As some of you may have noticed there has been quite the uptick in scammers infiltrating chats and personal messages following your posts. We do our best to make sure none of their posts make it through, but unfortunately we are limited to our subreddits in weeding them out. Hopefully, this will be superfluous information to most of you, but a little help never hurt.

• Most importantly and obviously: If they ask for money, gift cards, or any other form of payment do not give it. Maybe they'll get creative and say they need to afford gas or bus fare to get to you. They don't. 99.99% of the time this is a lie.

• They open with a message saying they're "available for hookup." This a tongue in cheek way of saying prostitution. Obviously, this isn't allowed on reddit and very likely illegal wherever you're located. Scammers have been using this premise to try and create a sort of credibility to paying them while also making it unlikely you'll tell anyone what you spent money on.

• Check their post and comment history. If they're expressing interest in men in widespread locations, frequently, and within short windows of time they're not actually in any of those locations.

• If they ask you for the kind of information a certain Nigerian prince may be interested in.

Feel free to add any of your own warning signs based on your own experiences below. Stay safe, stay smart, and don't pay online strangers.