🚨 Staten Island Ferry Tickets
2 people found this helpful💬 The ferry is always 100% free, but people will try to sell you tickets in front of the terminal.
💡 Say no and keep walking
🚨 Bus/Train Fare Scam
1 person found this helpful💬 This one could be encountered outside transit centers such as Penn Station or Port Authority Bus Terminal. They will claim to need X more dollars to afford bus or train fare to their destination. Often they may give you a sob story or a reason why they are in a rush to try to trick you to give them money.
💡 Ideally just ignore anyone asking for money outside any of the transit centers. You can also say you don't have any cash and walk away.
🚨 CD Scam
1 person found this helpful💬 A person will ask you for your name and then write your name on one of their cds. When you say you don't want it, they try to pressure you to give them money as they've just written your name on a cd. This happens often in Times Square.
💡 Walk away or go into a store.
🚨 The Fake Rental Scam
💬 In this scam, criminals advertise housing rental listings on legitimate websites such as Craigslist or other rental listing sites. The listings, however, do not belong to legitimate landlords and the renter does not end up getting the unit they believe to be renting. Instead, the scammer will require payment of a fee in advance for the rental, usually through wire transfer. Once the victim pays the fee, the scammer disappears.
💡 Be very wary of housing listings that require fees be paid in advance. Legitimate landlords will not typically ask for this. Additionally, avoid responding to any listings where the landlord cannot provide basic details about the property or seems to urge you to move quickly with the rental agreement.
🚨 The Overpayment Scam
💬 This scam begins when the victim receives a check or money order from the perpetrator. The amount of the payment is usually more than the agreed upon amount, and the scammer asks the victim to deposit the check and wire back the difference. Once the victim wires the difference back to the perpetrator, the check bounces, leaving the victim out the amount that was wired.
💡 Be suspicious of checks and money orders that are more than the agreed upon amount. Never wire funds back to anyone you have not done business with before.
🚨 The Phishing Scam
💬 This scam usually begins with the perpetrator sending an email to the victim with a link asking for them to log into their account. The link actually takes the victim to a bogus site that looks legitimate and asks for confidential information such as passwords and credit card numbers. The perpetrator then uses this information to access the victim’s accounts.
💡 Be wary of any email that asks for you to log into your account, especially if it is from someone you do not know. Always look at the full URL address before logging into an account. Reputable sites will always direct you to the proper domain, such as “https://example.com” rather than “http://example.com/phishingsite”.
🚨 Phone Scams
💬 Scammers may call potential victims, posing as representatives from a government agency, such as the Internal Revenue Service, or a bank. The scammers may claim the victim owes money, or may ask for confidential information such as a Social Security Number. If the victim provides the requested information, the scammer may then use it to access the victim’s accounts.
💡 Be suspicious of any phone calls from unknown numbers or from individuals claiming to be from the government or a bank. Never provide confidential information such as a Social Security Number over the phone unless you are certain who you are speaking to is legitimate.
🚨 Broken bottle scam
💬 Person bums into you, breaks bottle in bag, claims you did it and demands payment for expensive contents of bottle.
💡 Keep walking, scream fuck off with your bullshit and tell them to call 911 if they got a problem.
🚨 Generous Monk Scam
💬 An asian man in a rustic brown robe walks through a crowded part of the city. He approaches you, arms outstretched, seeming to offer a beaded bracelet, foil talisman, or other trinket out of pure benevolence. Once you accept the offering, he (or text on the card you hold) will explain that he's raising money for his temple or to finance his mendicant journey. You may feel embarrassed for thinking the item was being offered for free, and feel obligated to reciprocate.
💡 Just walk by and don't accept anything. If you try to give it back, he won't accept it, and if you try to walk away with it, he may become persistent. But if you ignore him, he'll just move on.
🚨 Mascot Scam
💬 People dressed as various characters (Spiderman, Marvel characters, etc.) will invade your photos and then demand you pay for the picture with them - or some tourists just take photos with them and the same thing happens. They can and will pursue you very aggressively, in groups as they tend to know each other. This is very frequent in Times Square.
💡 Be persistent in rejecting them or go inside a store.
🚨 Service Fees on Online Broadway Ticket Sales
💬 Unofficial websites sell official Broadway tickets and charge large service fees. Best example is broadway.com
💡 Buy tickets from official sources such as broadway.org, ticketmaster, or through links posted on the website of the play you would like to see.
🚨 Support My School/Team Venmo Scam
💬 The perp, usually a child, asks for money to support their team or school, to buy uniforms. Usually, people don't carry cash. They say they take Venmo and CashApp. You agree to send them an amount and then they ask for your phone so they can put their information in so it goes to the right person. They quickly change the amount you agreed to and send thousands of dollars to their own account. Once its sent there is no way to get it back.
💡 Never hand someone your phone ever! Just say no thank you and move along.
Do you know of a scam that's missing?