rSlash - r/Scams Grandma Thinks She's Dating Paul McCartney

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

0:00 Intro 0:06 Phone scam 2:01 Frozen account 3:31 Bitcoin machine scam 8:35 Loans 11:11 Fake relationships 13:17 Fake Beatle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Welcome to R-slash-scams, where OP gives away 16K. Our next Reddit post is from Adrenic. It started with a morning call from someone pretending to be my

mobile operator. They said that my SIM card was expiring and asked for a code from a text message. I gave it, then realized it was a scam and contacted support. Soon after, scammers posing as a bank and FBI officials called. They said a loan had been taken in my name to fund terrorism and that criminals had access to my accounts. They kept me on the phone for 12 hours a day over two days, threatening that if I hung up, I'd be labeled a traitor and face a criminal case.

To help catch the hackers, I had to follow their instructions. After intense manipulation, I transferred $14,000. When I finally realized it was a scam, I went to the police. They yelled at me, said they hear this five times a day from elderly people, and couldn't believe a 22-year-old Belfort. They told me the case was unsolvable, and the money was already in crypto. I panicked. I couldn't eat. I woke up every two hours at night. A doctor gave me tranquilizers, which helped me a little with sleep. I had suicidal thoughts, but knew that it was stupid to die over this. I earned $3,000 a month and had saved that money over six months of

hard work to buy an apartment. Out of despair, I impulsively gambled and lost another $2,000, which crushed me further. I come from a poor family, and seeing problems I could have solved breaks me even more. I saved by denying myself everything. Please, how do I cope with this? Well, O.P, as bad as this is and 16K is pretty rough, you are young, you've got your whole life to turn around and improve your situation. So consider it lucky that you got scammed, Today, when you don't have a lot of money, versus, you know, when you're 40 and you could lose your house and marriage and family over it. Our next credit post is from Kifu.

I'm an 18-year-old woman, and I know you're going to think I'm stupid. I can't blame you, to be honest. A month ago, I was looking for some online jobs and got offered a full-time job as an assistant account officer. I know, crazy. But I thought that it was legit because when I asked for proof of their company and registration, they did. The job description is to let them.

transfer money to my bank account and oh my god and me having to transfer it through international mine transfer app. At first, I was questioning them about the job, but they kept convincing me that it's legit and showed proof. So I got manipulated into working with them for a couple of days. After a few days, I started feeling unsafe about the whole thing because I researched about it and it's considered money mulling. I freaked out and told them I'm no longer working for their so-called I was furious and anxious since there would be stolen money in my bank. And the worst part is it's already gone. The total amount is around 1500 Australian dollars, which doesn't seem like a lot compared to other

scam reports, but it's still a lot of money in general. Long story short, I got contacted by the bank and now my account is frozen and I can't open another bank account until this whole thing is cleared, which they said will take like 40 days to finalize. I'm scared, traumatized, anxious, and worse. I'm so naive. I can't believe I fell for it thinking they were legit. Our next credit post is from Pico de Bio. I was seconds away from putting $2,000 into a Bitcoin machine for a very professional scamming operation. I drove across town to some little dingy Middle Eastern grocery store to post bond as part of a federal bonding voucher program so that two citations against me would not be converted into warrants for my arrest.

The citations were supposedly for signing and returning a jury duty summons and then failing to appear for jury duty. According to the caller, I'd been cited for failure to appear and contempt of court, each carrying a $960 fine. He explained that the money would be promptly returned after I went to the sheriff's office and completed a signature verification process. They would supposedly have me sign my name five times so they could prove that I had not actually signed the jury summons. I had just woken up from a nap, so I wasn't completely alert when the call came in. The caller identified himself with a full name and badge number from the local county sheriff's department. I normally don't answer unknown numbers, but he had started leaving a voicemail,

and I could see the transcription appearing on my phone as he spoke. When I saw Sheriff's Department, I wanted to know what was going on. I never doubted. him. He sounded official, clear, well-spoken, polite, and professional. At no point did I seriously question that he was with law enforcement. That fact alone blows my mind now. He got me. Even though red flags were popping up all over the place, I should have immediately said, let me get your number and call the sheriff's department to verify who you are. Instead, he made it sound like this had to be handled immediately. He warned me that if I went to the sheriff's department without first posting the bond, I could be detained for at least 72 hours. He mentioned several times that this was a federal

offense. With a flight coming up on Friday, I started to panic. I just wanted to get this behind me because I knew I hadn't signed anything and assumed that I would eventually be cleared. Once I agreed to take care of the bond and the handwriting test, he transferred me to another official-sounding man who could escort me over the phone all the way to the payment location. Of course, he never called it a Bitcoin machine. I didn't even know that it was a Bitcoin machine until I got there. Instead, he called it a federal bonding voucher program. He even sent screenshots of official-looking government documents and made me read them out loud to him. They explained why checks, credit cards, and debit cards were not accepted, and why bond payments had to be made through these ATM-like

machines located at secure locations throughout the city. He attached the documents. When I got in my car, he had me announced the date, the time, and my mileage. He said that my mileage would be documented and that I would be reimbursed for gas if the jury summons turned out to be a forgery. When I arrived at the little grocery store and started looking around, I began to get suspicious. The place was cluttered and run down. Then I found the machine. I was honestly incredulous. I told him, I can't believe that you're really sending me and apparently everyone else into random stores carrying hundreds or thousands of dollars to put into some machine. I tapped the screen and he instructed me to tap again. Then he told me to select yes when it asked whether I wanted to open a Bitcoin

wallet. Thank God, or maybe think federal law, because a warning message immediately appeared on the screen. It said something along the lines of, stop. If you've been instructed by a government official to deposit money into this machine, it is most likely a scam. I stopped and asked, Wait a minute. Aren't you a government official? He replied, well, I'm a county so-and-so. I said, that's a government official. Then I told him I wanted to call a police officer friend to see if this was legitimate. He immediately said that we could not disconnect at that point. I suggested calling my friend on a three-way call. He said that wasn't allowed either. This was the moment that I knew I needed to verify what was happening. I hung up on him and called the sheriff's department

indirectly. They immediately confirmed that it was a scam. They told me they received calls about this exact scheme all the time. They also explain that jury summons are handled online and that you do not sign and mail them back the way the scammer has described. I'm kind of traumatized by how close I came to losing $2,000. What's even more unsettling is realizing I could have been set up for a robbery. The guy was on the phone with me the entire time while I drove to an address he provided. fully aware that I was carrying a large amount of cash. I feel stupid. But also relieved, I didn't lose our hard-earned money.

Yeah, the easiest defense to this is just literally never pick up a phone number you don't recognize. What's the point? If it's something important, something official, they'll mail you about it. Or email you about it. Nothing important is done over the phone anymore. Our next Reddit post is from Middle Design. I used to listen to scam podcasts a lot. Not once did I think that I could be a victim one day. About a month ago, early one morning,

I was barely awake when lots of emails started flooding into my primary Gmail account, about two every minute. Most of them were confirmations that I'd been subscribed to random mailing lists. I immediately jumped out of bed and ran to my computer. I asked Jim and I, and it told me not to worry about the subscriptions for now. It said that it's a common tactic scammers used to make you lose track of important emails, and that I should check my bank accounts and investment accounts right away. So I did. I logged into each account to check for suspicious activity, changed my passwords, logged out of all devices, whether they're mine or not, and enabled two-factor authentication on any accounts that didn't already have it. Then I went through my emails looking for clues and

spotted an Experian alert. A new installment loan inquiry on my credit reports. I immediately clicked show me more, which showed a hard inquiry from Capital One along with a phone number. I called that phone number right away, explained that I was a victim of identity theft, and that I had not submitted the application. The representative helped me cancel the application. I then asked them to share the application with me to see if I could help identify the scammer, but I was told that I would need to submit a written request. After I got off the phone, I still felt unsettled. Jim and I told me to freeze my credit with all three credit bureaus and only unfreeze it when I actually needed to apply for a credit card or loan. So I did, and thank God I did. One week later, I received

a letter from Capital One asking me to provide copies of my photo ID for a platinum card application. Several days after that, I received another letter from TransUnion regarding the inquiry of my credit report. Three days later, I received another letter from Achieve Personal Loans stating that a credit application had been submitted in my name, but it was blocked due to a credit freeze on my credit reports. I immediately called them to cancel the application. I was told the application had come through LendingTree, but they didn't have any additional details. I called Lending Tree and was quickly cut off by the machine because I wasn't their customer. I then had to use the report an issue form on their website to report the fraud and ask whether they could provide any routing number, account number,

or other information that might help identify the scammer so I could provide it to the police. If I hadn't frozen my credit report after the first incident, a personal loan might have been approved without my knowledge. Our next Reddit post is from Lost Fearless. Our 78-year-old female neighbor has been getting messages on Facebook and other sites over the last two to three years from men who say they're in love with her and need money. There have been multiple people over the years and some at the same time. They require money for flights, hotels, and a bunch of different things and emergencies.

But since she claims she's in love with them, she sends them money all the time. These people claim to be rich, but they need money to move around. So they need money to be able to come see her so they can be rich together. They keep telling her they'll see her soon, but have been leading her on for years. She has currently sent more than $500,000 to these people. The main contact is through email. She's even currently sending her social security checks to these people. She sent wire transfers, and once her banks have realized she was getting scammed, they removed her as a customer.

She then sold around $150,000 worth of livestock and started to send it through cash. Around $30,000 got mailed by cutting out the middle of a book and stuffing the cash in the book and mailing the book. After that, she would send visa cards from all amounts up to $500, multiple cards, and then she also got into Bitcoin. She currently struggles to buy food due to having no money because her boyfriends need money to buy things. Anytime we talk to her, she gets frustrated and shuts us out due to being in love with them. She has no family. The scammers have been using AI to make videos to send her,

but claim they can never call or talk to her directly, Only through messages and AI-generated videos and photos. You know, the crazy thing is you don't even need to have a scammer to have an AI boyfriend. OPE should just park this lady in front of, you know, any of the random boyfriend AIs and be like, hey, AI, you're a 60-year-old man who's in love with this lady, so just seduce her. And then she can chat away with her fake boyfriend who doesn't ask her for money every day. Our next Reddit post is from Little Peppy. My mother is 70 years old.

She's retired and she's been widowed for almost 15 years and has struggled with chronic depression for a long time. Until recently, we had a very close relationship. A few days ago, completely by accident, I discovered that she's been talking online for almost a year with a man calling himself Scott R, supposedly connected to Paul McCartney. I'd seen the name before in passing, but I never paid much attention. I assumed it was just someone she'd met online. Last Thursday, I happened to see part of a notification on her phone while we were together. I wasn't trying to read her messages, but something about it felt strange.

Out of curiosity, I googled the name, and that was the beginning of everything. I found posts from other people who had received almost identical messages from profiles using the same identity. I also found warnings from the real Scott R, stating that scammers had been impersonating him online. Yesterday, I sat down and had a long conversation with my mother. She confirmed that they've been talking for around a year, and they've never met in person. We live in Spain. Their relationship has become emotionally intense. She sent him money through Apple gift cards.

She admits that many things don't make sense, and that it's probably a scam. What broke my heart was what she said next. When I asked her why she continued talking to him despite her doubts, she said, I know it's probably fake, but at least I have someone. I think that sentence explains everything. At this point, I'm almost more worried about the emotional attachment than the money itself. Over the last year, she's become increasingly isolated from family. Any attempts to discuss this relationship creates tension.

It feels as if this person has gradually become one of the most important figures in her life. Down in the comments, we have this from Chris Volo. My 79-year-old dad keeps sending money to Nigerian princes. Nothing any of us said would convince him he was wrong. My dad could never admit when he was wrong. It was always everybody else that was wrong. Good luck with your mother. That was R-slash scams.

And if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new write-up podcast episodes every single day. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.