Scam at Penn Station

I recently saw a post about someone getting scammed a significant amount of money around NYU through Zelle (I hope that person has been able to resolve it) and I’m actually so glad I read it because some kids tried to do a similar thing to me, but this time in Penn Station. I know it can be evident that it is a scam, but people can sometimes fall for stuff like this because they feel bad, for example, me.

So this kid approached me while I was waiting for the screen to announce the track I had to go to for the LIRR and told me about him going through some stuff and ending up homeless, I don’t really remember the details since as soon as he showed me a website I remembered the scam post and I just got a bad vibe about him lying.

He said that I could donate to him or help him out by tapping his phone — this was a big red flag for me since he would be deciding how much I would be donating to him if he did that — at the beginning asked him if I could Zelle him or find a website to donate to to which he responded something about not wanting to do that because that money would go to his dad’s bank account and kept on insisting about the Phone Tap.

At that point, I didn’t buy it and straight up told him that I’ve heard about similar scams and didn’t feel comfortable doing that (I know this could be dangerous, but I didn’t know what to say lol) and that I would be glad to help him if he gave me a website or something. The kid just insisted that it was not a scam at all and that he could show me, and called his friend over to convince me — by then I didn’t really feel comfortable anymore because he was insisting way too much and was acting way too innocent and called me beautiful and stuff to like appear friendly — at that point I finally said sorry and that, either way, I didn’t have any money in my bank account, and his tone completely changed. He then responded madly aggressive and said, “You know you lying, you stupidass” and left really pissed with his friends nodding their heads from side to side.

The confrontation itself was nothing crazy, but when they walked out, I noticed that another kid had joined them and saw that it was three of them. Going back to the post, I wonder if it might be the same three kids the other person was talking about because it felt way too similar. Anyway, I just wanted to share so that more people are aware that it could happen to them too.