1. Purchased electric scooters by following an Instagram ad. It was around Christmas time. The scooters were really cool looking. Turned out, they used the promotional videos from another company’s real product. I did get the money back from the credit card company.
2. Purchased a pillow by following an Instagram ad. Never received it. It turned out to be a fake store to just steal people’s money. Wasn’t enough money to worry about it.
3. Followed an ad from Twitter for a marshmallow company. Placed an order as a gift for someone else. Turns out they never actually send orders. They just take people’s money. The online store was amazingly designed. Awesome photos and functioned really well. I think it was a legitimate business at one point, but decided it was easier to just steal people’s money. There wasn’t any reason to think the store was a scam. If I checked online reviews first though, I would have found the warnings posted everywhere not to order from them.
Came close to placing an order from a clothing store. Prices were slightly too good to be true. This time I checked online reviews and it turns out they never ship orders either.
All three times were years apart. Happened while mindlessly scrolling and when your guard is down. I don’t order stuff from random sites either, but the products were just the right thing to peak interest.