Influencer
This is a dishonest marketing technique where a user will reach out to you on a social media platform, usually Instagram, and offer you the chance to work with or promote a brand. Sometimes the main brand account will reach out to you, but other times a fresh account will message you and direct you to contact the main account. Working with the brand will involve buying their products, though you may be offered a discount. This technique is usually used by dropshipping sites that sell items from Aliexpress at inflated prices, so even with the discount they will make money from your order. This is simply a marketing technique sent to many people at once to get people to order from their site, so if you receive a message like this all you need to do is ignore it.
This scam is a variation of the verify/pin scam. You will receive a message from someone who is asking for your help to log into their account. This message could be from a contact you trust, but the account is actually compromised. They will either ask you to add their email or phone number to your own account, or ask you to receive a verification link that you will copy and send to them. Either way, these steps will allow the scammer to change your password and lock you out of your account. The purpose of this scam is to gain access to your Instagram account which they will then use to scam other people. They may also attempt to blackmail you into creating videos that promote their scam. If you receive one of these messages, ignore it and report the account as hacked.
Job
Fake job scams come in many different varieties, though most share common characteristics that you can use to spot the scam before becoming a victim. The scammers will usually conduct interviews over Google Hangouts or a similar online service. Their English will be awkward, and they may be re-using a script, so Googling unique sounding parts of the email may yield useful results. They will offer high wages for the work being done, and they will “hire” you by telling you that you are hired, rather than going through the normal process that a company takes when hiring an employee in your country. If they mention anything about a check or about receiving and sending out transactions, it is a fake check scam. If they mention anything about receiving, processing, or inspecting packages, it is a parcel mule scam. If they ask you to purchase items up-front, ask you to pay a fee in order to be hired, or ask you to purchase gift cards, it is an advance-fee scam. If the job involves posting advertisements on Craigslist or eBay, they are using you and your account to scam people. If the job invovles Bitcoin ATMs, it’s a scam.
MLM
MLMs are a great way to lose money and friends. The vast majority of people who get involved in MLMs do not make money, and the money that is made is made by the people at the very top.
Muse
The muse scam is a new variant of the fake check scam. The scammer will contact the victim over social media and claim to want to use their image for an art project. They will offer a generous sum of money and offer to pay via check. The victim will be instructed to send money to the scammer for “materials” via an irreversible method. The scammer will often use a stolen social media account to increase their credibility. Usually the fake check deposit will be reversed in a few weeks, but it can also take several months. If you do not have the funds to cover the amount, your balance will go negative. Your bank will usually charge a fee for depositing a bad check, and your account may be closed depending on the severity of the scam.
Parcel mule
The parcel mule scam involves fraudsters sending you packages and you shipping them out to other people. The items are fraudulently obtained, usually with stolen credit cards, and the investigation into the fraud will lead to you rather than to the scammer. Here is the Wikipedia page for this scam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_mule_scam, and here is an article from the USPS: https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revision_072019_tech_022.htm
Pet
First, you will encounter a breeder who may have their own website or who may post listings on an established website. They will offer a good price for a pet with papers, however they will not be able to meet you in real life, and will only sell you the pet with the use of a shipping/courier/freight service. The scammer will demand payment via irreversible payment methods such as Cash App, Venmo, Western Union, or cryptocurrency. The websites they use are usually very easy to spot, as the domain will have been registered recently, and the images they use should be findable using reverse image search. Once you pay the scammers and they know they have you, they will demand more and more fees for things like airline insurance, crating fees, papers, import permits, etc. If you are involved in a pet scam, you need to stop talking with the scammers and dispute any transactions that you are able to dispute.
Pin/verification
You will receive a legitimate authentication text from a company like Google, Craigslist, or Microsoft, and you will also have someone else asking you for the pin. Sometimes the scam starts on Craigslist, and the scammer will ask you to verify that you are a real person, and will say that Craigslist has many scammers which is why they want to verify you. Sometimes you will receive a random authentication text, and the scammer will text you without any previous contact. The goal of the scammer can be to verify accounts that require phone verification, verify postings that require phone authentication, or to steal your accounts.
PS5
The PlayStation 5 testing scam. This scam is usually spread on social media and offers the chance to become a tester for Sony and receive a PS5. These advertisements are lies. The actual scam can be an advance-fee scam where you will be asked to pay before receiving the console, or it can be an information gathering scam. If you see one of these posts, you should report them.
Recovery
Also known as refund scams, these scams target people who have already fallen for a scam. The scammer may contact you, or may advertise their services online. They will usually either offer to help you recover your funds, or will tell you that your funds have already been recovered and they will help you access them. In cases where they say they will help you recover your funds, they usually call themselves either “recovery agents” or hackers. When they tell you that your funds have already been recovered, they may impersonate a law enforcement, a government official, a lawyer, or anyone else along those lines. Recovery scams are simply advance-fee scams that are specifically targeted at scam victims. When a victim pays a recovery scammer, the scammer will keep stringing them along while asking for increasingly absurd fees/expenses/deposits/insurance/whatever until the victim stops paying. If you have been scammed in the past, make sure you are aware of recovery scams so that you are not scammed a second time. If you are currently engaging with a recovery scammer, you should block them and be very wary of random contact for some time. It’s normal for posters on this subreddit to be contacted by recovery scammers after posting, and they often ask you to delete your post so that you both cannot receive legitimate advice, and cannot be targeted by other recovery scammers.
If you're on a site that doesn't end in .gov, it's not a US government site. That's the way you know if you're on a scam site or not.