rSlash - r/Scams My mom Was Scammed Out of $300,000!

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

0:00 Intro 0:10 Younger man 0:55 Tinder 1:49 Life savings 7:14 Vendor 9:00 Romance scam 10:58 Fee 12:34 Reply NO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's Shopify.com. Hey, I'm Mike Barrenholz. On my new show, funny you ask, trivia starts the conversation, and then things immediately go off the rails. I ask a question. My guests think they know the answer. Sometimes they do. More often, they do not. And then the conversation takes a turn.

One trivia question turns into stories about career highs, painful bombs, and behind-the-scenes moments that probably should have remained private. You'll hear confidence, misplace confidence, bold guesses, wrong answers, quick laughs, and the slow realization that maybe this was a bad idea to say out loud. If you like smart comedy, sharp conversations, and trivia that exists purely to melt people's brains, this is Funny You Ask with me, Ike Barrenholz. Follow Funny You Ask with Ike Barronholtz on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to R-slash Scams, where a 72-year-old grandma,

falls in love with a 32-year-old scammer in Africa. Our next Reddit post is from Chibichubi. What started as my mother using dating sites ended up with her planning to go to the Ivory Coast. First, this scammer used Jose Carlos Gomez de Olivier's photos. Then, after almost one and a half year of talking, he confessed to her that he's a 32-year-old guy, single dad of two kids from the Ivory Coast.

Instead of being angry, she accepted it and we'll go visit him soon. She's 72. How will this most likely end? I'm worried for her. But no amount of warning, nothing opened her eyes or changed her mind. How can I support her without pushing her away? How will this end, O.P.? Well, I for one am looking forward to seeing your mom on 90-day fiancé. Our next Reddit post is from Traveling Tudor. I'm in Cairo and went on a tender date with a woman to a club that had Shisha and music. We didn't discuss about who would pay for the bill, and I've now worked out that she's in with the club to take Tinder dates there and order expensive drinks. She ordered drinks at a stupid rate of speed and without me even knowing.

I'd never said that I would pay for everything. I didn't get a breakdown of the bill when asked, and three men pressured me into paying without being able to have a conversation with the woman about potentially sharing. In hindsight, it was a silly move from me to not have the conversation about paying before or as the bill came. But I'm 99% sure that the bill wasn't $1,000 from memory of looking at the menu. Pretty girl scams a dumb horny guy, a tail as old as time. The name of the scam, by the way, is the Chinese tea house scam. Our next Reddit post is from Foxroar.

The purpose of this post is to expose a scam that happened recently to my mother-in-law so that it doesn't happen to you. It all started last September when she received a text from Apple, alerting her that she may have been a victim of fraud, that someone tried to purchase an iPhone with her account. She called the number, told them she hadn't authorized that, and they told her she's been the victim of identity theft. So they transferred her to cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity thought that her social security number had been exposed, so she was transferred to the FTC because it's now a bigger issue. It needs a higher-up to take care of things. The FTC says that someone in upper management at her bank, has been selling her identity and that her funds might have been used for human trafficking or the purchase of illegal firearms, and that she could go to jail because she's complicit. She now doesn't trust her bank and becomes fearful that she's broken the law. The scammers convince her not to tell anyone.

This is a high priority matter, and she can't trust anyone, not even immediate family. She's on the phone for hours upon hours every day, sometimes all day long. She felt like a prisoner in her own house. Sometimes she would just be listening as the agents on the other line were working and tracking these criminals on the dark web. But they also made small talk. They got to know her on a personal level. They learned she lived alone. They learned that she was going through medical issues.

They found her vulnerabilities. They even shared about hardships in their own lives to be more personable and relatable. She talked to many different agents, a guy in Florida, a guy in Indiana. A guy in Virginia. They changed numbers frequently, convincing her that it was for her protection to ensure they weren't being tracked. So they say her money is unsafe. The best way to keep it safe is to send wires. So she did. Three different wires, each in the five figures, these people were going to keep it safe. They'd encrypt it and make sure no one else could get to it. They told her they were documenting everything. If anyone tries to come to her house and arrest her,

her money would be safe. Now she's mentally racked and crippled by fear. She didn't feel great about the wires, but she trusted the FTC. So they switched the transactions from digital and nature to physical. They told her to purchase gold. So she called her local pawn shop and arranged to buy gold coins. She then goes to her bank and gets a cashier's check. They ask her what her plan is for the money. She said, investing in gold, just as the agents instructed her to say, Then she went to the pawn shop and bought a handful of gold coins valued at $4,000 each. The owner of the shop walks her to her car to make sure she's safe, but they also didn't alert her to any potential scams. Then the agents set up a drop-off in a local parking lot.

She shows up, the agents are on the phone with her and tell her, The guy is going to show you a dollar bill. If the serial number on the bill doesn't match what I'm about to tell you, don't give him the gold. But of course, it's a match. They tell her to take pictures of the coins to document everything. They have her emailed them the documentation to make her feel like everything is legit, but also to delete the pictures from her phone so nothing can be tracked back to her. This makes her feel relieved that the authorities are doing a thorough, legitimate job

and that she's being taken care of. She made several purchases of gold and several drop-offs all before the end of 2025. Then, in January, she's hit with a debilitating medical condition. She can't get a proper diagnosis. It ends up being rheumatoid arthritis, but for months and months she's in pain. She can't drive, can hardly write. January through April is a blur in her mind. They tell her an auditor from the IRS has contacted them, and she owes $83,000 in back taxes.

So what does she do? She takes out a loan and buys more guys. gold and gives it to them. About a month ago, the phones went dry. The auditor stopped answering her calls. Then, one day, it dawned on her that she's not getting her money back. She finally realized she'd been scammed. For nine months, she told no one, not even her daughter. She was raised in the generation of, don't talk about your personal matters. Take care of it yourself. She lived alone, She's not tech savvy, and she was going through a debilitating medical issue. She was extremely vulnerable.

This scam also majorly contributed to her medical unwellness. She not only lost her entire life savings, she's now in massive debt. She's forced to come out of retirement at age 75 and find a job. She can't afford not to. She has to start saving for retirement all over again. Aside from feeling incredibly stupid and embarrassed, she's in good spirits. She's not a materialistic person. Money is just money. She won't end up homeless. My wife and I have already helped her clear out her storage unit, and we're going to do a thorough

audit of her bills to find ways to reduce expenses. I hate scammers with a passion. They have a complete lack of empathy. Please don't let this happen to your loved ones. Our next Reddit post is from Huge Rocket. I, a chief financial officer with a degree in information security, was seconds away from sending someone $10,000. At my work, we had a vendor that we owed $25,000 to. However, due to circumstances with the vendor, I placed a hold on payment until we could work out terms and the vendor never replied. A few months later, the vendor contacted me from a familiar email address in a familiar format asking for payment. They had all of our information just as any vendor would. So I proceed with negotiations and they agreed to settle on $10,000.

within a few hours. After getting their banking information, I hovered on the submit button and thought to myself, this was kind of easy. Better call them to confirm. The vendor would dodge my calls and follow up with a plausible sounding excuse through email. It wasn't until I looked closer at the vendor's email that I saw they had the exact same domain but with an S at the end. They also had a phone number in the email that had the last two digits transposed. They had everything, though. They had a copy of our order. They were familiar with the history of the account. It was very solid. The only thing that gave me pause at the last second was that negotiations were too easy. I have a degree in information security. Five years as a system admin, and even I fell for this, always be cognizant. Yeah, the fact that they have so much information

about this specific vendor order makes me think the scammer was probably an employee, at that company. They saw the unpaid invoice was sitting around for a while and thought, well, if the company won't pay my employer, I'll have them pay me instead. Our next Reddit post is from northward bound. I can't even unpack all of this. I tried once before, but the amount of scams my mom got caught up in made the post seem off topic. So let me narrow down this post to just one of the scams. Meet Kelvin, our friendly Doctors Without Borders Christian missionary, who is going to be paid $1 million from the United Nations when he gets back to the States. But he needed money sent to his family here and asked his soon-to-be fiancé, my 72-year-old mother, to mail in cash by

UPS across state lines and unfiled tax gifts. $50,000 in one box, $50,000 in another box, $50,000 in a third box, $50,000 in the fourth box, and don't worry, only $20K in the last one. crossing multiple state lines over and over and unfilled gifts to random PO boxes. Does she remember? No. The addresses were deleted from the signal or telegram or whatever apps that she still communicates with her lover on. I've thrown up more times than I can remember these last two weeks. My mother's entire retirement and house is gone.

She also owes an enormous IRS bill now too from withdrawing cash from her 401-K Down in the comments, we have this story from Comfortable, too. I worked in retail, and I had an elderly woman in the store a few times, showing me her young, handsome Facebook friend on her iPad, asking me to help transfer money to them. I tried to use logic and tell her it's a scam, but she just took her iPad and left, and I was the bad guy. This was years before I ever had a real, serious crush.

I managed to celebrate my 30th birthday before I got feelings for someone. The crush made me absolutely crazy and irrational. It feels like being drunk or obsessed or something. Afterwards, it's like a crazy hangover. Our next Reddit post is from Prior Gap. I matched with a girl on a dating app roughly a month ago. Her profile listed her age as 18 to 19, and the account appeared verified.

She gave me her number, and we texted on and off. I never received any nudes from her, and I never sent any to her. It was just regular conversation. This morning, I received a number number. a text from her contact, claiming to be her mother. The message said that her daughter is a minor, that I shouldn't have been engaging with her, and that she was going to take her daughter to the police station to write a statement and turn the phone in unless I called and explained myself.

I replied once, told her there was a misunderstanding, that I met her on a dating app, that the profile listed her as 18 to 19, and that because the account looked verified, I believed that she was not a minor. Later, I was contacted by someone claiming to be a police, detective. He told me I could go to jail. He said the family could decide to talk to me to clarify things and that if they turn in the phone, an investigation would happen. I was told the complaint was being made in South Carolina and I live in North Carolina. Tonight, the mom contacted me again and said that if I don't want her to press charges, she'll need me to help them pay for a deactivation fee for the daughter's phone and tablet. Is this a scam or should I be worried? Yes,

It's so much a scam that there's a word for it. It is the underage scam. The cops say you're going to go to jail? For what? For platonically texting a 17-year-old? Even though it wasn't a 17-year-old girl, it was actually probably, who knows, a 35-year-old guy from some other country. Our next Reddit post is from Wonderful Road. I got a good one today. I get a text from my bank, which had all the markings of my bank, asking if I made an $800 transaction at Amazon. I did not. The next text says, replied yes or no to stop the transaction. I called my bank instead, and the teller I got said, that sounds like a legit loss prevention outreach, so texts know if it wasn't you, then we'll be in contact. So I did. The text replied, thank you. An agent will be in contact shortly. The phone rang a minute later, and a very American person began asking about transactions. Did you authorize this or this or this, etc? And none of them were real, as far as I knew. I stopped him just because my senses were tingling, and I asked if he could verify my name and whatnot, and he did. Then he blew it and said, I'm not interested in helping a customer who doesn't want to be helped, and I laughed at him, told him to F off, and hung up.

The dude called right back and left a message with my address and said, Sleep with an eye open, B word, which was a little unnecessary. What I'm stuck on is how they knew what bank I used so they could spoof the right one. Definitely going to have some protection near me at night, and the house has cameras and alarms, so whatever if anyone shows up. But still, it's always unsettling. Who's more incompetent here? The scammer who gave away an incredibly obvious tell, or the bank teller who told OP to go along with the scam. That was R-slash scams, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.