30 People Reveal Scams They Still Can't Believe They Bought

Back on the early 2000s I fell for the Russian Bride Scam... to a degree. I didn't send money but I did believe for a short while, a few weeks, that I was being contacted by a Russian hottie in the Ukraine or Estonia or somewhere and that she was interested in me. What killed it was that she asked me to wire a few bucks so she could pay for time at an internet cafe. I copied and and pasted text from her email into Google an quickly discovered it was the first step in a larger scam where they escalate what they ask for over time eventually asking for a few thousand dollars to purchase a plane ticket to come visit the US. It was early 2000's back when the internet was a bit more "Wild West" even before Facebook was a thing. What kind of hurt my feelings about it all was that I realized that my online presence must have reeked loneliness.

About 10 years ago, when I was euro-tripping (my dad is a truck driver), we stopped at this parking lot in Italy. We had a break and this guy knocks on our window, says he has a laptop for sale. He presents it to us, shows us its specs, I must say it was a pretty good laptop for those times. And we even lowered the price so he was going to sell it to us for 100€. We were both hyped, so we were getting the cash while the guy was packing the laptop in the case, we made a deal, shook hands and he was gone. Eager to test it ourselves we proceeded to open the case, but there was something wrong with the zip. It was welded/melted in one point so it was pretty hard to open, it took us about 2 mins to open the case and there was no laptop inside. Just two boxes of salt. That guy was long gone, and we were sitting there cursing at him and laughing at how we got tricked. It was the most expensive seasoning I've ever tried.

Not 100% sure I got scammed but 99.99% sure I got scammed over baby formula.

I was at the grocery store and some guy speaking broken english came up to me with a sob story about losing his job and having a baby with a special diet and needing to feed him. It felt odd right off the bat but having just become a dad myself I felt compassionate enough to begrudgingly agreed after he said he didn't want money, he just needed someone to buy some formula.

I walk him to the self checkout and he scans all his stuff, the total was like 350 dollars. I looked at the total looked at him and he pulls the think of the baby card. So I swiped my card. He tried to take the receipt at the end but I said since it was my card I'd keep it.

As I walked away to finish my shopping i noticed he was lingering. I took a lap around one of the aisles. He was still there but talking to the self check out supervisor. He has her do something at the checkout we used and then he finally leaves.

I was just gonna let it go but I had a gutt feeling something seemed off so I went up to the supervisor and asked what the gentleman needed. She said he claimed his receipt didn't print and needed a copy.

That's when I figured it out. Mofo was gonna return it all and ask for it on a GC. I was so annoyed I didn't even finish shopping.

Was headed to a concert in CLE and found a parking garage. Dude was standing out front and said 20 dollars. Garage was right across from the venue so I agreed, payed him his 20 and he turned and sprinted down the street. Dude didn't work for the parking garage...I couldn't even get mad, just shook my head in awe of the chillness that the dude used to take my 20...

I fell for the white van speaker scam around 2005 ish. I was leaving Wal-Mart with some groceries when a guy in a van approached me. He said he just installed a fairly expensive stereo in a client's house nearby but the buyer did not want an extra set of speakers and subwoofer. He said he would sell them to me for half of their value, something like 500 bucks. I told him I didn't have that kinda cash and would he take 200, which is all I had on me. He acted like he couldn't go that low but ultimately I ended up with them. Yeah, they lasted about a week and sounded horrible. Ended up being some super cheap Chinese speakers that sold for like 40 bucks.

Fell for paying $10 for a crappy CD from some dude at Hollywood. He was nice at first by "giving out" free CDs of his music, then got really pushy about wanting a "donation" for it. I didn't want trouble so I gave him $10.

I've always wondered what happens if you just walk away.

I never ended up listening to the CD, I have an irrational fear that it's someone saying "lol, you're an idiot" on repeat. :/

Young horny teenage me took a wrong turning looking for stimulation and ended up paying the 'FBI' £30 to not arrest me and tell my parents.

I was in Nicaragua. A group of 7-year old boys asked me for money because they were "starving". I gave them what I could. That same day I saw them all smoking cigarettes.

Ebay was pretty new at the time. Got contacted by the seller of an item on ebay that I didn't win. Top bidder bailed. I could have it for the amount I bid. "Send it Western Union." I had to act fast. I mean, his dad was in the hospital and needed the money.

I never saw that camera.

I fell for a really weird scam at my old job. It was a very small office so we all picked up the phone when the main line rang. I answered it one day and this guy told me he needed to send me a new manual for our printer/copier. I thought it was a little weird, but he insisted it was free and the only piece of information he was asking me for was the model number, so I gave it to him. He thanked me and said we'd receive the new manual in the mail shortly.

We never did receive anything in the mail, but afterwards I read about the scam online. Apparently they ask you for the model number and then start shipping you sh**ty off-brand toner and charging you insane prices for it. If the business is paying attention, they'll throw out the toner and refuse to pay for it, and no real harm is done. But plenty of offices just assume it's their regular toner, start using it and end up paying the jacked up prices to this sketchy company.