped. Such a scam. They went out of business during the 2008 recession and it eventually fell off of our credit reports.

2. Sold cutco knives in college (MLM). Perfectly fine product but overpriced and they basically get you pester all of your family and friends. I paid for the sample products myself. Made the biggest sale to my parents. Mostly just embarrassing.

3. I bought speakers out a van like some other commenters. Probably paid too much, they sounded good and I used them for at least 10 years.

Rush my passport by FedEx. I usually never get scammed but I assumed FedEx, at an in person location, wouldn't just rob you.

Thankfully I was able to get my 1k$ back by doing some extremely convoluted shit on reddit.

Had a lapse of judgement once and sent one of those 2FA passcodes sent to me via SMS to a shady guy on Craigslist. This was back when 2FA was still in the process of becoming ubiquitous, I do not believe I had seen one before that point.

I believe the only thing it allowed them to do was register a Google Talk number in my account's name. I immediately dissociated my account from the number after this interaction (strangely, you could not actually cancel the number, only disown it, so I guess the scammer still got what they wanted anyway) and changed my account password for good measure.

I've also bought many bootleg collectors items off of Ebay. Though, each time I've done so was fully knowing the listings were lying, and still wanting the bootleg garbage anyway.

When I was a teen looking for a job, I checked the classified section of the newspaper. Saw a job post I thought I could do and called them. Ended up giving them some of my info, and maybe my social security number, don't remember. All I know it I put them on hold to ask my parents a question about something, and they said "anybody can put things in the paper". That's when I learned that scammers just post their shit in public with little to no consequence.

Two I can think of, luckily neither was that bad.

Firstly I got impatient and bought a new DSLR camera kit off eBay, thinking I would save money and get a good deal. It came with two decent lenses, supposedly, and a bunch of other accessories. Very highly rated seller.

After I made the purchase, I get a message to expect a phone call from such-and-such number. Strange, I thought. They call and immediately I can tell it's a bait-and-switch. They tell me what they're going to send, but it's not what was in the listing. Only one lens, instead of two, and some other shenanigans like substituting inferior brands and cheap shit. I called them out and said either you deliver what was promised in the listing, or I'm opening a dispute, and it won't be a good look that you tried to change the deal over the phone.

Anyway I got what was listed, but overall it was a disappointment. Grey market items from overseas, not official US licensed gear, so I had no warranty. But I ended up paying as much or more than if I had walked into a local shop. It wasn't counterfeit, but just left a bad taste in my mouth. The seller disappeared from eBay not long after that...

Second time: I received one of those emails with a password in the subject. It looked familiar, and was in fact an (old) password I had used. Someone took a hacked DB and just fired off countless emails with the passwords to the matching email addresses. But the tone of the email was what spooked me. It said, I have had full access to all your emails, I have figured out how to reset accounts and hacked into your webcam and have some very interesting photos. Either you pay this amount to this bitcoin address or I send the photos to all your contacts and your life will be ruined.

In the moment, I panicked like oh shit this is legit. Even though I couldn't imagine what photos they referred to, it was still scary being blackmailed. I thought about it, discussed with some people, and they helped calm me down. After a few days, I realized it must be a scam. It was so generic. Surely if it was real, they would mentioned specifics... my name, or what I looked like, or some other unmistakable details.

Over the years, I received a number of other variations with the same jist, and different passwords (my email address was in several major leaks in mid-2000s). I'm glad I didn't fall for that shit, regardless of how serious it seemed in the moment.

Shortly after turning 18 I was offered a commission job selling Kirby vacuum cleaners with a fairly large guaranteed weekly pay. I product was high quality and the people interviewing were calm, well mannered and assured that we would absolutely not be using any pressure tactics for the sales.

Day 1 we're taught about how to demo the machine and get to tag along for a couple scheduled sales

Day 2 we're taught how to pressure entry into a home for door to door sales demos...

Day 7-ish a friend of the boss joins the group who is super high pressure and boss gets excited to immediately move that direction

After 2 weeks it was clear that this was exactly the opposite of what I'd signed up for (including the lack of guaranteed pay) so I left in search of something better.

Online bartending school. I cancelled after 5 minutes of reflection.

I once changed power company based on a phone seller (stupid, I know).

They were promising all kinds of savings but in the end they ended up costing MORE than my previous one AND make it almost impossible to get out of the fraudulent deal.

I eventually managed to get out of it though, and since they pissed off a shitload of other people too, that company doesn't do business in my country at all anymore. And of course I've hung up on every telemarketer since then.

I believed in the American system and government

One of those near-number ones where you're trying to call customer service and you get a scam instead. Something about a free cruise. Fortunately I came to my senses, the operator was very slick and kept redirecting me away from things that would make me think twice.

The American Dream.

I've never fallen for bad scams luckily but I fall for little ones sometimes. Like once I was entering the subway in a country where I didn't speak the language and this guy coming the other way said the trains were cancelled, so I asked how do I get to X place, and he's like "Oh, my friend has a taxi company, come with me and I'll sort you out". I was just about to follow him when I came back to my senses. Obviously there was nothing wrong with the trains and he was trying to fleece a tourist... or kidnap a woman, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Somebody on RuneScape back in the early 2000s threatened to report me if I didn't tell them my password and so I reluctantly told them and immediately got locked out of my free, low level account :⁠-⁠(

World Games Inc. (A pyramid scheme originating in Australia, billed as selling stock in an online gambling site)
A few friends recommended that I joined. I probably would have if I wasn't already broke.