If you receive a suspicious message from someone you've never met offering to send you large sums of money please proceed with caution.

The message might've been sent by an individual attempting advance-fee fraud, also called the “419 scam.”

What to look out for

In combination, the following characteristics may indicate that you're dealing with a scammer:

Does he/she:

• Use odd phrases, or strange formatting in the conversation?
• Offer to send you more money than you are asking for? This is known as an overpayment scam and is described under How the Scam Appears below.
• Say they are a traveling businessperson, an oceanographer, out of the country, want to start providing for you before you meet or away at sea?
• Insist you reply via a personal email address, off of SA or whatever site they originally contacted you on? A SD/SM who immediately insists on communicating off of site may be questionable.
• Seem to not have read or looked at your profile, based on their vague questions?
• Insist on sending you a check, your bank login information, your credit card login information, or offers you their bank account information to pay off debt, etc.
• Asks you to send some of the money to someone else. An employee, charity, etc before the money has cleared.
• Asks you to purchase gift cards and give him/her the code on the back before the money has cleared.
• Wants to put you on his/her payroll.

How the scam appears

The scammer will attempt to convince you to accept a fake payment for more than the allowance amount you initially agreed to/was offered by him/her. If they are successful, the scammer will get the money/or gift card value. In nearly every case, the con artist will not be caught.

Here's an example of how the scam can play out:

You get the attention of a 419 scammer. They offer you an allowance amount with no request to meet up, excuse why they can't now, or an online arrangement. They tell you an allowance amount that is too good to be true, $1,000 a week but then sends you $1,800. They want you to send the extra money to someone else via Western Union, Money Gram, etc, because they can't right now(even though they just sent some to you). Or they want you to purchase itune, amazon, google play gift cards and send them the number on the back.

You deposit the $1,800 into your bank and then spend $800 doing the favors for the scammer. Or pay off your credit card with the info they gave you and used the card to make gift card purchases for the scammer. The scammer counts on you doing this before the check officially clears your bank account. This window between deposit and processing is known as “float time” and can last seven days, ten days, or even longer if the payment is international. During this time the money can be transferred, but it has not been verified by your bank as real.

Once the payment is processed, your bank will determine that it is fake. They will take the entire $1,800 back from you. Since you will have already spent the $800 for the scammer, you must repay the bank $800 of your own money. If you have spent any of the $1,000 you thought you earned, you will also need to replace that. In the case of the credit card you will owe the full balance you thought was payed off plus any purchases you made on behalf of the scammer.

Why does this scam work?

These scammers typically create multiple accounts on dating and social media sites and send the same message to many different people with little or no personalization. The scammer's messages are meant to trigger greed and over ride common sense.

The scammer’s payment is a forgery. It is not real! Your bank may allow you to deposit it, or your credit card might say payment received but the payment will not clear. Your bank will hold you responsible for the entire amount.

In the case of a PayPal payment, the scammer will either send a fake PayPal confirmation email or pay with a fraudulent payment source. Whether you return the “overpayment” via PayPal or a wire transfer service such as Western Union or Money Gram, you will still be held responsible for all of the money involved.

Remember: Money sent back to the scammer is money which is lost forever.

What you should do

• Do not respond to the messages. Don't engage these scammers for any reason. Responding will encourage the scammers and cause you to receive further scam messages, and give the scammer more opportunities to manipulate you.
• Report the account messaging you if that is an option.
• If you've already given out your personal login information contact your bank immediately and let them know you believe your account may be compromised. Follow their security protocols for securing your account.
• If you've already sent money or gift cards, still contact your bank but you're pretty much screwed. You'll owe the money spent even if it was an empty account created especially for this purpose. And you may have your accounts shutdown for fraudulent activities or owe additional fees.
• The scammer, sensing your reluctance, may start sending you messages threatening legal action if you don't send their money back. This is one of many reasons you should just block all scammer messages, so you don't panic into doing something stupid. You do not have their money, and you should not send them anything.

Other Signs of Scams

You can be certain you're getting scammed if you see any of these things. To be clear: if you experience any of these things, it's always a scam.

• He asks you anything about your bank account -- the account number so that he can do a transfer, the bank, or the username/password. No SD needs this information.
• He wants you to open a bank account, id.me account, an account at a particular place he specifies, or any other type of account. He may have specific sites he needs you to open the account at.
• He gives you his bank account information and wants you to transfer money out of it
• He wants you to pick up a vanilla card or any sort of reloadable visa card or gift card, Steam Card, iTunes card, Google Play card, etc.
• He wants to put you on the payroll or otherwise pay you through his business
• He wants to send you a check or picture of a check to deposit
• He wants to send you a payment but wants you to send back some of it in the form of a gift card or any other way, or to send some of the money on to a different account or person. He will likely have some (poor) explanation as to why he needs you to send it on, rather than doing it himself.
• He wants you to install "blockchain", will only deal in bitcoin, altcoins, or any other cryptocurrency. He wants you to buy bitcoin (or any cybercurrency) on his behalf, for any reason.
• He can only do mobile deposit (he'll have some story as to why -- venmo has given him trouble, he's gotten ripped off through paypal, he can't use any apps, etc)
• He can only send allowance through some obscure mechanism -- bitcoin, blockchain, discovery account, etc. The mechanism itself will change, it's the fact that he's picked one this one mechanism that is not cash, that you need to look for
• He is very focused on you telling him about all your debt (often to the exclusion of doing any discussion about what his expectations are in a sugar relationship). Once he's got you realizing how big your debt is, he'll offer to pay it all off -- and this will lead directly into one of the other scams here (e.g., the credit card will look paid off but the transfer will be reversed, he'll overpay and demand you to send some of the overpayment back or on to someone else, etc)
• He wants your login info for any currency transfer app or mechanism
• He has not met you yet, or gotten any value from the relationship at all, but he wants to transfer large sums to you or pay off your credit cards or loans
• He gives you his credit card or bank account # and tells you to use them or transfer money out of them
• He's looking for platonic, but wants to send large sums to you
• He wants to use you as his personal assistant, he'll send money to you, and your job will be to pass that money on to others. Or any variation of him wanting to put you on his payroll.
• He claims he is going to have his assistant, accountant, financial advisor, CFO, lawyer, or any other third party, arrange the financials.
• He'll start sending you a large allowance, but you need to send him a little money first to verify you are real and establish trust (any "prove you are real" "prove you are serious" obligation is a scam). You have to pay some sort of "commitment fee" because he's been scammed before so he needs to know he can trust you.
• You need to pay money, for any reason whatsoever, in order to collect your allowance. Most common is that you need to pay some sort of paypal or venmo fee before the funds can be released. He may show you a fake screenshot to "prove" this.
• You need to send money or bitcoin on to someone or somewhere else, for any reason whatsoever.
• He sends you pics of documents that would completely compromise him and his security (e.g., his DL, his Passport) in advance
• He shows you screenshots of his bank accounts and/or transfers he's made to previous SBs. He sends you a video of his former SBs saying that he's paid them. He volunteers to let you talk to his previous SBs. Any sort of validation of the fact that he's made transfers before is a scam, no legit SD would ever do this.
• He pretends to try to use an app to send money, then shows you screenshots of how it failed, in order to manipulate you into using his transfer method of choice (usually credit or gift card, or pic of check)
• He's going to pay you an allowance but allowance won't start until the middle or end of the month (he's going to collect his month of free sex and then ghost)
• You try to discuss allowance and he shames you for being a prostitute, "I thought you were different", etc. Gaslighting you and making you feel guilty, him pretending to be morally outraged, this is always the prelude to either a scam or him manipulating you to have sex without any support.
• SD whose name/number you don't recognize, contacts you on text (they have your phone number), claims to have gotten it from another SD.
• SD contacts you and then claims to be lining up an SB for his friend.
• He is still a POT, and wants you to delete your profile, and is pushy about it if you push back. No one who is still a POT cares whether you have an active profile or not; they don't want you to have a profile so it's tougher to report them.
• You're a male SB and you've met an SM. This is about 100% certain of a scam by itself, but if you've never met and they want to send you money, then 110% certain.
• He sends you pictures of money
• Any variation of a man contacting you trying to convince you to be SD to his girlfriend or some love interest of his
• He wants to do a cashapp transfer but won't use your cashtag, he needs your cashapp card
• She wants you to venmo money before the M&G (to pay for gas, or her nails, etc) or due to a sudden crisis (e.g., flat tire)
• She wants you to send her money before you've met, and/or as a condition of meeting, to "prove you're serious"
• She has a crisis (family emergency, a bill to pay) and needs you to send her money, before you've ever met. This will usually occur just before the M&G.
• She tells you she won't accept cash and requires a gift card instead. She's has no intention of meeting -- she'll have you send a pic of the gift card in advance to prove you bought it, then use the numbers to make purchases, without ever seeing you.

Could be a scam

Maybe not 100%, but the vast majority of the time, these are scams.

• In general, only scammers make a big deal about wanting a "loyal and honest" SB, and only scammers want "just text me every day and listen to me". These words and desires are pretty much always scammers.
• You've just joined a discord, kik, or other private sugar group where the group owner/moderator sets you up with another group member to be your SD. Spoiler alert: the mod who is acting as a matchmaker, and the SD he's set you up with, are the same person. I have never heard of this type of situation where it hasn't ended badly for the SB, but leaving this in "could be a scam" for now.
• It's the very beginning of an arrangement and he wants to use venmo, cashapp, or paypal instead of cash, to send you allowance (this is not a red flag if sending a smaller symbolic gift). Despite popular belief, all three of those are reversible, although not always easily. Cash is best at the beginning.
• SD sends you a message, and in his very first message, he says he wants you to contact him by text, whatsapp, kik, etc. New SD non-premium accounts get 10 free messages they're allowed to send, but they cannot read any responses unless they pay the $100 for a premium account. Since many scammers (and other undesirables) do not want to pay for a premium account, they need you to respond off the site. Do not even consider replying off the site unless you first confirm the SD contacting you has a premium account. If you're not sure, send them a message back through SA. If he can read it and respond, he's premium.
• Man claiming to be an SD randomly approaches you on Instagram or other social media (nearly all instagram stories end up being scams). SD emphasizes he wants some combination of loyalty, trust, honesty: very common reverse psychology ploy, before the scam starts, and a common element of the scammer script. 98% of the time it's a scammer.
• She requires you give her the full allowance or PPM at the beginning of the date (e.g., when she gets to the restaurant) rather than when you get to the room
• Poor grammar and odd phrasing is common among scammers. Some mistakes very commonly seen include "Am interested in being your SD" (Leaving out "I"), and "will like to give you allowance" (instead of "would"). Other commonly seen phrases: "Hello I am William by name", "I want to spoil you with my money". While there are legit non-native English speaking SDs out there, these particular phrases are tip-offs you're probably dealing with a scammer.

The rules change once you're in an established arrangement and have earned trust. The rules are slightly different in non-US countries also, where some forms of bank transfer are safer... but still, it makes little sense not to start with cash, which is safe.

A Word About POTs Contacting You On Reddit

Please also read: https://www.reddit.com/r/sugarlifestyleforum/comments/la5mlk/caution_to_slf_sbs_on_reddit_scammers_posing_as/

Anywhere there are people gathering in numbers to talk sugar, there will be many, many scammers. That doesn't just mean Seeking or Instagram, it also means reddit. Many SBs are lured into a false sense of security when someone on reddit DMs them, claiming to be an slf member. The scammers take advantage of the fact that we naturally feel close to our fellow sub members. Many SBs have fallen victim to scams that start with a DM on reddit. And it's not just SBs, multiple SDs also have bad stories, often resulting in blackmail attempts and other scams, when the SD lets his guard down and uses his real phone number, does a video chat, or something similar. This applies as much to SDs.

Three suggestions:

1. Vet all reddit contacts as tightly as you would a POT on SA. Do not give any up-front benefit of the doubt just because they're on reddit, or claim to have interacted with you on the sub. For you SDs: one of the blackmail stories that happened here, the "SB" scammer first did a profile review (!) and appeared to use iMessage (!!) when texting... and still turned out to be a blackmailer. The victim SD DMed the SB after her profile review because he was attracted, which we think was the strategy all along. The "SB" behind that profile review turned out to be a blackmailer.
2. Strongly consider not even accepting DMs from lurkers in the first place. Through tracing some of the scam stories, we've found that nearly all these scams start with an unsolicited DM from someone who is not active on slf. They claim to be on slf, they may claim to have interacted with you there or are reaching out because of something you wrote. But if you look at their post history, there is no post history on slf. The one simple, easy thing you can do to protect yourself is to decline all these DMs. Only accept DMs from names you recognize from the sub, or who at least have a post history on slf.
3. The fact that he is so charming and nice, is not proof he's not a scammer. "He was so nice, he didn't act like a scammer, so I let my guard down" is a common refrain from scammed SBs. Being nice isn't proof of anything -- be sure to vet your POTs!

Credits

u/LaSirene23 wrote the top portion of this post, describing scams and the details around how they work. u/Azurecole collected scam stories on SLF and elsewhere and subsequently wrote the bottom section on scam signs. The members of SLF provided the stories and learnings.