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EXPOSING THE FAKE "HELP ME" SCAM
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Jun 24, 2025
Widely circulated videos claiming to be from a man or woman in desperate need to save their failing animal shelter or handmade product business is targeting kind-hearted social media viewers with fake donation requests. I show you how to detect the fraud so you won't lose savings or get your identity stolen.
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if you have spent any time on social
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media you no doubt have come across
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videos asking you to support a charity
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or help somebody in financial need many
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times these videos involve old folks or
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animals and they tug at your
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heartstrings but beware because those
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videos are part of a growing trend that
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are targeting animal lovers and those
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who want to help people people like to
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help other people um or other beings
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animals you know things like that and
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scammers know that hello everybody
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it's good to see you this video is one
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of many variations on a scam that's been
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running wild across Tik Tok hey I can't
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oh scroll i'm struggling to keep my
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small business open the video and its
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varants have caught the eye of the Beta
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Business Bureau scam tracker which
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generated this complaint from a victim
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who said there are Tik Tok videos on an
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account called Flappy Bird US of a
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little old man and his wife who make cat
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toys to support their failing cat
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shelter when you order the toy to
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support them nothing ever gets sent to
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you they just take your money all the
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videos are fake AI generated nonsense
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selling cat toys in this case cow
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slippers in another version there's a
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bunch of different versions of this scam
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cuz there's so many accounts um that
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lead to different websites for you to
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purchase a product if you do get the
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product and when you fill out
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information to buy a product you're
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often putting in your personal and
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financial information so they may be
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using it to fish your information or
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your credit card numbers um or they
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might just be after taking your money
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here are some hallmarks of these videos
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they all use an old person begging you
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not to scroll past they have tons of
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likes and followers but yet they don't
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follow anybody back and here is the most
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amazing thing all these unconnected
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people happen to use the same identical
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video to pitch their products oh my
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goodness what a coincidence one of the
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big red flags for us was that there's so
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many versions of this exact same format
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slightly differing in what they sell
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sometimes um but basically the same
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thing like if you go to Tik Tok and
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search cat slippers you'll see hundreds
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of videos that are basically the same
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when you're looking at something like
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this how can you protect yourself and
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make sure that you're giving to somebody
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who actually needs it and not just some
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scammer I would say doing research can
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be great i don't be in a hurry to
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interact with these videos obviously
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when something tugs on your heart and
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you really want to help someone you want
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you want to help them in that moment
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right So it's it can be difficult to
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kind of take a step back and do more
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research looking into it a little
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further is important and even doing kind
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of a search of it is important because
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you will see hundreds of the exact same
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format video and that's definitely a red
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flag that something is going on to avoid
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social media scams use the internet to
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conduct a search on the company you're
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thinking of buying from use terms like
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complaints review and scam as you
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conduct your search and remember think
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with your head not with your heart
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working for you i'm the consumer guy
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Steve Spurs
#Pets
#Photo & Video Sharing
#Small Business