Topic collection
Real stories about scams, gathered to help you recognise the trade-offs, avoid familiar mistakes, and make a wiser next choice.
Mum needs someone here most of the day. Money's always short. He sent screenshots, showed me his own balance on screen. I think I just wanted one thing to go right for once.
The screenshots looked real. I've looked at them again since. They still look real. I don't actually know what I missed.
I drive nights mostly so you talk to everyone. Families back from the airport dragging new suitcases, young lads with a laptop bag still got the sticker on it. I always ask what they bought. And I remember thinking, yeah, I did that too, every single time. The fridge. The telly. The phone every two years without fail. That laptop I got from the big place near the retail park, the one that smelled like carpet and cold air conditioning and had screens everywhere showing the same football match. The guy at the till would go through the whole spiel and I'd just nod along. Three years cover, accidental damage, the lot. Felt like being sensible. I grew up in a house where if something broke that was more or less it, you went without, so I think I carried that with me into every shop I ever walked into.
I don't do it anymore. I put a bit aside each month into a separate account and when something breaks I use that. Most things don't break. And when they do the money is actually there, which is the whole point I was supposedly paying for all along. I don't know why it took me so long. The worry, I think, was the thing they were selling. Not the cover. The feeling of being covered.